Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2846: No Negotiation

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Southern Region, Blossom District, Three Mischief Encampment

I won’t lie—I was taken aback hearing Peyote’s proposal. But at the same time, it wasn’t unexpected of a devil merchant, especially since the alternative was death.

From what he had said earlier, it was clear he had misunderstood my relationship with Dredre, assuming I belonged to the Librarian’s faction.

Well... in a way, I did. I owed Zaltan Librarian Jr. a favor—one he could call in without question. At the same time, calling myself part of the Librarian’s faction felt like a stretch. It was open to interpretation.

Not that I cared. If playing along meant gaining a semi-ruler-class subordinate, I was more than willing to lean into the misunderstanding.

I studied Peyote through my soul pupils. The Breath of Erosion infecting him was overwhelming—Dredre hadn’t held back at all. He had already abandoned his body, focusing everything on holding the erosion away from his divinity. Even that much was barely working. What little strength he had left, he was drawing from the ground beneath him and the blood rain, but the will of the realm was suppressing him, making it harder for him to sustain himself and keep the erosion at bay.

I let the silence dragged on until Peyote’s patience began to fray. Forcing him to break the silence repeating himself, ”Let me serve you. I promise you won’t regret it.”

”I don’t see a reason to not only let you live, but to take you under me.”

I let the words hang, just long enough to make Peyote sweat. Before I could continue, the sky split.

The bloodstorm clouds above us—and for miles around—parted as golden light poured down, bathing the world. From that radiance, a figure descended, eerily similar to Konjur. The only key difference was that he was older and his halo horn different.

The difference was unmistakable. The halo horn upon his head was complete—fully formed—and adorned with seven thorn-like protrusions, each shaped like a tiny wing, spaced evenly along its structure.

I had no doubt he was from the Faith Order, sent to check on Konjur’s status. If alive, to retrieve him safely. If dead, to take his body along with the heads of those responsible.

I immediately signaled Dredre to hide within my hair and conceal her presence. Without access to my primordial energy, her Breath of Erosion was my only real ace. And once I used it, there could be no survivors. I couldn’t risk word spreading across the Myriad Realms that Breath of Erosion had surfaced here.

The Faith Order agent didn’t even spare us a glance. His gaze went straight to the last trace Konjur had left behind in this world, and he moved toward it.

I understood his intent instantly. He would use faith to reconstruct what had happened—confirm Konjur’s death, and identify the one responsible.

However, I wasn’t worried about him uncovering the truth about Breath of Erosion. I had already used it to erase every trace of my encounter with Konjur. Faith could work miracles, but against Breath of Erosion, it was as helpless as anything else.

”It’s him—Konjur’s master. Faith Order’s Archangel, Maestro Matteo. Kid, he’s a ruler-class being. Let me help you. Together, we might survive this.”

Even now, Peyote didn’t miss his moment. He struck while the iron was hot, despite knowing the odds were stacked against all of us. Because, he knew, if he let this chance slip—this one shot to secure a deal with me—he might never get another.

”Sure,” I agreed, offering Peyote an almost innocent smile, as I mentally instructed Dredre to withdraw the Breath of Erosion infecting his body.

Under the astonished gaze of both Peyote and the Field Marshal, the erosion receded from his body and slipped back into the River of Reincarnation. Neither of them could quite believe I had agreed without even negotiating.

Peyote, on the other hand, was practically giddy. He immediately drove his roots deeper into the ground, drawing strength from the land while absorbing the blood-rule rain through his body, recovering as much power as he could.

If not for my interference with his link to the Devil Merchant Code, he would have already escaped back to his faction’s hideout at the foot of the Shrouded Hills.

The Field Marshal, meanwhile, no longer found my smile innocent—nor polite. Not after she noticed Karl quietly placing the unconscious, half-dead body of the Emissary of Light beside Peyote. Watching us, she shifted as well, slowly stepping behind Peyote, and slipped away with us, breaking the tight circle we had formed around him.

Thanks to the abundance of blood-rule rain, Peyote’s physical injuries and wounds closed quickly, restoring his body to its peak in no time. His divinity, however, was another matter. The damage left by the Breath of Erosion ran too deep. It would take far more time and resources to recover, let alone grow stronger. Still, he kept working at it, patching what he could in preparation for the coming fight with Archangel Maestro Matteo.

Without consulting the demon merchant, he had already formed a plan. His materialized illusion, Sandalphon, would engage Matteo head-on, while the pixie would slip in for a decisive strike, unleashing Breath of Erosion at the right moment. No matter how powerful Matteo was as a ruler class being, his faith would still be vulnerable to the Sandalphon’s Song and Breath of Erosion.

And just like that, his intentions shifted.

He no longer planned to serve the demon merchant he believed to be from Librarian’s faction. Instead, he saw himself leveraging the demon merchant—using the demon merchant’s reference and connection as a stepping stone into the Librarian’s faction, then turning the tables and making the demon merchant his subordinate. Differences and grudges no longer mattered to him. What mattered was rebuilding his strength.

And in his eyes, the demon merchant and his companions had already proven themselves worthy of being part of his force.

However, in the very next moment, a crushing pressure slammed into him, tearing him out of his thoughts and dragging him back to reality.

Archangel Maestro Matteo stood before him, gaze locked and suffocating, as he asked, ”Where is my disciple? What did you do to him?”

”Huh?”