Card Apprentice Daily Log

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Lil’ Red Storm Realm

“How can someone be so aware and yet equally ignorant at the same time?”

Dalia finally broke her silence, precisely on Hive Spirit’s cue. They had thawed Thalorien enough. Now it was time to cook him.

Thalorien lifted his exhausted head at the sound of her voice. By now, he looked almost like a deranged loon. His blood-red eyes were sunken from mental exhaustion, his expression strained, and his once-composed demeanor had been reduced to something bordering on desperation.

There was an unsettling resemblance between him and the Froslings he had once experimented on, the ones whose newborns he had slaughtered in front of them whenever they failed to meet his standards. Yet despite his miserable state, a strange light appeared in his eyes when Dalia finally spoke, relief. At least she was no longer ignoring him.

“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice hoarse. Dalia leaned back against her Spirit Gold Ore throne, studying him with a faint, teasing smile. “How arrogant of you. You discovered that your Devil Merchant Codex was compromised and immediately assumed you had found my weakness. You thought you could simply wait for the Demon Merchant Code to notice and punish me.”

“But did you ever stop to consider what sort of existence you would have to be dealing with for someone to dare interfere with a Devil Merchant Codex in the first place?” Dalia’s smile widened slightly, seeing Thalorien’s expression stiffen. She continued before he could answer. “You seem to think that because the Demon Merchant Code is powerful, anything that joins its band of merchants must be weaker than it.”

“How childish.” Her tone carried a hint of ridicule while Thalorien’s pupils contracted. Dalia slowly crossed one leg over the other and tilted her head with amusement in her eyes. “If someone was foolish enough to tamper with something belonging to the Demon Merchant Code, wouldn’t they first have to be confident that they could withstand its retaliation? Or perhaps they wouldn’t be foolish enough to do it unless they already knew the Demon Merchant Code couldn’t touch them.”

The words struck Thalorien like a hammer, and his mind immediately raced toward a possibility. Yet he instinctively rejected it. But as he went over the evidence, one uncomfortable realization began to settle in. Perhaps Dalia had been right. Perhaps he had been so focused on what he expected to see that he had become trapped in his own assumptions, unable to recognize what was right in front of him.

No, that was absurd.

And yet, Dalia’s calmness suddenly made it difficult to dismiss the possibility outright. She had been sitting there for hours, patiently waiting while he drove himself mad with his own assumptions. Throughout it all, she hadn’t shown the slightest concern about the Demon Merchant Code. Not once.

Even now, she was calm enough to lecture him about his failure to read the situation, as if she didn’t care in the slightest about the possibility of the Demon Merchant Code discovering that she had tampered with its property. For someone supposedly facing such a terrifying threat, Dalia was far too relaxed.

Dalia noticed the subtle change in his expression and smiled before continuing, “Perhaps you simply underestimated me. Or perhaps you underestimated the existence standing behind me.”

Thalorien’s breathing stopped for half a moment thinking of the ancient ruler class force, not native to the Dark Realm.

That was exactly the implication she wanted him to reach himself. Dalia did not explain. She didn’t need to. Instead, she allowed the silence to stretch. Her expression remained perfectly relaxed, almost bored, as though the possibility of provoking the Demon Merchant Code was beneath consideration. That calmness was far more frightening than any boast could have been.

Thalorien’s mind began connecting possibilities he desperately did not want to connect. Could the force behind Dalia really be that powerful? Could it stand against the Demon Merchant Code? Or worse… Could it actually be stronger?

He immediately tried to reject the thought. The Demon Merchant Code was one of the closest existences to transcendence. Its influence extended throughout the known Myriad Realms and beyond. Its Devil Merchant Codices were scattered across countless territories, and its retaliation against those who violated its authority was legendary.

For someone to casually interfere with one would already be insane. For someone to do it without fear of retaliation, that was something else entirely.

Thalorien stared at Dalia. She was still smiling. And suddenly, his previous certainty that he had found her weakness began to crumble. Maybe he hadn’t discovered that Dalia was foolish enough to hack the Devil Merchant Code. Maybe he had simply discovered how thoroughly he had underestimated the power behind her.

Dalia watched the realization slowly take root in his eyes and said nothing. She didn’t need to. She let him reach the conclusion himself. After all, a fear discovered by one’s own mind was always more convincing than one planted by another’s words.

“Now that you know no reinforcement is coming, no miracle will happen, what do you chose? Willingly serve my brother and gain everything you ever desired or face something worse than death?” Dalia asked, as if the choice wouldn’t remain available to him for long. If he didn’t make it himself, circumstances might soon make it for him.

Thalorien’s exhausted, bloodshot eyes suddenly cleared, a moment of calm settling over him.

“Your Highness, you say this will help me accomplish what I have failed to do so far. You say it will help me lead my race to conquer the Dark Realm.” He paused, studying her carefully. “So tell me, am I the ignorant one here, or are you pretending to be one?”

“Haha,” Dalia laughed aloud, slapping the armrest of her throne. “I see you no longer care what happens to you. Let me see if you continue to remain so indifferent after hearing this.”

She leaned back, her smile widening.

“You see, the entire Frosling race and the Half-bloods we rescued have already yielded and sworn to serve my brother for eternity. You’re smart enough to know what that means for your race, right? Or Do you need me to spell it out for you?”

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