Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3037: Snow Elven Pride

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Dark Realm, Gelid Alps, Snow Elven Region, Frosell District, Frosnow City

“Negotiation?” the Snow Elven Crown Prince’s clone asked, looking at me with undisguised hatred. “What is there to negotiate?”

The hatred in his eyes was understandable. So was his refusal to negotiate. What I was demanding wasn’t merely a concession. It was the culmination of the Crown Prince’s work over the past several millennia. Those nearly one thousand Half-Bloods weren’t just experimental subjects or political bargaining chips. They were the future of the Snow Elven race.

The foundation upon which the Crown Prince intended to elevate his people into a true Ruler-class race. When weighed against that dream, even the lives of half the Snow Elven population became an acceptable price in his eyes. His choice laid bare the depth of his resolve. If sacrificing half his race was the cost of securing the other half’s future, he wouldn’t hesitate. If it hadn’t already been obvious, it was now.

“How much do you weigh?” I asked, my gaze fixed on the Snow Elven Crown Prince’s clone and, more specifically, the Tarnished Glacier of the Black Sea that composed its body.

A smile spread beneath my mask as a curious thought crossed my mind: Was there a way to turn this clone of the Snow Elven Crown Prince into a giant duck laying block of Tarnished Glacier every day?

It was an idea worth exploring. After all, a single block of Tarnished Glacier from the Black Sea was currently worth a Realm Will Fragment.

Granted, Realm Will Fragments varied greatly in value depending on the rank of the realm they originated from. The higher the realm’s upper cultivation limit, the more valuable its fragment.

The Froslings’ native realm, for example, was only a Cavalry-class realm, placing its Realm Will Fragment among the lower end. Even so, a Realm Will Fragment was still a Realm Will Fragment. They were a piece of a celestial.

And if I could use the Crown Prince’s Tarnished Glacier clone for myself, I would be walking away with a fortune on top of everything else. Therefore, I plan to kidnap the clone.

“My weight? Why do you…” The clone frowned. Before it could finish speaking, a massive worm slipped from beneath my robe like a shadow coming to life. The instant it appeared, it shot straight toward the clone. Startled, the clone retreated without hesitation.

At the same time, the worm opened its maw. Instead of biting. It exhaled a dense black fog. The fog billowed outward with startling speed, rolling across the battlefield like a living tide. In the blink of an eye, it engulfed the surrounding area before clinging to every Snow Elf and every one of the Crown Prince’s clones present.

No matter how they tried to evade it, the black mist pursued them relentlessly, latching onto them like a second skin.

While they were busy trying to deal with the black mist clinging to them, they never realized they were already being swallowed into the Maworm’s stomach.

One after another, the Crown Prince’s clones and the Snow Elves vanished without so much as a ripple in space, disappearing into the Maworm’s seemingly bottomless maw. After feeding the captured Snow Elves to the Maworm, I instructed it to isolate all of the Crown Prince’s specialized clones within one of its stomach chambers.

With that taken care of, I shifted my attention toward the Snow District. More precisely, the Snow Capital. A frown formed beneath my mask.

An enormous coalition army had already assembled around the city. Countless Snow Elven soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder with warriors from their allied races, while every Ruler-class existence the Snow Elven race could muster, along with several from their allies, awaited my arrival.

According to Sansa, the moment the Snow Goblin Empyrean abandoned the battlefield and fled for his life, the Crown Prince had sounded the Life-and-Death Alarm throughout the entire Snow Elven territory. Martial law was declared, and urgent calls for reinforcements were sent to every allied force.

Given the gravity of the crisis and the promises the Crown Prince had made over the years, their allies responded with remarkable speed.

Even so, many of them couldn’t understand why the entire defensive force had been concentrated around the Snow Capital instead of being deployed across the territory.

Only a handful of high-ranking Snow Elves knew the truth, that the enemies real target had never been the Snow Elven race itself. It was the nearly one thousand Half-Bloods imprisoned within the Heathen Stone Prison in the Snow Capital.

Things had become far more complicated than I had initially anticipated. I had assumed the Crown Prince, and the Snow Elves as a whole, would rather perish than allow the existence of the Half-Bloods to become known to the outside world.

It seemed I had overestimated their pride. They were nothing more than snobbish hypocrites, clinging to their pride when it benefited them and discarding it the moment it became inconvenient.

Be that as it may, the situation had changed. At least a dozen Ruler-class beings now stood waiting for me at the Snow Capital. Each possessed strength greater than the last.

If I continued down the path of slaughter, this incident would spiral far beyond a conflict between me and the Snow Elves. It would drag every allied race into the war and turn me into a public enemy in their eyes.

At that point, it would no longer matter who had started the conflict. Nor would anyone care who had been right or wrong.

History rarely cared for such details.

What everyone would care about was that I had massacred a dozen Ruler-class beings and countless fellow devils from their races, leaving behind irreparable losses and throwing their societies into instability.

That alone would become an unforgivable blood debt. It wouldn’t just unite the surviving races against me. Their allies, their vassals, and even their neighbors would inevitably be drawn into the conflict.