Isabella immediately felt a nauseating urge to vomit.

Mental damage had once again manifested on her.

"Spell hijacking... no, Divine Art hijacking!" Isabella knew there was a gap between their abilities, but she never imagined the disparity would be this vast.

The so-called spell hijacking occurs when, after casting a spell, the control over it partially escapes mental command, leaving only residual mental energy to guide the spell's direction while losing the ability to alter its form.

If another powerful and stable mental energy intervenes at this moment, precisely piercing into the spell's structural framework, it can hijack the spell, take control, and even change its target.

This is a super technique that most casters never master in their entire lives.

And the old priest had taken this a step further, achieving Divine Art hijacking.

Because Divine Arts incorporate faith power, their structural frameworks become more complex.

The difference between hijacking spells and hijacking Divine Arts is like the difference between shooting a coin bouncing in the distance versus hitting the exact center of that bouncing coin.

This requires extremely deep understanding of Divine Arts and extraordinarily precise control.

This demonstrated that the old priest completely overwhelmed her in technical skill as well.

The divine statue moved accordingly, one arm swinging to grab at Isabella.

"And besides Divine Art hijacking, there's also spell fusion." Isabella forced herself to endure the various discomforts from mental damage while dodging, analyzing whether she still had any chance of winning.

Yet the results weren't encouraging.

As Judgement's Might and Illusion Manipulation fused together, the old priest's spells became increasingly troublesome.

Not only were her ordinary Divine Arts ineffective against them, but the opponent's illusions also gained more realism.

Although Isabella knew the divine statue was merely an illusion while the real statue remained motionless in its original position,

because it incorporated Divine Arts, once grabbed, her spirit would inevitably suffer 'damage' from the Divine Art effects. And once injured, she would unavoidably fall further into suggestion, believing these illusions were real.

Perception-based spells work exactly this way, especially illusions - the more the target believes, the more real the illusions become, eventually capable of inflicting actual harm.

The catch-22 situation is that dodging illusions also instinctively treats them as real, with the subconscious unconsciously deepening belief in their reality.

One leads to immediate death, the other to slow demise.

The outcome makes no difference either way.

"Indeed, I was too arrogant."

"After casting Sacred Flame, then using Sacred Interference, while simultaneously controlling Judgement's Might - splitting my focus three ways - that's what gave the old priest the opportunity to hijack."

If it were present-day Isabella, she would understand that in that situation, not fighting meant death, and fighting also meant death.

So Sacred Interference was an unnecessary Divine Art;

she should have gone all out with Judgement's Might from the beginning and taken the old priest down with her.

Without personal spell protection, being killed by the old priest's spells would be inevitable, but at least her Judgement's Might could still damage the old priest, clearing the way for Naimes.

Better than now, step by step walking toward death.

Now, the surrounding environment had completely transformed - she found herself in the church's tribunal.

Circular like a colosseum, she stood at the bottommost defendant's platform while numerous chains swarmed toward her to bind her.

On the elevated judge's benches surrounding her sat indistinct figures wearing bishop robes as judges.

And atop the structure stood that divine statue.

The illusion had entered its next phase.

Isabella gritted her teeth and dodged backward, but as the chains approached, they suddenly touched some fluctuations, igniting into Sacred Flame that melted into molten iron droplets.

The chains could only circle continuously, waiting for an opportunity to approach.

"Bold criminal, still resisting?!" The judges' reprimanding voices echoed from the tribunal seats, filled with Judgement's Might.

Isabella knew things were turning bad.

Sacred Flame only burns physical entities, yet these chains—mere illusions—were now igniting.

This indicated the illusion was progressing rapidly, already beginning to hijack her mind and senses to interfere with her already-cast Divine Arts.

At this rate, her Divine Arts would soon be disrupted by the illusion and fail, while her perception of the illusion would be rapidly altered, truly believing herself to be a criminal on trial, trapped forever in the hallucination.

Reaching this point, Isabella understood it was beyond recovery—her current limited senses and awareness represented her final freedom.

Isabella closed her eyes, seemingly surrendering to resistance.

"Criminal Isabella, violating church regulations, stealing church secrets, disrupting normal church operations—the following judgment is rendered:"

"Seal her senses, confine her to the Abyss of Breath, suffer the torments of eerie winds!"

The chains moved again, sweeping toward Isabella.

But Isabella showed no reaction, and Sacred Flame no longer ignited.

Just as the chains were about to touch her, Isabella opened her eyes, a magic array emerging from her body.

"Boom!"

Divine Art · Sacred Interference.

Everything before her tore apart, the illusion shattering instantly.

The half-collapsed real church reappeared before Isabella's eyes.

And what nearly touched her weren't chains at all, but those black vascular threads.

Now these black threads rapidly burned, transforming into clusters of Sacred Flame.

"Mixing truth with falsehood to disrupt judgment."

"You taught me quite a lesson, teacher!"

Before despair took hold, Isabella solidified her faith and discovered flaws in the old priest's illusion.

The interference progress on her was too fast, inconsistent with the old priest's characteristic insufficient mental energy activity.

So Isabella realized: the chains burned when touching Sacred Flame not because the illusion had deeply penetrated her mind and begun hijacking her mental state and Divine Arts,

but because those chains weren't illusions at all—they were black threads disguised with an overlay of chain illusion.

The old priest used this method to break Isabella's psychological defenses. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ noᴠelfire.net

"Not bad yourself, Isabella. I fused Judgement's Might with Illusion Manipulation, and you immediately learned this spell fusion technique, converting it into Divine Art fusion." The old priest's praise echoed through.

Sacred Interference only defends against energy-based attacks, but Isabella had pretended to surrender earlier, withdrawing the Sacred Flame's Divine Art structure and attaching it to the not-yet-released Sacred Interference.

This allowed Sacred Interference to block the black threads while igniting them into Sacred Flame.

"Take this, teacher!"

"My full-powered, indiscriminate Sacred Flame explosion aimed at mutual destruction!"

The next instant, pure white flames erupted!