Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3010: Hundred Frost Domain – II

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Void, Hundred Frost Domain, Frost Maze

When I attempted to use the ‘If you can see me, I can see you’ directly onto the maze walls to trace the line back to the source, my clone head just appeared outside a colossal, swirling snow globe suspended in the dark void. It was viewing the board from the outside, while I was a piece trapped inside.

The clone hadn’t actually escaped the influence of the Hundred Frost Domain. It had only escaped the Frost Maze within it. As a result, the domain simply dragged it back into the maze.

That meant switching places with my clones wouldn’t allow me to escape. At best, I could leave the maze for an instant before the domain forcibly pulled me back inside.

My current strength was nowhere near enough to overcome the combined authority of a hundred Frost Domains.

If a mere hundred could suppress me so thoroughly, I didn’t even want to imagine what would happen if the Crown Prince deployed the thousands, or even millions, of combined Frost Domains he was capable of mobilizing. That was the true terror of the Snow Elven Crown Prince.

I was fortunate he was confined to the Heathen Stone environment, where deploying a Rule Domain was impossible. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been rendered so helpless against a mere clone of mine.

Even so, understanding the full horror of the combined Frost Domains did nothing to deter me. I repeatedly activated my ability, determined to unravel the Frost Maze’s secrets.

While my primary body strolled casually through the freezing corridors, deliberately exploring the maze to lure out an ambush, my clone along with the Hive Spirit, operated at maximum capacity. With its Soul Pupils fully unleashed, it relentlessly analyzed every inch of the maze, searching for structural flaws, tracing the interlocking soul nodes, and reconstructing its core geometry in an attempt to break the labyrinth from the inside out. In hopes that it would destroy the combined rule domain.

Just then, a sharp pang rippled through my mutated Ego Gem.

Far away in the skies above Frosnow City, my Reality Isolation Seal had been shattered.

I checked the real-time feedback through the Hive Spirit, genuine surprise flickering beneath my mask.

The elderly Snow Elven general hadn’t spent that time waiting to die. The old bastard had burned his lesser used runes without hesitation, forcefully extracting an unrestrained torrent of Rule Power.

He then used it to deploy a Domain Implosion, opening a miniature rule domain within his own body. He used the domain implosion to fight my sub reality’s influence and funneled the overwhelming Rule Power he generated by burning runes directly into his physique. For a fleeting instant, his physical might rose to a level capable of matching the strength of my Reality Isolation Seal, allowing him to shatter its outer boundary from within.

I had seriously underestimated him. He wasn’t just a heavily bribed bureaucrat; he was a remarkably strong, resourceful veteran. Though, I suppose he was still a little dim-witted, considering it took him that long to stage a breakout.

Sansa’s telepathic warning flashed through the Hive Spirit. She was still perfectly hidden down in the capital with Karl, monitoring the fallout.

The snow elven elder didn’t waste a single second. The moment he broke free, Thalorien updated him, and he and his squads plunged straight into the void after us without hesitation.

Learning this a low chuckle vibrated in my chest as the living ice walls of the maze groaned around me, constantly shifting their crystalline faces.

Most of my techniques relied on exploiting a trick. They appeared absolute and overwhelming until the underlying mechanic was understood. The same was true of my Reality Isolation Seal, especially once I was no longer actively maintaining it.

The key was the target realizing that they were no longer in original reality and had been trapped within a sub-reality. Once that was understood, the solution was simple in principle: overwhelm the sub-reality with enough power to force it to collapse back into the original reality.

The Snow Elven Elder realized it was a false reality the moment I abandoned him there. Knowing the answer, however, was only half the battle.

Merely being ruthless enough to burn one’s runes wasn’t sufficient. The Semi-Ruler-class devils imprisoned alongside him could have done the same, but they couldn’t have broken out of the reality isolation seal as none of them possessed enough power to overwhelm a Ruler-class sub-reality.

The elder was different. He was a genuine Ruler-class existence. As he relentlessly burned his runes to fuel his strength, the Reality Isolation Seal steadily exhausted the reserve of power I had left behind. One side grew stronger while the other gradually weakened. The outcome was hardly surprising.

Had I known the mercenaries would cast me into the void, I would have invested a far greater reserve into the seal. Then the sub-reality could have matched the Snow Elven Elder blow for blow, turning the confrontation into a brutal game of attrition.

How many of his precious runes would he have been willing to sacrifice before giving up? Or would he have ruthlessly seen it through until he broke free?

It didn’t matter anymore.

The ice beneath my feet suddenly shattered, sending me plummeting into a frozen corridor below.

Waiting there was one of the mercenaries. He resembled a hulking mass of living metal, wrapped around a violently flickering purple flame that seemed barely contained.

The moment I entered his line of sight, he unleashed a colossal sphere of violet fire, large enough to swallow a leviathan whole.

Still in free fall, I had no chance of evading it conventionally. I immediately activated ‘If You See Me, I See You,’ swapping my positions with my clone to appear behind him.

The Frost Maze reacted instantly.

The surrounding corridors twisted and shifted, seamlessly rearranging themselves.

In the very next instant, I found myself inside the colossal sphere of purple flame.

Contrary to its appearance, the interior wasn’t searing hot, nor was it freezing cold. Instead, it was viscous and suffocating, as though I had been submerged in an endless pool of black motor oil.