Chapter 3161: "Romantic" Wedding Season (45)

"Well done, Venom!" Almost everyone cheered.

Skill acquisition of Mecha was inherent to Stark himself; his inability to act meant he also couldn't buy Mecha, completely disrupting the early game rhythm.

Shiller, too, began to smile, for there was nothing more saddening in this world than having money one couldn't spend.

Next was Shiller's turn. The three cards in his hand were mostly mechanic monsters with not very high base stats; they couldn't kill anyone, so there was no point in trying to bluff. However, he had to think carefully about who to target with the umbrella.

He could strike at someone outside of the plan, and those not protected by the plan were vulnerable, with low enough health to be killed.

But now that he had formed an alliance with Peter outside of the plan, Shiller decided to attack Nick. Jack's card was rather frightening, and if he didn't kill him off, what would happen if that guy went after the big treasures protected by the plan?

Shiller gave Moon Knight an umbrella.

That strike didn't kill Jack, leaving him with a sliver of health, but Shiller still had a Character Card to attack with, and Jack was sporting a defense break. Three cards took turns with basic attacks, and Jack was carried off the field.

After Jack left, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. They had thought Shiller would keep Jack around to have him attack Stark.

But then, they reconsidered – wasn't it strange for Shiller not to be greedy? In theory, the best move would have been to pull Nick into the alliance as well, allowing Jack to serve as a sword against the other characters. Yet Shiller had dispatched Jack so cleanly. Was this some sort of trick?

Indeed, no sooner had Jack left than Nick, without waiting for his turn, drew a card, "Moon God Khonsu."

It was over; there was a deathrattle!

A deathrattle meant that when the card perished, it would trigger certain effects. The group had just been focused on attack power and health and hadn't paid close attention to Moon Knight's skill description.

After Moon God Khonsu entered the field, Doctor Strange immediately conjured a moon above the card table with magic.

The onlookers turned their attention to Moon God Khonsu's skill on the card.

Moon God Khonsu: At the start of the turn, draw a moon phase (Full Moon, Half Moon, New Moon, Lunar Eclipse), and once the moon phase ends, that moon phase card is destroyed.

Full Moon: All cards with deathrattle on the field gain 50% in Attack Power and Health.

Half Moon: All cards with deathrattle effect on the field gain one-time damage immunity.

New Moon: All cards with deathrattle effect on the field gain the skill Suicide, capable of mutual destruction with any card on the field not immune to negative statuses.

Lunar Eclipse: An indescribable entity shall arrive.

Everyone seeing the skill description felt overwhelmed; the nuisance of the moon phases was that after each ended, the card would be destroyed. This meant they wouldn't appear in the moon phase draw pile next time. It wasn't a matter of good luck or bad; the four effects had to be cycled through.

The most troublesome was the last: typically, such vague descriptions implied the summoning of difficult-to-handle events, signifying an event was bound to accompany the appearance of this card.

However, starting from the second turn, normal events would begin to happen. If Nick was particularly unlucky and drew Lunar Eclipse on the second turn, they'd have to contend with two events at once.

And Nick's luck was exceptionally bad; he didn't have to wait for the next turn, drawing Lunar Eclipse immediately in this turn.

"Helada arrives," said Dream Power Doctor Strange.

A card flew to the event space on the map, and the crowd immediately saw that this Helada wasn't any sort of Hydra, but rather the "Thousand-faced Moon" from the Cthulhu Mythos, appearing as a gray mire floating with countless weeping skulls.

Helada arrives: The strange Outer God is hunting for heads, indifferent to whether they belong to humans or birds, mammals, or lizards – all are welcome.

Each turn, it inflicts damage equal to 50% of the attacker's Attack Power participating in the event and may add the "Hallucination" effect.

Characters who perish during this event will have their heads hunted; they will not return to the discard pile nor be revived in any form. Helada will summon this head card each turn, inheriting 50% of the original character's attributes, attacking twice each turn.

If the event is not resolved within 10 turns, it will duplicate the heads of all characters not participating in the event and descend upon the center of the field; all head characters will inherit 50% of the original attributes and randomly attack twice each turn.

The sight of this event made everyone's expression grave.

Helada's attack power wasn't high, making it difficult to kill in a single strike, but it would grow stronger as it fought. If it wasn't dealt with within ten turns, and all characters' heads were summoned, attacking twice per turn, no card on the field would survive.

The key point was that they were superheroes, and if they were wiped out in the first round of events, that would be truly humiliating.

"What do we do?" Stark asked, glaring at Nick and saying, "Look at the mess you've made!"

Nick was stunned too. He hadn't expected his luck to be this good, to draw a major event in the first round. He had thought it would take at least two or three rounds.

Steve stood up, leaning his hands on the table and said, "We probably need to stop the infighting and think about how to deal with this event."

"We can't send someone over there, our health is too low right now," Wanda also stood up and said, "If he takes our heads, it will only become harder to fight later on. Right now we can only drag it out, and when our health has increased and we are fully prepared, then we make our move."

"But then it will be too late. Even if this guy has low health, he still has over 500 health points. Even if we all have attack powers of more than ten later, we will still need to fight for several rounds. We don't have enough turns," Peter said.

Shiller raised a key issue as he looked towards Dream Power Doctor Strange and asked, "Is there a limit to the number of heads he can reproduce?"

"If the event isn't resolved, the number of heads he can copy is unlimited, but while he is alive, only 4 are allowed."

Shiller hadn't seen all the event cards, but knowing there was a limit meant Jarvis's balancing was quite good; he had indeed considered the possibility of someone having really bad luck.

If it were a matter of good luck, this boss would be fought later, but Nick's luck clearly was not on his side. Still, even so, it wasn't impossible to fight in the early stages.

Shiller spoke, "Let Wanda's summoned Scarlet power and Venom's heirs go fight it. At the start of the next round, no one touch those two; let them summon, and then let the copies get killed to occupy the head spots. After that, the character cards can enter."

Steve's eyes lit up, indeed this could work. The summonings' attributes were basically inferior to regular characters, especially summonings that did not come at a cost, such as Wanda's Scarlet power, Venom's heirs, and the like. If Hydra takes the heads of these things, and the spots were filled, then it wouldn't matter if more characters died.

"But do these things have heads?" asked Strange.

Everyone looked towards Dream Power Doctor Strange, who thought for a moment and then nodded.

Although it was not specifically marked in the skill description, he was the host now. If he said it worked, then it worked.

So Nick ended his last turn of the round, and after it began, the others did not act rashly or attack each other. Instead, they prepared to line up for the event.

At this moment, Dream Power Doctor Strange started drawing normal events, and everyone prayed for a weakness event to come up.

As it happened, quite coincidentally, Dream Power Doctor Strange drew a Hydra invasion, now Helada would face Helada.

Everyone's faces drained at the sight of the Hydra invasion event; it was far from weak, on the contrary, it was very troublesome.

Other events would at most mean fighting one boss, but for this one, if you want to fight Red Skull, you have to defeat the Hydra minions first. A war of attrition would be exhaustive.

Nick seemed to feel responsible for his poor luck and slapped the table saying, "I'll fight Hydra with Steve, you guys deal with Helada."

Upon his declaration, the others breathed a sigh of relief. Currently, the most versatile players were those two. Nick was obviously playing a Deathrattle strategy, and Steve's character card stats were very high, especially The Hulk, including his area damage.

If they resolved to avoid it, the others would find it very difficult to face these two events. They were thankful Nick still had a shred of conscience.

Shiller sneered in his heart. Nick wasn't being conscientious; he knew he had made this mess himself. If he didn't show some attitude, the others would surely turn against him first as he didn't have an unlimited supply of Agents.

Thus, everyone started doing their part, with Nick and Steve taking on the Hydra invasion event, while Wanda and Eddie's summonings fought Helada.

Shiller was still quite focused on the Hydra invasion event, primarily because the characters crucial to his grand scheme were involved. If by chance they were killed, it would mean a loss of cards for him. He could only cheer for Steve.

He indeed wanted to play character cards and provide tangible help, but the problem was that the character cards he had left were mostly morbid, focusing on attack. They weren't fit for support.

Because of this, he would be a key damage dealer in the upcoming fight against Helada. That was when the morbid ones would have their moment to shine.

Therefore, in this round, Shiller directly deployed Manipulation and Hunting. He believed that with the formidable enemy at hand, no one would move against these two crucial cards; otherwise, when the heads came, everyone would die together.

Sure enough, Shiller's key cards safely made it to the next round. The others had also played some fierce character cards, ready to solve the event in one fell swoop.

Stark bought two pieces of Nano Armor but didn't combine them. It seemed he didn't plan to go down the Iron Demon God route. Without Strange, no one played a Magic stream, and the Iron Demon God without one leg was helpless; merging himself was too slow. Without the initial Magic card, he could only buy from the shop, which was too time-consuming.

However, the summonings performed well. Three Scarlet power pieces that had been sent to die and one Heir card successfully occupied four head spots, all with very weak attributes. After the Scarlet power's attack power was halved, it was practically zero, while the Heir card retained a bit of attack.

Immediately after, the character cards entered the fray.

Greed was saved to tally points, for it would be troublesome if it died, and the Paper Card Arrogant had drawn was actually the best solution in this scenario. Because the event's boss couldn't discount cards, breaking defenses was more useful. Drawing again would only enhance properties, so it wasn't brought along.

Shiller brought Morbid, Hunting, and Bishop.

Mainly he worried Helada might have a second phase or something. If there turned out to be a need for some Magic attributes, he couldn't rely on Stark's Mecha, could he?

Beneath the hazy Moonlight, countless heads floated above the marsh, and a fog-enshrouded figure radiated dense malevolence. Underneath this colossus, several diminutive figures stood in line, ready to confront the cataclysmic disaster.