Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3025: Side Effects Of Null Omission

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Void

"Son of a bitch!"

I screamed every curse that came to mind, floating alone in the silent Void. An unbearable ache rippled through both my soul and body, though no sound existed there to carry my voice. It was a pointless outburst, but I didn’t care.

No disrespect to those who had actually endured it, but the closest comparison I could think of was that it felt as though my soul had been lobotomized.

Despite having built an entire power system around soul division and enduring soul-splitting countless times, I still hadn’t grown accustomed to the pain. If anything, it never became easier.

Strangely enough, because I had experienced it so many times, the agony itself had become a reassuring sensation.

Pain meant I could still feel.

Pain meant I still existed.

Pain meant I was me.

The intense surge of pain flooded my mind with enough stimulation to wash away the lingering dissociation that had clung to me after brushing against Null, anchoring my consciousness back to reality.

I couldn’t believe the ambition and determination that had carried me through what felt like countless eternities of comprehending nothing but the Ice Rule had nearly been smothered the instant I experienced ordinary existence again.

I had always believed my resolve was stronger than that.

Apparently, it wasn’t.

Fortunately, I had prepared for exactly this possibility when planning my confrontation with Konjur. The Hive Spirit’s emergency override wasn’t there to save my body. It was there to save my mind from itself.

Had I not made that precaution... I would have died because I overestimated my own willpower.

I wasn’t too hard on myself over it because I finally understood that exploiting the Null meaning and the Null Strider rune came with unavoidable side effects.

The longer I remained suspended between Null and existence, the more severe my dissociative symptoms became.

A single step away from becoming Null and unimaginably distant from ordinary existence, I experienced derealization.

Everything around me felt unreal.

The Void.

My body.

My thoughts.

Even existence itself.

It all felt fake, dreamlike, shrouded in a haze, as though an invisible glass wall separated me from reality. The only thing that remained vividly real throughout that endless ordeal was the Ice Rule Source. Its truths were clearer than reality itself.

At the same time, I suffered from depersonalization.

I no longer felt connected to my own body, mind, or emotions. It was as if I had become an emotionless machine executing a single command. If I had to describe the sensation, it was like watching my own life unfold from the perspective of an indifferent spectator, completely detached from the person on the screen.

The only moments I genuinely felt alive were while comprehending the Ice Rule.

Everything else was empty.

The frightening part wasn’t what happened while I was approaching Null.

It was what happened afterward.

The longer I remained in that liminal state, the more my mind adapted to it. Dissociation gradually stopped being a temporary response and began turning into a subconscious defense mechanism. Even after I returned to ordinary existence, my body and soul instinctively tried to retreat into that detached state whenever they perceived overwhelming stress, as though they had learned that disconnecting from reality was the safest way to protect themselves.

In other words, the longer was near to Null, the more difficult it became to remain fully connected to existence itself.

Now that I was finally myself again, I made a decision.

I would never put myself through that again.

No, that didn’t mean I would stop exploiting the loophole created by the Ice Rule’s Null meaning and the Ultimate Rune, Null Strider. That loophole was simply too valuable to abandon.

What I would never do again was force myself to remain one step away from Null for what felt like countless eternities in a single stretch.

Next time, I would take breaks.

Return to existence.

Reconnect with reality.

Then dive back in once my mind had recovered.

I won’t be as stubborn as earlier.

Now that I had successfully forged my Ice Rule Stream instead of comprehending one Rule meaning from beginning to end before moving on to the next, I could comprehend multiple Rule meanings simultaneously through my Ice Rule Stream. Better yet, I could alternate between my main body and my clones, allowing each consciousness to shoulder part of the burden while the others recovered.

That alone would drastically reduce the mental strain.

If I had been able to alternate with my primordial ethereal spirits before entering that state, I probably wouldn’t have stopped after comprehending only four Rule meanings.

I would have continued until I had comprehended all eight Rule meanings that resonated with my abilities.

More importantly, I doubt the dissociative side effects would have grown anywhere near this severe. Constantly switching perspectives between myself and my clones would have repeatedly grounded my consciousness, preventing it from sinking too deeply into that detached state.

Unfortunately, reality wasn’t so accommodating.

At present, my Primordial Ethereal Spirits were still manifested as Curse Incarnations, each carrying a ruler class curse, maintaining the battle formation inside my mutated Ego Gem. They couldn’t simply abandon their positions to take turns comprehending the Ice Rule.

If I had been in a realm, I could have undone the formation and reconfigured everything. I would have had the freedom to reshape my internal state without worrying about outside interference.

The problem was...

I wasn’t in a realm but in the void, and I wasn’t strong enough.

Despite possessing the hybrid physique of a Celestial, a Viltronian, and the World Calamity Tree, my realm was still fundamentally mortal. My hybrid body was durable enough to survive the Void’s harsh environment, but survival was one thing. But remaining active and functioning normally in the void was another.

Every moment I remained active in the Void consumed an enormous amount of strength. Without active support from my Blood Curse Incarnations and the battle formations, me being active in the Void simply wasn’t feasible with my current realm. Therefore, earlier I couldn’t disturb my primordial ethereal spirits to comprehend Ice rule.