Molting the Mortal Coil

Chapter 828: Ferocious

Chapter 828: Ferocious

Every one of the responses he thought about attempting were met with a vicious retaliation. This Broken Bronze Lionfish was downright suicidal. He could feel the Law power radiating off it and he felt it was at the peak of the sixth tier. Worse yet, the law it was wielding gave him the feeling of mutual destruction, which was confirmed by his Foresight. He saw himself defeating the monster in a few moves, but also ending up with his body being torn to shreds. Even when he tried to bring the Purple Mist Sect members into the equation, it still ended with at least three of them being ripped apart in the process.

He found a few options where they escaped with their Nascent Souls intact, but even so their bodies would be destroyed. This lionfish was just too damned spiteful. Even if Sage had a technique to rebuild a body from the Fu Clan, as well as a few options the Lang Clan had researched, it was not a small cost. The last time it happened to him he had to spend years recovering, so he chose to flee from the Broken Bronze Lionfish. Within a few minutes of rapid swimming he calculated that the lionfish had roughly the same speed as him and he was not interested in engaging in a battle of stamina. Even if he would likely win because of all his resources, who knows where he might end up.

Instead, he darted down to the nearby sea bed and slipped between two rocks, passing into a gap that the immense lionfish would never be able to fit into. A fin that looked much like a forty foot long sword was stabbed in after him and he avoided its few wild slashes before the blade slid back out. Then he turned around and saw a man-sized fish with such smooth scales and brilliant coloring that it looked like a painting. Even on the Inner World, he was so entranced by the fish's beautiful vertical patterning that it took him a few minutes to realize that it reminded him of a fish from Earth. The clownfish.

Then he realized what the clownfish was famous for and in his Foresight he saw that it was too late. He was inside a cavernous cave-like area surrounded by porous stone with finger sized holes. It was at this point he knew these holes were not natural as their arrangement was too perfectly patterned. Especially when brilliant pink ribbons started to grow out of these holes. Each of these finger thick strands were not some sort of beautiful decoration, but the tentacles of some sort of sea anemone. Certain species of clownfish were notorious for their interaction with sea anemones. The clownfish was immune to the sting of its partner anemone, hiding from predators among its tentacles. Then, the anemone could utilize the nutrients from the clownfishs feces. It was sort of like the anemone was a vicious plant that the clownfish used to protect its home.

Sage did not recognize this species of clownfish or sea anemone, but he did know that he was surrounded by stone. That meant that the tentacles of this anemone had bored through the stone to create this area and there was no telling how deep its actual main body was buried within the rock. Worse yet, Sage couldnt even tell if this was only a single anemone or multiple of its kind. Somehow hed stumbled into this clownfishs killing ground and he was already completely surrounded by the pink tentacles.

Unfortunately for the sea anemone, Sage was no pushover. With a few sweeps of his arms, two large blades created out of Poison Qi swiped effortlessly through the encroaching tentacles and sliced the ends clean. The tentacles had microscopic stingers, but their sheer quantity could not stand up against the power of his own poison. The tentacles that he sliced suddenly changed colors, getting covered with green veins that rapidly spread into larger green spots. Within seconds the whole limb had turned green and then it started to blacken. Sage sliced a few more of the tentacles off and then the whole sea of pink suddenly retracted. The tentacles that he cut flailed around rapidly and then they were expelled, severed by the sea anemone before the poison could spread too far. At this same time the previously lethargic clownfish lost the arrogant glimmer in its eyes and darted into a small side tunnel. It was a bit slimmer than Sages shoulders and it chose a hole that it could only barely squeeze into.

Sage laughed at its former ferocity turning into fear. The clownfish was likely waiting for him to get poisoned to death so it could rip him into pieces to feast upon. A sea anemone without a clownfish would capture things in their tentacles, where it would die and then decompose into nutrients. The clownfish made the breakdown process much faster and even if it took nutrients for itself, it could make up for that by luring more prey into the sea anemones clutches.

With the immediate danger past, Sage turned his gaze back towards the Broken Bronze Lionfish waiting outside the cavern. If he wasnt on guard in here the sea anemone would reach out and grab him, and if he left the cavern the lionfish would tear him apart even when it died in the process. The lionfishs eyes had a rim of red around them, showing off its violent madness. The blade-like fins shot out in a loose ring around its neck which was somewhat similar to the thick mane of a lion. The difference was that this mane was not thick fur. Instead it was a large finned ridge along its spine and two fins on its belly that looked more like peacock tails made of swords. Each of the two belly fins was like a dozen giant blades spread out like a fan and connected by thin webs of its skin.

Sage used his intent to try out hundreds of different options before finally finding a solution with the most favorable outcome. The dozen Blacksilver Fish appeared around him and then swam together, combining their mass together. The internal skeleton of Blue Icesilver spread out over the mass of Black Enhydros that was their flesh and muscle creating a silvery exoskeleton that covered everywhere but the jaw and belly of this much larger fish. The brightly colored body contrasted with the black underbelly. There were also two circular holes in the armoring where eyes might be placed and Sage smiled at this new creation which he had named the Silver Blackfish.

While its form was different, just like the Blacksilver Fish were a modification of the Blacksilver Pawn, this Silver Blackfish was a modification of the Blacksilver Knight. Combining all the fish together, he had it take on the look of an orca, with inverse coloring. They combined together at the entrance of the rock cavern and they rushed out as soon as the combination stabilized, preventing its larger body from being trapped by the cave entrance. The Silver Blackfish was much larger than the knight was, but it was still much smaller than a true orca, even when it left out the large open spaces of exoskeleton on its lower jaw and belly. The twenty foot long facsimile of a killer whale shot towards the front of the factory sized lionfish while Sage and a dozen Purple Mist Sect members swam out of the cave and spread out around it.