Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2843: Victory To The Pink God Of Death!

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

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

Shaking off his shock at seeing faith dissolve against the black orb, Konjur instinctively accelerated time around himself to evade it. To his disbelief, the concept of time meant nothing to the black orb. Time seemed to falter in its presence. The more he tried to accelerate it, the more it seemed to grow still.

Before he knew it, the black orb had pierced straight through his suprasternal notch, leaving behind a gaping hole. Without slowing in the slightest as it continued on its path toward the Sandalphon charging in behind him.

Ignoring the attack for the moment, Konjur grabbed half-dead the Emissary and retreated, putting as much distance as he could between them and the Sandalphon. At the same time, he tried to channel his faith to heal the wounds in both their bodies. But the moment the faith touched those injuries, it decayed into nothing. The wounds had been tainted—infected with the residual energy of the black orb.

"Breath of Erosion!"

Konjur’s voice cut through the chaos as realization struck. In his haste to escape the Sandalphon, he hadn’t paid the black orb proper attention. Only when its lingering energy began to spread through their wounds did he recognize it—the black orb was no ordinary attack, but a compressed mass of Breath of Erosion.

No wonder his faith was crumbling into nothing the moment it touched the wounds. Faith was powerful—capable of shaping miracles—but it still had a boundary. It drew its strength from life, from belief, from the will to continue.

Breath of Erosion, on the other hand, was an embodiment of death—a force that reduced hope to nothingness. Where faith sustained, it ended. Where faith built, it demolished. Against something that erased the very foundation faith relied on, his power was simply ineffective.

"Congratulations. As a reward, you get a painless death."

I stepped out of hiding and intercepted Konjur mid-escape, while the black orb stuck the Sandalphon still closing in behind him. Before he could react, I struck—my hand forming a small blade of Breath of Erosion, while a dozen floating heads behind me echoed the Sandalphon’s song.

I aimed for his head, but I was a fraction too slow. Even in his current desperate state, Konjur managed to evade it. Still, the blade sheared off his halo horn—his construct of pure concentrated faith—before he even realized what had happened. I pocketed it in the same motion and drove the blade into his back.

Without his faith to shield him, the strike landed cleanly. The Breath of Erosion seeped into his body, eating its way inward and infecting his divinity. A moment later, Konjur crashed to the ground with the Emissary’s half-dead body still in his grasp.

"Roarrrr!"

A monstrous roar tore through the air behind me as the orb of Breath of Erosion dissolved within the Sandalphon’s body, eating it away from the inside. The Sandalphon could have dodged the black orb but it didn’t, believing it was a desperate attack from Konjur to increase the distance between them. It continued the pursuit with no attempts to dodge or block it as it was fully expecting its song to unravel it. However, it didn’t, instead it got hit.

The sheer density of the breath of erosion in the black orb was too much—far beyond what even it could withstand. As the breath of erosion erased the illusionary materialized form of the Sandalphon. Peyote’s true body regained its mass, solidifying as he emerged from the illusion.

To my surprise, Peyote was writhing in pain. The Cacteye tribe wasn’t supposed to feel pain—yet he was screaming, completely out of it, utterly defenseless. So Corey had been right about this detail.

After giving it a thought, I came to the conclusion that Peyote simply wasn’t feeling his own pain—but the Sandalphon’s. It made sense. The Sandalphon hadn’t been a separate entity; it was an extension of him, as real as he was within that shared illusion. They weren’t two beings, but one existence shifting between forms.

Now that the Sandalphon had died, the pain had nowhere else to go. It settled fully on Peyote.

Ignoring his screams, I used my skill, ’If you see me, I see you,’ to slip one of my floating heads behind the wailing Peyote. Even in that state, he reacted instantly, blasting the head apart with a punch.

At the same moment, a tiny pink form slipped out from the head’s hair and unleashed a wave of Breath of Erosion at him. As the floating head burst, the erosion washed over Peyote, seeping into his body and infecting his divinity.

He lashed out at the small figure, trying to crush it—but before his strike could land, it vanished from the physical plane.

Peyote tried to track it, but it was already too late. With his divinity corroded by the Breath of Erosion, his strength collapsed. A moment later, he crashed to the ground, powerless. Just then, the tiny pink form slipped back into the physical plane with a dense mass of Breath of Erosion swirling around her like a living shield.

Dredre glanced at Peyote’s fallen body and drifted closer, keeping a careful watch to ensure he couldn’t escape using the Devil Merchant Code’s inter-realm transport until I arrived to collect our dues. Soon, the Field Marshal and Karl arrived to back her up, tightening the net around him.

Meanwhile, I advanced toward fallen Konjur and half dead Emissary of light. The Breath of Erosion was steadily eating away at their divinity, and with my floating heads echoing the Sandalphon’s song, they couldn’t access their faith to resist. Escape wasn’t even on the table anymore for them.

And even if it were, it wouldn’t matter.

I unfolded my double celestial rule domain—the Limitless Celestial Blood Fate Domain—and dragged both of them into it. I immediately amplified the effect of the Sandalphon’s song within the double domain using my authority, preparing to claim the spoils of war.