Inside the scenic courtyard garden of the Baruk Royal Palace, on the grass-covered lawn, Vanya, dressed in white and holding a long sword, widened her eyes, covering her neck and retreating several steps. Her gaze towards the front was filled with astonishment and horror. Between the fingers covering her neck, drops of blood fell onto the grass below, staining the blades.
Immediately after, Vanya's hand covering the wound began to glow with a faint yellow light. Within this glow, the ten shallow cuts on Vanya's neck quickly healed. After a short while, they were completely restored, no longer bleeding. However, the astonishment in Vanya's eyes had not disappeared.
Based on the intelligence received from Shadi beforehand, Vanya knew that Mukhtar possessed a certain ability that, once activated, could reflect double the damage received back to the attacker. This ability required a declaration to be activated. Therefore, at the beginning of the battle, Vanya, Dorothy, and Shadi wanted to quickly deal with Mukhtar with a swift offensive, not giving the opponent any chance to make a declaration. Vanya had also been paying close attention to every word the opponent spoke, ready to stop attacking immediately if she confirmed that the opponent had made a counter-damage declaration.
However, what neither Shadi nor Vanya had expected was that Mukhtar's Precepts declaration could be uttered in the form of a soul language. Soul language, strictly speaking, is not a language, but rather a form of communication between spiritual bodies that utilizes spiritual vibrations to "speak." It can be understood as a method of vocalization using the soul as the vocal organ.
Generally speaking, the efficiency of soul language vocalization is much faster than ordinary speech, taking only an instant to complete a declaration, much quicker than speaking with the mouth. Furthermore, in another aspect, soul language possesses strong secrecy. Only the undead and Extraordinary related to "Silence" can hear and understand this kind of "language," and they can also speak it. Ordinary people and other Extraordinary who do not primarily use "Silence" as their auxiliary Spirituality are almost unable to detect the existence of this "language."
Shadi's intelligence mentioned that Mukhtar could activate a Precepts declaration after making a declaration, but it did not consider that this declaration could be activated by soul language. Therefore, although Vanya was extremely careful about the words Mukhtar spoke during her attack, she still almost fell into the trap.
Mukhtar recited the Precepts declaration using soul language. If ordinary people couldn't hear it, they would attack without any restraint. After inflicting damage, they would receive ten times the counter-damage. Not to mention damaging a vital point, even if a non-vital area was injured, if it was slightly serious, being reflected back tenfold could be fatal. Just like how Vanya had clearly only lightly scratched Mukhtar's neck just now, her own windpipe was almost cut open. If it weren't for Shadi, who could understand soul language, timely reminding her, and Dorothy helping Vanya control her body through the Puppet Mark to stop in time, she would have already perished here.
"Hmph... you stopped quite quickly..."
Seeing Vanya quickly heal her wound, a hint of gloom appeared in Mukhtar's eyes. By combining soul language with the counter-damage declaration, Mukhtar had killed countless complacent opponents. Now, this tactic had been neutralized, which meant that if he wanted to deal with the two people in front of him, it would be much more troublesome later.
However, it was only slightly more troublesome. Facing these two people, even with the addition of the unknown lightning from above, Mukhtar still believed that he had no possibility of losing.
As he spoke, Mukhtar touched the other two rings on his hand. The mechanisms within the rings were triggered, and the hidden runes and stored items were activated. The effects of the runes were immediately added to Mukhtar himself.
These were two high-level "Cup" and "Shadow" runes. Their effects were straightforward body enhancements. By consuming a large amount of stored items, Mukhtar now instantly possessed physical attributes and reaction speed roughly equivalent to a second-tier "Cup" and a second-tier "Shadow."
The effects of such high-level runes are very powerful, and they consume a large amount of stored items. Two runes together require more than ten points of Spirituality and a large amount of money, and they also require special connections to purchase. It can be said that they are very valuable and not affordable for ordinary Extraordinary. As an Extraordinary of the Scarlet Tier, it is natural for Mukhtar to have such resource reserves.
After activating the two physical enhancement runes, Mukhtar drew a curved sword from under his cloak. Holding the gleaming curved sword, Mukhtar directly charged towards Vanya in front. At the same time, he lifted the Precept that he could not leave the Royal Palace and instead began to declare a new Precept using soul language.
"Precept: Those who fight with me shall not evade."
Saying this, he swept his gaze across Vanya and Shadi in front of him, clearly including them in the new Precept. Hearing the content of the Precept, Shadi immediately shouted a reminder to Vanya.
"Be careful, you can't injure him now, nor can you evade, otherwise his Precepts will be triggered!"
Listening to Shadi's words, Vanya couldn't help but be slightly startled. At this moment, facing Mukhtar's attack, she had subconsciously made a dodging movement, evading the frontal slash. Just after this evasion, a small tear appeared in Vanya's nun's robe on her back, and a deep whip mark appeared out of thin air on Vanya's back, causing her originally fair skin to be torn open and bloody, as if she had been severely whipped by something like a barbed iron whip.
Struck by this Precept's whip, Vanya couldn't help but cry out in pain. Her entire body stumbled due to the sudden intense pain, and she almost fell unsteadily. Seeing this, Mukhtar immediately backhanded another slash. Just as it seemed to be about to strike Vanya, an ice cone suddenly flew in from afar, hitting Mukhtar's curved sword directly and accurately. With a clang, it slightly deflected the curved sword. It was indeed condensed and shot by Shadi not far away.
Mukhtar's slash was hindered by Shadi's interference and could not slash smoothly. When he held the sword again and slashed at Vanya, she had already used the opportunity just now to regain her balance and used the sword in her hand to block Mukhtar's new slash.
After hearing Shadi's words, Vanya originally thought that not being able to evade only meant not being able to run away. She did not expect that even dodging would count. Her previous dodge directly triggered the Precept's punishment, causing her stance to be unstable and almost being taken down by Mukhtar again. Fortunately, Shadi saved the situation.
Seeing that he had failed to directly kill Vanya again, a hint of annoyance flashed in Mukhtar's eyes. He then continued to raise the sword in his hand and began to block the sharp blade that Mukhtar was attacking with. After listening to Shadi's words, Vanya could only passively block continuously, using her sword to constantly block Mukhtar's blade without any counter-attacking movements.
Facing the current Mukhtar, Vanya could neither escape, nor dodge, nor attack. Only by continuously blocking could she barely maintain a stalemate with the opponent. After consuming two high-level status runes, Mukhtar, who possessed second-tier "Cup" and second-tier "Shadow," was already stronger than most Chalk Stage Extraordinary in terms of basic close combat attributes, including Vanya. If it weren't for the blessing of superb swordsmanship and Mind's Eye, Vanya would be completely unable to achieve this level of defense.
And Shadi on the other side was not doing much better. He stood anxiously in place. Under the restraint of the double Precepts, he had almost no good way to deal with Mukhtar. If he directly attacked Mukhtar and caused damage, he would be counter-damaged. He could not escape to find help, and even less could he engage in close combat with Mukhtar. He did not have Vanya's powerful basic close combat attributes and skills. Although he also had similar runes in his hand, they were all low-level runes on the same level as Life Devour. If he used these to directly confront Mukhtar, he would be cut to pieces within a few rounds. Now, he could only occasionally shoot a few ice cones to strike Mukhtar's weapon, helping Vanya block.
"Setuot! That guy is much trickier than expected, the previous plan has failed, what should we do now?!"
Shadi asked Setuot directly in his body. They knew Mukhtar's ability, so their original plan was to launch a joint surprise attack when Mukhtar was careless, using continuous combos to make Mukhtar lose the ability to speak or have no time to proclaim the precepts. However, the unexpected situation was that Mukhtar's precepts could be proclaimed without actually speaking, and could be proclaimed only with the language of the spirits. Ordinary people could not detect it, and the proclamation speed was extremely fast, so it was impossible to stop him from proclaiming.
"Hey... your previous plan, you thought the guy at the Scarlet Tier was too simple. That old lunatic can clearly chant with his spirits. He usually pretends to speak and proclaim when using his ability in front of you, just to guard against your hand. It can be said that he has been guarding against you from the beginning. You still think you can defeat him just with the little information you have. This is too naive."
Inside Shadi's body, Setuot spoke with a hint of sarcasm. Listening to Setuot's words, Shadi quickly responded.
"We were careless and took it for granted... We didn't expect that old guy Mukhtar still had such a trick, but now is not the time to pursue anything. The most important thing is how to deal with that guy, Setuot, do you have any good ideas?"
"It's not that there is no way, just like before, I need to synchronize your spirits, so that you can release a small amount of my Scarlet Tier ability across tiers. This requires some time to prepare, but I hope that Sword Dance Sister can hold on until then... I didn't expect this little girl who looks like a vase to be so capable of fighting..."
Setuot replied in Shadi's heart. Hearing that Setuot had a way to deal with it, Shadi breathed a sigh of relief. Then he looked at the fierce battlefield in front of him, and the anxiety in his heart couldn't help but rise again as he looked at Vanya who was struggling to support, wondering if she could hold on until then.
At this time, Setuot was not the only one full of anxiety. In the hidden space of Qiwen Temple in the distance, Dorothy was sitting there, looking worriedly at the distant battle scene.
At this time, the scene in the hidden space of the temple was completely different from the beginning. The words that were floating everywhere had disappeared, and the walls around were covered with dense, lightning-like patterns. In the center of the hidden space, the divine pattern that originally belonged to the Judge of Heaven was now emitting a strange brilliance, and tiny currents were constantly jumping on it.
Since entering the hidden space of this temple yesterday, Dorothy has not come out. In order to fight against Mukhtar and his Savior Sect subordinates who were entrenched in Adis, Dorothy activated the city defense system that came with the temple, which was the ancient capital of the First Dynasty seven thousand years ago. Dorothy discovered the existence of this defense system when she read the temple introduction, and later, with the help of the retrieval tools in the temple, she found the access method to this system.
This city defense system can only be operated by Extraordinary who have the ability of the Path of Howling. Its effect is to use the Spirituality stored in the temple in advance to create thunderclouds within a radius of more than fifty kilometers centered on Qiwen Temple, and increase the release range of the Thunder Technique User who operates the system to the same range, and give every corner under this range a high-altitude perspective overlooking from the sky.
That is to say, under the blessing of this system, Dorothy can now use her ability to release lightning anywhere within the range of the entire Adis and surrounding areas, and the Spirituality consumed is from the temple's own reserves, so Dorothy does not need to pay for it herself, and at this time, the temple's reserves of Spirituality are very rich, rich enough to fight a war.
It can be said that this is an Extraordinary auxiliary system specially customized for Extraordinary of the Path of Howling, but the stronger the Thunder Technique User uses it, the stronger the ability will be. Unfortunately, Dorothy is only at the Chalk stage now, and the ability of this system also has an upper limit. Although she can strike lightning throughout the city, the upper limit of the lightning power is still limited to the level of Chalk, and cannot reach higher. This is why she failed to kill Mukhtar with one lightning strike before.
With this powerful city defense system, and the bonus of infinite lightning strikes within a radius of fifty kilometers and opening the entire map, Dorothy originally thought that this time it was stable, and even if she faced an Extraordinary at the Scarlet Tier, she should be confident of winning, but the current situation seems to be somewhat beyond Dorothy's expectations, and the rogue level of the Scarlet Tier on the Path of Bitter Precepts was beyond her expectation.
According to the information from Shadi, the Extraordinary branch path where Mukhtar is located is called the Path of the Saint Father in the Holy Proximity Mountain Church, and it is called the Path of Bitter Precepts outside the Church. It is a branch path of the Path of "Light", with the Lord "Light" and the auxiliary "Silence". The Scarlet Tier where Mukhtar is located is called the Precepts Cult Lord.
Extraordinary of the Path of Bitter Precepts rely on ascetic practices that strictly observe the precepts to temper their inner selves, so as to achieve the extraordinary effects of self-discipline, disciplining others, and disciplining enemies. It is said that Bitter Precept Extraordinary at the Black Earth Stage can use their ability to strictly observe certain precepts and prevent themselves from being affected by the outside world. At the Chalk Stage, they can spread this precept to those who are willing to be disciplined along with them. At the Scarlet Tier, they can impose the precepts on the enemy, making them suffer various constraints.
Dorothy felt disgusted when she heard about this ability, but she didn't expect it to be so disgusting.
'Imposing precepts on others, allowing oneself to have ten times the counter-armor... Not only that, but you can only fight him and cannot escape or dodge... What's more, with the passive effect of replacing the body with the spirits, he is a super tank, and he has thick HP, and he cannot be killed by attacking vital points... Sneak attacks are useless... And the proclamation cannot be stopped...
'Ten times the counter-armor, forced taunt control, attacks cannot be avoided, tank, critical hit immunity, execution invalid, skill casting cannot be interrupted... What game could this be a boss in that could disgust people to death? This would definitely be cursed to death... This is a real piece of trash!'
Peeking at the battle scene in the royal palace garden in the distance, Dorothy couldn't help but think this in her heart. After understanding the effect of Mukhtar's precepts, she didn't know what to do for a while. She was not sure if the counter-damage effect also worked on herself. She was afraid that if she struck Mukhtar with a lightning bolt now, Mukhtar would not die because of his thick HP, and she would be killed by the lightning.
'No... This precept is too mysterious. The effective range, intensity, and the specific number of effective clauses are all unclear. It is impossible to fight in such a situation where the information is completely unclear.
'To find a way to break his precepts, you must first figure out the mechanism of his precepts...'
Dorothy thought this in her heart, and then she gave up the idea of taking the risk to directly strike Mukhtar with lightning, and instead went to verify the mechanism of Mukhtar's precepts, and this verification required her ability on the Path of Spirits.
Thinking, Dorothy looked at other parts of the royal palace through the bird's-eye view provided by the city defense system, looked at the fierce battlefield, and then extended the invisible spirits, controlling the bodies of those who died on the ground one after another, and picked up the weapons they used in their lives.