Four Hundred and Ninety-Second Constraint
Within the beautiful palace garden of the Baruk Palace, on the grassy field covered with green grass, Vania, dressed in white and holding a long sword, widened her eyes, clutching her neck and stepping back several paces. Her gaze was filled with shock and horror as she looked ahead. Between her fingers, which were covering her neck, droplets of bl**d fell onto the grass below, staining the blades red.
Immediately after, the wound on Vania’s neck began to emit faint yellow light. In this light, the ten shallow cuts on her neck started to rapidly heal, returning to their original state in no time. However, Vania’s astonishment did not dissipate.
From the information provided by Shadi beforehand, Vania knew that Muhetar had the ability to double the damage received back to the attacker once activated, requiring a declaration to trigger. Therefore, at the beginning of the battle, Vania, Dorothy, and Shadi planned to quickly defeat Muhetar with a rapid assault, preventing him from declaring anything. Vania paid close attention to every word Muhetar said, ready to stop her attack immediately if she confirmed he had declared retaliation.
However, neither Shadi nor Vania anticipated that Muhetar’s commandment declaration could be conveyed through soul speech, which isn’t truly a language but a form of communication between spirit bodies using vibrations. It can be understood as a method of vocalizing using the soul as the organ.
Generally, soul speech is much faster than regular speech, completing declarations almost instantaneously. Additionally, it has strong secrecy; only undead and extraordinary beings related to “Silence” can hear and understand such “language.”
Shadi’s intelligence indicated that Muhetar could activate his commandments after declaring, but they didn’t anticipate that declarations could be made through soul speech. Thus, although Vania was already very attentive to Muhetar’s words during her attacks, she nearly fell for it.
Muhetar read his commandment declaration through soul speech. Those who couldn’t hear would attack without caution, resulting in tenfold retaliation after causing harm. Even if it wasn’t a fatal injury, severe wounds could still be lethal. Just like how Vania lightly scratched Muhetar’s neck, it almost cut her own throat. If Shadi hadn’t timely reminded them and Dorothy hadn’t used the Puppet Mark to help Vania control her body and stop her attack, she would have been done for.
“Humph… You dodged it just in time…”
Seeing Vania quickly heal her wounds, Muhetar’s eyes flickered with a hint of gloom. Using the combination of soul speech and counter-damage declarations, Muhetar had previously eliminated countless overconfident opponents. Now, however, this tactic was thwarted, meaning solving the two before him would be much more complicated.
But, it was just more troublesome. Facing these two, even with the mysterious lightning from above, Muhetar still believed he wouldn’t lose.
As he spoke, Muhetar touched the other two rings on his hand. The mechanisms within triggered, activating the hidden sigils and storage items inside. The effects of the sigils instantly added to Muhetar’s own body.
These were two high-level “Cup” and “Shadow” sigils, directly enhancing his physical capabilities. By consuming a large amount of storage items, Muhetar suddenly gained physical abilities equivalent to Tier 2 “Cup” and Tier 2 “Shadow,” along with reaction speed.
Such high-level sigils were extremely powerful but also consumed a lot of storage items. Combined, they required over ten points of spirituality and a large amount of money, plus a special channel to purchase. They were incredibly precious, beyond the means of ordinary extraordinary beings. As a Red Tier extraordinary being, Muhetar naturally had such resources.
After activating the two physical enhancement sigils, Muhetar drew a curved blade from under his cloak. Holding the gleaming curved blade, Muhetar charged straight toward Vania. Simultaneously, he lifted the restriction preventing him from leaving the palace and continued to declare new commandments through soul speech.
“Commandment: Those who fight me shall not escape.”
He scanned his gaze over Vania and Shadi, clearly including them in his new commandment. Hearing the content, Shadi immediately warned Vania.
“Be careful! Now you can’t hurt him or run away, otherwise, it will trigger his commandment!”
Hearing Shadi’s words, Vania was momentarily stunned. She instinctively dodged Muhetar’s attack, avoiding a direct strike. But after the dodge, a small tear appeared in her nun’s robe, and a deep whip mark appeared on her back, tearing her skin and making it bloody and bruised as if she had been struck by a spiked whip.
Punished by the commandment whip, Vania cried out in pain, her entire body staggering from the sudden intense pain, nearly falling. Seeing this, Muhetar immediately slashed again. Just as his blade was about to hit Vania, an ice spear flew from afar, hitting Muhetar’s blade squarely, deflecting it slightly. This was undoubtedly shot by Shadi.
Muhetar’s slash was hindered by Shadi’s interference, preventing a smooth strike. When he swung again at Vania, she had already regained her footing and blocked his new attack with her sword.
Vania initially thought that “not escaping” meant not running away, but she hadn’t expected that even dodging counted. Her recent dodge had triggered the commandment’s penalty, nearly allowing Muhetar to take her down. Fortunately, Shadi intervened.
Seeing that he couldn’t k*ll Vania immediately, a trace of annoyance flashed in Muhetar’s eyes. He then continued to block Muhetar’s strikes with his sword. Following Shadi’s advice, Vania could only passively block Muhetar’s blade, using her sword to parry continuously without any counterattacks.
Facing Muhetar now, Vania could neither flee, dodge, nor attack; she could only parry to hold him off. After activating the two high-level state sigils, Muhetar, with his Tier 2 “Cup” and Tier 2 “Shadow” attributes, was stronger than most White Chalk Tier individuals, including Vania. Without superb sword skills and the aid of her mind’s eye, Vania wouldn’t be able to maintain such defense.
On the other side, Shadi was in no better shape. He stood anxiously, constrained by the dual commandments. Attacking Muhetar would result in counter-damage, fleeing to seek help was impossible, and engaging Muhetar directly was out of the question. Unlike Vania, Shadi lacked formidable melee attributes and skills. Although he had similar sigils, they were low-tier like those of “bl**d-Eating.” Using them to directly confront Muhetar would result in being cut down in a few rounds. Currently, he could only occasionally sh**t ice spears to strike Muhetar’s weapons, helping Vania block.
“Setute! That guy is far more troublesome than we imagined. Our previous plan has failed. What should we do now?!”
Shadi asked Setute directly within his body. They understood Muhetar’s abilities, so their initial plan was to ambush him when he was careless, using continuous strikes to render him speechless or unable to declare commandments. However, the unexpected was that Muhetar’s commandments could be declared through soul speech, which was undetectable and extremely fast, making it impossible to prevent him from declaring.
“Heh… Your previous plan underestimated the creation-tier creature. That old madman clearly can perform soul chanting. He pretends to open his mouth to declare abilities in front of you to guard against your tricks. Clearly, he has been wary of you from the start. You thought you could topple him with the little intelligence you had. That was too naive.”
In Shadi’s body, Setute responded with a mocking tone. Hearing this, Shadi quickly replied.
“We were too presumptuous… We didn’t expect Muhetar to have such a trick up his sleeve. But there’s no time to dwell on this now. The pressing issue is how to deal with that guy. Do you have any good ideas, Setute?”
“There is a way, as always. I need to synchronize your soul to release some of my creation-tier abilities. This requires some preparation time, but I hope the sword-dancing nun can hold on until then… I never expected this seemingly fragile girl to be so capable.”
Setute answered within Shadi’s heart. Hearing that Setute had a solution, Shadi sighed in relief. Then, he looked ahead at the intense battlefield, seeing Vania struggling to hold on, anxiety rising again. He wondered if they could hold out until then.
At this moment, not only Setute felt anxious. Within the hidden space of the Enlightenment Mark Temple, Dorothy sat, watching the distant battle with worry.
The scene within the temple’s hidden space had changed significantly from the beginning. The floating texts had disappeared, and the walls were covered with dense, lightning-like patterns. At the center, the divine pattern originally belonging to the Judge of Heaven emitted strange light, with tiny currents jumping around.
Since entering this temple’s hidden space yesterday, Dorothy had not left. To combat Muhetar and his followers in Adis, Dorothy activated the city defense system of the ancient capital of the First Dynasty from seven thousand years ago. The existence of this system was discovered by Dorothy when reading the temple introduction. Later, with the help of the retrieval tools within the temple, she found the access method.
This city defense system could only be operated by extraordinary beings with the “Howling Fury” path. Its effect was to utilize the stored spirituality in the temple to create thunderclouds within a radius of fifty kilometers centered on the Enlightenment Mark Temple, increasing the range of the thunder mage’s ability to the same extent. It also granted every corner under its jurisdiction a bird’s-eye view from above.
In other words, with the system’s support, Dorothy could bring the entire Adis and its surroundings within her ability range, using lightning powers anywhere within this area, with the spiritual energy consumed by the temple itself, not Dorothy personally. At this moment, the temple’s reserves of spirituality were rich enough to sustain a war.
This was a specialized auxiliary system designed for extraordinary beings with the “Howling Fury” path. However, the stronger the thunder mage, the more powerful the use of this ability. Unfortunately, Dorothy was only at the White Chalk Tier, limiting the full potential of this system. Although she could strike the entire city with lightning, the power was still limited to the White Chalk level, unable to surpass it. This was why she couldn’t k*ll Muhetar with a single strike earlier.
With this powerful city defense system, Dorothy thought she had it in the bag. Even facing a Red Tier extraordinary being, she believed she could win. However, the current situation seemed to exceed her expectations. The troublemaker nature of the Red Tier “Suffering Commandment” exceeded her expectations.
According to the intelligence from Shadi, Muhetar’s extraordinary path was called the Holy Father’s Path within the Sacred Summit Church and the Suffering Commandment Path outside. It was a branch of the “Lamp” path, primarily “Lamp” with secondary “Silence.” Muhetar, at the Red Tier, was referred to as the Disciplinary Priest.
Extraordinary beings of the Suffering Commandment path relied on strict adherence to commandments to refine their hearts, achieving extraordinary results of self-discipline, disciplining others, and disciplining enemies. It was said that Black Earth Tier Suffering Commandment extraordinary beings could use their abilities to strictly adhere to certain commandments, protecting themselves from external influences. At the White Chalk Tier, they could spread these commandments to those willing to accept them. At the Red Tier, they could impose commandments on enemies, subjecting them to various constraints.
Dorothy found this ability disgusting, but she didn’t expect it to be this extreme.
“Imposing commandments on others, doubling damage back… Not only that, but you can only fight him, not run away or dodge… More shockingly, due to a passive effect, he becomes a super bl**d tank. Thick bl**d, and you can’t k*ll him by attacking vital areas… Ambushes are useless… You can’t stop his declarations either…
“Tenfold damage reflection, forced taunt control, attacks can’t be dodged, thick bl**d, immune to critical hits, execution ineffective, skill cooldowns can’t be interrupted… What kind of game boss is this that can make people want to d*e? This would definitely get flamed to d*ath… This is absolutely a real sh*t monster!”
Peering at the battle scene in the palace garden, Dorothy thought to herself. Having understood the effects of Muhetar’s commandments, she was unsure how to proceed. She wasn’t sure if the counter-damage effect applied to her as well. She feared that if she struck Muhetar with lightning, he might survive while she perished.
“No… These commandments are too mysterious. The range, intensity, and specific number of effects are unclear. It’s impossible to fight without knowing such information.
“To find a way to break his commandments, first, I need to understand the mechanism behind them…”
Dorothy thought to herself and abandoned the idea of directly attacking Muhetar. Instead, she decided to verify the mechanism of his commandments, which required her Spirit Thread path ability.
Thinking, Dorothy used the bird’s-eye view provided by the city defense system to look at other parts of the palace, observing the fierce battlefield. She extended her invisible spirit threads, controlling the corpses on the ground and picking up their former weapons.
