Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3217: Pandemonium City

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Dark Realm, Seven Prince of Hell Territory, Pandemonium City

Pandemonium, a city of obscenely rich mines built around the foot of an colossal active volcano, spread far and wide under the smoke clouds. It gave the image of London at the height of its industrialization.

Train tracks led in and out of the hundreds of mines in the volcano, where a crew of gray-skinned, dark-winged, humanoid slaves worked around the clock. Despite such relentless exploitation, the Pandemonium mines had never seemed to run out of riches in the past one and a half millennia, as the active volcano replenished the minerals faster than an army of slaves could mine them all day long.

This city belonged to Mommon, the richest faction leader of the Seven Princes of Hell, dubbed the architect of the dark faction’s riches. His expertise in wealth and asset management was what funded the Seven Princes of Hell’s climb from an unknown dark faction to a semi-ruler-class dark faction not only in the dark realm but the inter-realm city. One could even say that, if not for him, the dark faction wouldn’t have risen to the heights it has raised today.

Mommon also happened to be the first faction leader Belphegor and Gideon met. Belphegor hoped it would be easier to reason with Mommon, considering his understanding of economics, but Mommon rejected the plea, believing Belphegor was driven by a personal agenda and not the welfare of the dark faction itself, which was clearly selling the rights to the Card World to the unknown Ruler class for eight times their worth, each of them walking away with a fortune greater than they had ever earned from any deal they had undertaken so far while leaving a small portion for their faction members.

Hiding among the clouds, riding Cloud Prowler, I watched over the city’s massive pseudo-natural barrier array formation, with a colossal volcano acting as its core.

What am I doing here when, in three-quarters of an hour, I had a hearing at the Demon Merchant Code?

I was here to ensure that no variable occurred with the Demon Merchant Code’s rights to the Card World while I was busy dealing with the other developments that were happening simultaneously.

At first, I planned to wait till I confirmed the location of all the faction leaders of the Seven Princes of Hell before acting, but then I realized that, with my Demon Merchant Code hearing and the appointment with Maestro Matteo afterwards, there wasn’t enough time for me to deal with the entire leadership of the Seven Princes of Hell dark faction.

Who knows how long the Demon Merchant Code hearing will take?

Who knows how long Belphegor will take to meet each of the faction leaders?

As for Peyote’s appointment with Maestro Matteo, there was no telling how long it would last. As a ruler-class faith user, he was more trouble than ten devils in the same realm. Not to forget his other backups.

My schedule was jam-packed, even if I was willing to push my promised services to the citizens of the New Empire to a later date.

Understanding that my full attention was needed in all these places to deal with the situations as they developed, I decided to decrease my responsibilities. I would do that by solving the fastest of them all first. And that was the issue with the rights to the Card World.

I say that because I didn’t need to kill the faction leaders of the Seven Princes of Hell while leaving one as my Calamity Daughter Gem to get what I wanted. All I had to do was turn enough of them into my Calamity Daughter Gems, and they would take care of the rest. That was why I was here in Pandemonium City and not in my temporal cave back in Azorheim.

I planned to turn Mommon into my Calamity Daughter Gem first. Then, he could turn the other faction leaders into my Calamity Daughter Gems one by one with help from a few of my Calamity Daughter Gems and bloodkins. I planned to start the downfall of the Seven Princes of Hell and trust the rest to my Calamity Daughter Gems and bloodkins. Basically, sharing my workload. Like how I had Dalia finish what I had started with the Snow Elven Empire.

This way, I could get back to my previous schedule. Even though that was also tedious, it was still more manageable than the one I had now.

Hence, I was here, trying to infiltrate the pseudo-natural barrier array formation of Pandemonium City.

Since it was a pseudo-natural array, I couldn’t tamper with it without affecting the surrounding area that had been used in its creation process, immediately alerting the city guards and their Lord, Mommon.

So, I planned to enter the city disguised as a subordinate of my Demon Merchant Calamity Daughter Gem, Cuth Diya.

The mines of Pandemonium City were coveted by many forces. Over the past one and a half millennia, there had been more than a thousand invasion attempts by nearby forces and vagabond groups. So, the security of Pandemonium City was very strict and tight, prepared to deal with any kind of invasion or infiltration attempts.

Cuth Diya was not only a well-known member of the Seven Princes of Hell faction as the only son and heir of Devil Merchant Muth Diya, but he had also been to Pandemonium City on numerous occasions to conduct transactions on behalf of his father and tribe.

With him guiding me into the city, there shouldn’t be a problem. Then why the delay? He had to put together a small tribal caravan and march it to the city so we could enter Pandemonium City under the guise of running a normal errand for his tribe without arousing any suspicion.

As soon as I received a signal from Cuth Diya, I moved to meet up with him and infiltrate Pandemonium City.