Fate Hall, Level 40.
Passing through the semi-transparent purple energy barrier, Feng Qi, along with Xiao You and the others, followed the civet cat messenger into the Illustrated War Game zone.
Before them was a scene entirely different from the previous floors.
This floor was extravagantly decorated in gold and jade, and all around the space stood statues of domain creatures from various races.
According to the civet cat's introduction, these statues were all templates used in the creation of illustration card decks.
Looking around, there were many war boards essential for Illustrated War Games, each taking up about 20 square meters.
Each board displayed a randomly generated battlefield.
Snowy mountains, grasslands, hills, lakes, forests, plains... all sorts of terrains could be found on the war boards.
Gamblers currently engaged in Illustrated War matches were seated on either side of each board, facing each other in confrontation.
To their right was a card-drawing platform.
On top, a bloodstone card was inserted; below was the card-drawing zone.
Feng Qi had already familiarized himself with the rules.
As the civet cat messenger explained, there were currently 5,830 illustration cards in the game. Each one was a replication of real or once-existing domain creatures.
Before a match, players needed to pick 888 cards from their collection to form their battle deck.
When the match began, the player's platform would randomly draw cards from the 888-card deck, one card per minute.
If all 888 cards were used and no victor emerged, additional cards would be randomly drawn from the full 5,830-card pool—with possible duplicates.
The 5,830 cards were divided into eight strength tiers, from 1-star to 8-star.
1-star cards had the weakest individual power or talent effects.
8-star cards were the strongest, with extremely powerful talent effects.
In theory, selecting only the most powerful 8-star cards should guarantee victory.
But the Lord of Fate City had clearly considered this. If every player chose only 8-star cards, the game would lose its fun.
So a summoning cost system was designed for the decks.
The rules were simple. Every minute, the player on the battlefield would gain 1 star point, and 1 star point could only summon a 1-star illustration warrior.
To summon an 8-star warrior required 8 star points, or eight minutes of accumulation.
To win, a player had to destroy the crystal statue in front of the opponent, which had 10,000 durability points.
Chasing high-tier summons too early could easily lead to being overwhelmed.
This system balanced the game and made deck-building more strategic, rather than just focusing on card strength.
Following the civet cat forward, Feng Qi arrived before one of the war boards.
At that moment, the board was already in action—two players had started a match.
Seated on the left was a humanoid male dressed in a black robe. His exposed arms were covered in strange tattoos, and his pale skin gave him a haggard, desolate look.
Opposite him was a mental-type domain creature, suspended midair, with eight black tentacles.
The match had just begun.
Three cards floated up from the platform in front of the pale man and hovered before him.
He didn't make a move and chose to wait.
His opponent did the same, biding its time.
One card every minute—soon, each of them had eight cards floating in front of them.
The game platform showed a reserve of 20 star points—12 initial points and 8 from the 8 minutes that had passed.
The tentacled creature acted first.
With a swipe of its tentacle, a card shattered mid-air.
With a loud boom, a one-eyed giant wielding a massive spiked club materialized on the board, crushing rows of trees beneath its feet.
Roar!
The spiked club swung down, and the giant let out a deafening roar.
Though the battlefield was miniature, everything looked terrifyingly real.
The tentacled lifeform quickly shattered four more cards, each turning into streaks of light entering the board.
One-Eyed Giant (5-star), Shadow Spider (6-star), Demon Soul (3-star), and Undead Bone Soldier (1-star)—these troops divided into three groups and advanced toward the pale man's crystal statue.
As they crossed the midpoint of the board, the pale man finally acted.
He lifted a hand, and one card disappeared.
But it wasn't a warrior card—it was a disaster card.
Disaster cards were designed by the Lord of Fate City based on natural calamities from the domain world. There were extreme froststorms, blazing hellfire, dark tides, and more.
Each deck could include up to 10 disaster cards, with each one requiring 10 star points to activate.
Under Feng Qi's curious gaze, a sea of flames erupted within the pale man's territory. The raging fire devoured the advancing units, reducing them to ash.
When the flames faded, the board bore scorched marks. Of the summoned warriors, only the Undead Bone Soldier on the upper path had survived and continued its advance.
The sudden change caused the tentacled creature to shudder.
Seizing the momentum, the pale man made a bold move—he used all his remaining star points in one go. Eight cards shattered, turning into streaks of light as new units entered the battlefield.
These cards weren't high-star units, but the tentacled lifeform had few star points left to counter them.
The battle flared up on the upper path—two 2-star soldiers quickly overwhelmed the lone Undead Bone Soldier, pushing the front line forward rapidly.
That wave of assault shaved off more than 1,200 durability from the crystal statue in front of the tentacled creature—only then was the attack finally repelled.
While watching the battle, Feng Qi turned to look at Lei Ting.
At the moment, Lei Ting was fully focused on the war chessboard, intently studying the match through their confrontation.
Back on the way here, Feng Qi had already talked it over with Lei Ting.
He planned to give him 10 million bloodstones to participate in the Illustrated War game, but Lei Ting only understood the rules and had zero real combat experience.
The best way to learn now was through observation.
Jumping straight into battle clearly wasn't a wise move. Growth always came with tuition.
And here, even the lowest-stakes match started at 1 million per round. That was a steep tuition fee.
Just think—1 million bloodstones in Star City would be enough to train an elite squad of soldiers with top-tier resources.
But in this regard, Feng Qi had faith in Lei Ting.
While Lei Ting's peak combat strength might not count for much in a city like Fate City full of powerful figures…
In terms of battlefield command, Lei Ting had truly outstanding talent. He might be able to put that talent to good use here and walk away with big winnings.
After thinking for a moment, Feng Qi turned his attention back to the war chessboard.
As time passed, the match gradually became more and more intense.
After suffering a minor loss in the early phase, the tentacled creature stopped launching direct attacks. Instead, it left its illustrated warriors in its own territory, feeding them by hunting the wild monsters that randomly appeared in the scenario.
Illustrated warriors could level up by hunting. That was one of the standout features of the Illustrated War game.
At this point, the strongest card in the tentacled creature's hand was a six-star bone dragon, which had already reached level 5. Its attributes had greatly improved. Although the durability of the crystal in front of it was down to just over 2,000, the tide had turned. It now held a small advantage. At least, for now, the pale man didn't dare recklessly launch attacks.
Even though the pale man had summoned a seven-star warrior on his side of the board, a level 1 seven-star warrior still couldn't compare to a level 5 six-star bone dragon.
What followed was a strategic face-off between both sides.
Destroying each other's defensive setups, stealing wild monsters that spawned on the opponent's board, ambushing and guarding against each other's catastrophe cards…
The match grew incredibly intense. Every move was calculated.
The most exciting play came when the pale man used a Wood Spirit Beast to trigger "Flourishing Growth," then had his seven-star warrior, Flame Fiend, unleash a Flame Burst, instantly igniting the plants.
The fire spread rapidly with the growth of the vegetation, and in a short time burned nearly half of the tentacled creature's illustrated warriors to ashes.
The visuals were stunning.
Just from that move, the seven-star Flame Fiend leveled up to level 5, seizing a major combat advantage.
The advantage that followed went through several ups and downs. The pale man's Flame Fiend was ambushed repeatedly by the tentacled creature's summoned Invisible Assassins and was ultimately wiped out, putting him on the back foot. The durability of his life crystal was chipped away by over 1,000 points under sneak attacks from the Invisible Assassins.
Fortunately, the pale man laid another trap and successfully turned the tables with a counter-kill.
As the battle neared its end, the pale man's face broke into a smile—then came the full-on charge.
His illustrated warriors surged across the centerline in force, splitting into three groups and dismantling all of the tentacled creature's defensive structures, then smashing the life crystal in front of it in one go.
As the life crystal shattered, the match came to an end.
On the board, the pale man's illustrated warriors roared and cheered.
At that moment, both players' bloodstone cards, slotted into the betting platform before them, began to flash with light. The digital codes on them started ticking upward.
This match had no upper betting limit. Beyond the guaranteed 1 million bloodstones, each point of durability on the life crystal was calculated at 1,000 bloodstones.
With over 4,000 durability remaining, the pale man not only won 1 million bloodstones but also gained over 4 million in bonus rewards.
On the flip side, the tentacled creature lost more than 5 million in defeat penalties.
Even though Feng Qi wasn't a participant, he still found it freakin' exhilarating.
If each durability point were worth 10,000 bloodstones instead, then breaking 10 million in a single match would be a breeze.
"Again!"
The tentacled creature didn't seem ready to accept defeat. Its eyeball-covered head stared at the pale man and spoke.
"As you wish."
The pale man didn't refuse. He immediately pressed the match start button.
The tentacled creature also hit start, and in an instant, card selection panels appeared in front of both of them, and they began building new decks.
Feng Qi noticed that there was also a "Fixed Deck" option on the panel.
Clearly, this feature was designed to speed up the deck-building process. After all, hand-picking 888 cards for every match was exhausting.
Once you set a pre-built deck and saved it in your bloodstone card, you could just select it during a match and skip the entire manual selection.
Feng Qi watched as the pale man tapped the Fixed Deck button, then chose one of eight already-prepared decks and confirmed his choice.
Immediately, the selected golden deck lined up in the air and landed in sequence on the betting platform before the pale man.
Feng Qi turned his gaze to the tentacled creature.
Its previous loss seemed to make it hesitant. It didn't choose a fixed deck and instead started piecing together a brand new card set.
Not wanting to wait around, Feng Qi decided to move on and watch the next match.
As he moved through the crowd, Feng Qi noticed that aside from the gamblers, there were also lots of service staff here.
They didn't participate in the matches, but made money by serving the gamblers.
For example, there were some energy lifeforms wandering around, selling energy drinks everywhere in exchange for tips from the gamblers.
This wasn't the first time Feng Qi had noticed such service races blending into the gambling crowd.
Like the black-furred apes from two floors up—as middlemen, they were also part of a service class. They didn't gamble themselves but made profits in Fate City off the activity of others.
Their presence didn't harm Fate City in the slightest—in fact, it made the city's operations more stable.
This sparked an idea in Feng Qi's mind.
Could the human race also provide services in Fate City to earn the various resources needed for development?
The more he thought about it, the more feasible it seemed.
Humans lacked deep foundations and lagged far behind intelligent domain creatures.
But Fate City didn't prioritize strength. Instead, it rewarded those who could generate profits through non-violent means.
Like learning the trade market rules from the black-furred ape and opening sales channels through network building—earning the middleman's share.
Even a 1% cut each time could bring in significant returns.
And if luck was on their side and they sold something worth over ten million bloodstones, it'd be an astronomical windfall for the human race.
But Feng Qi also knew being a middleman wasn't easy.
The human race needed a lot of knowledge to fill in their gaps in understanding about the domain world. Only with enough knowledge could they create value in Fate City.
If they couldn't even assess an item's worth, flipping goods for profit would be impossible.
At this moment, a seed had already been planted in Feng Qi's heart.
If other races could rise through Fate City, then surely, with humanity's learning ability, they could also generate income using this platform.
Even the Blood Soul Clan chose to source valuable goods through Fate City. What was there to fear?
More importantly, humans could also trade for development-enhancing goods through the market.
For the human race, Fate City was practically a shortcut to rapid development.
Compared to Shadow City, there were no transaction fees here, and they were protected by rules set by Fate City's Lord.
Still, before planning the human race's settlement in Fate City, Feng Qi believed he needed to gather as much intel on the city as possible—then pass it back to Star City.
If conditions allowed, he could even try training a few promising gamblers.
As the tanuki envoy once described, by mastering techniques, they could generate stable small profits.
Although relying on gamblers might not yield steady returns,
Providing services was far more reliable—and potentially even more profitable.
Snapping back to reality, Feng Qi stopped overthinking it.
He could plan slowly. What mattered now was gathering more intel to prepare for humanity's entry into Fate City.
Walking and stopping as he went, all he saw were various ongoing matches—he never found the game he saw at the start.
Just then, the tanuki envoy walking ahead suddenly turned back to him and said:
"If you want to learn, you don't have to just watch. You can go to the training tables—each match only costs fifty thousand. It's way more efficient than just observing."
"There's a training table?"
"Of course. Mastering the Illustrated War Game isn't easy. These practice boards are made for beginners—to let them experience the game at the lowest cost."
"Take us there."
After the explanation, Feng Qi immediately agreed to try the training tables.
Since he'd already decided to invest ten million for Lei Ting to compete in the game, he wasn't going to pinch pennies over a fifty thousand fee.
They followed the tanuki envoy to the service platform on the 40th floor.
He spent one thousand bloodstones to register a bloodstone card for Lei Ting.
Then they entered the training zone on the 40th floor.
There were ten war game boards in total. All of them were occupied by gamblers currently practicing their tactics.
Left with no choice, Feng Qi and Lei Ting had to wait.
About half an hour later, two players finished their match and left. Feng Qi and Lei Ting immediately took their places.
Seeing Lei Ting pull out his bloodstone card, Feng Qi also took his and inserted it into the card slot on the draw platform.
Beep!
The war game board activated.
A virtual touch panel appeared in front of Feng Qi, showing the "Start" button.
After they both pressed start at the same time, the screen went blurry. Then, golden Illustrated Warrior cards appeared on the interface.
They had two hours to select their decks. Feng Qi immediately began reviewing the card descriptions.
The first card showed a creature made of stacked rocks—it looked just like a miniature mountain.
As he stared at the card, detailed info surfaced:
Endstone Golem (Cost: Six Stars)
HP: 1500
Attack: 320, Defense: 520, Movement Speed: Level 3
Racial Talent Abilities:
Earth Shield (Active): Controls the power of the earth to create a horizontal shield spanning 82 grid spaces, blocking damage until the shield breaks. While active, movement speed is reduced by 1000% (Shield HP: 3000)
Cooldown: 897 seconds
Earth Toss (Active): Controls the power of the earth to hurl a projectile at an enemy within 200 grid spaces, dealing 400 AoE damage, and 500 to the center.
Cooldown: 1500 seconds
Stone Body (Passive): Grants 20% physical damage reduction.
Level-Up Bonus: Each level grants 20% attribute increase, max level 10.
This was an extremely strong defensive card. Feng Qi instantly added it to his preset deck.
As he continued browsing, he quickly found another powerful card:
Deceit Phantom (Cost: Six Stars)
HP: 700
Attack: 100, Defense: 100, Movement Speed: Level 8
Racial Talent Abilities:
Shadow of Deceit: Creates ten identical attribute clones. If a clone kills a target, it extracts the target's attributes and transfers them to the original, drastically boosting the Deceit Phantom's strength.
Cooldown: (One-time use only)
Level-Up Bonus: Each level grants 20% attribute increase, max level 10.
You could tell this was a growth-type card.
Although it was also a six-star card, its overall combat strength was far inferior to the six-star Endstone Statue. But if managed well, this card could even surpass an eight-star card in power.
Without hesitation, Feng Qi dragged it into the preset deck list.
As he continued flipping through, Feng Qi began picking out some low-cost illustrated warrior cards.
Low-cost illustrated cards were much weaker in attributes compared to the high-cost ones, but among them were some with impressive talents and unique capabilities.
Like the three-star Burrowing Toad.
Its innate ability was to quickly dig underground tunnels and set traps.
Its combat ability was weak, but in terms of utility, it far outclassed many four-star cards.
This was one of the fun aspects of the illustrated war game—winning through creative card combinations and strategic synergy.
Because of attribute countering, racial suppressions, and other mechanics, there was no absolutely perfect deck in the game. Only decks that best suited your personal strategy.
While scrolling, Feng Qi suddenly spotted a familiar card.
Long flowing silver hair drifting behind, a robe covered in mysterious runes, a faint melancholy between the brows, hard to tell whether it was male or female. A silver-white longbow in hand, and beside the figure crouched a massive black mechanical beast.
Silver Serpent Warspawn (Cost: Five-Star)
Attack: 400, Defense: 100, Movement Speed: Level 6
Durability: 500 points
Racial Abilities:
Mechanical Beast (Passive): After the Silver Serpent Warspawn is summoned, a mechanical beast will automatically be created to follow its movements. The mechanical beast can shift forms to assist in defense, offense, and other functions.
Mechanical Recovery: When beside the Warspawn, the mechanical beast restores 1% health per second.
Precision Shot (Active): Fires a precision shot at a target within 300 grid range, dealing 380 damage.
Cooldown: 200 seconds
...
Seeing this familiar race card, Feng Qi couldn't help exclaiming, "Well damn."
The tanuki emissary had said that many extinct races could be found within the illustrated deck system, and he'd really just found one.
Feng Qi had already learned the details of the Silver Serpent Empire's collapse from ancient murals.
He hadn't expected to encounter it again in the form of a card.
But thinking carefully, the Silver Serpent race wasn't truly extinct—it had simply returned in a different form within the domain world.
Though the overall combat power of the Silver Moon Clan now fell far short of the Silver Serpent Empire at its peak, in essence, they were still its successors.
The card's description of Silver Serpent racial talents hit the nail on the head.
The Silver Serpent race's abilities were mainly split into two branches: cultivation-based and engineering-based.
Their strongest cultivation-based warriors were archers.
As for engineering, it consisted of various mechanical constructs and tools—mechanical beasts being one of the core strengths.
Feng Qi's first encounter with Yin Ling had been through her use of a mechanical puppet.
That alone proved the tanuki emissary hadn't exaggerated when describing the Fate City Lord's efforts in creating these cards.
That lord really did go around studying every race encountered on his travels and noted their racial talents down one by one.
Feng Qi couldn't imagine just how bored someone had to be to actually go that far.
He couldn't help but picture the Fate City Lord sneakily spying from the shadows, peeking out to watch the development of the Silver Serpent race.
Truly, the domain world was full of strange things—and even stranger people.
Take the Shadow City Lord, for instance. Constantly obsessed with hoarding wealth. Despite having access to vast resources that could improve his strength, he simply never used them.
Yeah, he just liked collecting for fun.
If Old Mist had that kind of wealth, his power would've taken off ages ago.
With Old Mist's personality, he'd use up every bit of resource he could get his hands on to enhance both himself and his people. That's the only way resources had real value.
So, to Feng Qi, the Shadow City Lord who kept his stash just to admire it was already bizarre enough—he hadn't expected the Fate City Lord to be even more over-the-top.
A legitimate heir of a top-tier race, who ended up squandering his clan's future for fun, and even poured everything into building an open platform that didn't generate any profit.
Feng Qi could only sigh—being born into a powerful clan really did let you be as reckless as you wanted.
If it were humanity, they wouldn't even have the strength or resources to act this spoiled even if they wanted to.
Now that he thought about it, perhaps the Blood Soul Clan's pay-to-use cultivation platforms had been inspired by Fate City. Even the Shadow City Lord might have been influenced by Fate City when he built Shadow City.
Whether that was the truth, Feng Qi had no way of knowing.
But one thing was clear—Fate City's model had inspired many races in building their future... and even helped them profit.
Right now, Feng Qi was growing more and more curious about the Fate City Lord.
Unfortunately, that person had long disappeared. No one even knew whether they were alive or dead.
Pulling his thoughts back, Feng Qi continued flipping through the deck.
With over 5,000 illustrated cards, it was obviously impossible to review each one carefully in just two hours. So, he just browsed while skimming, dragging any card that seemed strong straight into the preset deck.
The goal here was to get familiar with the process. There was no way he'd fully memorize all the cards or get used to the mechanics in just one try.
In the span of an hour, Feng Qi had only checked around 400 cards.
With just one hour left, he resorted to random selection—if the card illustration looked cool, he added it.
In the final 10 minutes, Feng Qi spotted another familiar card.
But its name was completely new.
Dark Mist Overlord (Cost: Seven-Star)
Attack: 1400, Defense: 400, Movement Speed: Level 8
Durability: 1200 points
Racial Abilities:
Body of Mist (Active): Turns its body into mist, covering a 230 grid radius. Gains a 300% movement speed boost. All enemies within the mist take 50 damage per second. If a flesh-type unit dies in the mist, the Overlord recovers 300 health and gains a stat boost.
Cooldown: None
Mist Corruption (Active): Corrodes a target's body to take control. Upon successful possession, gains control of the unit.
Cooldown: 800 seconds
Dark Sovereign (Passive): All damage taken, except to the core blood nucleus, is reduced by 20%.
The Dark Sovereign, whether in terms of innate ability or racial traits, was strikingly similar to the Mist Tribe.
If this card's depiction of the Dark Sovereign had no connection to Old Mist's Mist Tribe, Feng Qi would never believe it.
But even Old Mist had never shared anything about this with him.
Feng Qi guessed this might be some ancient predecessor race of the Mist Tribe—perhaps the Mist Tribe had branched off from them.
Which would mean that Old Mist's ancestor, the one digging mines underground, actually had powerful blood running through his veins. It was just that this power had gradually degenerated over time for some reason.
Only after acquiring a Miracle and gaining ample resources to support its growth did the hidden power in his bloodline begin to awaken again.
Whatever the truth was, Feng Qi believed there was definitely a deep connection between the Dark Sovereign and the Mist Tribe.
Just like how the Silvermoon Clan was a branch that split off from the Silver Serpent Empire.
In essence, both were new racial factions born from the fragmentation of a major power.
What he was curious about now was whether the Darkmist Clan still existed.
If they did, could the Mist Tribe form an alliance with them?
And as chief of the Mist Tribe, what would Old Mist call the Darkmist leader? What kind of seniority would that make him?
Caught in a mess of wild thoughts, Feng Qi glanced at the countdown. 50 seconds remained.
Without hesitation, he started frantically tapping on the virtual screen until his pre-set group of 888 illustrated cards was filled.
At the same time, the countdown hit zero.
The selected cards floated down one by one onto the gaming platform, where they began shuffling into a random sequence.
Meanwhile, the battlefield on the war board started changing randomly.
After a short wait, Feng Qi's battlefield turned into a snowy mountain, with snowflakes drifting across the sky.
Lei Ting's battlefield, on the other hand, became a vast green plain, full of lush vegetation and chirping birds.
The duel began. From the deck, three cards were drawn at random and hovered in front of Feng Qi and Lei Ting.
But they could only see the golden backs of each other's cards.
Feng Qi's three cards were:
Elemental Soul (5-star),
Mountain-Splitting Wild Bull (4-star),
Iron-Handed Warrior (1-star).
After a brief pause, he didn't make a move. Instead, he copied the Pale Man's strategy and began saving up consumption stars.
The cap for saved consumption stars was 30.
Including the 12 starting stars, he'd need 18 minutes to reach full charge.
But while Feng Qi waited, Lei Ting made a move in the fourth minute.
One by one, he tapped his three cards, and beams of light shot into the battlefield.
Out came a black-winged giant serpent, a humanoid warrior carrying a giant engineering cannon, and a floating ball of elemental life.
They immediately headed toward the freshly spawned wild monsters.
Realizing Lei Ting was leveling up his illustrated warriors, Feng Qi quickly followed suit, summoning all three cards and leading with the Elemental Soul. His team advanced from the life statue's starting point toward the same wild monsters.
At minute five, the fifth card appeared.
It turned out to be a Calamity card. The image showed a black mist-covered swamp.
Dead Zone of Life (Calamity Card: 10-star cost)
Calamity Effect: Designate a 3,500-grid region on the battlefield. All wild monsters within this area die instantly. The region enters a cursed death state for 20 minutes.
Looking at Lei Ting operating his warriors for upgrades, Feng Qi grinned.
Without hesitation, he activated the Dead Zone of Life and pointed toward Lei Ting's battlefield.
Black mist spread across the targeted area. Green plants withered. Death blanketed one-third of Lei Ting's territory. For the next 20 minutes, no wild monsters would respawn there—cutting off Lei Ting's upgrade route.
Seizing the opportunity, Feng Qi mentally controlled his warriors to aggressively farm wild monsters.
"If I can't level, then you're not leveling either."
Realizing that operating under a Calamity Card's effects would only widen his disadvantage, Lei Ting quickly shifted tactics and sent his warriors down the middle lane to launch an attack.
Feng Qi ignored it.
Lei Ting's summoned warriors were all low-star units. Once they entered Feng Qi's core region, they'd be within range of the Life Statue's attacks. Three low-star warriors had no chance of tearing it down.
But to Feng Qi's surprise, Lei Ting didn't charge into the core area.
Instead, he veered off and directed his warriors to farm the wild monsters in Feng Qi's territory.
"If I can't farm mine, I'll just farm yours."
Watching Lei Ting's sly grin, Feng Qi immediately summoned two 3-star warriors to intercept him.
Lei Ting responded by summoning three more warriors from the floating cards in front of him.
Two 4-star, one 5-star.
Because Feng Qi had used a 10-star Calamity card, the overall quality of his warriors was now much lower than Lei Ting's.
Faced with Lei Ting's full push, Feng Qi realized he'd lose in a direct fight. He pulled all his warriors back into the core area.
That way, they'd be covered by the Life Statue's attacks and wouldn't get wiped out.
But then something unexpected happened.
One of Lei Ting's 3-star warriors suddenly threw a hook right before entering the core zone. It yanked one of Feng Qi's 3-star units out of the protected area, where it was immediately focused and destroyed.
Realizing Lei Ting had a ranged grabbing warrior, Feng Qi quickly retreated his remaining units deeper into the core.
Seeing Feng Qi retreat, Lei Ting calmly directed his warriors to farm the wild monsters nearby.
Watching this play out, Feng Qi felt completely frustrated.
He had thought sealing off Lei Ting's wild monster area with a Calamity card would prevent him from upgrading his army.
He hadn't expected Lei Ting to take such a roundabout approach—farming monsters directly within his own territory.
Spending 10 stars on a Calamity card had left Feng Qi unable to field a deck that could match Lei Ting's.
With no other option, he could only retreat and hunker down within the core area, waiting for an opportunity.
That chance came six minutes later, when a new 8-star card appeared in his hand.
Without hesitation, he tapped the card.
The moment it shattered, a ghostly green figure wreathed in black chains appeared at the starting zone.
With this 8-star illustrated warrior leading the charge, Feng Qi no longer feared Lei Ting and immediately launched a counterattack.
The summoned 8-star warrior was called Nether Soul, whose biggest advantage lay in its movement speed—reaching Level 14.
Facing its assault, Lei Ting didn't hesitate and chose to retreat.
But Nether Soul was incredibly fast. It quickly caught up and struck at the slowest of Lei Ting's warriors.
When Lei Ting tried to surround and gang up on the Nether Soul, Feng Qi pulled it back.
Then, when Lei Ting turned to continue fleeing, Feng Qi once again commanded the Nether Soul to chase.
Lei Ting remained calm and made a clean decision—abandoning three illustrated warriors, letting Feng Qi's Nether Soul take them out, while pulling his main forces back across the midline.
At this point, the rest of Feng Qi's warriors caught up, joined the fight, helped Nether Soul kill the three enemies, and then chased across the midline.
Seeing this, a sly grin crept onto Lei Ting's face.
"Youngsters… still too green."
As he spoke, he tapped a Calamity card hovering in front of him.
It was called Rift Earth—its function was to trigger a massive earthquake that split a region apart.
As Lei Ting pointed toward the midline, the central area began to shake violently, and a deep canyon cracked open, splitting the two territories. The effect would last 20 minutes.
By then, it was already too late for Feng Qi to pull his warriors back.
Realizing his illustrated warriors were now trapped on Lei Ting's side of the field, Feng Qi immediately felt things had taken a terrible turn.
Lei Ting could keep summoning new warriors into the battle, but Feng Qi's newly summoned warriors would be stuck, unable to cross the rift.
Trapped in a deadlock, Feng Qi thought he was finished.
But three minutes later, a new card gave him hope.
It was a 3-star illustrated card depicting a flying domain creature capable of carrying others.
With this unit, he could airlift his warriors stranded on the enemy side back to safety. Better yet, this creature had incredibly high movement speed.
The match turned into a fierce back-and-forth between Feng Qi and Lei Ting.
Every new card could flip the situation.
Each card had unique functions. Sometimes a single card's effect could reshape the battlefield entirely.
That was the true charm of Illustrated War Game.
The tide of battle shifted constantly. No one could predict the outcome until the very end.
With 888 cards per set, only veteran illustrated war gamblers could time their plays perfectly.
In this match, Feng Qi finally hit his stride.
His brain felt like it was on fire from all the thinking. As the number of deployed illustrated warriors increased, he had to memorize every warrior's ability and traits.
It demanded a high level of mastery.
If early-game success relied on economy and setup, then the late game was all about strategic racial combinations and total battlefield control.
On the war board, only terrain altered by specific Calamity cards could be restored. Other destroyed zones remained ruined.
You could even command illustrated warriors to mine in random environments and have engineer units build defense structures.
There were so many viable growth paths.
Engineer-heavy construction builds, swarm tactics focused on high-reproduction domain creatures, or god-slaying styles centered on high-star cards—there was a playstyle for everyone.
But all paths shared one goal: destroy the opponent's life crystal and claim victory.
This match, Feng Qi had a rough start.
But a few key illustrated cards helped him recover, and at one point he even took the lead—pushing hard enough to drop Lei Ting's life statue durability to 7,300 points.
Sadly, he couldn't seal the win.
Lei Ting's deck was centered around low-star cards. Several of them had reached Level 10, maxed out, with massively boosted combat power.
It was that low-star swarm that eventually overwhelmed Feng Qi and shattered his life statue.
As the life crystal burst into starlight, the battle ended.
A data panel floated into view, displaying the results of the match.
Things like total kills, number of constructed buildings, total domain creature star level summoned, and best-performing unit.
These stats made it easier to analyze mistakes and understand the match.
This match gave Feng Qi a much clearer understanding of Illustrated War Game.
But to improve quickly, he still needed to study more, watch more, and most importantly—memorize all card effects.
Only then could he recognize enemy cards at a glance, understand what abilities they had, and avoid getting caught off guard.
After this match ended, a new idea surfaced in Feng Qi's mind.
Could they cultivate a batch of human geniuses to profit through Illustrated War Game battles here?