Chapter 57: Take This, Teacher! |
Isabella suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to vomit.
Mental Power trauma had once again taken its toll on her body.
"Spell... no, Divine Art hijacking!" Isabella knew a gap existed between them, but she never imagined it would be this massive.
The so-called spell hijacking occurred after a cast; the spell''s control would partially break away from the caster''s Mental Power. Only a fraction of Mental Power remained to guide the spell''s direction, rendering the caster unable to dictate any further changes to the spell itself.
If another powerful and stable stream of Mental Power intervened at this exact moment, precisely piercing into the spell''s structural model, it could inversely hijack the spell. The intruder could then manipulate it or even alter its intended target.
This was a supreme technique that most spellcasters could never master in their entire lifetimes.
Yet the old priest had taken this a step further, successfully executing a Divine Art hijack.
Because Divine Arts were infused with the Power of Faith, their spell structures were vastly more complex.
The difference between hijacking a spell and hijacking a Divine Art was like the difference between shooting a flipped coin out of the air with a bow and arrows, versus shooting the exact dead center of that same airborne coin.
This proved that the old priest utterly crushed her in sheer technique as well.
The Divine Idol moved in tandem, swinging a massive arm to grab at Isabella.
''Furthermore, aside from the Divine Art hijack, there is also spell fusion,'' Isabella fought through the intense discomfort of her damaged Mental Power, relying on Dodge to evade while analyzing whether she still had any chance of winning.
However, the conclusion was far from reassuring.
With the Might of Judgment and Illusion Manipulation fused together, the old priest''s spells had become exceedingly troublesome.
Not only was it incredibly difficult for her standard Divine Arts to break through, but his illusions now possessed a far greater sense of reality.
Isabella knew full well that the Divine Idol attacking her was merely an illusion, and that the real Divine Idol remained motionless in its original spot.
But because it was interwoven with a Divine Art, if she was caught, her mind would inevitably suffer damage from the spell. And once injured, she would inescapably face further psychological suggestion, convincing her that these illusions were real.
Sensory-type spells operated exactly like this, especially illusions. The more the victim believed in them, the more real the illusions became, eventually even manifesting as genuine physical damage.
The true trap lay in the catch-twenty-two: actively avoiding the illusion was an instinctive acknowledgment of its reality, causing the subconscious mind to involuntarily deepen its belief in the fabrication.
One choice led to instant death; the other was a slow execution.
The end result would be no different.
''As expected, I was far too arrogant.''
''After casting Holy Fire, I followed up with Holy Intervention, while simultaneously controlling the Might of Judgment. Splitting my focus three ways was what gave the old priest the opportunity to hijack it.''
Looking back with her current clarity, Isabella realized that under those circumstances, not risking it all meant death, and risking it all also meant death.
Therefore, Holy Intervention had been an unnecessary Divine Art. She should have just poured everything into unleashing the Might of Judgment and clashed head-on with the old priest.
Without any spell-based defenses of her own, if she was killed by the old priest''s spell, then so be it. But at the very least, her Might of Judgment would have injured him, paving the way for Nemus.
That would have been far better than her current situation, slowly marching step by step toward her doom.
At this moment, her surroundings had completely transformed. She found herself standing within the Church''s Inquisition Tribunal.
The architecture was circular, resembling a grand colosseum. She stood at the very bottom on the accused''s platform, with massive chains shooting toward her to bind her limbs.
High above in the surrounding stands sat the inquisitors, their faces obscured, all dressed in the robes of a bishop.
And looming at the very apex of the structure was the Divine Idol.
The illusion had advanced to the next stage.
Gritting her teeth, Isabella utilized Dodge to retreat backward. Yet, as those chains drew near, they suddenly struck an invisible ripple, igniting with Holy Fire and melting into dripping molten iron. The remaining chains could only circle the air, waiting for another opportunity to strike.
"Audacious criminal, you still dare to resist?!" An inquisitor''s reprimand echoed from the stands, their voice saturated with the Might of Judgment.
Isabella knew things had taken a dire turn.
Holy Fire could only burn physical entities. Those chains were supposed to be mere illusions, yet they had just been set ablaze.
This proved that the illusion was deepening rapidly. It had already begun to hijack her mind and senses on a deeper level, actively interfering with the Divine Arts she had already cast.
At this rate, her Divine Arts would soon be thoroughly disrupted by the illusion and subsequently fail. Her cognition of the illusion would be swiftly altered, genuinely convincing her that she was a Sinner standing trial for her crimes, forever trapping her within the hallucination.
With things escalating to this point, Isabella understood that she was powerless to turn the tide. Her remaining sliver of genuine sensation and cognition was her absolute last shred of freedom.
Isabella closed her eyes, seemingly abandoning all resistance.
"Criminal Isabella, for violating Church doctrines, stealing Church secrets, and disrupting the Church''s standard operations, the following verdict is hereby passed."
"Her senses shall be sealed, and she shall be cast into the Abyss of Breath Prison to suffer the torment of the phantom winds!"
The chains rattled once more, surging straight for Isabella.
Yet Isabella showed no reaction whatsoever, and the Holy Fire no longer flared up to protect her.
It wasn''t until the very second the chains were about to strike that Isabella snapped her eyes open. A radiant magic array manifested from her body.
"Clang!"
Divine Art: Holy Intervention.
Everything before her eyes was violently torn apart, and the illusion shattered along with it.
The genuine, half-collapsed Cathedral reappeared before Isabella''s eyes.
And the things that had been about to strike her were not chains at all, but rather those pitch-black, vein-like threads.
At this moment, the black threads rapidly combusted, transforming into clusters of brilliant Holy Fire.
"Mixing truth with falsehood to disrupt my judgment."
"You really taught me a lesson, Teacher!"
Right on the precipice of despair, Isabella had fortified her own conviction and discovered the fatal flaw within the old priest''s illusion.
His illusion had encroached upon her mind far too quickly. The speed of its interference entirely contradicted the old priest''s known weakness of lacking Mental Power vitality.
Thus, Isabella realized the truth: the reason those chains burned upon contacting the Holy Fire was not because the illusion had deeply penetrated her mind and begun hijacking her Mental Power and Divine Arts.
It was because the chains were never illusions to begin with. They were physical black threads, merely cloaked under an illusory overlay of chains.
The old priest had employed this exact method to crush Isabella''s psychological defenses.
"You aren''t half bad yourself, Isabella. The moment I fused the Might of Judgment with Illusion Manipulation, you instantly learned the technique of spell fusion and immediately adapted it into Divine Art fusion," the old priest''s praising voice echoed out.
Holy Intervention could only defend against energy-based attacks. However, when Isabella had feigned surrendering earlier, she had discreetly withdrawn the spell structure of the Holy Fire and fused it onto the unreleased Holy Intervention.
This was exactly how her Holy Intervention managed to physically block the black threads while simultaneously igniting them with Holy Fire.
"Take this, Teacher!"
"This is my full power—an indiscriminate eruption of Holy Fire meant to take us both down!"
In the next instant, pure white flames furiously bloomed!