Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2753: Martial Spirit: Ying Jing (Shade Scape)

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Zhongguo (China), Liaodong Province, Shuntian Prefecture, Shenyang City

”Blinding Brillance!” Coryn and Reven conjoined with the air particles around them. But instead of shaping the conjoin for force, they directed it toward the radiance released each time a particle was conjoined with its like.

Each conjoin produced a brief flare. One flare became dozens, then hundreds, as they repeated the process across the surrounding air. In seconds, the hall flooded with a violent white brilliance that scattered off the stone walls and polished armor.

The Imperial Guard captains blocking her path recoiled, their eyes burning as the sudden light overwhelmed their vision. Using the window of chaos, Coryn and Reven sprinted for the gate, already preparing to use conjoin on it to burst it open the moment they reached it.

However, just as they dashed forward, a boundless darkness rose up and swallowed their blinding brilliance. In the next instant, the twins were swallowed along with it.

Inside the shadow, nothing responded to them. Their senses failed one after another. Sight vanished first, then sound, then even the faintest trace of air or movement. Their chivalry’s twin vision, which normally allowed them to perceive beyond ordinary sight, returned nothing except for air particles.

All that remained was a thick, endless darkness pressing in from every direction, heavy and suffocating. There was no sense of distance, no hint of movement, only the quiet pressure of darkness closing around them.

If they hadn’t had each other’s presence with them, it wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to say the fear might have driven them to tears. For all their training and composure, they were still sheltered teenage girls, only a few months shy of eighteen, suddenly trapped in a darkness that answered none of their senses.

”Thanks for the boost, princess freak. The only time I’ve been able to use my martial spirit like this was outside at high noon. I never thought I’d be able to push my Yang Jing to its peak indoors. For that, I’ll leave you a complete corpse,” Captain Lin remarked, her voice drifting through the darkness as she lurked within Ying Jing’s darkness, watching Coryn the Second.

Ying Jing, also known as the Shadescape, was Captain Lin’s domain-type martial spirit. It manifested by swallowing light. The more light it devoured, the larger the domain grew, carving out more space within its expanding darkness.

Within Ying Jing, light and sound simply ceased to exist, and darkness took over completely. Its darkness robbed anyone trapped inside of their sound and senses. The longer someone remained within the domain, the faster Ying Jing’s darkness eroded their mental field, leaving them helpless and defenseless within its shade-scape.

”Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to talk so much?” Coryn said, the moment she located another cluster of human cells drifting within the seemingly endless dark.

In truth, Coryn had no idea what Captain Lin was talking about. All she knew was that by speaking inside her own domain and allowing them to hear it, she had effectively signed her death certificate.

Normally, Coryn’s chivalry could not perceive anything inside the shade-scape. Ying Jing swallowed light and sound completely, and robbed those trapped in it of their senses. But Captain Lin had made one mistake. By stepping into her own shade-scape and speaking to them, she informed them she was in the darkness with them and helped them find her.

Their chivalry’s twin vision immediately locked onto those clusters of cells and highlighted the faint outline of her cells within the boundless dark. Against the endless black, that cluster of living cells glowed like a hidden tiny constellation.

Coryn knew they would only get one chance. If they missed, Captain Lin would immediately understand they were able to find her in the darkness and take measures to hide herself completely. Once that happened, they would be sitting ducks in the domain waiting for Captain Lin to torture or bore them to death.

The problem now was the distance between them and Captain Lin.

They could wait for her to come to them and finish the job. But Coryn had already realized something unsettling. Captain Lin didn’t actually need to approach them at all. If they remained inside her domain long enough, Ying Jing itself would kill them.

Once its darkness completely erodes their mental field and it collapses, the domain would steadily absorb the thermal radiation from their bodies, slowly draining their body heat, and the cold would finish the rest.

The twins could use Conjoin to launch themselves toward Captain Lin at insane speed, but they did not dare underestimate an Imperial Guard captain. The distance was too great and a reckless move inside Ying Jing could easily ruin their one shot.

They also feared that the burst of light produced while using Conjoin would affect the domain, causing the darkness to expand. The shifting shade-scape would distort their relative positions, mostly growing the distance between them which could cause them to miss.

If they missed their only shot, Captain Lin would immediately learn that she was not invisible in her domain as she thought she was and instantly take defensive measures to hide the flaw they had found. Or just leave the shade scape, leaving them stranded, waiting for their death.

Captain Lin never got to hear what Coryn the Second was saying. The moment the words left her mouth, Ying Jing swallowed the sound into its endless darkness.

However, she saw the confident smile on Coryn the Second’s face and knew it could not have been anything pleasant. That expression alone was enough to make her even more furious at the princess freak.

With a cold snort, Captain Lin produced a handful of throwing knives from her sleeves and flicked them toward her thinking the latter was helpless with her senses completely robbed and most of her mental field eroded by the shade-scape. Yet, to her surprise, Coryn the Second raised her hands and caught each of the throwing knives cleanly out of the darkness.