The Card Apprentice

Chapter 144: The Amazing Tailless Shuttle

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

The thousand swallows wavy blades!

The screaming of countless swallow-shaped wavy blades pierced the eardrums as it pressed down. If one were to say that those spinulosa wheels had darkened the sky like rain, then the thousand swallows wavy blades were diametrically opposite. The sky was suddenly lit up, with the light shining from them pricking the eyes enough to hurt. The screaming wavy blades had covered all of the brilliant apes.

The whooshing sound kept up, and as the swallow-shaped wavy blades hit the ground, the dust would fly. If they were to fall on the body of an ape, the blood would spurt like flowers blooming, sending up shrill screams from the brilliant apes.

The brilliant apes hadn’t planned any kind of firm defense against such a dense and powerful attack, and they completely collapsed.

But then very shortly those apes showed a toughness and tenacity beyond that of any other creature.

In the midst of the eye-stinging rain of blades, all of their bloody eyes remained full of resolve, while at the same time summoning all of their strength to throw all of the remaining spinulosa wheels that they had. Dozens of the wheels faced the rain of wavy blades, shooting toward Bo Wen in midair.

The wheels that had been thrown were then suddenly torn apart by the dense and sharp wavy blades. But although the wavy blades were sharp there wasn’t anything special about their power; while they could easily split up a spinulosa wheel into dozens of pieces, they couldn’t even slightly slow the speed of the fragments.

Even though broken into pieces, the wheels’ momentum hadn’t been reduced, and they kept screaming toward Bo Wen who was flying off in midair.

The screaming of the apes on the ground was mixed with the whoosh of the sharp thousand swallows wavy blades and the deep howl of the spinulosa wheels, and then mingled with the moan of Bo Wen. The battle had reached its climax in an instant.

The rain of the thousand swallows wavy blades was dazzling, and no one was paying attention under that dangerous and beautiful sight as an ape with dark fur had rolled himself into a ball. And even though he was covered in wounds, he had braced himself to keep silent. He was the only brilliant ape who hadn’t thrown his spinulosa wheel.

Bo Wen was moaning in midair, since while those small pieces chopped up from the spinulosa wheels weren’t big, they still hurt when they hit the body. Those apes were powerful, and although Bo Wen had already switched out to his energy cloak card, the shroud of fragments from the wheels was falling like rain on bananas, and when they hit the energy shield each one hit very hard.

The first piece to hit the energy shield sent it shaking, and the ones following close upon it in a climax very rudely drove him flying out of there when he couldn’t dodge them. The biggest of those didn’t exceed the size of a fist, but there were too many of them and with the power they had Bo Wen was quickly driven off, which showed how powerful those apes were.

Just then, that dark-furred ape who had rolled into a ball suddenly stood up. Astonishingly, there was still a spinulosa wheel in his hand.

Bo Wen was taken aback, but under the pummeling of wave after wave of fragments, he could only struggle precariously to maintain the energy cloak. The power of those wheels was immense, and he could only grit his teeth and steel himself. But he didn’t have any energy left to dodge them. Those fist-sized fragments from the spinulosa wheels were shockingly lethal.

If he were to be hit by an intact wheel, then the energy cloak which was already near collapse would collapse in an instant. Without it he would be as vulnerable as a sheet of paper in front of the wheel.

With its two large eyes gleaming and its mouth in a grin, who knows if it was taunting Bo Wen, who had lost his control. It wasn’t moving slowly with its two long arms suddenly outstretched and holding tightly to the spinulosa wheel, with its eyes fixed on Bo Wen in flight. It was certain that making that fatal blow was completely in its hands, not knowing how many times it had brought down such speedy prey.

And it wanted revenge for its tribe, so its eyes were on fire, showing a mad desire to kill.

It exhaled and bent its arm to throw, and it was evident that the wheel was about to be released.

Bo Wen’s heart sank, and his eyes lost all hope! What could cause a person’s heart to beat harder than to see death coming closer and closer right before the eyes.

Could he be about to die right there that day? That was the thought which flashed through his mind.

A strange whistling suddenly sounded. It was a very peculiar sound, something that it was pretty sure it had never heard before. Was it going to stop it? That clever ape had a crazed look in its eyes as the forest floor was lit up. It was already too late, and he was certain that the wheel would accurately hit that flying prey.

A light flashed in front of its eyes, and a pain spread rapidly from its brain, without it being able to react before everything went dark.

Not far away, Chen Mu’s empty index finger was still sticking up in the air, and he looked as indifferent as ever with no emotion on his face. In that moment just then, he had fired three tailless shuttles, which was a mode that he’d learned from Bo Wen which he’d used with that blood sharp card, the triple combo. In the state of breath control, Chen Mu had been able to take the precision of his perceptual control to a higher place than he had ever achieved. That was enough for him to complete the process of controlling three tailless shuttles, and because of the increase in the precision of his control, he had greatly decreased the time it took to fire them. That then fulfilled the conditions to fire three of them together.

The three tailless shuttles accurately hit the ape directly in its right eye, where its incomparable penetration was instantly demonstrated to the fullest. The three tailless shuttles sunk into the ape’s right eye as one, immediately penetrating its skull. Given the huge impact, immense quantities of blood and brains spewed out from the back of its skull. Because of the brain damage, the ape had died in the first instant.

Chen Mu suddenly turned his face in midair and gazed into the forest. At about the same time, he raised his index finger again, and the other three finally were able to see clearly the crystalline tubular tailless shuttle on Chen Mu’s finger.

At some point above his index finger, everyone saw something bloom as a light flashed by and sank into the forest.

Hunh! A moan came from deep in the jungle. Someone was there! Bo Wen and Cheng Ying simultaneously showed the shock on their faces that there had been an ambush! No one had noticed the strange look on Li Duhong who was being held by Cheng Ying. No one had yet reacted until Chen Mu suddenly moved, and accelerated from stillness to a high speed, too fast for anyone to follow easily, demonstrating his extreme skill with controlling perception yet another time.

Chen Mu flew to where someone had ambushed them like a wisp of smoke.

Before Bo Wen or Cheng Ying could react, he had disappeared. The two of them looked at one another and saw the horror in each other’s eyes. Chen Mu hadn’t made a move, but once he did it was a stunner.

Was that the “cross” just then? Bo Wen was frightened and uncertain, as he stared blankly in the direction where Chen Mu had disappeared. Although the stunning attack that Chen Mu had just made was the attack of a remote card artisan, there was quite a difference between that tubular crystalline little tube and the “cross” that had been described in the annals of the clan. The cross in the annals of the clan made a cross-shaped wound, while that fine crystalline shuttle was tubular.

He walked over to where that dark furred ape was. That clever ape had nearly taken his life. If it weren’t for Chen Mu, he would already be dead, which upset him. The brilliant ape’s corpse was laid out on the ground, with its whole right eye a bloody mess, and the pool of blood behind its head mixed with brains and shocking to see.

Bo Wen struggled to turn over the ape’s body. He didn’t have much physical strength, so to turn over such a tall and heavy ape tired him to the point of panting.

“What is it?” Cheng Ying had come to where Bo Wen was, asking with wonder. There wasn’t any material worth gathering from the brilliant ape’s body, which was another reason it wasn’t liked very much by card artisans. No one liked a dangerous beast that didn’t have any income potential.

Bo Wen pointed to the back of the ape’s head, and said, “Look!”

All of the blood drained from Cheng Ying’s face. And Li Duhong’s little face paled in her arms, as he swallowed in horror. Bo Wen also had an ugly look on his face, both grey and pale.

If the back of the ape’s head had been pierced, they wouldn’t have reacted as strongly as they did. But the back of that ape’s head had been blown off, and when Bo Wen had flipped it over, you could see that half of the skull was gone. There was nothing to be seen of the back of its skull, nor any blood or brains inside. They had been spewed by that huge impact from a long way off.

The scene of an empty skull was enough to terrify anyone. No wonder even those three bold people were frightened by the scene.

Bo Wen turned the body of the ape back over, explaining, “Look, apart from the eye, everything is intact on his front. There was only one way that kind of situation would occur. He explained that the speed of that fine shuttle-shaped energy body was so fast that it could cause such a wound.

“So powerful!” Cheng Ying muttered to herself.

“It certainly is very powerful.” Bo Wen’s sprits had returned to normal, as he coldly said, “Anyone coming from the night of the cross would certainly be amazing.” But the doubts he harbored hadn’t decreased, since that wound hadn’t been made by the famous “cross” of the night of the cross card artisans.

Could it be that the night of the cross had been progressing those last few years? That was the most likely thing, since a sect would only survive if it were able to bring its traditions up to date and underwent continual development. Sects that refused to develop would die before they regained their former power.

“What is the night of the cross that you talk about?” Cheng Ying couldn’t help asking. Ever since those two had disputed, she had been curious about what the night of the cross really was.

Bo Wen smiled without answering, but instead asked, “Did you hear that man’s voice just now?”

Cheng Ying immediately realized that that wasn’t something she should be asking about, and so she didn’t hang onto it. She had also heard that moan from the jungle, and her expression turned solemn, “Mmm, I heard it. I don’t know who it was, but we’ll know when Chen Mu returns.”

“I never found anyone lurking.” Bo Wen had an uneasy look on his face; that Chen Mu had been able to discover something that he hadn’t, and he had been bested once again.

In that one day he had been repeatedly attacked. And it had been Chen Mu that made the move to save his life. Such a proud person couldn’t help a sense of frustration.

That guy is so powerful!