Molting the Mortal Coil

The huge flame was gone from the physical world, but Sage immediately felt a presence invade his mind. Inside his Spiritual Sea, the ball of flame rushed in from the grey misty borders of the Spiritual Sea and a wave of heat washed over the water and seared against the side of Sage’s mental fortress. The huge ball of flame started to float closer. As it moved, the flame’s silhouette began to change. Slowly twisting and rolling, reforming into the rough shape of a man. A giant created of flames, stomped it’s ‘foot’ down upon the surface of the Spiritual Sea. Steam burst into the air, the giant’s foot boiled away the water as soon as it touched it.

There was no solid ground for it’s foot to step down upon, but it burned away the Spiritual Sea water so quickly that it kept the liquid at bay, forming a layer of empty air a few inches around wherever it passed. Just by stepping a few inches into the Spiritual Sea it put on a show of walking on water while also creating turbulence in Sage’s mind. Or at least it would for anyone who hadn’t practiced any mental cultivation. The waters of the Spiritual Sea usually represented the emotions and mental state of a cultivator, but after practicing a mental cultivation it protected against the volatility of emotions and outside influence by creating a stable island. The skies above the Spiritual Sea reflected outside influence, weather that could drastically affect the seas beneath them. With his mental cultivation, Sage had a foundation to center one’s self around, and a shelter against the storms.

Yet, none of that seemed to matter against the flame giant.

The Spiritual Sea was turned into a torrent of steam when the giant raised its hand and punched towards Sage’s mental fortress. Flames spewed forth and splashed against the walls of the fort. At first the walls stood strong and showed not a sign of damage. Taking it as a challenge, the Giant lowered its hand and charged towards the fortress. Amazingly, the giant was actually taller than the fortress, the top of the walls coming only to its shoulder height. Dashing forward, the giant stopped at the wall and let out a loud roar. Instead of striking again, it instead looked up towards the sky. The clouds started to change from a cloudy grey to a stormy black. Yet, that wasn’t enough. They continued to roil and shift, and streaks of red started to form within the clouds. Then, the Giant raised the pitch of his roar and the clouds parted. A hole formed and a huge column of flame fell from the sky, raining down upon the mental fortress.

The level of power was on another level from the first attack and it completely shrouded the mental fortress with flame. It may have looked to be stone, but the flames were powerful enough to start melting the walls. After a few seconds of resistance, the doors of the fortress were ignited and quickly burned into ashes.

The entrance of the fortress was now open, a reward for the flame giant’s efforts. At least, that was what Sage intended for the open door to be. He made the fortress seem impregnable to start with, but then gently allowed it to become damaged, like it was only happening after great effort. If the enemy thought they had finally breached the gates after only putting up a fight they should be more eager to rush inside. The last time, he’d just let the doors open far too easily and a more discerning foe might have realized the discrepancy. This time, he made it more rewarding and waited for the Giant to head into his waiting labyrinth.

Unfortunately, the Giant was either too stupid to head inside, oblivious to the gate’s existence or just not attentive enough to notice it igniting and then later turning to ash. The roaring intensified and so did the fire pouring down from the sky. It bathed the entire fortress with heat. Of course, Sage was merely putting on a show and didn’t feel that much pressure from the flames. He was making the walls look like they were slowly melting to give the flame giant confidence. The gate was finally destroyed and now was when the giant was supposed to stomp inside and start wrecking the walls. Yet, the idiot just kept raining down fire and blasting the fortress walls. Since the guy seemed to be a dummy, Sage made the wall just in front of the giant melt down faster than the rest of the fortress.

The outer few layers of the maze all led to the same place, specifically to prevent someone bursting through the outer wall and ending up next to the core, so it wasn’t too large of a shortcut to allow the giant inside. Sage had also made sure that the core of the labyrinth wasn’t at the center either, since then someone might find it with special direction sensing or mapping capabilities. It was just too bad that all these considerations were bypassed by the foe. Even after burning itself a new opening directly into the wall the flame giant didn’t stop. The column of fire kept on falling.

After what seemed like a few minutes the giant stopped roaring. He lowered his head and examined the state of the fortress. Then, he spread his legs and lowered his stance, pulling his elbows into his sides and clenching his fists. Then, the Giant started making more noise again. Not a roaring anymore, but a low pitched chanting. Instead of coming to an end, the flame column dimmed slightly and then roared to life once again. The heat continued to build and the melting walls of the fortress were no longer an act. The very structure of the Infinite Immaterial Seat began to fail. The roof and walls starting to break down, burned away by the unending onslaught of flame.

Sage started to grow worried and stopped caring about battling the mutational energy rushing through his body. He poured all of his Spirit Power into strengthening his mental fortress and resisting the non-stop damage. In the past he had been devoting all of his ‘earnings’ to buying the Universe Ring back from Guan Zhenyan. There was no way he’d suffer that constant torture many times over to also become the man’s disciple. After selling him the Infinite Immaterial Seat, the price for other techniques was at a much higher level and Sage couldn’t buy a single one. There were a few in the Timeless Master’s library, but Sage had only studied the basics and figured it was enough to have a defense for his mind. Why would he need to learn attacks? The Twin Soul was very good at attacking souls, so it had never been a priority for him. The Psionic Crystals had provided him with a route to learning new techniques, but he hadn’t had them long enough to study them.

The heat penetrated deeper and deeper into the mental fortress until Sage felt his mind blurring. His thoughts started to slow down and his perception was stifled. Before long he started to grow drowsy, and the entire fortress was on the verge of complete ruin.

Waaaa!

Everything went completely dark and quiet. Devoid of light and sound, all was stopped. There was only silence. He couldn’t feel anything against him. In moments all sense was gone, and only broken by a loud wailing. The cry of a baby.

What was that? Where am I? Why don’t I remember what I was doing? Wait. Who am I?