Chapter 495: Soul Contract

Soul Contract

In the hidden space beneath the Temple of Revelation Runes on the outskirts of Yadith, Dorothy sat pale beneath the holy symbol of Heaven's Arbiter, fully concentrated on influencing the distant battlefield. Large bloodstains marred her body—clear evidence of her recent brush with death.

Just moments earlier, Dorothy had been unexpectedly sensed by Muhtar and included within his Commandment's effects. Unaware of this, Dorothy had attacked Muhtar through her corpse marionette, only to nearly perish from the intense reflected damage. Thankfully, she possessed the damage-transfer abilities of the Spiritual Thread Path.

When Dorothy’s corpse marionette fired its rifle into Muhtar’s chest, the damage returned tenfold onto Dorothy herself, practically obliterating the right side of her chest and utterly destroying her right lung. Fortunately, her heart remained relatively intact, sparing her instant death. Despite nearly losing consciousness from the agonizing pain, Dorothy forcibly stabilized herself through immense mental fortitude. Immediately, she activated the Devouring Sigil hidden within her mechanical ring, forcibly boosting her physical condition to prevent unconsciousness. She then swiftly utilized her damage-transfer skill, spending considerable spirituality to transfer these severe wounds onto other corpse marionettes, narrowly evading death.

As long as the wounds were not immediately fatal, Dorothy could transfer them elsewhere. Relying on this ability, Dorothy barely escaped this catastrophe, though it became the most severe injury she had sustained since transmigrating.

"I didn't expect... to suddenly suffer from reflected damage. How exactly was I caught by his Commandment? Right… when I found him earlier, there was something strange glowing in his eyes. After I got hurt, the Shadow spirituality in my Concealment Ring also vanished completely. It seems he used some method to locate me here. Apparently, his reflection Commandment requires his perception of the target to take effect. Now that I'm under the coverage of his Commandment, I can't afford to act recklessly anymore. I must find another way to neutralize Muhtar," Dorothy concluded in her heart.

Having survived this grievous reflected injury, Dorothy promptly refocused her attention on the distant battle, knowing the confrontation with Muhtar had reached its most critical moment.

Exploiting the extended ability range granted by the city defense system, Dorothy manipulated all the metallic objects within the palace hall through magnetism, directing them collectively toward the severely wounded Muhtar. Overwhelmed by countless metallic items, Muhtar momentarily froze, uncertain how to respond. At this exact moment, under Dorothy’s cover, Vania approached Muhtar, her hands glowing with a warm, orange-yellow radiance, and successfully brushed against Muhtar's severely wounded body.

Initially, Muhtar assumed Vania was attempting to restrain him barehanded, prompting him into an evasive stance. However, unexpectedly, Vania made no effort to grab or restrict him. Instead, her hand merely brushed against his wounded body, emanating healing energy. Muhtar experienced a warmth he recognized—akin to the sensation produced by Healing Prayer Priests, who followed a similar Lantern pathway.

“This heretic nun… is healing me?!”

Muhtar stared in astonishment at the healing glow from Vania's hand, baffled by why his enemy would suddenly heal him. Yet, confusion quickly gave way to alarm as his body began to undergo drastic changes.

Muhtar felt a rapidly intensifying pain in the healed regions, far worse than before. Beyond mere pain, a severe itching sensation arose, spreading quickly and uncontrollably. The dual agony of pain and itching tormented Muhtar endlessly.

Lowering his gaze, Muhtar witnessed a terrifying scene—his wounds had disappeared, but in their place were extensive areas of festering, grotesque tumors and pus-filled flesh, as though he had contracted a terminal illness. Merely viewing it caused extreme nausea.

"This is..."

Muhtar stared wide-eyed, horrified at the sprawling, repulsive flesh covering his body. Clearly, he hadn't anticipated such horrifying consequences from Vania's healing.

The rapidly mutating flesh devoured Muhtar's bodily functions, crippling him with unbearable pain and itching. These deformities swiftly affected his entire body, slowing his movements and blurring his vision. Were it not for his Commandments forcefully sustaining his consciousness, and his current state of Soul-Surpassing over his battered body, he would have been completely incapacitated.

"Malignant Healing"—this was the result of Vania's meticulous manipulation of her healing abilities after gaining advanced medical knowledge through Aka. Although this technique transformed the enemy’s wounds into rapidly worsening lesions, it still counted as a form of "healing," not direct damage. Thus, it did not trigger Muhtar's damage-reflection mechanism. Even if reflection had occurred, it would have merely returned a healing effect; Vania herself, being unwounded, would have been unaffected.

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Muhtar's physical condition rapidly deteriorated under this malicious treatment, severely hindering his mobility. Horrified and disgusted, he turned again to glare at Vania, realizing she remained uninjured and was approaching to "heal" him again. Recognizing that his entire body could soon be overtaken by this horrific state, rendering him worse than dead, he quickly repeated his previous strategy—taking out another identical sigil as before and activating it at close range.

Witnessing the glowing sigil in Muhtar's hand, Vania froze briefly before immediately retreating two steps. Two suits of armor floating nearby automatically positioned themselves to shield her. The sigil Muhtar threw burst into brilliant light, triggering a fierce explosion.

Boom!

A violent explosion erupted in the palace hall, blowing away the metallic objects surrounding Muhtar. Protected by the armor suits, Vania emerged largely unharmed after the blast. As the smoke dissipated, she peered out from behind her metallic protectors and saw Muhtar, amidst lingering flames, shakily rising to his feet.

Amid the dense smoke stood Muhtar, burned black from head to toe, his luxurious robes completely incinerated, his dense hair reduced to a charred remnant, his entire body severely burnt and scarred. After multiple lightning strikes and two explosive detonations, Muhtar now resembled little more than a pitch-black skeleton, utterly terrifying in appearance. Yet, incredibly, he remained alive. Supported solely by his powerful soul, Muhtar retained some capacity for movement.

"Ah… ah…"

Muhtar opened his cracked, dry lips, emitting despairing, hoarse, incoherent sounds. Under Vania's vigilant gaze, he tore off large chunks of charred, mutated flesh from his body and reached shakily into a small stone box, attempting to retrieve something from within.

Realizing Muhtar was still capable of action, Vania immediately prepared to rush forward and administer another round of malicious healing. Just then, from another direction, an icy blast surged forth, striking Muhtar squarely. Unable to dodge, Muhtar was engulfed by freezing air, rapidly encased in ice. Turning toward the source of this chilling attack, Vania saw the figure of Shadi—his entire body crystalline, translucent, like a finely carved ice sculpture—entering the hall. As he advanced, he continuously blasted freezing air toward Muhtar, having tracked the commotion inside the palace after dealing with additional incoming forces of the Savior's Advent Sect.

Upon seeing Muhtar, Shadi wasted no time in unleashing a blast of freezing air, attempting to thoroughly freeze and immobilize him. Covered swiftly by frost, Muhtar’s movements once again slowed dramatically; it was only a matter of time before he would be entirely encased in ice.

To escape his dire predicament, Muhtar's best option would have been to use another sigil to trigger a self-detonation, freeing himself from the ice at the cost of self-injury, as he had done previously. However, after countless injuries, multiple lightning strikes, and two previous explosions, Muhtar’s soul had weakened drastically. Even for someone with his incredible resilience, another self-inflicted explosion now could easily result in his immediate death. Yet, if he did nothing, he would inevitably succumb to Shadi’s freezing assault. Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

“There's no other choice… In the end, I have to resort to this…”

Understanding the hopelessness of his situation, Muhtar forced his frozen hand into the stone box he carried and pulled out another item—a tightly bound, ancient scroll.

Without hesitation, he unfurled the scroll. As it opened, a previously blank parchment revealed a symbol of Lantern and Silence entwined with thorny vines. Muhtar began chanting in the language of spirit.

"Soul Contract… I offer my soul… in exchange for power…"

With his whispered incantation, the scroll in Muhtar's hands grew increasingly radiant. Recognizing the imminent danger, Shadi desperately attempted to accelerate Muhtar's freezing, but it was too late. The White Ash-rank frost speed was insufficient, and Muhtar had already unleashed his ultimate card, speaking another Commandment in the spirit speech.

"Commandment: Any who intend harm against me must first suffer a whipping to their soul before carrying out their attack!"

The instant Muhtar finished his Commandment, Shadi, able to understand the language of souls, immediately recognized something was terribly wrong. He tried to stop his assault, but it was too late—a sudden, overwhelming burst of pain exploded in his mind, as if something had pierced directly into his brain. Shadi screamed in agony, clutching his head as he collapsed onto the floor.

As a Silence Beyonder, Shadi could feel clearly that his soul had been violently struck by an unknown force. Both his soul and the soul of Setut within him became unstable, their synchronization disrupted. Shadi's Elemental Form was immediately canceled, returning him forcibly to his normal body as he crumbled helplessly to the ground.

"Ugh… that bastard… he strengthened his reflection Commandment using something, changing its feedback method to directly target the soul… The intensity of that Commandment just now nearly surpassed the Creator rank, approaching the Prototype rank…"

Setut, whose state was equally disrupted within Shadi’s body, communicated with great difficulty as Shadi writhed on the floor in splitting pain. Meanwhile, witnessing Shadi’s sudden downfall, confusion filled Vania's eyes. She didn't understand why Shadi had suddenly become incapacitated.

But confusion aside, seeing Muhtar rise shakily from the ground again, clearly intending to escape, Vania immediately stepped forward, intending to unleash her malicious healing to stop him. However, at that very moment, in a moment of blurred consciousness, Shadi urgently called out in warning.

"Stop! You must not think of harming him!"

Shadi’s warning came too late. The moment Vania formed the intent to use malicious healing as a means of attack, a searing pain erupted in her mind. Her soul directly attacked, she cried out once and collapsed heavily to the floor, completely unconscious.

Unlike Shadi, who followed the Silence pathway, Vania was neither a Revelation nor a Silence Beyonder, and thus her spiritual and soul resilience were considerably weaker. When struck by Muhtar’s soul-whipping Commandment, she immediately lost consciousness, completely incapacitated.

Muhtar, having paid a severe price, enacted this final Commandment as an upgraded version of his reflection ability. Under this enhanced Commandment, any individual perceived by Muhtar to harbor harmful intent against him would suffer a powerful soul-whip before even initiating their attack. The whip’s force was enough to render even a White Ash-rank Silence Beyonder nearly incapacitated.

The activation criterion for this attack relied entirely on the attacker’s own intent. As long as the attacker consciously viewed their action as causing harm to Muhtar, regardless of the nature of their action, the Commandment would activate and administer punishment before the action could commence.

For instance, Vania's malicious healing, while objectively a healing act that had previously bypassed Muhtar’s reflection, now triggered the Commandment due to her subjective intent. Because Vania herself perceived the healing as a harmful attack, the Commandment's punishment activated before she could even perform it.

This time, the Commandment's punishment was specifically set as a soul-level whipping, not a reflection of a certain type of damage. Thus, Shadi’s earlier method of immunity through his Elemental Form was ineffective. After suffering one blow from the soul whip, even the spiritual synchronization between Shadi and Setut unraveled, immediately canceling Shadi's Elemental Form.

Now, within the palace hall, the tide of battle had dramatically shifted. Vania and Shadi each suffered a strike from the soul whip; Vania was completely unconscious, while Shadi was barely holding onto consciousness, virtually incapacitated. Observing his two enemies lying helplessly before him, Muhtar, charred and horrifying like a walking corpse, revealed a chilling smile. Picking up his curved blade, he slowly floated upward, raising the weapon as he moved toward the unconscious Vania.

Just as Muhtar prepared to deliver a fatal strike, all the scattered, broken metal fragments from the previous explosion suddenly regrouped, swiftly gathering around Vania and Shadi. The two unconscious figures were quickly lifted from the ground, floating away from Muhtar’s reach.