Almost immediately after Sage started to act cocky, he had to dive aside. The two remaining men in the hallway both brought out a huge crossbow from their Storage Rings. They only fired once before Sage was out of view, but he still got grazed across the ankle. With Foresight, he’d seen that the third weapon he’d been trying to build already existed. He hadn’t had time to perfect the idea, but it seems he was behind the times. With a Storage Bag to hold ammo, he just had to design a mechanism using a steam engine to reload it quickly. It should be cheaper to produce than the ones the Fierce Tiger’s were using, but that thought sure wouldn’t stop him from being shot full of holes.

After diving to the side, Sage picked up the huge shield they had used to advance on him. As body cultivators, the Fierce Tigers had been moving the five foot plate of metal like it was nothing. Without the strength of his own beast body, Sage would have had no way to even lift the thing up. It was heavy, but he could use it. He took a few steps back and made some preparations. Placing a few things onto the ground behind him, the shield blocking them from view. The two weren’t idiots and they sent the Hundred Spike Tigers in first. The others had been shot down by spears, but at this point the Fierce Tigers would rather lose their mounts before their own lives. The three Hundred Spike Tigers thundered out of the hallway like freight trains, trying to use their speed to avoid being hit by the flying spears.

The three beasts exited the hallway in single file. If they ran shoulder to shoulder they weren’t able to use their full speed nor did they have any room to dodge. They started to spread out as they entered the chamber, but Sage was a bit too close to the door for that tactic to work. The first one chose to rush towards Sage, making room for the second to try and circle around the side. Sage had chosen to place a wall to his side, so they could only flank him in one direction. As the Tiger bore down on him from the front, Sage stepped back quickly and braced himself.

The Hundred Spike Tiger smashed its spike covered front leg up against the shield, leaving a dozen small craters on the surface of it. Only then did it notice a surge of power underneath it coming from a metal disc. Dozens of thick green vines shot out of the disc and assaulted the Tiger from every direction. The Tigers were quite strong and agile, so when Sage had shot them down the hallway earlier, they were able to leap out of the way and only the men were captured. This time, the disk had activated directly underneath it and the Hundred Spike Tiger had little time to react.

The second Hundred Spike Tiger was dashing around to the left, circling around Sage’s big shield to go for his exposed flank. Unfortunately for it, Sage had prepared for that as well. When the Tiger circled around to the side, it saw a large object with four spear heads protruding from a short tree trunk. Before it could react, the spears had already fired towards it and a huge net unfurled in front of it. The net didn't really hurt it, but it served to tangle up its limbs and slow its response time. Sage released the shield and tossed another Formation Plate under the second Tiger.

That left only the third tiger. Its view had been blocked by the other tigers which made it easy prey for the little spirit that flew up out of the ground and into its body. Its run slowed to a walk and a few steps later it was standing stock still. The two Fierce Tigers following behind it were confused by the sudden change. They carefully peeked around the corner and saw one Tiger standing still like it was mesmerised while the other two were both trapped in a pile of vines like they had just been a few minutes earlier. One of them was spooked by the illusion of the cannon and fired at it, while the other man was more aware and saw the shield that the first tiger had been charging at.

“He’s behind the shield!”

A few arrows passed through the illusion just as others pinged against the shield. Then the two of them focused fire, digging huge gouges into the small metal wall. Then they both heard a crack and the shield flipped over, revealing that it was being held up by a tree branch. The two of them both shared a scared look, realizing they’d been tricked. It was only then that they felt something tighten around their throats and everything soon went dark.

On the ceiling above them there was a blur of color, Sage had taken his true form to finish off his foes. Hidden with color changing skin, climbing the wall with the toes of a gecko, and using a few loops of silk as a pair of nooses. The two Fierce Tigers joined the first four, their soul energy slowly devoured by his Twin Soul inside the Universe Ring. The three Hundred Spike Tigers on the other hand were sent into a cage. No sense in wasting three incapacitated Demonic Beasts. A tiny red paper crane flew into the room and after reading the message, Sage quickly cleaned up the rest of the equipment and items that were littered around the room before heading up the hallway towards the site of the main battle.

Outside, the battle was already breaking up. The remaining Fierce Tigers were withdrawing. Up in the air, the reason for their withdrawal was apparent. A hundred silver scaled lizards with feathered wings and mantles were flying through the air rapidly closing with the mine. Vulture Geckos. Each of them being ridden by a Hoplite with distinctive armor. It was silver with jade highlights instead of black with jade highlights. Their coloring and orderly formation was quite impressive, even if the riders as well as the mounts were unusual creatures.

The battle was quite evenly matched and spilling buckets of blood on either side. The Cloudmetal Consortium was about to join in, but when they noticed the reinforcements they stood down. While their reputation wasn’t that important to them, they still had a policy to minimize their losses. Even with the reinforcements, the Cloudmetal Consortium still didn’t think too much of the Jade Horde. Their own reinforcements would be here in a few more days, so they were in no hurry.

The Hoplites were in no mood to be merciful and they continued to kill the Fierce Tigers even as they retreated. They maintained their iron discipline, holding their lines through the whole fight and without orders they certainly didn’t break them to pursue a retreating foe. Eventually, things had calmed down and they took a toll of the dead and injured. King was not looking good. Blood was staining his feathers and when he landed it was very gently. One of his legs was broken, twisted slightly and the bird didn’t want to put any weight on it. He also seemed to be missing quite a few feathers and there was a set of cuts on his chest from a tiger claw. Whitestaff had lost a couple of her apprentices, and also had a few tiger claw wounds. The number of dead Hoplites was pretty equal with the dead Fierce Tigers, nearing two hundred. Over thirty percent of both sides were dead and that number again were heavily wounded. Only a third of the force was only lightly injured and ready to fight again.

The Fierce Tigers had taken a much bigger loss though. Of the two dozen Hundred Spike Tigers they had arrived with, only half of them left. Sage had personally captured three and killed two. Another three fell in battle with Whitestaff and King, while four more were too injured to leave the battlefield. Sage quickly caged them and fed them healing pills to stabilize them. Their riders had been killed, and Whitestaff fought away reinforcements.

Sage congratulated her and tossed over a few bottles of healing pills for her and her disciples. All the troops had the most basic Blood Clotting and Energy Sustaining Pills, but after his other close calls, Sage now carried a few bottles of the higher ranked Blood Restoring Pills. He even had a few Vitality Pills, an even stronger healing pill for emergencies. At that point half the Vulture Geckos landed and Black Saber came over to check up on them.

“You made it, just in time.”

“Not soon enough. Those bastards killed so many… I request permission to go and finish them off.”

“Don’t. Those Hundred Spike Tigers are pretty deadly, and if the Cloudmetal Consortium jumps in, we might be massacred.”

Black Saber nodded and looked at the perimeter guard, which was letting the Fierce Tigers pass right by. Sage took a moment to tear off the bloodstained portions of his outfit and his belt buckle started to glow. The Wardrobe Spider got to work and in a few moments the damaged and missing portions were replaced.

“Everyone that isn’t injured will stay on guard duty, within the wall. Those lightly injured are on work duty, we need to finish the wall and also care for the heavily wounded. Gather up all the dead, I’ll take them for now.”