Sage chuckled, free to make as much noise as he wished while within the Mantid’s internal dimension. Moving away from the camp, he found a secluded place and spent a few minutes merging with a Warp Worm. Using the worm he moved to catch up with the two who slipped out of camp and with a few uses of Hindsight he caught up easily. The first man stopped in front of what seemed to be a random bush before pushing aside a few of the branches and climbing into it.

Sage used the tremorsense of the Warp Worm to track the man’s progress. The bush actually hid a small cave entrance, a near vertical shaft that reminded Sage of the time he had been trapped in that mine and had to crawl his way out of a similar style of hole in the ground. The other man followed behind less than a minute later, taking some time to find the hole, but still following along. The first man seemed to have chosen wisely as the tunnel led down to a large cavern. The cavern was filled with stalagmites, each as tall as a man. The stone here was tinged with a strange shade of blue, matching with the pool of bright blue, almost cyan, water that gathered in the middle of the cavern. In the center of the pool was a single large stalagmite that was very unusual. Instead of having a sharp point rising into the air, it looked like the tip of it had sheared off and on the small flat platform sat a perfectly round sphere. The sphere seemed to be the same color as the water, but it was semi-translucent like a gemstone and glowing with a yellow light from within.

The first man walked slowly towards it, his face a mix of emotions like he was imagining all the great things that would happen to him once he took away this object that could only be a treasure. That distraction proved his downfall. Before he could put his hand on the sphere, he suddenly let out a loud grunt of pain and slid down to his knees. The second man had caught up with him and stabbed a sword into his back. Catching him at his weakest moment and clearing the way to take the treasure himself.

It’s just too bad for him that the ‘treasure’ couldn’t be taken by just anyone. The second man put his hand on the sphere and smiled widely only to be frozen in place. His eyes seemed to glaze over, like a battle was going on in his mind. Sweat started to pour down from his forehead and into his eyes. Sage was surprised that the sweat right in his eyes couldn’t break him out of the trance. Whatever that is must be powerful.

Worried that the treasure might make this man impossible to defeat, Sage moved the Warp Worm into action. Poking the Worm’s head out of the ground and allowing him to leap out. Sage didn’t really have a great killing technique, so he chose the crude route. The same method as a while back came forth, a huge sandstone red club appeared in his hands. The weapon that looked like a stone golem’s head on a pole smashed down on top of the man’s head and killed him nearly instantly. While the man was actually a stage higher than Sage, he was completely defenseless while trapped in a battle of wills with the glowing sphere.

Not wanting to be trapped in the same way, Sage took the storage bag off his waist and dropped it over the sphere. Careful not to touch or even get too close to it, the sphere was taken directly into the storage bag and Sage let out the breath he’d been holding. Lucky for him, he handled the treasure without getting trapped because at just that instant he had to dive to the ground to avoid a bright flash of silver. The rock behind him exploded into small pebbles from where a knife had smashed into it. Sage quickly rolled and turned towards the source of the attack, his eyes narrowing when he saw the other four men from the camp blocking the exit of the cavern.

“Looks like we caught the rat following our trail. Don’t let it get away…”

Before the man could finish his sentence, Sage had already opened his Beast Bag and released all of the combat ready insects. A half-dozen huge bugs appeared between Sage and the four men. Sage turned and threw objects in two directions. Tiny bottles flew towards the enemies while a huge disc was tossed behind him. The bottles exploded in the air above the four enemies just as Sage rolled backwards on top of the huge disc and started pushing in energy. Idiots, do you think I’m just going to stand here and let you talk nonsense when we both know you just want to kill me?

The scent markers looked like vials of poison gas with how Sage threw them, putting the four men on guard. One of them slashed the cloud with a sabre, the blade seeming to carry a gust of wind as it sliced the cloud away. Another man used an open palm and smashed it towards the marker, as his palm moved a larger phantom image of his hand appeared in mid-air in front of him. The six foot tall palm was formed out of glowing golden energy and from how it smashed back the scent marker it had a solid physical form. The Beast Tamer and the Leader of the group were both at Rank 4, so they merely swiped their hands to the sides. Glowing energy swept out of their hands and blasted away the markers like two huge fans.

They all seemed concerned about breathing in the gas and being poisoned. They didn’t realize that all it took was being in the area where the smell was released to mark them as targets, even if none of it was inhaled or touched them, the Bugs would go after anything in the vicinity of the scent. Unfortunately, these enemies were not as stupid as Sage hoped. While they didn’t realize the gas wasn’t poison, they also didn’t seem to care. They assumed they’d avoided the poison and immediately dove into battle. Damn, they weren’t even slowed down by the thought of poison.

Throwing out Scent Markers in such a way was a tactic Sage decided on some time ago to use as a distraction. If the enemy thought he had many poisons to hurl their way they might be more cautious and careful of tricks. Which in turn, would buy Sage time. As it was now, the group of four suddenly leaped into a formation. The three men surrounded the Leader in the shape of a triangle, with the Beast Tamer in front and the other two to his sides. The Tamer touched a bag at his waist and released a trio of wolves the size of ponies. Each of the black wolves was wearing a suit of spike covered red armor on their backs and heads. Definitely not just hunting pets.

Seeing the rapid organization, Sage split his focus. He had a spirit stone in his hand to speed up the activation of the Formation Plate underneath him, but he also threw out a bead of green energy onto a nearby stalagmite, a tiny bud sprouting and rapidly growing into a sapling and then a conical shaped tree. The Sacred Banyan appeared in front of him and used his other techniques to start growing the aerial roots into a wall.

Boom!

After releasing the Wolves, the Beast Tamer pulled out a heavy iron chain and smashed it against the trees that had just appeared in front of Sage. A moment later, the Leader of the group threw a handful of seeds with little white fluff hanging from them like milkweed or cottonwood seed. A gentle gust of wind blew them towards the Sacred Banyans. The tiny fluffs carried them in the wind until they touched against the Banyans and stuck in place against the wood. Just as quickly as the Banyans formed, these new little seeds sprouted into huge flower blooms. Digging their roots into the Banyans and draining their energy to foster their own growth.

In the meantime, the pack of Wolves took down a Charming Lance Beetle with their numbers. A Chameleon Mantis had its head sliced off by a Sabre coated in wind energy, and a huge palm swatted a pair of Emerald Dragonflies out of the air. The Tamer entangled a Steel Silk Centipede with his chain, but started swearing when the Centipede’s acid melted the chain. The Leader of the group finished using his strange flowers to wipe out Sage’s Sacred Banyan’s and waved his hands. The huge flowers blooming at the same time and twisting to point themselves towards Sage. The flower petals spun open and revealed hundreds of small black seeds, gleaming like tiny ball bearings.

Sage smiled at the Leader and his flowers, “You’re too late.”