Magic Card Era: Infinite Deck Enhancement — Chapter 83

Chapter 83: Counterattack Master, Magic Cylinder!

Compared to the Blazing Archer, the Blazing Centaur heavily favored close-quarters combat. Yet, as a Machine Race Magic Card Spirit, it still adhered to the universal truth that firepower equaled justice, even if its effective firing range fell slightly short of a dedicated sniper.

With the Blazing Archer providing covering fire from the rear, the Blazing Centaur’s metallic hooves tore through the terrain, rapidly closing the distance to the Dark Magician Girl. In just a few more seconds, it would breach its optimal attack radius.

Seeing the mechanical beast charge, the Dark Magician Girl simply took a light, graceful step backward. The next moment, her boots left the ground entirely as she floated into the air, her blonde hair trailing in the wind.

“Flight ability?” Yue Di frowned, watching his target ascend. This was a trait she hadn’t displayed during the first stage of the competition, but he was far from defenseless against airborne targets.

“Precise Shot! Limit Burst!”

The sudden verticality made the engagement trickier, but both of Yue Di’s Magic Card Spirits possessed heavy long-range arsenals. A torrential barrage of cannon fire erupted, painting the sky with explosive light and roaring toward the Dark Magician Girl’s coordinates. The sheer concussive force of the artillery squeezed the pervasive mist out of the battlefield, clearing the air through pure destructive pressure.

This was the hallmark of Machine Race Magic Cards: as long as their mana supply held out, they could maintain a relentless, stable output of destruction. However, feeding such an intense barrage rapidly accelerated the Magic Card Master’s own energy consumption. For Yue Di, who was only at the Battle General Realm, the drain was a heavy burden on his reserves.

Despite the cost, Yue Di remained entirely confident. He could easily blast the Dark Magician Girl out of the sky before his mana ran dry. He refused to believe she could simply shrug off a continuous artillery bombardment, nor did he think she could weave through a carpet-bombing attack of this magnitude.

“Magic Cylinder!”

Facing the incoming wall of fire, the Dark Magician Girl’s reaction completely defied expectations. Instead of attempting a desperate dodge, she raised her wand and activated her trap card effect.

Even with her flight capabilities, the density of the incoming firepower severely compressed her evasion space. But she didn’t need to dodge. She didn’t need to take the attack head-on, either.

The next moment, a massive, brightly colored cylinder materialized in the air to swallow the brunt of the explosive payload. Meanwhile, the Dark Magician Girl’s true form instantly vanished, reappearing directly behind the Blazing Archer and the Blazing Centaur.

“Dark Burning Attack!”

Without giving her opponents a single fraction of a second to recalibrate, the relocated Dark Magician Girl swung her wand. A devastating sphere of concentrated dark magic smashed heavily into the exposed backs of both mechanical spirits.

‘This Magic Cylinder effect is incredibly practical,’ Luke thought, raising an eyebrow as he watched the scene unfold. It wasn’t his first time seeing his spirit use the iconic trap card, but multiple combat scenarios had thoroughly proven just how controllable and broken the counter-effect truly was.

“A spatial transfer ability?” Shangguan Pu blinked, a hint of genuine surprise flashing across his eyes as he watched the Dark Magician Girl reposition via the Magic Cylinder. “I didn’t expect her to have this many utility skills packed into her kit.”

“Indeed.” Shangguan Hong nodded slowly. He knew Luke possessed Original Magic Cards, but Chairman Yu had been tight-lipped about their specific mechanics.

Spatial transfer and a Silence Spell were technically classified as auxiliary skills, but the old adage of ‘ironclad support allows for flowing output’ held absolute truth in Magic Card Civilization. Often, a top-tier utility ability was more than enough to elevate a main combat spirit into a completely different tier of threat.

“Let’s keep watching. Yue Di is no pushover, and his two Machine Race cards have their own special mechanics. Relying solely on the Dark Magician Girl won’t be enough for Luke to secure an easy victory here.” As a representative of the Cang Capital General Association, Shangguan Hong knew Yue Di’s combat data inside and out.

While he couldn’t match Shangguan Wan’er, Yue Di firmly held the second-strongest position in the Cang Capital Youth Training team. Even highly talented rookies like Liu Yanran and Su Xueyi were slightly inferior to his mechanical onslaught. Even if Luke was an Original Magic Card Creator, he shouldn’t expect to steamroll someone of Yue Di’s caliber.

On the battlefield, the destructive shockwave of the Dark Burning Attack kicked up a massive cloud of dust, completely swallowing the Blazing Centaur and the Blazing Archer.

“Damn it!” Yue Di cursed, his heart skipping a beat at the sudden teleportation. “Aren’t her skills a bit too bloated?!”

Despite his shock, Yue Di didn’t panic. If he shattered under pressure this easily, he would have lost his second-seat status a long time ago.

As the smoke cleared, the Blazing Centaur and the Blazing Archer reappeared. They had taken the Dark Burning Attack head-on, but both Magic Card Spirits were now enveloped in shimmering plasma shields. The intense light of the barriers flickered erratically under the residual magic damage before finally shattering into glowing fragments a few seconds later.

Thanks to the emergency protection of the plasma shields, both machines retained their combat functionality.

‘They blocked it?’ Luke thought, though he wasn’t entirely surprised. The destructive power of the Dark Burning Attack was astonishing, and it carried a conditional instant-kill property, but that didn’t make it completely unblockable against opponents of the exact same star level. Plus, since he hadn’t spent mana to activate the buffs from Dark Magic Inheritance or the Spellbook, the damage output was still within a survivable threshold.

“Link!” Yue Di roared, wasting zero time as he triggered the special ability of his two cards.

Countless digital interfaces and holographic locking mechanisms unfolded from the two Machine Race spirits. Their metallic frames shifted, broke apart, and rapidly slammed together in a shower of sparks.

The plasma shields had successfully absorbed the Dark Burning Attack, but they were permanently burned out in the process. Without those barriers, the Blazing Archer and the Blazing Centaur had no other defensive measures left to survive a second hit of that magnitude. They had to combine.

Hiss! Clang!

The newly linked mechanical entity let out a metallic roar that sounded almost like a joyful rebirth. The individual forms of the archer and the centaur vanished, leaving behind a heavily armored, fully integrated mechanical centaur bristling with weaponry.

[Blazing Centaur]

Race: Machine

Quality: Six-Star

Level: Perfect

Skills: Fatal Shot, Final Blast, Advanced Plasma Shield, Potential Burst

‘Oh? A fusion mechanic?’ A spark of genuine interest lit up Luke’s eyes. This was the ultimate romance of Machine Magic Cards.

A mechanical combination sequence was practically mandatory in any hot-blooded shounen anime from his past life. Should he forge a similar mecha Magic Card in the future? In a fraction of a second, countless iconic silhouettes flashed through his mind.

Getter, Gundam, Sentai, Gridman, Gurren Lagann… but his racing thoughts finally locked onto a single figure radiating absolute dominance and destructive power.

GaoGaiGar!

When it came to pure, unadulterated hot-blooded hype, very few franchises could ever hope to match the King of Braves. The sheer oppressive security of the Heaven and Hell attack, or the world-shattering impact of the Goldion Hammer, was legendary.

Unfortunately, it was also the final entry in the Brave series. After the movie dropped, the fanbase had been ready to mail razor blades to the studio. Seriously, when was Hakaiou ever getting a proper animated adaptation?!

After mentally cursing the animation producers of his old world, Luke dragged his focus back to reality. The Dark Magician Girl and the newly upgraded Blazing Centaur were already clashing.

Post-fusion, the Blazing Centaur boasted vastly superior mobility and firepower. Its relentless, sweeping artillery fire forced the Dark Magician Girl to deploy her Magic Cylinder for a second time to evade.

This time, however, the Blazing Centaur’s targeting systems were prepared. The machine instantly recalculated her spatial trajectory and locked onto her exit coordinates. Energy gathered in its main cannons with a high-pitched whine.

Final Blast!

A massive beam of concentrated energy tore through the air, aimed directly at the newly revealed Dark Magician Girl. The sheer recoil of the shot was so violent that the heavy mechanical centaur was forced to slide backward, its hooves digging deep trenches into the earth.

“Looks like I win this round,” Yue Di muttered, secretly breathing a sigh of relief as he watched his spirit dominate the field.

At this stage of the clash, even if Luke tried to summon a second Magic Card to intercept, it would be too late., Yue Di highly doubted Luke possessed a second spirit with combat specs comparable to this blonde spellcaster.

His only real concern had been the Magic Cylinder. That skill was a genuine bug in the system, capable of pulling off a first-sight kill if the opponent wasn’t careful. But now that he had witnessed its mechanics, the super-speed calculation processors of his Machine Magic Card had drastically reduced its threat level. also, Yue Di refused to believe such a monstrous evasion skill could be spammed indefinitely. Everything had a cost.

But a split second later, Yue Di’s eyes nearly bulged out of his skull. “How is that even possible?!”

The Dark Magician Girl hadn’t used the Magic Cylinder to teleport away again. She stayed exactly where she was. Yet, the Blazing Centaur’s Final Blast never touched her. Instead, the devastating beam of energy was violently sucked into a massive, floating cylinder that had materialized directly in front of her, vanishing without a trace.

Where the hell did that come from?! Spit my Final Blast back out! Yue Di wanted to stomp the ground in sheer frustration.

He didn’t even need to analyze the situation to know this was yet another one of the Dark Magician Girl’s abilities. How else could a giant magical tube suddenly appear out of thin air?

You are just a single Magic Card! Why is your skill list a mile long?! If you are allowed to be this unreasonable, how are other high-star Magic Cards supposed to compete?!

Yue Di wasn’t the only one losing his mind. The eliminated contestants from the Cang Capital General Association stared at the broadcast monitors with expressions of sheer exasperation and disbelief. Could one spirit truly hold this many distinct abilities?

Up on the main viewing platform, the branch presidents of the various city Magic Card Associations were in a total uproar. They all turned their intense gazes toward Chairman Yu. Their collective silence screamed a single question: Is your boy Luke just using this tournament to run a private skill showcase?

“Go on, back up! What are you all staring at?!” Chairman Yu waved his hands frantically to shoo the crowd away. It wasn’t that he wanted to pass up a prime opportunity to gloat, but this was genuinely his first time seeing the Dark Magician Girl deploy the Magic Cylinder like this.

‘Damn it! Just how many tricks is this kid hiding? Why is this girl a walking armory of skills? Does her mana pool have no bottom?’ Chairman Yu grumbled in his heart while staring at the screen. He had been eagerly waiting to see the new Dragon-type magic card Luke had recently forged. Couldn’t these other contestants push him just a little bit harder?

For a brief, terrifying moment, Chairman Yu felt like he was dealing with the monsters from the Demon Spirit Home all over again.

At the very front of the platform, Shangguan Hong and Vice President Shangguan were equally unsettled by the display.

“A Silence Spell, spatial transfer, and now attack absorption. She has enough varied effects to rival Eight-Star or even Nine-Star Magic Cards. Can a Six-Star spirit really handle this much conceptual weight?” Vice President Shangguan felt his worldview fracturing. Despite sitting at the Sovereign Realm for years, he had never encountered a Six-Star entity with such a bloated, highly functional skill tree.

What made it truly outrageous was that every single ability was incredibly practical in live combat.

“I am afraid it is not just simple attack absorption.” Shangguan Hong’s gaze was far sharper than his peer’s. “If I am not mistaken, that skill has a secondary phase.”

Shangguan Hong locked his eyes onto the screen. If the goal was merely to absorb the damage, there would be no logical reason to summon two cylinders. Only one cylinder had swallowed the Final Blast, while a second, identical cylinder hovered silently nearby.

The moment the words left his mouth, the second Magic Cylinder on the screen shifted. Guided by the Dark Magician Girl’s wand, the massive tube rotated, aiming its dark opening directly at the Blazing Centaur.

The next second, the previously swallowed Final Blast erupted outward. The blinding beam of destructive energy tore across the battlefield, but this time, the target wasn’t the magician. It was the mechanical centaur.

The sudden reversal caught the entire audience completely off guard. Yue Di didn’t even have the time to open his mouth to issue an evasion command. He could only watch in absolute horror as the Blazing Centaur was struck squarely in the chest by its own ultimate attack.

A violent, deafening explosion engulfed the battlefield, blinding the camera feeds with pure white light.

“What the hell! That isn’t absorption, that’s full attack reflection?!”

“Damn! It bounced the Final Blast right back! The output on that reflection is insane!”

“I just want to know if that thing has a damage cap. If it doesn’t, that is genuinely terrifying.”

“It has to have a limit! But even if it does, the sheer utility she’s shown today proves her combat value completely eclipses standard Magic Cards.”

“No wonder Luke looked so bored during the first phase against You Zhiwen. If I had a hand full of trump cards like that, I’d be taking a nap too.”

Back in the Cang Capital General Association viewing area, the rookies stared blankly at the screen. Seeing the Blazing Centaur forced to eat its own ultimate attack left them entirely speechless. Any lingering thoughts that Luke was just an arrogant upstart were completely vaporized.

As the smoke and dust finally settled on the battlefield, the Blazing Centaur reappeared. Its heavy armor was scorched black, and electrical sparks violently erupted from multiple ruptured joints.

It had only survived because its Advanced Plasma Shield had automatically triggered at the very last microsecond, burning itself out to offset a fraction of the reflected Final Blast. Without that emergency protocol, the entire right side of the machine’s chassis would have been vaporized. But survival came at a steep price: the Blazing Centaur had officially exhausted its final defensive measure.

“Dark Burning Attack!”

With the enemy’s shields permanently down, the Dark Magician Girl didn’t hesitate. A final sphere of dark magic slammed into the heavily damaged machine, blowing it apart in a spectacular explosion of scrap metal and mana.

Through the entire grueling engagement, the Dark Magician Girl hadn’t suffered a single scratch. She had burned through a decent chunk of mana, but her posture remained relaxed and entirely at ease.

This effortless victory made many spectators shift uncomfortably in their seats. They couldn’t help but wonder if she was still hiding even more reserved skills. If she was, the other Six-Star Magic Cards in this tournament might as well pack up and go home.

“To simultaneously fuse attack absorption and attack reflection into a single fluid motion… such a mechanic is incredibly rare, even among high-tier Magic Cards.” Vice President Shangguan shook his head in awe. “But what is truly exaggerated is that Luke has only summoned her. From the very beginning until now.”

Since stepping foot into the Mist Relic, Luke had relied on a single Magic Card to virtually clear the entire second phase. Vice President Shangguan hadn’t anticipated this level of dominance at all.

Did the association set the difficulty of the Youth Training Competition too low this year? But a quick glance at the struggling contestants on the other screens confirmed the difficulty was perfectly tuned. The environment wasn’t weak; Luke was just an absolute anomaly.

“Being able to compress this many complex concepts into a single Six-Star frame is what makes him truly remarkable.” Shangguan Hong murmured, unable to tear his eyes away from the blonde spellcaster. Her potential was impossible to ignore.

Even though his earlier predictions had been shattered by Luke’s performance, Shangguan Hong was actually thrilled. ultimately, this monstrous genius belonged to the Cang Capital.

Generally speaking, a Magic Card Spirit’s power and skill variety scaled with its rank. Low-level spirits simply lacked the conceptual capacity to hold multiple abilities. Even in his prime, Shangguan Hong couldn’t have crammed this much utility into a mid-tier card without the internal logic collapsing.

Forging high-level cards was difficult, but perfectly improving a low-level card to its absolute maximum conceptual limit was an entirely different kind of nightmare.

“In terms of pure creation talent, even Wan’er cannot compare to him.” Shangguan Hong admitted softly. It was just one card, but a Master of his realm could read the underlying architecture of the spirit.

More, the Dark Magician Girl was an Original Magic Card. Every single trait, skill, and personality quirk had been birthed from Luke’s own mind. The sheer mental load required to design her from scratch dwarfed the difficulty of crafting established blueprints like the Silver Crown Mandala Queen or the Eternal Crystal Orchid.

While crafting those two was no easy feat, they simply didn’t exist in the same dimension of complexity as an Original creation.

“Perhaps in the final stages of this competition, this kid will give us an even bigger scare,” Shangguan Hong muttered, a rare smile touching his lips.