I saw Pitch a few feet away, half a dozen light arrows sticking out of his back. He was still alive, but barely. The two knights were prowling closer. From this distance I could see how tall the knight captain was, he was at least a head taller than the other one and so broad it was as if his parents stuffed steak down his throat at every meal growing up.

They took a step forward, but the mists began to swirl around them once again. The haunting images became more tangible and flashes of claws and blades rained down on the two soldiers. This was the second card of Neferal the hunting party leader, Phantom strike. Normally he could only do one Phantom Strike at a time, but his Haunting Mist Card synergized with the Phantom Strike Card so that the ghastly images in the mist could use the ability too.

We needed to go. I began to climb to my feet, my body was screaming at me, battered from the constant abuse. I looked to Pitch, and saw him slowly get to his feet.

“Go.”

I didn’t want to, but I saw Tario lock eyes with me and hold his hands a foot apart as a glowing red orb began to form. So I ran. The deep voice from the captain followed me.

“I will find you, no matter how far you run. I will hunt you down for decades if that is what it takes. You can never escape me.”

Turning slightly I could barely make out the forms of the knights as Pitch threw himself onto them. A red bolt, very similar to the silvery white light arrows from before swerved around Pitch and straight towards me. I dove behind a tree, my elbows scraping against the branched foliage and my mouth filling with dirt.

The red bolt went straight through the tree and hit me square in the chest. For a blink I waited for the pain and agony. But just like the unblemished tree I was uninjured.

The captain's last words sent a shiver down my spine. Was that something to track me? I don’t see why else he would use an ability that did no damage. If that was the case I needed to leave. My missing eye was weeping blood and I had my entire body thrown around like a doll, not to mention all the wounds I had already gotten from my travel.

Getting to my feet I continued to run as my tribesmen fought behind me, got slaughtered behind me.

I had accomplished my goal, and I had killed the one responsible for my sister's death. What now? Do I just go back to the FallingBird tribe and get back on the grind for some type of Combat Card?

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That reminded me of what I had stolen from the prince's corpse. I lifted my right sleeve and made my Hand show. There was no third Card. I remembered seeing the Card on the prince’s left arm. It went against everything I knew about how Hands worked but I still lifted my left sleeve to look.

Normally there would just be a Lotto Box, which there was, now empty after filling it, but instead there was another box. It was a rectangle just like you could see for my Hand’s Cards, and it shone with that white light speckled with color.

Did Legendary Cards not count towards a person's Hand? That in itself was legendary.

I focused on the Card without forcing it to leave my Hand, actually I guess it wasn’t technically a part of my hand. Either way I didn’t want it to be out in the open, Cards drew monsters like blood drew sharks, at least that’s what people told me sharks did I’d never seen one. So instead I focused on it like I would a piece of paper.

-Evolve-

-Meta-

-Instead of kills adding to your Lotto Box you can instead add them to this Card. When it has reached a sufficient amount you may upgrade one of your Cards to a higher tier. Note that the higher tiered the Card the more you will need to fill.-

Along with those words in my mind was the picture of a gauge similar to, but much longer than the one for my Lotto Box. With notches on the side going up the length of it. Near the bottom was Uncommon and all the way at the top was Legendary.

There was no way that was real, I had never heard of a Meta class Card. Cards were able to affect one another, but not like that. This wasn’t effecting a Card more as it affected the very rules of how our Hand’s worked.

I could turn the worst Common Card into the greatest weapon. I remembered the second Card of mine.

-Far Away Hands-

-Common-

-You can create up to two ethereal hands that move on your command. They are unable to lift anything exceeding what you yourself cannot lift.-

What would that look like as an Uncommon Card, or Smokey Hands, or Cleanse as a Rare? Was this what the prince had been hunting for by killing the children? I added Far Away Hands to my Hand.

That thought put a damper on my mood. My sister's life had been used to make this card. Dozens of children, maybe hundreds if he had done the same to other tribes. This shouldn’t be my Card alone, this Card shouldn’t even exist.

But the Elders hadn’t even joined the battle, they had refused to fight at all. This Card couldn’t be shared, the gauge was currently empty despite all the things the Prince had killed on his way back to his city. Either he had gotten enough to upgrade a card or it had been lost when the Card transferred to me.

I didn’t know exactly what I should do next, so I would do what I did before the prince came into my life. Grind for more power, but with the possibility of the knight captain tracking me I needed to do it while moving. I couldn’t bring him and his knights back to the tribe so they could slaughter my people.