Molting the Mortal Coil

Sage didn’t have many weapons against a spirit type enemy. When the Soul Clone was rendered helpless, he had only a few arrays and his two Heavenly Flames to rely upon. Being taken by surprise he hadn’t any opportunity to prepare any arrays, and from the situation that happened back in Lionheart Town, he wasn’t confident in using the Samsara Flame. While it could be a powerful weapon, it could also lead to breakthroughs. A lowly Dragoon had advanced to become a rank 7, breaking the barrier and ascending into immortality. He himself had also made a breakthrough while under its influence. The Samsara Flame was not a weapon he wished to use without proper consideration.

Unfortunately, in the current circumstances he’d exhausted his options and decided to take the risk to finish Hei Bai. When the Samsara Flame ignites the soul, the burning victim experiences new lives and deaths. Over and over again they are reborn while their original mind is slowly consumed. Weakened as she was from the First Light, Sage could only hope that her soul would be burned away before she made a breakthrough.

She should be finished, right? Just like that giant on the Psychic World. The Dragoon Immortal and I were just flukes. If it was so easy to advance like that, wouldn’t ‘Beast Kira’ have just burned up all the Flares until only a few elites were left?

He reassured himself, remembering that the Dragoon was very carefully exposed to the Samsara Flame. For a little bug to suddenly break through like that was essentially a miracle, while his own experience had been dancing on the edge of a blade. With the amount of flame blasted deep into Hei Bai there was little chance she’d survive, right?

Boom!

There was an eardrum bursting explosion, with Hei Bai at ground zero. Tujiu was nearly knocked out of the sky by the shockwave, while Xiezi and Sage were thrown back and sent flying through the air. Sage bounced off a few trees before he regained his balance with Cosmic Traction. Xiezi was a little more fortunate, getting launched from the top of a ridge, her trajectory took her onto the tree canopy, the many branches and leaves broke her fall. She was a little worse for wear, but didn’t suffer the heavy collisions that Sage had.

That dark sphere had burst apart and the vibrant orange flames shot straight into the sky like a geyser. In the aftermath of the detonation, the fount of orange flame was tinted with what looked like black ink. In place of that dark sphere there was a small wisp-like ghost shaped like a red skull with a flame-like flickering aura. Next to the skull, where the center of the dark sphere had been there was a small fingerbone inlaid with gold. At that moment, it was covered in cracks and the gold was melting.

That same fingerbone necklace that had carried such terrifying power cracked further and then shattered. The destruction continued until the bone became nothing more than dust, slowly falling to the ground along with the molten gold. It was completely destroyed, but the ghost was still there. A ghostly red skull surrounded by orange flames.

Well, this isn’t good.

Hei Bai seemed to assimilate properties of spiritual things, and from the color of the flames around it, the Samsara Flame was not completely gone. Sage was definitely afraid of his attack benefitting his foe and it seemed his fears had come true.

I wonder if I just stopped thinking of bad outcomes… would everything end up perfectly? Hah, Wu Chang already disproved that one.

At that instant, Sage dashed forward. His body dissolved away, the seal that trapped him in a human form was removed and a massive cobra appeared. Sandy brown scales grew flashed in the light as the monster unfurled its hood and hissed. Like a spitting cobra, balls of flame in alternating colors of orange and white were released in rapid succession, firing from Sage’s giant fanged mouth and splashing against the ghostly skull. The flames didn’t pass through harmlessly like physical attacks, but they also didn’t seem to harm it. The skull maintained its cohesion and appeared completely stable under the onslaught.

Then it spun around and turned to face the ground behind it where another ghost shape appeared. A spirit that had the shape of Sage’s human body appeared and darted towards the skull. It shifted in mid-air, also taking on the shape of a cobra and striking to bite at Hei Bai. The floating skull did nothing, merely gazing at the cobra.

That cobra, Sage’s Soul Clone, was suddenly struck by a burning sensation, but it braved the pain and bit down on the skull. The orange flame aura around the skull wavered, but remained solid. The Soul Clone was thrown back by the contact and slithered away into the ground to retreat.

Then the giant cobra suddenly hissed louder and took a short breath. A little hiccup before it stopped to release a huge torrent of white flame. The red skull stopped and turned to face down the white flame, glaring at Sage as it did.

Inwardly, Sage wiped his brow. At that moment, he’d seen the red skull diving into the ground after the Soul Clone and hunting after it. With Foresight he’d already seen that if he allowed that to happen then Hei Bai would be free to chase the Soul Clone without him being able to interfere. The Soul Clone lifted up out of the ground behind Sage and disappeared into his body, and only at that point did he stop releasing flames from his mouth. That extended assault had expended the remaining power stored by his Divine Breath, but it was worth it to ensure the Soul Clone’s escape.

Sage’s giant cobra body coiled up, preparing to strike with fang or tail at any instant. He stared down the floating red skull and kept using Foresight to prepare a response.

At that point a battle erupted. The giant cobra swung its tail forward, a wave of Qi traveling up and down its body before exiting the tip of its tail and detonating the energy of the heavens and earth. The combination of the body's full physical power as well as a detonation of the world’s power. Wave Combustion. The physical component of the attack did nothing, but the powerful detonation was enough to shock the red skull. At the same time, beams of blood red light shot from the skull's eyes. Like burning lasers they scorched runnels into the scales of the cobra and also focused upon the explosive detonations to lessen the force released. Neither attack was very well suited to contain the other, so the confrontation turned into a brawl, each side attacking savagely and only giving lip service to defense.

Sage slithered back and forth between full bodied sweeps of his tail, trying to stay out of the path of those burning beams as long as possible. Even so, it was not easy to avoid them. They were like lasers that tracked to anywhere that Hei Bai looked, and moving the whole body faster than an opponents eyes was no easy task. At the same time, the thunderous whip of his tail was too fast and his body too large for a little floating skull to escape from. Everytime he released another Wave Combustion attack, the skull could only brace itself and suffer from the explosive detonation of world energy. Back and forth, they stuck each other constantly for a few minutes until the eye beams finally dimmed and the tip of the cobra’s tail had been completely blown off.