Molting the Mortal Coil

Sage had always spent more time on dozens of other areas of study, and his repertoire of Qi Techniques was quite limited. It was quite ironic considering he had the whole of the Timeless Master’s library to study, yet he passed it off to others and focused on Blacksmithing, Array Formations, Seals, Heavenly Materials, and transforming his physical body. It wasn’t that the Sacred Banyan was weak, but it was slow and he always had other more direct methods. At this point, Sage had run out of tricks. So many of those things he usually relied upon had been destroyed. He was down to Spirit Power, Qi Techniques and Heavenly Materials.

The Sacred Banyan and its accompanying techniques were grouped together to create a specific fighting style based around longevity and controlling a battlefield. At this time, with Sage gearing up to wage a protracted fight for his life, that was exactly what he needed. With the spider drawing attention, Sage grew his own forest, the vines of the Sacred Banyan constantly expanding, spilling onto the existing trees of the swamp and using them as a base to spread further.

The woman caused a huge splash of water when she slowed her fall, soaking herself in the process. The look on her face said she blamed the giant spider for her disheveled condition, which she immediately started to seek revenge for. She punched the air and booming shockwaves rippled through the intervening distance to smack against the giant spider with loud thumps. The impacts sounded quite hollow, like the flick of a finger against an empty barrel, but enhanced to a ground shaking volume.

To the right, the masked man in black gathered another mass of black smoke and hurled it towards the spider. The Swamp Genesis Spider waved its legs at the woman and the masked man, using its pointed legs to deflect and intercept their attacks. Yet, this time it wasn’t foolish enough to focus upon them, its main attention was upon the swordsman who’d fallen into the swamp water. The spider pulled its legs back from the swordsman’s vicinity and released its next giant water spray on a section of water a few hundred yards away from where the swordsmen fell into the water.

The target of its water spout was the base of a tree, there were no apparent targets in sight, but just as the huge water column flew towards the tree, the swordsman burst out of the water and ran rapidly up the tree. He had to use his hands to make the sudden movement, and reaching the largest branch of the tree, his body spun from the horizontal back to the vertical. He had one foot on top of the branch with the other hooked underneath it. He drew his sword and a singing hum released into the air. His blade touched the incoming water column and split it apart. The small river flying through the air smashed against the lone swordsman like he was a rock among the rapids, splitting the water jet clean in half.

Beneath the spider, Sage’s forest had multiplied in size, covering an area many times larger than the beast he was sheltering beneath. At this point, he started to divert his energy into the other techniques, transforming the forest into a fortress. Root Wall, a technique to twist and reshape roots and the bodies of plants. Vines and branches wove together to form wall-like lattices between the tree trunks. Many new roots sprung up from the ground and aimed upwards to form spear-like spikes. Crown Cover, the other setup technique, controlled new growth, allowing rapid forming of new branches and leaves. Within minutes the lattice of branches were covered with leaves and growing more of them by the second, turning the fence into a huge wall.

Sage built up an immense mass of biological material with the constant infusion of his Qi. Even so, it was still just trees and vines. On their own, such things could do little against a Nascent Soul, let alone three of them. A cultivator could cut down a thick tree with a wave of their hand, and block a vine turning into a spear by the dozens. What sense was there in spending so much effort on something when just a machete could carve a path right through everything? Yet, this style was not based upon using a few trees to defeat an enemy. It was not meant for dueling, but a war of attrition. Certainly, hacking down a few trees, vines, and roots was easy, but what about a whole forest? Even a Nascent Soul would find themselves exhausted if they had to battle against an entire forest that was constantly trying to tangle them up and stab them in the back.

The Fu Clansman had circled around behind the Swamp Genesis Spider and continued to throw huge masses of solid smoke towards the spider. As he got closer, they appeared with shorter intervals between them and the spider’s limbs were not able to keep up with the pace. Some of the smoky figures smashed against its body and rather than an impact, the smoky objects burst apart. When they did, the thickest, and darkest bits of smoke clung to the spider’s leg. The immaterial black clump emitted smoke of its own and after a few more hits the spider was smoldering with dark smoke from many places on its body.

The woman threw more sound blasts, but they merely thumped against the spider’s carapace. While she seemed the most impressive and terrifying, against the giant spider, her attacks were actually the least effective. The sheer size of the monster made it seem like trying to knock down a house with a boombox. While it was certainly noisy and distracting, the spider stayed focused on the swordsman. The only one that had actually hurt it, and now the recipient of its ire, the poor swordsman leapt from tree to tree, dodging the spider’s water blasts. Sage received the same treatment as the woman, his enemies far more focused on the giant monster than a desperate soul growing some trees to hide behind.

Unfortunately, the other two Nascent Souls were not as harmless as the spider thought they were. There were now dozens of places on the spiders body that were emitting smoke and the whole battlefield was now heavily obscured. While he’d been running over the top of the water all this time, only now did the Fu Clansman show his real skill. He hopped into the air and his feet seemed to catch atop the surface of a wisp of smoke. Defying gravity and density, he ran across the column of smoke, treading leisurely upon a path through the sky that only he could take. The Swamp Genesis Spider noticed his approach and waved a giant leg to bat him away, but the motion pushed the clouds of smoke around with it. Like a housefly riding the air currents, he barely had to move, standing on the smoke as it was pushed away by the spider’s giant leg.

At the same time, the woman rushed over with noisy bounds to meet up with the swordsman. She grit her teeth and hopped into the air at the same time that the swordsman did. They met in mid-air and she slapped him on the back with both hands. There was a thunderclap of sound, and the swordsman was launched towards the spider at high speed while the woman was shot back into the dirty water. Even though she was left cursing, the other two Nascent Souls avoided the spider’s waving limbs and landed upon its back almost in unison.