Molting the Mortal Coil

A couple hours later, Whitestaff returned to the shore atop the Living Disaster. It moved into the shallows, where the water barely came up to its ankles. The water was only twenty feet deep, but that was nothing to the giant beast. It looked down at the three Nascent Souls, knowing that this trio were the only ones that could rival it. The fire in its eyes was still dim, and there were still no lava flows upon its back or tracing through its joints. It was still weak from its conflict with Sage, but it was looking at the three others, waiting for them to do something. It wanted to start smashing up the ground again, but even its immense body was nothing in comparison to the immensity of a sea. Even this walking volcano was fearful of what lived out in the depths.

Whitestaff leapt down from the Living Disaster’s head and calmly approached the others, “He isn’t moving much. Lang Sheng seems to have delved as far into the ground as he can go. Since he isn’t moving he must be hoping we can’t reach him, or fortifying his position to try and gather strength. That man is always such a pain to deal with.”

Hei Bai eagerly nodded her head, “That punk is never all that powerful, but he seems to have an endless amount of tricks, it’s truly infuriating.”

The others had thought the two women were speaking nonsense in the past, how could a single Nascent Soul possibly escape from four Nascent Souls? When they initially attacked they had argued over equally splitting the benefits, which led to them forging an agreement for each force to send an equal number of attackers. After their initial confrontation, one of the Nascent Souls had lost his body. They had felt so assured of their victory that they had looked down upon the pair of new Nascent Souls. After that initial failure they had taken their foe more seriously and brought in a large force to chase after him. All the while Whitestaff and Hei Bai had been pessimistic. One of them had already been beaten by Sage twice, while the other had failed on a large scale hunt just like this in the past. They were constantly trying to convince them of the danger, and only now after facing him directly were they coming to understand how much of a pain Lang Sheng was.

The masked Fu Clansman had a serious glint in his eyes, “There is a reason my Clan has devoted so many resources to snuffing out this growing problem. You must always be sure to pull up a problem at the roots.”

The others knew of the Fu Clans' past connection with the Lang Clan, having cleaned up the survivors of a massacre, but somehow Lang Shen had survived and they were trying to clean up the final loose end. At this time, Whitestaff had a calm look on her face. She moved her muscled and scarred frame over to Hei Bai and then bowed to the Nascent Souls, “I have an idea, if you will allow it.”

She looked away from them and then glanced at the mark on Hei Bai’s forehead, “May I?”

The three Nascent Souls seemed intrigued and they nodded. Hei Bai was confused and then she burned with desire, “Will it hurt? Do it!”

There was no telling what exactly Whitestaff wished to do, but Hei Bai was desperate enough to try anything at this point. The muscled woman spun her white staff in front of her body, rotating it like a propeller between the two of them. The others waited as they felt some sort of energy gathering. They couldn’t pinpoint it, but they connected it to her mysterious speciality in the soul. After a few minutes the two ends of her staff were growing with a bright light and Whitestaff abruptly stopped the rotation. She caught the staff and then thrust it forward in one swift motion. The glowing tip of it flew out and struck Hei Bai directly on the forehead. The old woman felt threatened, but fought her instinct to move and received the attack without resistance.

Buzz!

The world seemed to glimmer and get blurry around their group. Even the Nascent Soul’s felt their vision blur for a second in the wake of that strange technique. The glowing light on the ends of the staff was now gone and Hei Bai’s forehead was glowing instead. A red and blue light, matching the two ends of the staff from before were now swirling on Hei Bai’s forehead. The symbol on Hei Bai’s head started to be permeated with the red light, while the blue one slid down into her chest. Both lights slowly dimmed and then completely faded away. Whitestaff leaned on her staff, breathing hard after that strange technique she’d used. None of the others had any idea what exactly had happened, but they were all experienced Cultivators, and waiting calmly for a few minutes was nothing to them.

Hei Bai, who had closed her eyes, finally opened them back up and looked at Whitestaff. She held up her hand and looked at it, then closed her eyes again and sent her senses inward. After a thorough inspection she couldn’t help herself, “What did you do?”

Whitestaff smiled, “To think you can’t even tell. I’ve slightly altered your soul.”

“You what!?”

Hei Bai nearly screamed with surprise and then started checking herself again more thoroughly. The three Nascent Souls shared a glance and then looked at Whitestaff again. While they’d previously found the woman useful because of her strange speciality, she was still only a Core Formation Cultivator. They’d still treated her as their lesser, but if what she said was true, who knows what other strange abilities she had? They suddenly found the rumors of Soul Cultivating Sects being treated as great powers to be much more true. Even if they didn’t match them in raw power, if there were whole sects with such weird powers, who knew what they could do?

Hei Bai opened her eyes once more and she seemed excited, “It’s true!” The seal on her forehead flashed with a dim light. She sneered and started to focus her energy, trying to break out. Lang Sheng had shackled her with a Human Seal and it greatly restricted her abilities. She’d been forced to act like a lackey to all these people, and she was only able to speak with them because she’d been the messenger that coordinated all their forces to work together. They’d all been individually plotting but she was the one that got them to sit at one table and combine strength.

The glowing seal on her forehead started to dim, but it was stubbornly resisting her. At that moment, a ghostly figure rose up out of the ground. The spirit had the appearance of an old bald man with a thin wispy mustache falling down from either side of his lips like a long tail. Whitestaff smiled and nodded to the man, seeming to have known he was around this whole time. Hei Bai on the other hand was surprised and hurriedly bowed her head as well, “Violet Light Ancestor.”

The old man was still without a body, leaving him with only his Nascent Soul. For some reason, he wasn’t fearful of the other three acting against him and confidently floated towards Hei Bai, “It seems you shall need my help after all, and this one would be useful to assist me.”

Hei Bai was confused, especially when she saw the Violet Light Ancestor raising his ghostly hand. He extended his finger and a bright violet light appeared on the tip of it. It got brighter and brighter, glowing like a star. A bright light that should be the antithesis of a spirit type being, yet he was performing the move without any discomfort at all. His ghostly hand shot forward and the bright light stabbed into Hei Bai’s forehead.

She released a blood curdling shriek of pain.