Miracle Card Shop: All My Cards Can Be Actualize

677  Battle in the Imperial Palace - 02

Daniel didn't wait, he immediately sinked his mind into his mindscape and use a dark apell card on Achilles.

—

Card: Soul Strip

Picture: A lich holding a green crystal emitting a dark green aura from the soul within, shining. In front of the lich, a knight lies on the ground, breathless.

Rarity: Common n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Type: Spell

Mana Cost: 2 Dark, 1 Wood, 1 Non-element

Description:

Destroy a target creature. You gain an artifact token named "Soul Crystal" with "Tap: Get 1 mana of any element."

Flavor text:

"Soul is a kind of currency. Don't waste them by just killing the host."—Archlich Thalassar

—

The spell was cast, and dark power erupted from within Achilles' body, bursting inside out. Achilles didn't even have a chance to scream before his body collapsed to the ground. The mana that burst forth quickly flowed into Daniel's hand, materializing as a green crystal.

The abrupt killing spell Daniel used startled Garret. He hadn't even had the chance to defend himself. How could a spell activate so quickly!?

Garret hastily retreated behind the horde of golems. He needed time to cast his own spell. While his magic wasn't as fast as Daniel's, he believed it to be far more powerful than the quick-casting spell Daniel had just used.

Using the golems as a shield, Garret began his incantation. He cut his arm to prepare a blood shield, then started crafting a blood blade to strike Daniel down.

But suddenly, his shield began trembling before failing completely. The blood he had summoned flowed in a different direction. Garret turned and saw Vlad manipulating the blood he had used for the shield—drinking it on the spot.

The sight put Garret on high alert. He knew well that his magic had a critical weakness: it was useless against a powerful vampire. The moment Vlad entered the scene, control of the blood was seized from him effortlessly.

Vlad didn't give Garret a chance to recover. In an instant, he rushed forward and sank his fangs into Garret's neck, draining his blood.

Even with the enhanced strength from his blood magic, Garret was no match for a vampire of Vlad's caliber. His power dwindled rapidly, and his consciousness began to fade into darkness.

In just moments, Garret was reduced to nothing more than a mummified corpse, drained of every drop of blood in his body.

After finishing his "meal," Vlad began destroying the golems with his blood spear. His mastery of blood magic and manipulation far surpassed Garret's. In just a few moments, more than half of the golems had been obliterated.

"Let's go, Danny. We need to get into the palace and see if we can reverse this ritual," Koyuki urged, nudging Daniel.

Pride cast a quick glance at Koyuki, clearly displeased that she was the one prompting Daniel. She huffed in frustration but kept her complaints to herself—she had no intention of making Daniel's task harder.

"Mr. Guan, please handle things here for me," Daniel said to Guan Yu, who was locked in combat with the resurrected Lu Bu, now housed in a homunculus body.

"Rest assured, Lord Emberweave. We can take it from here," Guan Yu replied, swinging his guandao to clash with Lu Bu's spear. The two warriors launched into another fierce exchange of blows, their martial prowess shattering the ground beneath them and whipping up gusts of wind. Their duel grew increasingly intense with each strike.

Guan Yu held an advantage—his body had been fully resurrected and materialized, restoring his original strength. In contrast, Lu Bu's homunculus body, while resembling his old form as closely as possible, was still an artificial construct.

Though a homunculus body might surpass a human one in raw strength, it lacked the natural fluidity of movement. Each time Lu Bu dodged Guan Yu's attacks, the clunky nature of his body left him a split second too slow, narrowly avoiding fatal blows several times.

Meanwhile, Daniel, Pride, and Koyuki seized the opportunity while Vlad rampaged through the golems to slip into the main building of the Qing Empire's Imperial Palace.

Inside the audience hall, they encountered a man in imperial robes sitting lifelessly on the throne. A long red wooden stake pierced his chest, pinning him to the seat. From the throne, trails of blood extended outward, forming lines that led in another direction.

Pride immediately examined the corpse and the red wooden stake anchoring it to the throne.

"This… this is the Empire-Control Contract! I never thought anyone would dare use this… It's the most forbidden ritual recorded in the Hightower's secret library. I heard that Teacher Envy even destroyed all known copies of it! How does someone even know about this!?" Pride muttered, her voice filled with disbelief and shock.

"What does this ritual do?" Daniel asked.

"It's a contract made with the ruler of a country, allowing the population to be used as sacrificial material whenever needed. Any ritual can be conducted without preparing external materials. The contract draws the blood and souls of the subjects through the ruler," Pride explained grimly.

"Wait… A contract like that is possible!?" Koyuki exclaimed. "A contract needs to be agreed upon by both parties. The subjects of the ruler wouldn't have consented. It should be impossible to enforce this!"

"It's possible," Pride replied. "Especially in countries where the people place absolute trust in their ruler or king. For example, in the Tessia Kingdom, the population is so fanatically loyal to their king that such a contract could work without direct consent."

"But… this guy isn't even the emperor! I recognize him—he's General Wang Dahui, the right-hand man of Crown Prince Tianhao Zhisheng," Koyuki objected.

"You saw him wearing imperial robes, right? If I had to guess, this guy must have usurped the throne. Or maybe he harbored ambitions but didn't dare act on them until some mage offered him a deal—help him become emperor in exchange for agreeing to the contract. If that's the case, it explains all the chaos we've seen along the way," Pride explained.

Pride examined the red wooden stake pinning the corpse to the throne once more, using her magic to probe and try to dispel it. However, she was unable to get any readings—an overwhelmingly dark power shielded the stake.

"Koyuki, can you use your magic to destroy this? It needs divine power to break its defensive mechanism," Pride asked.

Koyuki nodded and stepped back. "Danny, Pride, step back a few more meters. I'll use lightning to try to destroy it," she warned.

Heeding her words, the two retreated further. After a few seconds, Koyuki raised her hand, and the sound of thunder roared outside. As she lowered her hand, a white-blue bolt of lightning tore through the palace roof and struck Wang Dahui's body and the red wooden stake.

The first lightning strike had no effect. Then came the second strike. This time, the red wooden stake cracked, and the corpse of the usurper emperor was burned to a crisp.

Pride quickly inspected the cracked stake and used her magic again, hoping to get a reading. After a few moments, she nodded.

"The contract linked through the emperor's body has been severed. There's no need to worry about the people of the Qing Empire anymore. But we still need to check the ritual magic circle. Right now, we've only cut off the additional mana flow of the person behind this. We need to undo the ritual completely and release the soldiers from the spell," Pride said, leading the group toward the palace basement.

They followed the trail of bloodlines etched into the floor, which guided them deeper into the palace. Upon reaching the basement, they found a group of Hightower mages, with one particularly ominous figure wearing an owl mask. The masked man and his accomplices were fervently praying to higher powers.

"You're late, Mr. Emberweave! It's over! We've won! This time, magekind will rise, and the mana in the world will return to the levels of the Era of the Gods!" the man in the owl mask declared with euphoria.

Hearing this, Daniel frowned. The effort to restore the world's mana to the level of the Era of the Gods felt eerily familiar to him. But no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't pinpoint where this feeling came from.

"Have we met before?" Daniel asked, leading the group cautiously forward. He aimed to get as close as possible without provoking the mages. Daniel could protect himself, but protecting both Pride and Koyuki at the same time? That was a risk he wasn't willing to take. For now, he chose to observe and assess their capabilities before making any move.

"Take a guess, Mr. Emberweave," the man in the owl mask said in a relaxed tone. He no longer needed to be on guard against Daniel—he believed he had already won.

But at that moment, Pride's face paled as she sensed something amiss. Piecing together the clues from her investigations and the words of the man in the owl mask, a horrifying realization dawned on her.