Molting the Mortal Coil

The little glowing sphere swirled and the glow faded away. All that remained was a small white sphere, with a thin little tail coming from it. Sage used a Spirit Technique, lifting the object into the air with telekinesis and spinning it around to see a dark brown iris and a little white skull at the center of a black pupil. It was an eyeball. Hei Bai’s strange eye, and likely the source of one of her techniques. Sage smiled slightly and sent the object into a formation inside the Universe Ring.

After making a final check to ensure not a single shred of Hei Bai was left, Sage called everyone’s attention to the reason that silence had not returned to this piece of the wilderness. The Swamp Genesis Spider was covered in cracks and dents, with some of its bodily fluids leaking from those wounds. Even so it was still holding strong against the mountain of stone it was faced off against. The Living Disaster was many times larger than it, but they were both Nascent Souls and the fact they were fighting at the edge of the water gave the spider an edge that it used to stay in the fight.

Sage immediately called everyone’s attention to the ongoing battle and they all realized there was only one impediment to the battle finally ending. Wan Ling walked out onto the deck of the damaged Flying Ship along with the few remaining members of the Jade Horde at her disposal, ordering them into action to start repairing the damage to the ship. While their refining skills were meager, they still existed and they weren’t truly repairing damage, merely putting out fires, clearing debris and collecting remains. Wan Ling seemed to always be a few steps ahead and she was already preparing the ship for their escape.

More importantly however, a small army of cultivators turned their attention to a giant stone bodied tortoise with a ferocious glint in their eyes. Sage sent a few messages about the monster’s weak points and in just a few minutes they had the beast surrounded and quickly overwhelmed. The tortoise had a body made of stone, but Dian Huifang’s lightning was empowered by law energy and she found a way to stun it, at least for a short while. With that momentary opening, the giant spider slipped away and was replaced by Elder Manji. The Cloud Swallowing Thunder Eel returned to his true form and was joined by Ruanfu, pitting two rank six Demonic Beasts against one. In single combat, the tortoise’s immense size gave him an edge, but while outnumbered it was put at a severe disadvantage.

While it was busy spitting molten stones at the two other beasts, Sage directed the actions of the Swamp Genesis Spider. The Living Disaster had no idea what was going on until it was too late. A huge net of silk with a large hole in the middle was dropped over the top of it’s volcano back. The mouth of the volcano was captured in the hole in the web, as Sage remembered its desperate eruption last time they fought. The Tiankong siblings worked with Sage to anchor the ends of the giant web, pinning the giant tortoise down. The spider continued to work, tying the tortoises legs together and slowly immobilizing it from back to front. Without having to constantly avoid the giant snapping jaws and bursts of molten stone it made short work of turning the tortoise into an immobile piece of the landscape.

The Living Disaster. It had been a scourge to humankind for many generations, a legend passed down through the ages, but it finally met its end. The team of Inner World cultivators combined their power into one, allowing them to make attacks equal to that of a Nascent Soul. The young geniuses also had strength at the peak of 5th rank and their joint attack also broke that limit. As large and powerful as that moving mountain was, the offensive power equal to seven Nascent Souls was enough to triumph over one. They focused all of their attacks upon the beast's eyes and the inside of its mouth. With a body made of stone and with veins of molten lava, it was no simple feat to take it down. Once the monster was blinded and its mouth mangled, they slowly hacked its head off with concentrated attacks and they captured its Nascent Soul.

A Demonic Beast that reached the sixth rank would also form a Nascent Soul, though instead of integrating with their core like a human cultivator, their Nascent Soul was housed within it. Demonic Beasts had powerful physical bodies, and extremely long lifespans, but it took them a very long time to develop their intelligence, and if their bodies were destroyed it was very difficult for them to flee with their core. Once they were defeated, it was very easy for their core to be captured. The Living Disaster’s core was the size of a watermelon and looked like a pearl with a glossy red tint.

Sage sent the core into a Formation Array in the Universe Ring storage area, locking it in stasis with a shield to trap it, just like he’d done to Hei Bai’s eye. Then he flew into the mouth of the volcano on the Living Disaster’s back and followed the large vent into the center of the beast. He’d already been there once before and so he knew what to expect. Without the tortoise’s energy to power it, the heart-shaped lump of obsidian had dimmed. The glowing molten core of the heart was no longer as bright as it had been before, and its defensive response was quite weak. Sage used the yellow light of the Sovereign Stone to easily overpower it. It was known as the Lord of the Earth, and all other Heavenly Jewels could only cower before it. While it had a wielder, it could still resist, but now that it was ownerless, the Heart of Eruption was helpless. It was wrapped up with yellow light and brought toward Sage’s Nascent Soul body. As it approached, his Nascent Soul shifted back to its true form, taking the shape of the Tree of Life. The Heart of Eruption was bathed in a green light and then pulled into the galaxy contained within that tree. Just like his other Heavenly Materials, it flew into the deepest depths of his being. Because of the Sovereign Stone it was rapidly assimilated, and within just a few minutes a new planet appeared in his inner galaxy and the Inner World rumbled. A dozen volcanic eruptions went off, and signified the formation of at least that many new volcanos on the planet. The inhabitants of the world faced another small scale disaster, but their world gained new resources in the process.

Realizing he was still on a battlefield, he didn’t have time to carefully examine all the changes and moved to the next course of business. He floated over to the Swamp Genesis Spider and sent it into his Inner World. It had already been there to heal before and it had already started to build its own territory. Sage sent some instructions to the Tiankong Mother’s subordinates to keep anyone from messing with the giant spider. Once that was done he gathered his strength and sent the giant corpse of the Living Disaster into the Inner World as well, turning it into a landmark for the time being. It would waste much of his space on the Universe Ring, so he didn’t bother putting it into stasis. He always preferred to put materials into the ring to preserve their quality, but the giant tortoise was just too big. He also didn’t know if it’s body would be useful for anything. It was not a beast of great quality, only great quantity.

Then again, it must have had the Heart of Eruption for hundreds of years. Even if it started as a plain old tortoise, being tempered by a Heavenly Material for so long might have made its body special.