Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2791: Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Southern Region, Blossom District, Gideon Grim’s Camp

It was impossible to determine exactly what privilege the devil merchant code granted Gideon, but narrowing it down was entirely possible, especially using what I had seen so far. The granted privilege clearly had something to do with his worm form. I’m guessing there was more to it than just protecting the worm, but Gideon wasn’t able to use his privilege to its full extent because he couldn’t communicate with the devil merchant code because of my domain/array barrier blocking all communications to the outside world.

Gideon was very cautious and knew that I was waiting for him to surface. As a result, he didn’t come out of the ground to take over one of his tens of thousands of victims and become whole again. However, I bet he knew right now he was no better than a frog in boiling water—he didn’t have much time, as I know for a fact that the devil merchant code wouldn’t shield him till the bitter end.

Right now, I had two options: one, wait for the devil merchant code to stop protecting Gideon’s worm form and second, I go catch that worm. I know it said it was smart to wait but why wait when I could do this...

With a single command, the patch of land caught within my desolate dimension array and limitless celestial blood fate domain began to stretch outward without end with the endlessly stretching space.

Previously, it was anchored to that point in space through my will, but now the ground warped and thinned, like it was being pulled apart by invisible hands. Then it broke down completely, collapsing into a drifting cloud of mud, before even that lost its cohesion and scattered into fine grains. Each grain growing further and further from the other.

With the ground gone, everything hung suspended in the stretched space—everything frozen in place, anchored to its position by my will. Otherwise, it would be chaos.

Stripped of its habitat, the worm lunged toward the nearest sleeping victim, desperate to seize a new body. But in the endlessly stretching space, distance had lost all meaning. No matter how fast it moved, the gap only widened. The closer it tried to get, the further everything slipped away.

I looked at the worm in amusement. Its struggle reminded me of a hamster trapped in its wheel, running itself to exhaustion without ever getting anywhere. As I slowly neared it, it felt my presence and begged, ”Wyatt, don’t kill me. I’m not ready to die yet. I know what I did was wrong, and nothing I did could redeem me, but I don’t want to die. I deserve a second chance, damn it. Please, I want... I want to join your criminal rehabilitation and reintegration program. I promise I will change.”

”You know you wouldn’t be in this situation if you had just killed your comrades and taken their demon merchant token without involving my friends. But not only did you involve them, you brainwashed them to detonate at the sight of me. I’m still not sure if you were trying to kill me or get off on knowing that I watched my friends and loved ones blow up before my eyes helplessly.

”Ever since then, I’ve wanted to hunt you down. You should have stayed in the dark realm when you knew I was coming for you, but you didn’t. Now that I have you at my mercy, every fibre in my being is telling me to kill you. From where I stand, you deserve to die. But you are right, you deserve a second chance. Therefore, I will let you join my criminal rehabilitation and reintegration program,” I said, looking down at the worm that was crawling in the space before me so that it would be swept away by the endlessly stretching space.

I couldn’t help but sneer. This whole situation felt exactly like that old saying—the patient was hoping for cannabis, and the doctor prescribes cannabis.

”Thank you, Wyatt. I will not let you down,” the worm exclaimed in surprise, as it didn’t expect me to accept its plea for mercy, especially having heard stories of how petty I could be to those who get on my bad side, let alone my enemies. But then, thinking of the numerous criminals I had rehabilitated using this program so far, Gideon didn’t doubt my words.

Shaking my head, I extended my hand, handing a primordial calamity daughter gem disguised as a pill using the myriad transformation hex to the worm’s root, saying, ”Yeah, only time will tell. But here, take this incarnation pill. With this, you won’t have to possess someone else’s body to be whole again. The pill is not cheap and is very hard to make, so don’t think it’s free, you will pay me back even if it’s the last thing you do.”

Using its roots, the worm snatched the pill from my hand and swallowed it without hesitation, convinced it was truly an incarnation pill—one with highest level purity, at that.

Gideon had been searching for ways to help him fix his version of flawed immortality on the devil merchant code, and the incarnation pill was one of the few ways it believed could help him fix it.

The problem was, it wasn’t something you could just buy in the devil merchant code market. At best, you could get your hands on the pill recipe. After that, you had to gather the ingredients yourself and find a soul crafter skilled enough to refine it. It wasn’t something that could be made through ordinary methods—only soul crafting could bring it into existence.

After swallowing the calamity daughter disguised as an incarnation pill, the worm immediately began reconstructing a human body for itself. Flesh, bone, and form came together in moments, reshaped by gem’s reconstruction skill.

With that, two of the many flaws in its immortality were finally removed. It was no small gain by any measure. Unfortunately, he was no longer here to celebrate it, what remained was my calamity daughter gem Gideon Grim.