Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2687: Empty Space, A Dead End?

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Southern Region, Blossom District, Sky Blossom City, TSR Guild Headquarters

When it was their turn to decide, most of the Freedom Fighters’ captains had voted to welcome Sansa into the organization.

That was back when the world leaders were on the verge of breaching the Yellow Plains reverse dungeons. Henricks had been scrambling to locate the Southern Princess, Ned had gone missing, and Sansa had already infiltrated the situation using a fake Baylor.

Now it was my turn to decide, every Freedom Fighters captain present was unhappy with my decision to ally with Sansa—if only temporarily. I was talking about now. While they had been lounging around in Freedom City, I had been busy preventing the city from being blown apart by Sansa’s Memory Bombs.

Maybe their circumstances weren’t as desperate as they had been back then. That alone could explain the change of heart. Or maybe it was something else entirely. I couldn’t be bothered with them. I would deal with Henricks and Ned first. They get the rest to fall in line. I was their leader, not their nanny.

However, I still had to keep an eye on Luna and give her special attention. Now that she had seen the world beyond the card realm, there was no telling whether she might side with the first dark faction or clan willing to offer her information or support for her research.

They say, ’Once a turncoat, always a turncoat.’

Was I wrong to assume that? No. I wasn’t.

Field Marshal Lorn would agree with me. According to her, if someone could betray their family and homeland, then they were capable of any heinous act

So why was I keeping Luna around?

Because her research into the Empty Space was promising. With Dalie now assisting her, the results were beginning to take on a respectable shape.

Luna claimed her findings could be applied to inter-realm teleportation—one that didn’t require array formations on both ends. Instead, all it needed were coordinates, allowing direct travel to the destination, much like how the Devil Merchant Code only required coordinates for its merchants to traverse the myriad realms.

Having access to something like that would be incredibly useful once I officially stepped into the Myriad Realm.

In other words, considering what she could offer, all of her quirks were worth tolerating.

If it was truly that important to me, then why wasn’t I working on Empty Space research alongside Luna?

The reason was simple. I had already gone through her work. Although she believed she was approaching a major breakthrough—one that would allow her to deliver on everything she promised—in reality, she was still far from it. I knew this because of the Infinity Library.

The Infinity Library contained numerous materials related to Empty Space. Every researcher documented within it had believed they were on the verge of a great breakthrough, yet all of them ultimately arrived at nothing.

The reason was always the same: they were attempting to deduce something far beyond their comprehension, constrained by their own limited perspectives. As such, they never even came close to truly understanding it.

It was much like how mortals always try to imagine their gods in their own image, yet never come any closer to grasping what a god truly is.

If the Dark Race had truly figured out Empty Space, they wouldn’t still be relying on sacrificial rituals to be summoned into other realms inhabited by sentient life, using them as footholds for their conquest across the Myriad Realms.

Luna’s research—like all other research on Empty Space—was still at the ground floor, far from paying off any investment placed into it. I didn’t have the time to spare for such a long-term endeavor.

Therefore, for the time being, I let Luna and Dalie continue the work, using the materials on Empty Space I had retrieved from the Infinity Library.

Dalie was an array celestial. She had the Hive Spirit assisting her, along with extensive data on Empty Space from the Infinity Library. If nothing else, she and Luna would at least be able to catch up to the Dark Race’s research on Empty Space.

That way, when I eventually had the time to take over, I wouldn’t be starting from the ground up.

”Why would Sansa side with us and not them?” Blair asked, while the others were still processing the bombshell I had dropped on them.

”Why else? For Baylor, dumbass,” Jax mocked Blair for failing to see the obvious.

”Jax, beneath that cruel, gruesome necrophilia persona, you’re still a young girl who believes in fairy tales and love stories, aren’t you?” Blair shot back. ”Otherwise, you’d know that if she truly loved Baylor, she would stick with the winning side, not the losing one.”

”Aren’t you forgetting that we can always choose to hide in Freedom City?” Jax pointed out, only for Blair to scoff, ”And how did that work out for us on the Yellow Plains?”

”That time, we weren’t on good terms with the Yellow Plains’ celestial will. Now, we’re colleagues and friends with the Array Celestial. If they dare to step into the Lil’ Red Storm Realm, they’ll die. Period,” Jax said matter-of-factly.The pride he took in retreating was both maddening and saddening. After all, these were the very people who had once stood against the world at their own expense. For them to be reduced to this state... it was indeed saddening.

My eyes widened as I listened to Jax and Blair bicker. I couldn’t help but turn to Henricks, blaming him for their ignorance and lack of motivation. He bowed deeply once more, begging for forgiveness in their stead, taking all the blame, ”I’m sorry, boss. They’ve been through a lot these past few years, so I gave them some time to unwind. I’ll make sure everyone is ready for the upcoming war. If you have any information on the hostiles’ combined forces and Sansa’s forces, I can decide how many Freedom Fighters to deploy in preparation for the battle.”

I shook my head in disappointment. I knew that giving people things freely would only be counterproductive, but I had thought the Freedom Fighters would be different. I suppose losing their cause and submitting to me had changed them as well.

Their cause had been the spark that kept them moving forward even when everything seemed impossible. Without it, they were worse than ordinary people.