Within the hidden space of the Temple of Revelation Runes, beneath the divine symbol of Heaven’s Arbiter, Dorothy, who had been sitting there controlling the distant situation against Muhtar, encountered an unexpected crisis.
Through the overhead perspective provided by the temple’s system, Dorothy watched as Muhtar, severely battered by her lightning strikes, fled into a building adjacent to the palace garden to evade further attacks. Without hesitation, Dorothy dispatched her corpse marionettes to search, swiftly pinpointed Muhtar’s location, and immediately had her marionette fire upon him. However, the instant Muhtar was shot, Dorothy herself felt an unprecedented, searing pain surge through her chest.
"Cough!"
Her eyes widened in shock as she doubled over, coughing up a mouthful of blood. Clutching tightly at her chest, she felt warm liquid rapidly soaking through her clothing, her chest riddled with countless holes—puncture wounds extending from the front to the back. Overwhelmed by the intensity of the agony, her vision darkened rapidly, nearly losing consciousness.
"How could this…"
Muttering with disbelief, Dorothy pitched forward onto the floor, her body collapsing face-first into the spreading pool of her own blood. Under such extreme pain, her distant control over both lightning and corpse marionettes instantly collapsed. From Muhtar’s perspective inside the distant palace building, the intense spiritual fluctuations originating from that hidden space sharply diminished, while all around him, the marionettes—originally searching for him—collapsed lifelessly.
"Hah… hah… hahaha… Finally, you taste the pain of punishment yourself…"
Clutching the gunshot wound on his chest and watching the corpse marionette that shot him fall motionless, Muhtar sneered coldly. Maintaining his enhanced vision granted by the Eye of Radiance, Muhtar quickly turned his gaze toward the garden area outside the building, where a familiar figure, a certain young nun, was rapidly approaching.
“With the most troublesome one now out of the picture, it’s time to deal with the others…”
With this thought, Muhtar gripped his curved blade tightly once more, extracting another sigil and several stored items from his stone container. Crushing them together against his blade, a faint silver glow enveloped his weapon. He then swiftly floated away to intercept his next target. In order to preserve the large amount of spirituality required for maintaining it, he temporarily shut off the Eye of Radiance after marking the fading life force within the hidden space and the other priority targets, letting his vision revert to normal.Elsewhere in the same building, along a long corridor, Vania was advancing swiftly, sword in hand, desperately searching for Muhtar’s traces. At the same time, she anxiously tried to communicate via the information channel, repeatedly attempting to contact Dorothy to get guidance on how to locate Muhtar. Yet no matter how many times she called out, the distant Dorothy gave no response at all.
“Miss Dorothea… Miss Dorothea, please show me the way. Where is Muhtar hiding now?
“Miss Dorothea… Miss Dorothea, what happened? Please respond quickly… Where is the heretic leader? What should I do next? I need your guidance…”
Running through the corridor, she repeatedly attempted to connect with Dorothy through the channel opened earlier by prayer. But now, after having grown accustomed to almost immediate replies, she was instead met with a long, uncomfortable silence, causing her to feel a deep, unfamiliar anxiety—almost panic. She had not felt this way for a very long time.
Until now, no matter what danger she faced, Vania, while anxious, never felt truly panicked, because she knew that as long as she could reach Dorothy, as long as Dorothy was overseeing the situation, no matter how dangerous things seemed, she believed things would eventually work out. As long as she prayed to Aka and heard Dorothy’s voice, she always maintained confidence that everything would turn around in the end.
But at this moment, she could not contact Dorothy at all. Without Dorothy’s reassuring voice and guidance, Vania felt a surge of panic and helplessness she had not experienced since the time in Pritt, within Bishop Dietrich’s tomb, last year. Back then, she had not yet met Aka or Dorothy—and similarly, the threat she faced was also from the Savior’s Advent Sect.
Fear and helplessness clouded Vania’s mind, her anxiety clear upon her face. Just then, her consistently active Insight suddenly detected a dangerous threat from behind. Vania’s expression hardened instantly, spinning around while tightly gripping her sword and raising it defensively. In a clear ringing sound, she blocked the sneak attack that came from behind, and there she saw Muhtar holding his curved blade.
Seeing Muhtar appear again, the anxiety instantly vanished from Vania’s face, replaced by intense focus. Muhtar wasted no words, immediately continuing his ferocious assault. Unable to counterattack due to the earlier restrictions placed upon her by Muhtar’s commandments, Vania resorted once more to absolute defense. Her sword wove a dense net of steel, perfectly deflecting Muhtar’s relentless blows. The clash of metal on metal reverberated continuously in the corridor.
Attack and defense continued incessantly. Yet this time, Vania quickly discovered that things were different—her sword, while blocking Muhtar’s attacks, rapidly developed small cracks. These fissures swiftly multiplied and spread with each strike from Muhtar’s blade. In mere moments, her sword was covered in countless fine cracks.
Familiar with fighting Shadow Beyonders, Vania understood immediately—this was a weapon corrosion effect from Shadow spirituality! Muhtar had clearly enchanted his blade with Shadow through sigil.
Unable to directly break through Vania’s impeccable defense built on exceptional swordsmanship, Muhtar instead targeted her weapon. Without a weapon, she’d lose her only means to effectively block. The moment her sword shattered, she’d have nothing left to stop him except her own flesh.
Amid the continuous clash of blades, Vania’s sword continued to crack rapidly. Soon, it appeared the blade would completely shatter, depriving her entirely of any effective means of defense. Just at that critical juncture, however, a sudden burst of icy wind violently shattered the corridor’s window, fiercely shooting inward to envelop Muhtar. Caught off guard, Muhtar’s fierce assault halted, one of his arms quickly encrusted with ice, rapidly losing functionality.
Ambushed by the frigid air, Muhtar felt intense shock—this power clearly belonged to Shadi’s ancient ghost companion. Although Shadi had gained ice manipulation abilities through that ghost, if Shadi attacked someone protected by the commandments, he himself should receive tenfold retribution from the reflected effects. Did Shadi not fear suffering tenfold icy backlash?
Filled with puzzlement, Muhtar turned towards the window. Through the broken glass, his eyes fell upon a peculiar figure standing at a distance outside.
The figure wore Shadi’s military uniform, yet beneath these ordinary clothes was not a body of flesh and blood. Instead, it was an exquisite form composed entirely of translucent, glittering ice—a lifelike ice sculpture crafted perfectly in Shadi’s likeness.
This Shadi, whose entire body had transformed into crystalline ice, raised one arm forward, continuously unleashing jets of freezing frost as he steadily advanced. Despite his body being entirely formed from ice, his movements showed no sign of stiffness, as if he were truly a living ice statue.
"This is... Elemental Form!"
Seeing Shadi completely transformed into solid ice, Muhtar murmured in disbelief. Now he understood why Shadi wasn’t affected by his reflective damage—because at this moment, even if Shadi were subjected to that reflected damage, it wouldn’t matter in the slightest.
Elemental Form was a unique ability available to all Beyonders on an Elementalist path upon reaching the Crimson rank. It enabled them to temporarily transform their physical bodies completely into the element they controlled. In this form, Crimson-rank Elementalists gained extraordinary resistance to physical attacks and became completely immune to damage from their own elemental type.
In other words, at this moment, Shadi was completely immune to frost damage. When he attacked Muhtar with frost and Muhtar reflected the damage back at ten times its potency, the damage remained frost-based, to which Shadi was naturally immune. Thus, reflecting the damage back onto Shadi had absolutely no effect.
To put it simply, Shadi was currently dealing frost damage with complete immunity to it. Even if Muhtar reflected that frost damage tenfold, Shadi would still remain unaffected. This Elemental Form was the result of Setut painstakingly synchronizing with Shadi’s soul, allowing Shadi to barely unleash a small portion of a higher-ranked ability.
As Shadi advanced, he continuously released streams of frost, attempting to completely freeze Muhtar. Unfortunately, even though Shadi had temporarily attained Elemental Form, the intensity of his frost attacks still remained at the White Ash rank, incapable of instantly freezing Muhtar solid, thus giving Muhtar room to maneuver.
As his body rapidly stiffened, nearing complete immobilization by the spreading frost, Muhtar shakily retrieved a sigil from his person. He had just barely drawn it forth when his entire body was swiftly covered by a thick layer of white frost, rendering him utterly rigid. At that moment, however, the sigil he held began to glow faintly. The emerging glow traced the emblem of a blazing sun. Seeing this, Vania—who had initially moved forward intending to seize the sigil—immediately recognized what it signified and turned around to flee without hesitation. A moment later, a deafening explosion erupted behind her.
Boom!!
Suddenly, the sigil in Muhtar’s hand, enveloped in ice, erupted into a massive explosion of flame, followed immediately by a powerful shockwave. The intense blast occurred right behind the escaping Vania, lifting her off her feet and violently hurling her forward. Crashing heavily onto the ground, she struggled back to her feet and turned around to behold the sight of the corridor reduced to burning rubble. Within the smoking ruins, Muhtar had vanished entirely—clearly, he had exploited the explosion to thaw himself and flee, relying on his extraordinary vitality to endure this self-destructive method of escape.
"Don’t let him get away! After him!"
Seeing Muhtar use the explosion as a chance to flee, Shadi shouted loudly from beyond the destroyed corridor. Hearing Shadi’s urgent command, Vania immediately grasped her sword tightly and rushed deeper into the building. Shadi followed closely behind. Just as he was about to enter the palace complex, however, he suddenly heard voices behind him.
"Lord Muhtar! Where are you? We’re here to assist you!"
Upon hearing this, Shadi turned around, only to see a large group of armed Savior’s Advent Sect members pouring into the palace garden, charging straight toward him. Witnessing this scene, Shadi felt his heart sink. With so many Savior’s Advent soldiers now gathered here, the situation on other battlefronts inside the palace must have deteriorated severely.
…
Within the vast Baruch Royal Palace, Vania moved swiftly through various corridors and rooms, anxiously searching for any trace of Muhtar. However, the sprawling palace felt like an endless maze, making it impossible for her to locate Muhtar quickly. She could only wander without direction, desperately searching for him.
"Go ahead… turn right… enter the collection hall, then turn left…"
At precisely this moment, a long-absent yet familiar voice echoed once more in Vania’s heart. Hearing this voice, Vania’s previously distressed state lifted immediately, dispelling the shadow of worry that had begun to cloud her mind. Strengthening her resolve, she gripped her sword tightly and followed the voice’s guidance, swiftly navigating through the palace interior. After just a short while, she finally spotted the figure she had been pursuing.
In one of the palace’s halls, Vania found Muhtar, who had clearly been fleeing desperately. His luxurious robe was tattered and burned, his thick hair mostly singed away. His body was charred black in many places, and extensive burn wounds covered him. Noticing Vania had arrived, Muhtar glared at her with resentment.
"You again…"
Seeing the grievously wounded Muhtar, Vania’s expression hardened. She swiftly advanced upon Muhtar, stretching out one hand, the other still gripping her sword, intending to seize him and prevent further escape. Muhtar responded by instantly slashing back at the approaching Vania. Without hesitation, Vania raised her sword to block once again.
Observing that Vania was still relying on her damaged sword to block, Muhtar couldn’t help but feel triumphant. From their previous exchanges, he knew Vania’s sword was on the verge of collapse. A single powerful blow now would surely shatter it completely. Still choosing to use the sword to block was no different from seeking death!
Clang!
Muhtar’s curved blade came crashing down, the crisp sound of colliding steel ringing clearly through the hall. Under the impact of this heavy blow, Vania’s sword instantly shattered into pieces.
However, what Muhtar didn’t anticipate was that after shattering the blade, his curved sword didn’t continue downward to slice Vania in half. Instead, it struck a thick, vibrant, blood-red tentacle that had emerged from the remnants of the sword. This was precisely what lay hidden beneath the sturdy exterior of Vania’s weapon—the true secret concealed within her blade.
Muhtar’s blade cleaved into the flexible, fleshy tentacle, drawing forth copious amounts of blood but failing to sever it completely. Instead, the tentacle twisted and writhed in pain, swiftly coiling around his weapon. In a heartbeat, Muhtar’s sword was fully restrained.
Muhtar had sensed earlier that the sword was a mystical artifact aligned with the Chalice spirituality. However, because Vania had never activated any corresponding abilities until now, Muhtar had assumed the conditions to trigger its powers were extremely stringent. Thus, he had somewhat relaxed his vigilance—he never imagined that its power would manifest in such an eerie fashion!
Taking advantage of the tentacle ensnaring Muhtar’s blade, Vania once again reached out to touch Muhtar directly. Seeing this, Muhtar decisively abandoned his weapon and quickly floated backward, attempting to distance himself from her. At precisely that moment, however, an unexpected phenomenon unfolded.
Within the lavish hall of Baruch Royal Palace, metal candlesticks, vessels, armor pieces, and weapons suddenly trembled simultaneously. All at once, the various metal objects rose into the air and hurtled toward Muhtar, swiftly adhering to him, enclosing his body from every angle.
These metal items didn’t harm him directly but instead encircled and enveloped him, obstructing his vision and restricting his movement. Immobilized and entangled by these metallic objects, Muhtar was swiftly overtaken by the pursuing Vania. At that moment, a warm, orange-yellow glow appeared in her hand—the healing radiance that symbolized the Holy Mother Path.
With the aid of countless metal objects, Vania finally managed to close in on Muhtar, stretching out her hand imbued with the restorative glow to make contact with his severely wounded body.