The Master of Cards Chapter 82: Third Officer

Alex asked the snow flake a question which was on his mind. "What is a higher entity?"

The snowflake didn't answer him. "I can't tell you."

Alex sighed and put the card inside his pocket. He turned to look at the ruins of the terrible battle that had taken place before, in the process of unlocking the door.

Negima Corporation was involved with both the doors. Alex suspected that perhaps they were searching for Fragments of Higher Entities. He tried asking the snowflake if there were any other uses for the fragments and the snowflake replied that it depended on the fragment.

For example, the snow flake could create a new base card, but the blood drop could only convert an existing base card into blood attribute.

Alex then thought about what he should do about Negima. He made some mental notes and debated informing Qianyu and openly becoming hostile to Negima or acting dead and then trying to infiltrate the company. He even received the key of that third person, who presumably wished to make use of the snow flake, but died because of unanticipated errors in their planning.

After some time, Alex made his decision. He modified the trail of the scene and then left the area to hide and observe.

Alex stayed there for three days without making much movement, and finally saw a second group of three people arrive. They were all from Negima Corporation.

"The ice cube has disappeared. This part of the mission appears to be a success." One of them noted.

"The trail clearly shows that all the hired individuals were sacrificed to melt the ice completely. In that case, Operator Ming must have already obtained whatever was hiding inside." The second one chimed in.

"Not just that, he seems to have wandered away on his own. Did he encounter an external threat? Or whatever was inside the ice cube caused him to retreat in desperation.." The first person analyzed.

"I will follow the trail. You two return to inform the higher management. The mission succeeded, but Operator Ming seems to have been intercepted by unidentified external forces." The third one finally spoke with some authority.

The two returned from the way they came, while Alex carefully looked at the third officer. Alex hadn't left the trail very far and eventually the tracks if followed would expose the deception. Thus he had no choice but to eliminate this third officer.

As the third officer was following the trail, he suddenly felt his intuition tingling and immediately activated three rank 1 cards immediately while dodging.

Alex was surprised by his reaction amd that his surprise attack missed. He had used Dark Shadow to converge his presence completely.

"How did you realize my presence?" Alex asked in surprise.

The man looked at Alex and sighed. "So you survived... Does that mean officer ming is dead? I did not realize your presence. I saw your shadow." The third officer pointed towards the ground.

Alex sighed, he still couldn't gain complete stealth in the day. The third officer's body began to be fortified by fire and earth base cards. And a third card formed a spear made of dark attribute.

Alex raised an eye. "Darkness attribute? Looks like the Negima corporation isn't lacking in contacts with the Black Market."

The third officer snorted and attacked Alex, however Alex calmly dodged as his stick and certain parts of his body were covered with Light attribute aura.

Alex deftly moved and dodged the opponent's dark attribute spear thanks to premeptively analyzing the move using Energy Affinity and parrying it with the stick coated in light aura, thus managing to land a kick on the opponent's torso.

The third officer grimaced. This young man was very strong. However, the next moment, his face became terrified as he felt terrifying vibrations that wreaked havoc and caused great injuries internally. Immediately, fear and desperation clouded his eyes as he activated his three rank 2 cards at once.

Alex was shocked at the third officer's craziness. The activation of three rank 2 cards when he was deeply injured left him completely open to attacks. However, the next moment Alex shook his head and regretted underestimating his opponent.

A blast of fire hit his body which he desperately covered with Light Aura to shield from. Although his Light Aura was grade B, facing an onslaught of a higher rank pushed it to its limit and Alex panted out black breaths as his Light Aura card deactivated at the moment the fire beam card stopped and disappeared as well.

However, that wasn't the end of it as the earth began to shatter and terrifying spikes began to erupt to attack Alex. Tired, but desperate, Alex used Energy Affinity to constantly dodge the earth spikes, but suffered a few grazes. He took out a single use haste card and instantaneously activated it, improving his dodging capabilities by a drastic amount.

However, the attack wasn't over, for two chains made of darkness suddenly lashed out from the third officer's body, who was unconscious. The chains quickly gripped Alex and tried tearing him apart.

Alex grunted in pain. But then his eyes developed a terrifying glint and his body began vibrating at a terrifying frequency. The vibration slowly transferred to the chains and they began making ringing sounds.

Alex coughed blood as the vibrations were hurting his body as well, but then the vibrations finally resonated with the chains which began twisting like crazy and then shattered.

Alex fell on the ground and sighed. He crawled to the third officer, took his stick and struck him with a blow of Painful Vibrations, causing the third officer to die. But Alex also fell onto the ground in extreme tiredness.

Alex had managed to obtain physical parity with the opponents at the peak of card apprentice. But today, he finally fought a real battle against a powerful peak card apprentice who used all his cards amd Alex saw a ton of flaws in his own fighting style.

He had only one attacking card which also served as a defense and healing card and was too easy to overwhelm. His other two cards were support skills that helped with sensory abilities and sneaking.

Chapter end