Card Apprentice Daily Log

1252  Embracing Darkness

Date- 5 April 2321

Time- 11:52

Location- Southern Region, Blossom district, Sky Blossom City, Guild Association Mall, Corey's Warehouse

"Arrrhhh!" Corey's scream reverberated throughout the warehouse, and her agony-filled wail slowly transformed into a warcry. The picture of her helplessly watching while Susan was in peril constantly flashed in front of her eyes giving rise to an agony in her heart that lit creeping darkness in her titled demon core - Eternal Flame of Agony.

"Oh, shit. I took it too far," Park blurted as the darkness of the titled demon core grew uncontrollably and swallowed her turning her bright golden red flames into a pitch black flame with golden tips emitting dark smoke.Soon Corey could no longer hear Park's voice. The Eternal Flame of Agony had awakened.

"Hehehe," Corey abruptly started giggling amidst her warcry. Adding an eerie background to the awkward atmosphere of the warehouse.

Corey's hair had turned pitch black and floated in the air, upright and wave-y, as if they were underwater. They appeared similar to flames in her titled demon core, and soon thick dark smoke was emitted from her hair. Which formed a beeline and gathered at the ceiling of the warehouse and formed a dark cloud of smoke. From which time and again golden ambers of flame would fall to the compact arena's floor.

Seeing this Ann, Anna, and Agatha locked their eyes and then nodded their head in understanding. Preparing to make a move, but before they could act a floating head appeared behind each of them and whispered, "I don't care if she is a demon. She is my staff. If you act against her then you will be taking action against me."

Ann, Ann, and Agatha, all three of them paused in their tracks, and before they could argue their concerns, the floating head behind them had vanished. So they looked at the boy who was watching the duel in the embrace of his manager as if nothing out of ordinary had happened. Seeing the boy did not even bother to spare a glance at them, the three realized that they will not get the explanation they were looking for and chose to pretend as if nothing out of ordinary was happening just like the boy.

Joe's goons were alerted seeing the sudden change in Corey, like the female trio before they too knew Corey had embraced the darkness, so they immediately turned to look at Agatha who was overseeing the duel, hoping that she would step in and put an end to the heretic who dare to practice demonic arts. However, Agatha never acted neither did the Southern Emperor. This puzzled them but before they could raise their voice the life-and-death duel had reached its conclusion.

…

Staring into the pitch-black flames that had replaced Corey's pupils and hearing Corey's eerie giggling, the sword spirit felt the dread that it had never felt before. It unconsciously tightened its grip on the hilts of its dual sword. Under Corey's gaze, it felt like prey being starred down by its predator in its final moments Feeling the darkness of its fear making its way of swords foggy, the sword spirit recited, "I'm a sword, a tool of my master, I have no emotions, I cut everything…"

As the sword spirit recited the sword matra, the duel swords in its hands began to glow brilliantly as the dark fog covering its sword path began to clear. Slowly its confusion cleared and its eyes became firm as it decisively swung its duel swords at Corey yelling, "New Beginning."

An aura of destruction filled the huge amount of sword intent gathered at the tips of the Sword Spirit's dual swords before they were fired at Corey. The two beams of sword intent with destruction attributes overlapped each other to form a bigger beam of sword intent, destroying everything in their path including the tiles of the compact arena which was made of A-rank ingredients, revealing muddy earth below. As the beam neared Corey, an inch away from her the beam of destruction attribute sword intent split into two and continued on their path avoiding Corey. Then the remains of everything destroyed by the beam of the sword intent were suddenly filled with vitality and soon an unknown plant life similar to weeds began to grow out of them and flourished.

This result was totally beyond the sword spirits' expectations. However, seeing this Laura's eyes sparkled as this was the true power of mastering a body art to the sage level. She has no idea about the eerie aura covering Corey but she did not let it dampen her excitement of seeing another martial artist with extreme Sage-level mastery. Right now she wishes it was her who was standing against Corey in the life-and-death duel. She was willing to risk her life to see if her sage-level mastery in the way of swords was at the extreme or if there was still room for growth. Don't let Laura's meek attitude fool you, she was a sword practitioner— no a sword slave, she would not let something like death become an obstacle in her pursuit of the sword.

Sword spirit did not let the fact that one of its strongest sword arts could not even break through its enemy's defense distract it from the duel and borrowing all the soul energy it could from Joe, it prepared to launch another attack at Corey chanting, "Swords of Beginning and End."

As the sword spirit tried to find Corey to aim its attack at her, it felt its dual swords grow heavy and the additional effect of its sword intent counter-cut activate constantly. The sword spirit glanced at its dual swords only to find that Corey was squatting with her legs stepping on each of its dual swords, unhindered by the effect counter-cut. Soon its eyes met with Corey's but then, suddenly, it found that the entire world was tipped over— no the world was not tipped over but its head was. The sword spirit used the last movements of its life to understand how and when Corey decapitate its head but everything happened so fast…

*Thud* *Tumble"

The Sword Spirit's decapitated head fell to the ground and rolled on it, giving it the chance to see its master's final movements. Corey was squatting on the shoulders of Joe's headless body as she juggled with his decapitated head.

…

"Young master!!!" Joe's goons screamed, unlike Joe's Sword Spirit, they saw Corey's every move but before they could step into the arena to come to his rescue they felt Agatha and Anna's aura lock on each of them warning them that if they stepped a foot in the arena they would be risking their life.