Chapter 342: Carboniferous Period 14
After capturing several more insects with special abilities only to confirm they had nothing to do with her cards, Perry Yates’s lingering hope was finally extinguished.
As evening approached, Perry Yates decided to find a place to rest for the time being.
Sleep was paramount. Nothing could stop her from getting her rest.
Sometime late in the night, the sleeping Perry Yates suddenly snapped her eyes open, her gaze fixed on the window.
In the dimness, she thought she saw a dark figure standing outside the window.
Perry Yates’s eyes flew open as she stared out the window.
The dark figure hadn’t vanished; in fact, it was becoming clearer.
It was a man, middle-aged, with long hair. He wore a black trench coat and a matching hat, his eyes fixed squarely on her.
The next moment, the man’s figure vanished, replaced by two streaks of golden light.
The two golden lights suddenly shot toward Perry Yates.
She reached out on instinct and caught them. When she saw what the two golden lights truly were, Perry Yates was stunned. They were her cards: Bicolor Rose and Yin Yang Bagua.
As the two cards entered her body of their own accord, a leaf appeared in her hand. Or to be more precise, a letter.
The letter’s contents were simple:
You are my favorite prey. Consider these two cards an introductory gift. We will meet again very soon.
A shiver ran down Perry Yates’s spine as she read the message.
The figure from just now matched the one she had seen in her foreknowledge.
’Looks like I’m being targeted.’ Still, this person seemed incredibly confident, or perhaps arrogant, to have returned two of her cards—and one of them was Yin Yang Bagua.
「Day Five of the Game.」
The events of the previous night left Perry Yates with a pressing sense of urgency.
Whether the man from last night was truly confident or just arrogant, it proved one thing: he was strong. Very strong.
Furthermore, the fact that he could revert two five-star cards back to their card form meant he possessed a way to counter them.
With this in mind, Perry Yates quickened her pace. She had to get all her cards back, and fast.
As she traveled, Perry Yates tallied her cards on her fingers.
She had sixteen cards in total: Twin Sunflowers, Bicolor Rose, Thorny Rose, Yin Yang Bagua, Cold Moon Guardian, Seed of Life, Clone, Wargod Kai, Dodder Seed, Any Door, Water Lotus, Moon Shadow Stealth, Flame Barrier, Pointed Explosion, Abyssal Roots, and Cannibal Flower.
She now had Twin Sunflowers, Bicolor Rose, Yin Yang Bagua, Seed of Life, Dodder Seed, Abyssal Roots, Moon Shadow Stealth, and Flame Barrier.
Eight cards found, eight to go.
Using Moon Shadow Stealth to move swiftly through the shadows, Perry Yates soon found three more cards: Thorny Rose, Water Lotus, and Cannibal Flower.
After absorbing these three, only Cold Moon Guardian, Clone, Wargod Kai, Any Door, and Pointed Explosion were still missing.
Among them, Clone, Wargod Kai, and Any Door all possessed the Wood Attribute. Cold Moon Guardian and Pointed Explosion did not; in fact, Pointed Explosion didn’t share any of Perry Yates’s Main Attributes at all.
’Oh well,’ she thought. ’I’ll look for Clone, Wargod Kai, and Any Door first.’
With that in mind, Perry Yates placed her hand on a nearby tree, hoping to find some clues through the network of plants spread throughout the area.
Her foreknowledge ability was still on cooldown; otherwise, she could have tried her luck with it.
Her search for clues yielded nothing. She did, however, notice that the insects in the forest were growing more and more frenzied. They were even getting bigger, with some evolving Flame Resistance.
Night fell. This was when the insects were most active. On previous nights, Perry Yates would have already been tucked away in her Safe House, but not this time. She wasn’t sleeping.
’If I can’t find them during the day, I’ll try at night.’
Besides, now that she had recovered most of her cards, she had the courage to venture out after dark.
At night, the entire forest transformed into a playground for insects.
All sorts of insects crawled out from their nests.
Some were familiar to Perry Yates, others she had never seen before.
But regardless of their appearance, they were all, without exception, enormous.
Perry Yates cut down any insects that stood in her way as she continued her search for the cards.
The incident from last night had made Perry Yates realize that she couldn’t just lie low and wait for the game to end like she had before. She had to go on the offensive.
Her Silver Cross granted her absolute concealment from the insects, and that was without even mentioning her Invisibility ability.
Remembering how she had found the Flame Barrier, Perry Yates took to the sky again.
Just then, a pale blue light in the distance caught her eye.
’Cold Moon Guardian.’
Perry Yates immediately flew toward it.
When she arrived, she confirmed it was indeed the Cold Moon Guardian. This time, however, she wasn’t able to retrieve the card as easily as before.
A moment later, she sensed that the Cold Moon Guardian already had an owner. A surge of fury rose within her.
Peering through the barrier created by the Cold Moon Guardian, Perry Yates could make out the scene inside.
Inside the barrier, a blue, cicada-like insect radiating a frigid aura lay motionless on a rock directly beneath the moon.
’Is this insect absorbing the essence of the sun and moon?’
’Whatever it’s doing, I need to get my card back first.’
With that thought, at Perry Yates’s mental command, countless thorny vines erupted from the ground.
The thorny vines coalesced into a thick whip that brandished in the air. The next moment, it lashed violently against the Cold Moon Barrier.
Cold Moon Guardian was a defensive card, while Thorny Rose was offensive. Pitting them against each other was like striking the sturdiest shield with the sharpest spear.
’But if once isn’t enough, I’ll just strike it a few more times.’
After several more lashes, the barrier finally shattered. The Ice Cicada inside was startled awake and, upon seeing Perry Yates, issued a warning cry.
Perry Yates glanced at the fragments of the Cold Moon Barrier dissolving in the air before launching an attack on the Ice Cicada without a moment’s hesitation.
The Ice Cicada’s enormous size severely hampered its movement speed. As a result, it always used the Cold Moon Guardian to block Perry Yates’s attacks.
But an insect was an insect, after all. Even with such great power at its disposal, it didn’t know how to wield it properly.
The special property of the Cold Moon Guardian was that the larger the barrier, and the more Moonlight it was exposed to, the sturdier it became.