Molting the Mortal Coil

With the intervention of a Soul Cultivator along with a Nascent Soul that was also in a spirit form, the symbol on Hei Bai’s head finally shattered. The glowing mark shattered into tiny fragments of energy, immediately fading from view while her energy flared to life. She had pushed herself to the limit and as soon as the Human Seal shattered, she fell to the ground, gasping for breath and with a trickle of blood at the corner of her lips. At one instant she looked so old and frail, lying weakly upon the ground. A moment later the Seal completely dissolved and she released another scream. This time it came along with a flash of light, bright enough to even make the Nascent Souls look away for a moment.

When the bright light faded, the old woman was gone. Instead, brightly burning orange flames were floating in the air just over where she had been laying. Whitestaff and the four Nascent Souls could immediately feel the heat pouring out from these orange flames, and they all examined the ghostly red skull floating in the center of the orange fire. They were all surprised to find that the heat from the fire wasn’t only felt on their skin, but on their spirits. Whitestaff felt her Spiritual Sea warming, while the others felt the warmth with their Nascent Souls. It would be nothing out of the ordinary if the Violet Light Ancestor felt the heat, since he had no body at the moment, but the other three Nascent Souls also felt a similar warmth.

The masked Fu man laughed and clapped a few times, “Excellent! You were constantly speaking of what had been done to you, but I admit I doubted you. Truly seeing it with my own eyes, is definitely convincing!”

To the side, the serious Yincha woman rolled her eyes. They’d all seen Lang Sheng and his subordinates turning into giant beasts, was it that much more impressive because Hei Bai was a spirit form instead? Despite her annoyance, she kept her mouth shut, not wanting to start another argument. The Swordsman took a similar stance, staying silent and waiting for when he’d be required to draw his sword again. He truly hated these sorts of moments and situations full of the unknown, all he wished to do was clash his sword against that of another, with the victor taking all.

While the Fu Clan’s Nascent Soul sounded impressed, neither he nor the others were alarmed. They were face to face with a ghostly red skull, one which was releasing a violent orange flame which they all distinctly felt the warmth of. Even so, none of them bothered to comment about the unusualness of her form and instead just turned their heads to look at the Violet Light Ancestor. Feeling their gazes, the bald man with the fu manchu drifted closer to the orange flame, “Have you recovered your strength enough yet?”

Whitestaff already knew what would be happening next and she passed each of them a strange silver token that looked like a large blunt toothpick, or a chopstick that had been snapped in half and dipped in silver. Surprisingly, when the Violet Light Ancestor and Hei Bai took hold of them, the silver token shimmered and faded slightly. Within moments it transformed to match the same state as the two of them and turned incorporeal. A moment later, they all heard Whitestaff’s voice within them, “Can everyone hear me? The connection has been established.”

With a new communication device distributed, the two spirit beings sunk into the ground. They felt the silver token tugging at the soul matter that currently made up their beings and Whitestaff quickly explained the situation to each of them. The muscular woman’s hands were glowing and her energy was seeping into the white staff she held at a high rate. With her assistance, they only needed to follow the tug of the token and they’d be drawn towards their prey, Lang Sheng.

While all of this was going on, their target was holed up in a tiny chamber, barely larger than a dog house. He’d used a Warp Worm to dig it out and buy him some time to rest. As the enemies had suspected, he could only sink so deep into the earth before reaching a limit. A normal spirit type being needed to find a place rich with Yin Qi to nourish and protect itself from the punishing light of the sun. For the most part that meant cold, dark, and wet places. That was the reason that most large subterranean caverns in this world were usually considered haunted. They were places for lost, tainted, or cursed souls to gather.

As a Nascent Soul, Sage was not nearly as vulnerable as your run of the mill spirit being. Being out in the light of day wouldn’t burn him up and destroy him, but it was highly unpleasant and greatly weakened him. Being beneath the ground wasn’t inherently a Yin place, in fact it was even many times slightly Yang. The heat of the planet's core, the Earth Fire, warmed and heated the ground. Or at least, Sage assumed it to be the heat of the core, if this world was anything like any planets he knew about. This crazy magic world, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a literal god down there just stoking a fireplace and volcanoes were just his chimneys.

He’d done something that his enemies hadn’t imagined, which was pulling the Swamp Genesis Spider into his Inner World. The giant spider was a bit weaker than him in his stage of Law understanding and so the monster qualified for entry. The only hitch was that it had expended quite a bit of energy to move something so very large. Sage only succeeded by forming a ‘Merge’ with the monster. Since they had already undergone Soul Resonance, Sage was able to use the technique of the Insect Immortal Index to form a full link and that let him use the supporting techniques to ease the transition.

The Insect Immortal Index didn’t just have Merge, Mutate, and Mature. It also had the minor techniques of Qi Feeding and Hive Body. Hive Body altered the physical body to create hollow areas where insects could live, crawling out of tiny holes on the skin when they were needed. The true Hive Body, which had been passed down in the Lang Clan, was far more profound. Instead of hollow spaces, it created an extradimensional space in the dantian, which grew larger and larger as their cultivation advanced. It was in fact quite similar to the Inner World that Sage had, but on a much smaller scale. Because of their similarity, when he transferred insects in and out of his Inner World it used far less energy than it would for any other object. In fact, he hadn’t really noticed the difference until just recently when battling the Living Disaster. When bringing out the huge stones he was able to get a real gauge on how much energy was consumed to bring objects out. He compared it to when he’d brought out armies of Dragoons almost effortlessly and hypothesized the reason. To test his theory, he tried to pull in the Swamp Genesis Spider and was surprised to find it possible.

After making the Spider disappear into thin air, he rapidly dove to the bottom of the bay and sunk into the seabed. He went as deep as possible before it grew too difficult to resist and called out a Warp Worm to burrow a small chamber. He tossed out a few materials from the Universe Ring to make the chamber colder, giving it a Yin tilt and making it suitable to recover his strength. He didn’t bother continuing to flee, as he knew that Whitestaff had some unusual method to track him. Instead, he was sticking with his plan of trying to outlast them. It was truly a longshot, but as long as he was alive there was the opportunity to create another chance. He would cling to this life with all his strength, there was no way he’d make it easy for them.

As long as I can buy some time, the Swamp Genesis Spider will return to full strength!

Just as he was plotting his next comeback, he suddenly felt uneasy. His eyes widened and he dove into the wall of the chamber. Deciding to trust his instincts he fled at full speed, just in time to feel a burning warmth against his soul. The heat dimmed as he escaped and he realized he’d only narrowly escaped!