Holy Life (聖命, Seimei) is a special ability of Yellow, the second batch after Brilliance. Cards with this effect in general have the following text:
- Holy Life (When Attacks)
When this Spirit's attack reduces the opposing Life, put one core from the Void to your Life.
Together with Brilliance that showcases the magic-related aspect of Yellow, Holy Life demonstrates a different strength of Yellow: longevity and stalling ability via life recovery. Examples of cards with this effect are The ArcAngelia Isfiel and The Angelia of Olimpics Phaleg. In terms of the ability itself, since it increases your Life when opposing Life is reduced, it added on to the differences between two players' lives every time the ability activates (opponent minus one while you plus one = a difference of two). This also means the owner of the Spirits with Holy Life could attack more aggressively as the attack brings them extra life that can guard opposing attacks next turn in place of blockers. While it is first added to the life, it is also essentially a core-boosting ability for Yellow, which isn't good at adding cores normally.
The obvious weakness, however, is that the ability only activates when the attack hits opposing Life. This means if the attack is blocked, or opponent used cards that limit life reduction for the turn, the ability would be rendered useless. Hence, cards that support Holy Life come with unblockable or doubling the amount recovered each time, such that the hit rate and effectiveness of effect could increase.
The keyword has inspired many keywords that derived from it, including Divine Holy Life, Chaotic Holy Life, and Ultra Holy Life.
While the keyword itself is an ancient one, it is a practical ability that it has been picked up from time to time in the past. And in BS68, when The ToolcraftContractor Kinich-Ahau is introduced with the new keyword, Ultra Holy Life, the original keyword, Holy Life, also got picked up and quite a lot of new Spirits in the deck possess the keyword. This time, in addition to unblocakble, they may also come with unaffected and draw abilities.
