The Card Apprentice

The two Xiong Family card artisans had hideous expressions as they turned toward Copper who was at the window!

Copper abruptly sobered up and shouted angrily, “Xiong Shen, how dare you . . .”

A murderous look flashed through Chen Mu’s eyes, and he lightly raised his hand from where two ripples that were invisible to the naked eye swiftly enshrouded the two Xiong Family card artisans.

“Ow, my eyes! Why can’t I see anything!”

“What place is this?”

The two card artisans’ voices were full of fear. They were like headless houseflies as they spun about in midair.

Xiong Shen’s heart plummeted, and his expression changed dramatically, “Stay calm, it’s an illusion card! It’s just an illusion card!”

The two Xiong Family card artisans didn’t hear what he shouted. Their terrified voices gave the onlookers a chill.

“Argh, I have to leave . . .” That card artisan shrieked hysterically, as he suddenly sped up and charged straight toward where Xiong Shen and the rest were. Xiong Shen unconsciously dodged, but just as he did so, he was suddenly surprised, “Careful . . .”

“Argh . . .” The scream was unusually poignant. A very eye-catching splat of fresh blood spread on the outer wall of the Victoria Hotel.

The other Xiong Family card artisan shouted crazily, “I’m going to kill you! I’m going to kill you!”

He was desperately shooting off energy bodies in all directions and stirring up a hornets’ nest. The screams of the onlookers came one after the other. Card artisans with any strength at all rushed to raise their energy cloaks, but there were still quite a few accidental injuries.

“Humph, Does the Xiong Family just go around recklessly injuring people?” A very cold voice sounded out.

The already angry Xiong Shen become still more angry, and his expression darkened, “Which of our friends is displeased with our Xiong Family? Why don’t you show yourself and tell me about it?”

“That idiot might do a better job killing, to avoid injuring others.” The cold voice sounded out once again, as though he hadn’t understood Xiong Shen. Just as the voice fell, everyone saw a golden flash before their eyes, and that Xiong Family card artisan rubbed his throat as his eyes bugged out and he tried to call out in a broken voice.

His body plunked from the air like a bag of sand. He was badly mangled when he hit.

Xiong Shen’s face was steely grey, but he drew in a deep breath and restrained himself. His sightline returned to Chen Mu. Xiong Shen was someone who had some knowledge of things, and although that golden streak was only a flash that came and went, he was awed by the strength of the card artisan in the dark. If he didn’t handle things well under everyone’s gaze now, the Xiong Family face would hit bottom.

To set up two enemies at the same time wouldn’t improve his situation.

He signaled Gong Liang with a look as he said, “What is your big idea? You have stretched your reach too far into our Xiong Family internal affairs.” Chen Mu was looking at Copper, feeling all sorts of pleasant surprise. Although he had always maintained the hope to see Copper again, most of the time he thought of it as an extravagant hope. But now Copper was right there alive in front of him. That sort of pleasant surprise was indescribable. He also very quickly recognized Lan Feng to Copper’s side.

He didn’t hear what Xiong Shen was saying but flew straight to the window where Copper was.

Gong Liang swung around to stop Chen Mu, laughing coldly, “What? Weren’t you going to challenge me?”

“Out of my way!” Chen Mu’s gaze became abruptly colder.

“Ha-ha, but you called me out by name for the challenge . . .”

Before Gong Liang could finish speaking, Chen Mu made his move! He had no interest in wasting any words on that guy.

With a slight lift to his hand, the formless ripples covered Gong Liang like a large net.

The cold smile on Gong Liang’s face didn’t go away, as his body became suddenly blurred and he appeared to the right side of Chen Mu. He spread his right hand, where countless deep green wings appeared in front of him, each them about ten centimeters long and very sharp. They were so exquisite that their emerald green was like jade. The dense and dark green wings floated in front of him with their points aimed at Chen Mu.

“Go!”

Xiu, xiu, xiu!

The concentrated whistle was as though a storm had kicked up, which didn’t only enter the ear, but was taken in by the soul.

Chen Mu skillfully slid off as though he were standing on ice, as he made a criss-crossing slide in midair. Those dark green wings grazed Chen Mu’s body before disappearing behind him. Gong Liang didn’t look at all surprised, as though he knew that a blow like that had no way to injure that young card artisan in front of him. His attack continued uninterrupted, as the dark green wings endlessly shot toward Chen Mu like raindrops.

That kind of straight shot was just too simple to dodge for Chen Mu as he was by then. He would only have to make a trivial shift sideways to be able to dodge most of the blows. His simple and agile movements drew the attention of quite a few of the card artisans looking on. It was especially his calm and ease which made the spectator card artisans secretly try to guess his identity. Up until then, although Chen Mu had never deployed any complex skills, in the eyes of quite a few people, that sort of seasoned performance would only ever be composed on those who had gone through a long period of battling.

Some of them even conjectured whether Chen Mu was a card artisan cultivated in secret by some establishment, since only that sort of card artisan could ever be accomplished to such an extent.

Chen Mu suddenly furrowed his brow and then without any warning shifted two meters to the side.

Without any noise, three wings flitted past where he had just been stationed.

Then there was immediately a ‘weng’ sound!

Everyone was aghast as they noticed that a huge green shadow appeared behind Chen Mu, with the dark green wing energy bodies that Gong Liang had just sent off amazingly returning back!

The dark green wings which filled the sky and covered the earth came shooting from behind him like crazy, crisscrossing to become a green net without any place to escape through. The whistling sound of upwards of a thousand wings swallowed up all the surrounding sounds!

Chen Mu seemed like he had nowhere to go in midair.

“Blockhead!” Copper shouted aghast, his mind a blank, as Lan Feng’s beautiful face lost all color beside him.

Chen Mu was like a magnet in midair, drawing in all the wings in the sky! Countless wings formed a deep green wave which came rolling toward him, giving the illusion that it could crush anything.

To have been picked out by the Xiong Family, Gong Liang certainly had uncommon power. Chen Mu had long since expected him to have backers. Still, for him to kill so violently was a little unexpected for Chen Mu.

But also unexpected was that he wasn’t even flustered.

Everyone felt things becoming a blur as Chen Mu disappeared from where he was.

The raging dense green waves abruptly stopped, though in the next second they once again broke out! It was though someone were commanding them, as they went roaring off in a different direction.

Gong Liang maintained the smile he had been wearing, as he stood far apart with his arms crossed, saying languidly, “Is that all the skill you have? Do you mean to depend on that to get the entry certificate I have in my hands? Tsk tsk!”

Chen Mu didn’t say a thing, with all of his energy constantly paying attention to dodging. His moves were as quick as lightning, to the point where there was no way to tell his position with the naked eye.

Chen Mu executed a series of extremely difficult dodging maneuvers effortlessly: S-shaped snaking swerves, U-shaped swoops, half interlocking dodges . . .

The onlooking card artisans all stared gape-mouthed when they saw those complex tactical maneuvers showing up so smoothly before their eyes. It was undoubtedly a huge treat for them. Especially when they found each time that the seeming youth dodged when it was impossible to dodge, always using some inconceivable move. He would lightly dodge like a ghost through a space not big enough for a hair, safe and sound.

Up until then, although he looked rather miserable, no hair on his body had been harmed.

“The Xiong Family won’t be so lucky this time.” Among the crowd, a man with blue scars on his face looked at the youth in midair with appreciation, “He’s so young! I wonder whose student he is to be so accomplished?”

He stood there as straight as a javelin, very easily distinguished from those around him. The man beside him was wearing a golden colored mask and a long hooded cape which concealed his entire body.

That man didn’t say anything, only watching the sky.

Chen Mu discovered that no matter how he dodged, there was no way to escape those wings that were like maggots on a bone. If he were to move a little slower, he would immediately be riddled with holes from those swarming wings.

He glimpsed the smug Gong Liang with his arms crossed over his chest out of the corner of his eyes, floating apart as though he weren’t concerned about a thing.

Gong Liang wasn’t controlling the wings!

Chen Mu immediately made the determination while his feet never lagged and his body moved like lightening; his brain was swirling still faster.

If Gong Liang wasn’t controlling them, and the wings could spontaneously find their target to attack, he would have to say that there certainly was something which gave those wings instructions. As a card master, Chen Mu was very clear that energy bodies absolutely couldn’t have any wisdom; they had no way to determine who the enemy was.

The weak point of the illusion type of card was obvious. Although the formless ripples could make it hard for the enemy to resist, there was still no way to make any physical blows.

But as a six-star card, the Eternal Night’s capabilities were naturally not comparable to any ordinary illusion card. The first time he had researched the Eternal Night, Chen Mu had discovered a strange thing about the card. That card, which would mainly make wave-like attacks, could simulate quite a few bands of electromagnetic waves. Not only that, but it could allow the user to perceive the surrounding electromagnetic waves to an astonishing degree of sensitivity.

That was a world chock full of electromagnetic waves.

The formless waves radiated to every corner of that world, and every material would emit its own peculiar waves. After he triggered the Endless Night, Chen Mu could very clearly perceive those waves which couldn’t be found by the naked eye.

But in the same way, it was also a disorderly world, having all kinds of waves. There were orderly and discorded waves and scattered waves all mixed up together. Still, while that might have been an issue for other people, for someone who had already gotten used to the same sort of complexity in state-zero like Chen Mu, that wasn’t enough to bother him.

Chen Mu conjectured that there would certainly be some kind of “signal” on his body that could attract those wings.

Making a careful examination, he did actually find some inkling.

His body was emitting some kinds of very fine and undetectable waves, and if it weren’t for the Eternal Night, they would have been extremely difficult to find.

Could it be that those waves that were being so crafty?

Chen Mu suddenly had an idea, and he abruptly changed direction, and went charging toward Gong Liang, who stood far off.

It was a spectacular scene as he looked like a comet trailing a long deep green tail, while giving off a terrifying whistling sound.

Gong Liang gave him a look of ridicule as he stood there unmoved, as though not at all concerned that those dark green wings would mistakenly injure him.

The distance between the two sides kept closing and he gave Chen Mu a look, who was then unexpectedly diving headlong into that whistling deep green sea of wings.

All of the onlooking card artisans were in an uproar.

Was that guy looking to die? A satisfied smile floated onto the corner of Xiong Shen’s mouth.