Molting the Mortal Coil

Many of the Cultivators from the Inner World seemed impressed by this strange place. They only saw the sky for a few minutes before they were trapped in a world of red. Now, their ears were ringing from the booming thunder. The volume of sound was so great that any mortals who heard it would have been blasted into tiny bits. For these Cultivators, aside from ringing ears, they merely felt sore all over, like they’d just experienced a powerful sneezing fit. Their whole bodies felt strained from the all encompassing pressure waves. The momentary lapse in concentration might have cost some of them their lives, but fortunately for them the enemy suffered from the same disruption. In fact, the enemy could be said to have suffered more, since many of them were helping to maintain the red light formation. When it was destroyed, they suffered a backlash, coughing up blood from the internal injuries they sustained.

Despite the destruction of the formation, nothing immediately happened and the battle picked back up. Without the red light filling them with dread and dampening their morale, the fight only grew more fierce. Sage immediately started planning a way out for those on his side. With the formation broken their escape was no longer impossible. He scanned the sky and ground for the reason that the formation was broken, ready to alter his escape plans to match the situation. Had they stumbled into some sort of natural disaster, or was there a third party interfering?

Black clouds rolled and tumbled above, while fists and blades flew down below. With the thunder as accompaniment, the battle built to a feverish pace. Boom. Boom. Boom. The thunder suddenly struck with a rhythmic pace, and then staccato clacks joined in. At that moment the thousands of enemy Cultivators started to glow with a fiery red aura. Sage immediately sent a message to the Tiankong Siblings, urging them to find the group of drummers! In a large scale battle like this, the drummers showed their greatest power. Their unusual techniques seemed to work on any of their allies that could hear them, and even now with thunder booming overhead they were able to hammer their drums with such fervor to affect the miles wide battlefield.

Ruanfu rolled and flipped through the sky, avoiding the many attacks flying her way. Like an inverse rain, they flew up from the ground into the air, showering the sky with violent energy. Sage constantly expended energy, using a careful application of Cosmic Traction to cling to her back. Without a physical body he couldn’t just hold onto her and had to use unusual means to anchor his spirit form. Even so, he didn’t regret it, as Ruanfu’s flight speed was far faster than the Violet Light Ancestor, Hei Bai, or the Fu Clan Nascent Soul. Her superior mobility was the only thing they could rely on to battle while so outnumbered by enemy Nascent Souls.

The drums got louder and louder, and the injuries multiplied. People on both sides started to fall. For a moment Sage’s side was slightly in the lead, dealing out a dozen injuries for every one they suffered in return. Yet, the longer the battle went on the more the scales began to even out. The empowering effect of the drum team began to make up for the practiced coordination of the Inner World Cultivators. Dozens of years drilling together and pooling their strength had held up against twenty to one odds, but the addition of the empowering aura tipped the scales.

“We can’t find them!”

Sage received a frantic message from Baozha, the giant legged bird stomped around the battlefield. The combination of her stilt-like legs and powerful body allowed her to easily walk through the enemy army with impunity. Overhead, a huge sandpiper with blue gemstone eyes was fluttering back and forth. It’s beak flicked back and forth, releasing black tears through the air. Invisible from head on, these slashes were tossed all around the battlefield at random groups. Jiyao used his beak as a saber, trying to find the location of the drummers without success.

“That’s it! Search for Erhu music, that dancer is using illusions to hide them!”

Baozhai yelled at Jiyao and he focused on protecting her while she ran around at high speed listening for the sound of an Erhu. Just as the sky shimmered and they stumbled into the illusion, the Erhu was drowned out by rapidly plucked strings. The sound of the drums became a backing beat for the sudden cacophony of sound blades. Vicious soundwaves cut like knives, falling against the Inner World Cultivators. A dozen of them instantly lost their lives in that mere instant of disarray. They retaliated, focusing their power upon a Fire Cultivator, and the trio of old women using a Zither, Harp, and Lute were drowned in flames. They turned to ash in just a few seconds, but the damage was already done.

There was a pained scream, and feathers burst into the air. A giant vulture with flame patterned feathers swooped down and scooped up a chubby black feathered grouse. Songji suffered a heavy injury, half of her ribs and the bones in one wing were completely shattered, and Tujiu carried her away from the main battle, taking a few hits in the process.

Things weren’t going much better for the others. Jiyao’s Mother, another giant sandpiper with blue diamond-like eyes, had one of her legs sliced clean off, sending her flight out of balance. A completely red toucan rammed its giant beak straight through the center of a woman’s chest. She had just released a scream that blew the head off an Inner World Cultivator and got stabbed through the heart by a beak in return. As the light left her eyes, she retaliated with the last of her strength, driving a spike into Juzui’s right eye. Blood and pus-like fluid splattered everywhere and the gentlemanly bird pulled his beak out of the now dead woman and screeched in agony.

The sound caught Sage’s attention just long enough for him to not see one of Hei Bai’s eye beams. The burning line struck Ruanfu’s back and splashed against his ghostly body breaking his connection and sending him tumbling through the air a few times before he could right himself. He was forced to the ground, flecks of soul matter fell from his Nascent Soul body while he avoided follow up attacks from the Violet Light Ancestor and the Yincha woman, Lady Diyin. He yelled to Ruanfu, forbidding her from turning back to retrieve him. She had to intercept the Swordsman, sweeping her tail forward and causing an explosion to knock the man back as he was preparing to stab Baozhai’s Mother in the back.

Just as it felt like the drum beat would be their funeral dirge, the sound of the storm in the sky drowned them out. Brilliant light flashed in the sky, flooding the dark air with what seemed to be a river of lightning. The endless rumble of thunder broke the spell of the drummers and the fiery aura disappeared. Surprisingly, that immense stream of lightning in the sky didn’t just pass by. It curved and arced across the sky, forming a huge loop in the sky above him. An electric halo above the battlefield that came to a sudden and abrupt stop.

Instead of striking the ground or fading away, the huge mass of lightning hovered in mid-air and only then did all those down on the ground have the chance to examine it. The snaking bolts of lightning were interconnected, outlining and forming the body of a giant eel. What left them even more amazed was that they could make out the shape of a person standing on the back of the mass of lightning. Then, a wise and confident voice fell over the battlefield, “I hope I’m not too late! Are you alright, Brother?”