**Chapter 495: Soul Contract**
On the outskirts of Adis City, in a hidden space of the Enlightenment Mark Temple, the pale Doro sat under the sigil of the Judge of Heaven, her focus intent as she used her abilities to influence the battlefield in the distance. Blood stains marked her body, clear evidence of her recent brush with death.
Not long ago, Doro had been perceived by Muhetar almost without realizing it, drawn into his commandments. Unaware, she had attacked Muhetar with a zombie puppet, only to suffer severe backlash almost leading to her demise. Fortunately, she possessed the damage transfer ability of the Line Manipulating Spirit Witch.
Doro’s zombie puppet struck Muhetar in the chest with a rifle shot, and after a tenfold return, her entire right chest was nearly obliterated, her right lung severely damaged. Luckily, her heart remained largely intact, preventing immediate death. Though the overwhelming pain nearly caused her to faint, her powerful mental strength kept her conscious. She activated the hidden Blood-Eating Sigil within her Mechanism Ring to forcibly enhance her physical condition to prevent unconsciousness, then used damage transfer. After consuming a considerable amount of spirituality, she transferred her grievous injuries onto other zombie puppets, saving herself from death.
As long as she was not instantly killed, any damage Doro sustained could be redirected. Relying on this ability, Doro narrowly escaped disaster; this injury marked the most severe harm she had endured since her arrival in this world.
‘I didn’t expect… to be hit by backlash so suddenly. How did I get caught in that guy’s commandments? Right… when I found him, that guy’s eyes emitted a strange light, and after I got injured, the “shadow” in the Veil Ring vanished completely. It seems he used some method to locate me hidden here, and this backlash mechanism must require him to be aware of my presence for it to activate.
‘Now that I’m under the cover of the backlash commandments, I must not act rashly and need to subdue Muhetar through other means.’
Having survived such severe backlash, Doro immediately refocused her attention on the distant battlefield, where the operation against Muhetar was at its most critical moment.
Using the extended capabilities of the city defense system, Doro manipulated all the metal objects in the hall with magnetic force, making them converge towards the battle-scarred Muhetar, pinning him in a corner. Muhetar, taken aback by the multitude of surrounding metal, hesitated. During this moment of vulnerability, shielded by Doro, Vania, radiating an orange-yellow glow, approached Muhetar and successfully brushed her hand across his injured body.
Initially, Muhetar assumed Vania intended to capture him with her bare hands and prepared to evade. However, he soon realized that Vania had no intention of capturing him; she merely ran her glowing hand over him without any attacking or restraining action. Instead, Muhetar felt a warm sensation from where she touched him. He recognized this feeling: it was the sensation of being healed by a Healing Priest of the “Lamp” path!
This heretical nun is healing me!?
Surprised by the healing aura emanating from Vania, Muhetar was perplexed by why the enemy suddenly chose to heal him. At that moment, he began to feel an anomaly within his body.
Muhetar sensed that the areas previously healed by Vania, instead of alleviating the pain, seemed to deepen it. Moreover, he felt an itching sensation that was rapidly spreading, painfully and disturbingly.
Looking down at the unusual areas on his body, he was horrified to see ghastly sights: where once there were many wounds, they had vanished, replaced by large areas of festering, pus-filled rot and lumps, reminiscent of a terminally ill patient. The sight was utterly repugnant, causing a wave of nausea.
“This is…”
With wide eyes, Muhetar stared in shock at the extensive rotting flesh covering his body. He had never expected Vania’s healing would result in such an effect.
The vast expanse of deformed flesh quickly consumed Muhetar’s physical faculties, with severe pain and itching torturing his nerves. The adverse effects of the mutated tissue spread rapidly throughout his body, slowing his movements and clouding his vision. Had it not been for the commandments sustaining his consciousness and his current state as body and soul master, he would have directly lost his ability to act.
Malicious healing; this was the result of Vania skillfully manipulating her healing abilities after acquiring profound medical knowledge from Akka. Although this malicious healing could turn the enemy’s wounds into deformed infections that worsened the entire body, it was still a form of healing; thus, it did not trigger the backlash mechanism. Even if it had, it wouldn’t matter, as the healing effect returned would still be a healing effect. As long as Vania sustained no wounds, any feedback from the malicious healing would not affect her.
Muhetar found his condition worsening due to the malicious treatment, severely hindering his mobility. While he felt nauseous and horrified, he glanced at Vania, who was still unharmed, and saw her raising her hands to continue the “treatment.” Muhetar thought that if his entire body ended up in such a state, he would be better off dead, unable to move at all. He quickly took out a sigil identical to the one he used against Shadi’s freezing attack and activated it, launching it at close range.
Seeing the glow emanating from Muhetar’s sigil, Vania felt a jolt of alarm and quickly stepped back. The two metal armors floating around her moved automatically to shield her, and then Muhetar’s sigil erupted into a blinding light, followed by a deafening explosion.
“Boom!”
In an instant, flames illuminated the palace hall, the violent explosion sending all floating metal around Muhetar flying. Vania, shielded by the metal armors, suffered minimal impact from the explosion. After the blast, she peeked out from the protection and saw a figure unsteadily rising from the firelight.
Amidst the thick smoke, Muhetar, his form gaunt and entirely charred, stood up slowly. After enduring multiple lightning strikes and two explosions, he had transformed into a carbon-like being, his entire body from head to toe blackened and devoid of any intact skin, resembling a terrifying dark skeleton. Yet despite his ghastly appearance, he was still alive, sustained by his powerful soul, although he lacked the ability to move.
“Ah… ah…”
Opening his cracked mouth, Muhetar emitted a desperate, hoarse sound. In Vania’s eyes, he began to raise his arm to peel away the charred, mutated tissues covering his body. He pulled out a stone box and opened it, seemingly searching for an item within.
Seeing that he could still act, Vania prepared to rush in for another round of malicious healing. At that moment, a chilling white energy shot towards the charred Muhetar from another direction. Muhetar failed to evade, and in an instant, this cold energy enveloped him. Vania looked in the direction of the cold energy’s source and saw Shadi, his body appearing crystal-clear and ice-like, walking into the hall. He was using the cold energy to freeze Muhetar. After dealing with some of the Savior Faction reinforcements, he had tracked the commotion in the palace back to this location.
Seeing Muhetar, Shadi wasted no time in unleashing cold energy to attempt to freeze him entirely. Ice quickly began to form on Muhetar, rendering his movements sluggish once more. Before long, he would be completely encased in ice.
To escape this dire predicament, Muhetar’s best move was to use the sigil to self-detonate again, freezing time to flee again. However, severely injured and having suffered multiple lightning strikes and two explosions, Muhetar’s soul was already weakened. After enduring so much harm, even a blood cow would be reduced to skin and bones. Attempting to self-detonate now might very well kill him immediately. But doing nothing would result in being completely frozen by Shadi, and that would be the end of him.
‘I have no choice… it has come to this… only this way is left…’
Upon realizing the desperate scene before him, Muhetar used his frosted body to reach into the stone box, pulling out an item. Upon close inspection, it was an old scroll bound tightly.
Without hesitation, Muhetar unfurled the scroll, and as he did so, images began to appear on the previously blank scroll: a sigil of Silence surrounded by thorns emerged. Then, Muhetar began to mutter in the language of the soul.
“Soul contract… I trade my soul for power…”
As he chanted, the light on the scroll intensified, causing Vania to feel a sense of impending doom and rush forward to hasten the freezing. However, it was too late; her chalk-level freezing efficiency was not sufficient. Muhetar had already revealed his final trump card. He spoke again in the language of the soul.
“Commandments: All who wish to harm me, before taking any action to inflict harm, shall first suffer the lash of my soul!”
As soon as Muhetar finished speaking his commandments, Shadi, who could understand the language of the soul, sensed something was awry and attempted to stop. But it was too late. He suddenly felt an unparalleled, sharp pain burst forth from his mind, as if something had pierced into his brain, causing him unbearable headaches. After letting out a cry, he collapsed to the ground.
As a remarkable being of “Silence,” Shadi felt an inexplicable heavy blow against his soul. He and the state of Setute’s soul within him were destabilized, their souls disrupted in unison, Shadi’s elemental body abruptly reverted to its normal state, hitting the ground.
“Ugh… what has that guy done to enhance his backlash commandments, changing the feedback method to directly target the soul…?
“That guy’s commandments have almost surpassed the creation level, nearing the prototype level in strength…”
Inside Shadi, Setute seemed equally unstable as he spoke to the collapsed Shadi, whose head throbbed painfully. Meanwhile, Vania, observing Shadi’s abrupt change, was filled with confusion, not understanding why he had suddenly become like this.
However, confusion aside, when she saw Muhetar begin to float back up from the ground, attempting to flee, she rushed forward to stop him with malicious healing. At that moment, Shadi, overwhelmed by his painful head, hurriedly warned her, his mind hazy.
“Stop! Don’t think about harming him!”
Shadi’s warning came too late. As Vania’s intention to attack Muhetar surfaced, seeking to weaponize her malicious healing against him, a powerful pain erupted in her head. Under the direct attack on her soul, Vania screamed before clutching her head and collapsing heavily to the ground.
Vania was neither “Enlightenment” nor “Silence” of extraordinary being; her mental and spiritual capabilities paled in comparison to Shadi, the chalk-level “Silence,” so upon receiving one lash of Muhetar’s soul, she fainted, completely losing her ability to act.
After paying a high cost, Muhetar enacted his final commandments, further strengthening his backlash commandments. Under this decree, anyone Muhetar could perceive attempting to attack him would suffer severe lashes at the level of the soul before they could act.
The term “attack behavior” is determined by the attacker’s intent. Thus, if the attacker believes they are harming Muhetar, no matter their intended actions, they will trigger the commandments before acting, suffering punishment.
For instance, Vania’s malicious healing might objectively be a form of treatment, and wouldn’t have activated the previous backlash commandments; however, under this new backlash commandment, things were different. Because in Vania’s own perception, her malicious healing was a means of harm, a method of attack, intended to injure Muhetar through treatment, she would be punished for activating it.
This punishment took the form of powerful soul lashes, no longer depending on the type of damage or recompense, rendering Shadi’s immunity to feedback through his elemental body ineffective. After enduring a lash of the soul, even Shadi could no longer maintain synchronization with Setute’s soul, his elemental body failing entirely.
In the palace hall, the battle situation shifted drastically. Vania and Shadi both suffered a lash of the soul; Vania fell unconscious, while Shadi struggled to remain upright, nearly devoid of fighting capability. Observing the two fallen enemies, the charred, terrifying Muhetar couldn’t help but break into a horrifying smile. He retrieved his curved dagger and floated upward slowly. He raised the dagger toward the unconscious Vania.
Just as Muhetar prepared to deliver a fatal strike to his foe, the previously scattered metal debris began to gather again, surrounding Vania and Shadi. They floated away from Muhetar, taking them to a safe distance.
