Chapter 143: Vapours

Date- 25 Mar 2321

Time- 4:50

Location- Sky Blossom City, F-rank field dungeon Slime Swamp

“How did you guys find me? Teleportation is supposed to be hard to trace.” Asked a young man in his early twenties looking at two middle tagged adventurers blocking all his exit.

“As long as our faith is strong enough, the Lord will show us the way.” Answered the stout middle-aged adventurer.

“So you guys are from the Kingdom. Aren’t you guys far from home.” The young man was at the peak of the card soldier realm making him a genius among his peers but unfortunately, his opponents were in the card master realm.

“Yes, we are far from our home but it is necessary to bring our lord home.” Said the other middle-aged adventurer. Saying that he singled his partner.

“Wait! Fellows we don’t have to do this. I will pay each one of you 5 soul jades that’s double what the Whiteburn promised for turning me in.” Bargained Paul Whiteburn, since Paul fled the life/deathmatch he has been in hiding and cut off from the outside world. He did not know if his masterpiece Firefox poison had achieved its purpose nor did He know the kingdom’s interest in Pax otherwise he would have negotiated with better terms.

“Heretic no wealth is enough to forgive your sin, aiming for lord’s life is an unforgivable sin but be happy the Lord has big plans for you to redeem yourself.” The two adventurers boxed in on Paul. It seems they were very angry at Paul for trying to assassinate Pax with firefox bane.

Paul grew frantic, not knowing how to escape the current predicament he was in. The plan was that he would hide for a few months in various low-level dungeons and then when the Whiteburn’s had moved on to the next affairs he would resurface in disguise. Everything had been set up all he needed to do was to be patient and stay hidden but these troublesome fellows showed up and they were too strong for him, his escape plan seemed redundant in front of their strength. But he still had a few aces up his sleeve, skill card Tele-Switch.

Seeing the duo closing in on him Paul activated his skill card

“See ya! Suckers…” shouted Paul looking at the duo who were nearing him with every passing second. Paul felt something was wrong as the duo did not show any sign of Panic or urgency seeing him escape. Instead, they seemed calm with no hint of worry or haste.

Few seconds passed but nothing happened, Confused Paul received a notification from his grimoire,

[Alert! Hidden field card Taunt detected! You cannot leave the field until you defeat your opponent.]

Reading the grimoire notification Paul’s face paled. Seeing the expression on Paul’s face, the two adventures had a hint of what had transpired and sneered looking at dejected Paul trying to make heads and tails of his current situation.

[Card Name: Taunt

Card Type: Field card (Hidden)

Card Rank: B – rank Uncommon grade

Card Rate: 12-stars

Card Durability: [86/100]

Card Effect: within this field, the enemy units can not escape or leave the field until they have defeated the card apprentice equipped with the card.

Additional effect: Hidden, the enemy unit will not receive the notification upon entering the range of field cards unless they have active detection cards in use.

Restriction – Stationary Field

Cooldown time – 6 hours ]

Being at the end of his wits Paul finally lost his calm and started to act out of fear forgetting all his caution,

“Field card White Dwarf sun terra, Field card Nine White Dwarf Suns. Target 2 meters north, Detonate.”

This was Paul’s damage dealing combo which could melt the black steel alloy of Iron flesh but to his surprise, his opponents were unaffected by his attack.

This was the disadvantage of using the same cards in a card fight, the enemies come equipped with the cards which are a bane to your cards. This exact thing was happening here: the adventurer duo knew all the cards Paul had and had already equipped with cards to face them head-on.

But soon the Stout adventurer’s face changed as he growled, ” you are indeed ruthless and cunning it seems you had laced the entire dungeon with firefox poison. But unfortunately for you, we are equipped with the poison resistance card.”

Hearing them Paul chucked and said l, ” oh my bad but by chance, any of you happen to have corrosive acid resistance. ”

Hearing Paul finally the duo’s facial expression changed but they were too late to realise as they both let out bloody screams in unison.

It could be seen that the skin of the duo was melting at an incredibly fast pace not just their skin but their internal organs and eyes, the sight was too gruesome even for Paul who orchestrated such gore.

“You idiots! Firefox poison is only one of my Arsenal’s… do you know why I chose to hide in a dump like this, slime swamp field dungeon. Instead of all other beautiful low-level field dungeons out there… you don’t, What would you religious mutts like you know about science? The inhabitant monsters of the slime swamp are corrosive slime which when subjected to 10,000 Kelvin temperature turn into highly corrosive vapours. Which you guys inhaled and came in contact with just now.” As Paul finished his explanation his enemies had already become one with the swamp.

“It looks like I have to get some info from the outside world, why would the kingdom target me? ” said Paul picking up the one gold grimoire and a sliver grimoire that were now powerless. from his conversation with the adventurers from the kingdom Paul knew enough to guess that his poisonous surprise for Pax and the Whiteburn’s was a fail and somehow he had offended the lunatics from the kingdom.

Now not only did he have to watch out for the Whiteburn family and the sky blossom city bounty hunters but the Kingdom and their hunting dogs. It would be good if all of them came baring like these two, A gold grimoire, silver grimoire and a bunch of C-rank and a few B-rank cards. Turns out the stout one even though was at the realm card master realm had contracted a golden grimoire, a higher grade grimoire for his realm. It seems the Stout middle-aged adventurer was a genius of his time and Paul prefers them to be geniuses.

The vapours of the evaporated swamp slime fluids are highly corrosive and acidic enough to melt strong minerals and ores but one can easily resist them by covering themselves in the mixture of Swamp slime fluids and the swamp mud enhanced by soul energy reinforcement.

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