Molting the Mortal Coil

This really isn’t off to a great start.

Sage was already cornered at the end of a cave deep into the ground. The tunnel had a few branching paths, but they all led to dead ends. If the enemy had already sealed the exit for the mine tunnel, there wasn’t anywhere he could go to escape. At least not without a lot of digging. Since they hadn’t already rushed into the chamber he was in, they either didn’t want to damage the Psionic Crystals, their powers would be weakened in the chamber, or maybe a little bit of both.

Somehow the enemy had destroyed Sage’s Twin Soul without him even realizing they were there, but that didn’t mean they knew all his means. He immediately started linking to a Warp Worm while ordering the Blacksilver Pawns to pick up the pace. Sage wasn’t sure how much time he had before the enemy barged in to battle with him, but he was going to make use of every second. He thought about using a formation, but he wasn’t sure how much surveillance the enemy had on him at the moment. He chose not to give away any more of his tricks before any combat actually began. For all he knew they had some way to spy on him right now and if he started laying out defenses they’d see them and be ready for them. He had a rough idea how powerful the people of this world were, but it was still only a rough idea. It was still difficult for him to gauge an individual’s power level, and they had all sorts of unusual methods he’d never seen before.

“You aren’t coming out? Do you want to see what will happen if you force us to come in? Just hurry out here so we can reset the trap, we can’t just waste it on one person,” the voice paused. Then there was a bit of stifled laughter, like the man was laughing at his own joke, “I just had a great idea! Come out here and lick my boots clean and I’ll guarantee you a quick and painless death. If you do a good enough job, we might just let you live.”

Sage didn’t bother glorifying such a blowhard with a response, keeping focused on raising his Warp Worm into fighting shape while the Blacksilver Pawns cleaned the whole place out. Only the ‘Divine Egg’ gave them trouble. The rest of the place was wiped clean, and then the Blacksilver Pawns worked together to hoist the huge spheroid into the air and forcefully stow it into a Storage Ring.

“Hey knock it off! Stop that, put those down!”

The voice seemed to be a bit delayed in its awareness of what was happening in the chamber, but by the sounds of things, Sage had been correct. There was in fact something spying on him, only it seemed to be a bit slow on the uptake. About thirty seconds after the Divine Egg was stowed away the voice outside started yelling hysterically, “No! Stay away from that! How dare you! Tell those things to get away!”

The ground began to rumble and huge cracks started to form upon the walls of the subterranean chamber he was in. Dirt and dust was shaken loose and the room did not seem to be in the most stable condition. Not wanting to give away the presence of the Warp Worm yet, Sage quickly took off running back down the tunnel he entered from, with the Blacksilver Pawns forming an honor guard around him. He had no idea what he was running into, but at least he had some shields to take the hits for him. He extended his Spiritual Sense, but in a tight underground tunnel it took a moment to snake through the corridors and reach the surface.

Normally, covering the entire cave system with his Spiritual Sense would be as simple as breathing and take only a small fraction of his power. Unfortunately, Spiritual Sense was powered by Spirit Power, and with the transformative energy rampaging through his body, he was expending the majority of his Spirit Power already. That weakness had led to his being caught completely off guard. Without Spiritual Sense his Twin Soul was on lookout, and somehow it had been destroyed instantly without Sage even noticing anything was going on.

Nothing stopped him as he ran through the tunnel and he stopped just shy of it, letting a Blacksilver Pawn dash out in front to be the guinea pig. His Spiritual Sense told him nothing was within twenty yards of the entrance to the mine, but he couldn’t expand it any further at the moment without succumbing to the rampaging mutation power. He could control the Blacksilver Pawns like they were additional limbs, but they also didn’t have normal sensory organs. He couldn’t really tell what was going on up there, other than feeling if the Blacksilver Pawn touched something and using his Spiritual Sense as a guide. Right now, it was quite like he was extremely near-sighted.

Sage climbed up to the surface level, surrounded by his eleven other Blacksilver Pawns. The twelfth moved from its place to join them and Sage was finally able to see with his own eyes what was going on. As he had sensed, there were no enemies within twenty yards. There also weren't any enemies at thirty, forty, or fifty. Yet, they were far from being alone. Starting at the hundred yard mark, people wearing gas masks, black leather, and sprinkled with chrome, were congregating. They didn’t just form a loose circle around them, they were densely packed. Sage suddenly felt like he was in a Sports Stadium, with a sea of people all turning their eyes onto him.

So many? Isn’t this world one of those post-apocalypse settings? How can there be so many people living, let alone surrounding me at this moment?

He quickly started scanning the crowd for the source of the voice as well as what means they were using to spy upon him. On Earth, he’d watched more than a few intrigue and spy movies and his favorite lesson from them was to always have an escape plan. Without even considering whether he could defeat the enemies around him, he’d already started plotting how to flee. In the past he’d suffered from Whitestaff’s disciples constantly hounding his trail, and if he wanted to ensure such a thing couldn’t happen again, he’d need to find how they were watching him. After a quick search, he would have frowned if it wouldn’t be a show of weakness.

Instead, he maintained his confident posture. Back straight and eyes scanning the crowd as if they meant nothing to him. He crossed his arms and used the Divine Breath technique to empower his voice to a terrifying volume, “I am here! Where is the arrogant fellow that couldn’t stop cursing at me? Does he not dare to even show his face?”

Sage put on the airs of an expert and chose to use a strong front to try and draw out the enemy leader. This was truly a rare occurrence for him, so it felt somewhat uncomfortable, but Sage tried to look like a crime boss surrounded by his subordinates. So what if the enemy had more of them, his own were far more terrifying! Arrogant people always thought themselves to be the highest power in the world, and the best way to piss them off was to challenge their authority or belittle whatever it was they prided. Normally, Sage would never do something so foolish. If someone was your enemy, why inform them about it? Did he care about his ‘face’? Was being shameless a big deal when his life was on the line? Better not to make enemies and just let them talk big. If that wasn’t possible, then destroy the other party before they even knew they were being targeted!

Only in this sort of situation where he had no other way out would Sage choose the more difficult path of acting powerful and facing a confrontation head on.

What else could he do?