Molting the Mortal Coil

The snake’s little spines were only a tickle against the tortoise’s thickly armored limbs. They were still somewhat resilient and the ground shifted as the huge foot pressed down. The sound of ice cracking rang out and the spines shattered beneath the inevitable descent of its huge leg and despite the uncomfortable sharpness pressing into the sole of its foot, the tortoise was quite pleased to feel that familiar squish of compressing flesh and blood. It had been quite a long time since it got to squish something so satisfyingly beneath its foot. Most things it chased were too small to make such a satisfying squish, especially when everything always felt him coming from miles away. A nice squish like that was a rare treat.

The tortoise twisted its huge leg to mash up the mess underneath, but then it realized the squish was a little different. It lifted up its leg and took a look. If it could the mountainous tortoise would have frowned, but instead it let out a trumpeting bugle that blew out the fires around it. The mess looked like motor oil mixed with crushed glass. The tortoise didn’t know what those things were, but it did know that there wasn’t any blood! It quickly scanned the area and stomped a few more times, only then realizing its folly.

Upon its huge shell, a dozen swords had stabbed into the stony surface. They’d been carried by the blast of air and from one of them Sage leapt out. He pulled the Flying Beast Sword out of the stone, along with the other swords that had concealed it. It was a type of Messenger Flying Sword that was combined with a Beast Bag to transport small animals long distances. It was something of an uncommon item, and Sage had carefully modified them with a slot to hide the Universe Ring in. It had been quite tricky to hold back an air blast to fire on its own, but the second attack following in its wake that carried the swords was performed by a Formation Plate.

After dipping his head down, Sage quickly returned to human form, leaving the Blacksilver King in the previous shape. He released the swords, hiding inside the Universe Ring and manipulating the Blacksilver King to act like a Knight and lift its head. The single blast he’d carefully contained in its mouth was launched and then a formation propelled the dozen blades right behind it. He’d made the air attacks to lower the tortoise’s guard, letting it grow complacent and that the air blasts couldn’t really hurt it.

Now that he was on the back of the giant tortoise it protected him from the tortoise’s gaze and direct attacks. Sage didn’t waste his time, quickly traversing the tortoise’s shell to move around the mountain peak on its back. He moved laterally, staying away from the volcanic mouth at the peak of the tortoise’s shell. Moving over the rocky shell, he had to leap over rivers of flowing lava and deal with the forbidding heat and smoke surrounding him. He had tied a wet cloth around his face as a filter, the best he could do in the few seconds he was flying through the air in the sword, but it only made things slightly better.

The tortoise’s head turned, the flexible neck and eyes on the sides of its head let it look backwards. That was when it saw Sage running across its huge shell and let out another bugle like call. It couldn’t quite turn its head back far enough to release molten boulders from its mouth, but that didn’t mean Sage was safe. With the tortoise’s manipulation the rivers of lava flowing down its back flared up. They came from holes on its shell, and the flow suddenly increased. Sage looked ‘uphill’ and saw a veritable flood of hot lava flowing towards him. Worse yet, it wasn’t just from one source, but many.

He felt like an avalanche of molten stone was rushing towards him. There’s no hope of digging yourself out if you get buried under lava. Wait, if I get buried under it, does that turn it into magma?

Not wanting to get carried away by the flood of lava, he used Cosmic Traction to climb into the air, darting away from the surface of the tortoise’s shell. He narrowly avoided the lava flow, but then it only got worse. The tortoise lowered its body, bringing him farther away from the lava flow. Then it tilted to one side and the mountain peak swung towards him. Sage tried to escape, but he wasn’t fast enough, trying to run through the air as a mountain tilted and gave him a view right into the mouth of the volcano.

I’m sorry.

He paused in mid-air for a moment and then threw his sword down at the tortoise’s eye.

The tortoise’s head shifted and with a snap it swallowed the little shard of metal. The look on its face was quite smug, pleased with itself for finally having cornered that little snake. Sage smiled and his human form disappeared again, replaced by a huge cobra falling through the air. Giving up on trying to escape, Blue Icesilver poured out of him. The bluish quicksilver flowing around him and then hardening into a cloudy ice armor. The layers got thicker and thicker as he fell, not having nearly enough time to resist the sudden eruption he was directly in the path of.

The volcano on the tortoise’s back exploded, rocketing molten stone, sulfur, ash, and smoke into him. The foot thick icy cocoon he’d formed was only a small impediment to the fury of a volcanic eruption and it was shattered apart near instantly. Sage’s body had curled up upon itself, hiding its head within the many coils of his body, protecting the most important organs and allowing the long neck and tail sections to take the brunt of the attack. His scales were blasted off by the ferocious power of the eruption and the searing hot gas and molten material that followed cooked him rapidly.

Remarkably, he wasn’t hurled through the sky by the terrible explosion, the many layers of defense he’d thrown up weighed him down. He’d shielded himself with his Heavenly Materials, layers of vines from the Sacred Banyan, layers of Spirit Power, and even a hastily performed Wave Combustion at the last instant. He’d succeeded in blocking most of the force that had been brought against him, but it just wasn’t enough.

There was just too much heat. While his body was mostly in one piece, it was flash fried by that eruption. His muscles didn’t respond to him and his body fell from the sky like a stone. That eruption didn’t rocket him through the air after all his resistance, but it still had enough power to send him on a gentle parabolic arc away from the tortoise’s shell. Unable to control himself, his body skipped a few times across the surface of the burning plain. As he slowed, the burned up coil of snake flesh lost cohesion. The tight balled up shape spread apart and he sprawled across the ground like a broken rope. Torn and chewed up in a dozen places, but that was only minor injuries in comparison to the charred black state of his exposed skin.

Most of the scales had already been cooked to brittleness and shattered by the impact with the ground. They tore loose and revealed the equally blackened flesh beneath. The giant snake’s body looked like it’d been cooked over a spit for far too long, burned and blackened to a state only one step away from charcoal. Skidding to a stop, the cobra didn’t move and before the giant tortoise could even finish walking over to inspect its work the snake’s heartbeat had stopped entirely.