Sorcerer’s Handbook

Chapter 317: paramour Strikes Back

The Chariot of the Bull strides toward the horizon, and the River of Flowing Gold gradually fades away.

Only the Souls of the past are being reborn.

Ashe dons the armor of a Knight, Sonya wraps herself in the coat of a Lover, Deya removes the Mask of her sister, and Danzel packs away the mood of a paramour.

“Return the ‘Secret Incarnation’ to me.”

Danzel’s voice becomes flat again, like rain walking against the order of the world, shedding the inertia of emotions, leaving only a will to fulfill the mission.

“Then return the ‘Incarnation of the Stars’ to me,” Ashe replies lightly, “You’re not my paramour, after all. You can’t just freeload from me, can you?”

Although they had never met before, Ashe immediately realizes that Danzel is the Commander of the heroic soul legion pursuing them. After all, Danzel had revealed in the cabin that she possessed the ability of ‘armed forces,’ a special effect of Soul Summoning.

While a Sorcerer might also be lucky enough to rob a spirit with Soul Summoning, like Ashe himself, all the Sorcerers who dared approach Ashe were used by him as expendable rearguards. Therefore, within a radius of one kilometer, the only person other than Ashe who could possess a spirit of Soul Summoning was the Commander of the heroic soul legion hunting him.

“Mind your position.” Danzel’s right hand tightens slightly, and Ashe suddenly feels as if his neck has turned into a wet towel that an Ogre is about to wring dry, almost unable to breathe.

“Swordswoman, Witch, leave immediately,” Ashe grabs Danzel’s right hand and forces it open with all his strength, creating enough space to speak. “What follows is a private meeting time just for me and this Heroic Soul Commander. It’s not convenient to have you unrelated folks spectating.”

“Sharpening for a Decade!”

“Stream thread!”

Sonya and Deya clearly show their stance with their actions, evidently unable to stand by as Ashe flirts.

“There’s only one of her,” the rustic girl tilts her head, glancing at the dim figures of the legion’s followers outside the fence. “Her army can’t come in, we have the advantage in numbers now—”

“Do we?”

Danzel’s form emits a faint purple glow, and the color of her Assassin Specialist suit deepens, as if countless layers of clothing were piling up. Despite still wearing a light, translucent mesh dress, she exudes an unbreakable, oppressive thickness.

“Although the armor of an Assassin Specialist is the lowest among Level 4 troops, if you stack 10 units of troops, it can accumulate up to 30 layers of armor,” Danzel explains. “In Legion battles, if it comes down to just the commanders, it becomes a pure contest of Soul Power. Whoever has more Soul Power can arm more troops. A heroic soul armed with thousands of units of troops is in itself a Legion—that’s what’s meant by ‘invincible heroic soul.’”

“Do you Sorcerers really want to compete with me in Soul Power consumption?” Danzel gently strokes Ashe’s cheek, her sharp nails even making Ashe feel wounded. “It’s been a while since I personally fought a Meteoric Warrior from the Star Hall. Why don’t you turn those two into Meteoric Warriors as well?”

Due to the subtle connection between Soul Summoning spirits, heroic souls can recognize each other. However, this recognition is quite crude; comrades can approximately identify each other’s specific identities, but hostile camps can hardly obtain more information. This is why Blaido mistakenly thought Ashe was the logistics commander, Demilo, and initially, Danzel also thought Ashe was a commander from the Star Hall.

Thus, Danzel immediately recognizes that only Ashe possesses a Soul Summoning spirit here, while the other two girls are likely his combat followers or merely for his personal amusement.

“Forget it, having women help me suppress a paramour sounds extremely lame, making me seem like some viciously spoiled Noble scion,” Ashe shrugs, glancing at Sonya and the other girl. “Go on, you two. With you here, I’m not at ease to make my moves.”

Ashe knows in his heart that they definitely can’t match Danzel. After arming himself as a Meteoric Warrior, Ashe has exhausted the Soul Power resources they had saved up over the past days.

Soul Power is a subtle resource, occasionally dropped when Knowledge Creatures are slain, though the chance is extremely low. Gregarious Creatures almost never drop it, Large Creatures have about a 33% drop rate, and Overlord Creatures always drop it.

Danzel, backed by the power of the Divine Master, carries an unknown amount of Soul Power, ready to arm herself with dozens or even hundreds of units at any moment. Ashe, after arming himself as a Meteoric Warrior, only has 7 layers of armor, while Danzel can surge to 700 layers at any moment. The difference in their health bars isn’t even on the same scale. How could they possibly fight?

Danzel isn’t some slow, foolish boss who will just stand there and let them attack. In fact, from the perspective of Danzel, now armed as an Assassin Specialist, it’s they who seem like slow-moving minions.

Regardless, the Witch and the Swordswoman need to leave first. That way, even if negotiations with the Heroic Soul paramour fall apart, only Ashe, who failed in his romantic encounter, would die!

“If it’s for your protection, dying once is not a price I’m unwilling to pay.”

Catching the look of trust Ashe throws her way, Sonya gently bites her lower lip and, grabbing Deya’s slender waist, retreats towards the outer wall of the cabin, trying to use it as an obstacle to escape the Heroic Soul Commander’s line of sight—

“Are they your most precious treasures?”

The steps of the tall female assassin approach like the shadow of an eclipse, growing more menacing with each step. When the last question mark brushes against her back, Sonya turns to look. Dragged by her right hand, Ashe looks like a doll, while her left hand, which should have been playing an instrument, stabs towards Sonya, its slender jade-like fingers colder than the teeth of a Slaying Fish-Dragon!

Miracle Water Moon!

Miracle Strangling Thread!

The rustic girl directly opts to counter with the Counterattack Miracle, returning the commander’s kinetic energy in full force; the Secret Princess assists from the side, her multi-layered threads capable of slicing a Large Creature into dozens of pieces, entangling the Heroic Soul like a trap!

Clang!

Boom!

The counterattack, ineffective!

The strangling, threads collapse!

Danzel grabs Sonya by the neck with one hand, slamming her heavily onto the ground! Her pale purple nails embed into the rustic girl’s flesh, like a poison continuously consuming her soul!

However, the more chaotic and bloody the situation becomes, the calmer Sonya’s light red eyes appear. She quickly uses the ground as a leverage point, swinging her sword towards Danzel, then numerous threads envelop the commander’s body!

Miracle Blood Flower Water Moon—

The strongest Swordsmanship Miracle abruptly comes to a halt.

“Why did it stop?”

Danzel pulls Ashe in front of herself, now those Moon Silk threads that were aimed at her are wrapping around Ashe.

“Meteoric Warriors have 7 layers of armor,” Danzel says. “A Two Wings Sorcerer doesn’t have the power to break through 7 layers of armor in one strike, so go ahead and hit him.”

“Let them go!” Deya forcibly manipulates the water threads, wrapping 13 loops around Danzel’s neck and then pulling back hard. However, the beheading Miracle that would have severed anyone else’s neck merely wears down one layer of Danzel’s armor, which she disregards as if merely a neck massage from the Witch.

As her Soul fades, Sonya becomes increasingly transparent, but she has no intention of begging for mercy. Now that Ashe is being used as a human shield by Danzel, she aims a kick at the Empress’s groin—kicking hard, with all her might, aiming for the most vulnerable and vicious spot.

If I can’t hurt you, I’ll disgust you!

Just as they seem about to be wiped out, Ashe suddenly says, “If you don’t want to kill me, then you’d better stop. She and I are linked by the Life Link blessing.”

Upon hearing this, Sonya feels the nails embedded in her neck being pulled out. Even though she is a seasoned fighter in the Virtual Realm, being pinned down and slowly ground down is a new experience for her. Yet, the feeling rising in the heart of the president of the Stretching Claws Club is not fear or dread, but intense shame—

She is seen in such a powerless state by the Observer!

“I’m actually helping you,” Danzel says. “I triggered the ‘Life Link’ and then stopped. Isn’t that enough to help you remove this shackle? Just a little more force and I could have done it. Are you sure you want me to stop?”

However, Ashe ignores Danzel’s provocation, saying to himself, “You really don’t want to kill me, because death is merely my escape route, while your goal is to steal the ‘Secret Incarnation’ I carry.”

“You can’t kill me, nor can you kill her; you can’t even kill the Witch massaging your neck—she possesses a ‘Shared Death’ curse that will randomly select one of us four to die in her place. If you’re lucky enough, you’ll achieve the ‘I kill myself’ accomplishment.”

“You can’t threaten anyone,” Ashe calmly states. “Let us go, my unknown paramour.”

“You’re right, and you’re wrong,” Danzel responds. “If I need to retrieve the Secret Incarnation, indeed, I cannot kill anyone—but if you’re utterly unwilling to give up, then your lives become meaningless to me.”

Danzel then lifts up Sonya as well, walking straight to the fence. Deya, using all her strength, leaps onto Danzel’s back and tightens the water thread. However, the water thread now acts merely as a backpack, making Deya hang on Danzel’s back like a baby.

With both hands, Danzel lifts Sonya and Ashe into the air, facing them towards the natural world outside the fence. A massive Octo-eye Spider breaks through the curtain of rain, its ruby pupils intensely focused on the two fragile Sorcerers before it. Its mouthparts quiver slightly, as if thanking the Virtual Realm for today’s feast.

Beyond the Octo-eye Spider, numerous Phantoms loom in the shadows behind the rain, so many that Ashe and Sonya couldn’t even satisfy the minimal needs of these creatures to fill the gaps between their teeth.

“We generally don’t deliberately erase a Sorcerer’s Soul,” Danzel’s voice rises from behind them. “But we don’t mind letting our minions enjoy a feast occasionally.”

“The moment I throw you in, your Souls will be torn apart by dozens of Virtual Realm creatures. You won’t even have time to return to reality; you’ll just watch helplessly as your Souls split apart, feeling the agony of consciousness fading and the loneliness of spirit obliteration. Your bodies will never awaken again; you won’t even qualify to fall into hell but will simply become a Phantom of the Virtual Realm. I’ll greet you as I pass by.”

Facing the looming Octo-eye Spider, Sonya’s body stiffens instantly, the air of death so heavy it’s almost suffocating. Countless textbook knowledge floods her mind, questioning her fragile Soul.

After all, she is just an 18-year-old girl.

Sonya’s lips tremble slightly, and a barely audible choke escapes her throat as she struggles to control the shaking of her eyes, desperately trying not to allow tears of humiliation to form. Whether it’s a spasm caused by fear or a struggle driven by the will to survive, her hands flail aimlessly, searching for something, anything, that might save her.

And then, she grasps it.

When the Knight takes her hand, the grievances in her eyes finally condense into a mist of tears that flow down.