The Master of Cards Chapter 57: Falling for your own Trap

Alex felt his heart sink with dread. The door sealed up in front of him and a terrifying aura began to emit out of the blood drop. The entire chamber was awash in red light.

"You, you are too cautious. Consent was the most desirable path, but I cannot allow you to reveal what you saw to others!"

Alex was filled with fear, but he also felt an inner calmness. He still had the vortex card, although he couldn't trigger it at will, he bet on it helping him at the crucial moment.

Alex looked at the blood drop, which suddenly began to charge towards Alex, who was frozen in place by the terrifying power emitted by the blood drop.

"I am very curious, how did you kill my Curious Beast? There must be secret hidden within your body, otherwise a weakling like you cannot possibly kill it."

Alex could not open his mouth but his eyes had a tinge of unwillingness amd anger.

"Oh, I sensed some fear before, but not any more? You must really think you can escape, do you?"

Alex couldn't move and as such couldn't retort either.

"Time for you to die."

The drop of blood suddenly entered Alex's inner world. There it found the statue.

"This inner world is very well developed. I didn't realize there were such sophisticated humans..."

The blood drop paused as if it just saw a very curious sight.

"The power of light, dark and energy, coexisting together like purely independent entities? I never knew such a human could exist!...What is that?"

The blood drop floated towards the vortex card.

"What is this thing?" The drop of blood wondered.

There were very few things that could bamboozle the drop of blood. And those things would interest it very much.

The blood drop continued to circle around the vortex card as Alex looked on through the statue. He didn't understand why the vortex card wasn't helping him out.

As the blood drop went near the vortex card, and tried to touch it, the card suddenly came to life again and tried to absorb the blood drop.

However, the blood drop immediately realized what was going on and immediately began to resist. At this moment, Alex's body suddenly broke free from the pressure, and he could feel the vortex and the blood drop fighting within his inner world. The vortex was trying to swallow the blood drop while the blood drop was trying to resist.

"So this was your hidden trap! No wonder you could erase your momentary fears! This... thing is indeed very dangerous to me, but I can clearly see that this force requires your own life energy to work!"

As Alex heard the voice, he indeed felt a terrifying feeling. His muscles began deteriorating and his body began growing visibly thin. Inside his mind, the vortex was desperately trying to consume the blood drop, but the blood drop was too powerful for even the vortex to rapidly consume.

Alex realized that if he didn't do something soon, he would probably collapse and die from the vortex card's side effects before it could destroy the blood drop.

Alex's mind began running at lightning speed as he felt a crazed hunger. He took out all the meats amd nutrition bar he had brought along with him and madly began eating them all. The moment he ate them they were being instantly digested and used as fuel for the vortex card.

Alex was feeling like he was going to die. he kept eating like crazy, but within minutes, all his food enough to last another month got over as well as meats he had intended to sell later.

Thanks to his crazy consumption of food, the vortex card was winning over the blood drop and only a hint of it remained outside the card, however Alex was truly out of any food to replenish himself.

"Haha, you were really holding a terrifying trap for me, but in the end, I will still emerge victorious."

Alex's eyes flashed. Was this really going to be his end? Was there really nothing he could do? At that final moment of desperation, Alex had a crazy idea. He could just use the blood drop's lure to trap it.

Alex fumbled with his deteriorating body and pulled out a card. Single Use Rank 2 Curiosity Attribute - Curiosity Card. With a desperate breath, Alex activated the card. Immediately, he felt his bone marrows being squeezed for the last bit of energy within his body and the card barely managed to be activated. With his final conscious breath, Alex targetted the card on the blood drop with a single question, what in the world is inside the vortex?

Suddenly, the blood drop had an intense urge emerge within itself. What exactly lay at the depths of the vortex? Is the vortex a path to a new world? Is it the breakdown limit? The blood drop showed a hint of panic and gained its reason.

However in that moment where its curiosity flared up, the blood drop gave up any resistance towards the vortex for it was curious what lay within.

That one moment was enough for the vortex to overpower the blood drop's resistance and swallow it. The blood drop lost all control and was absorbed by the vortex card and its very existence was obliterated and destroyed.

Alex lay on the floor, at death's door. His vision was shutting down when he heard fragments of a voice.

[You killed ... Entity ... Drop. You... - Blood Rebirth...]

As he fell asleep, he had a dream. In that dream, he was at home. Not the home in this world, but his real home. His entire family was present. It was his tenth birthday and the family had held a small party. His father, his mother, his elder brother and sister and his friends from school... Luke... were all present.

Alex blew the candles, everyone clapped and sang the happy birthday song, he fed his family cake and that had his face slammed into one. He remembered his friend Luke gifting him a spiderman toy....

Alex woke up. His eyes were teary. He was still on the floor of the chamber. The first thought he had was that he didn't die. The second was why he had such a childish dream. He looked at his body and was flabbergasted. He remembered he had become skinny as a stick and all his muscles had disappeared, but now he was perfectly healthy again.

In fact, he felt his strengths had increased by leaps and bounds. He felt his physical body was already rivaling fairly strong Card Apprentices. If he fought Qianyu now, he was sure he would easily win.

"What happened at the last moment?" Alex wondered.

Chapter end