"I don't know whether you've had any dealings with Card Adepts. What I'm telling you now is my understanding of combat. Probe with your Perception!"
Protected by the Coiling Thorn, Marco Witt stood with his hair and beard bristling like a god of war. Not a trace remained of his usual middle-aged, drooping-eyed appearance.
"Whether you're a close-combat Card Adept or a ranged one, the heart of combat is the same: attack and defense."
Suddenly, Marco Witt drew his right leg back slightly and lowered himself into a half-crouch, keeping his weight off his front foot.
"This is defense!" Marco Witt bellowed. The energy brambles around him abruptly contracted inward like a spring suddenly tightening, enclosing him in an impenetrable defense. The protective ring of pale golden brambles suddenly blazed with light. Its dazzling golden radiance was impossible to look at directly, as blinding as the sun.
With no need to hold back, Chen Mu spread his Perception freely. He needed to capture every tiny change in Marco Witt's energy brambles. He knew just how rare it was to have someone like Marco Witt let him probe without reservation. For a Card Adept, this was tantamount to revealing all his weaknesses. In dealings between Card Adepts, releasing your Perception in someone else's presence was an extremely rude and dangerous act. It signaled hostility, and if the other Card Adept had even a slightly bad temper, he would attack without hesitation.
Many kinds of energy structures could emit light, and different colors of light corresponded to different energy structures. Apart from specialized cards such as Lighting Cards, few cards were designed specifically to produce light. Generally, the energy structures released by cards were inherently luminous, or rather, they contained energy structures capable of emitting light. Supposedly, however, some experts could even