When she spoke, her aura rapidly multiplied. Sage no longer felt they were in the same league anymore. Her power was far greater than his own, and the tar beneath her began to reshape itself again. It no longer acted like an appendage and instead started to form humanoid shapes just like the big pit had much earlier. Hei Bai released a bone-chilling screech and her hair stood on end. At the same time a multitude of spirits flew out of her back and into the human shaped tar mannequins. A moment later, the mannequins came to life, turning into the tar people that he’d seen in use before. Only this time, they all carried a trace of intelligence in their eyes, just like the one he’d first lit on fire.

Seems she can create different levels of these puppets or tar golems. Judging from her behavior, at least it seems to cost something to use.

Sage now understood that she had been merely toying with him earlier. This old woman was many stages higher than him, but thankfully he didn’t feel the aura of the sixth rank. He still had a fighting chance, but he would need to pull out all the stops. While Hei Bai was summoning up an army of tar puppets, Sage began to loosen the Human Seal. He was also breathing in deeply and topping up the air storage of the Divine Breath technique. When she made her move, Sage was ready.

The dozen tar people leaned forward in unison, kicking up dirt and small rocks as they took off. They charged towards Sage at high speed, each of them reaching their hands out like a wrestler aiming to start a grapple. Sage responded with another gout of brilliant white flames, dousing the whole crowd of tar people with fire. In that moment of disorientation, he followed up the flame with that soft yellow light. The light slowed them down, but Sage didn’t stop there. The figures made of black oil had spread out to start surrounding him, but their view was obstructed by the surging and billowing flame. In the chaos, Sage mirrored their actions, charging forward towards Hei Bai. She wished to overwhelm him with numbers, while he aimed to chop off the head of the snake. If she died, her minions would likely collapse instantly.

While running he lowered a hand and there was a tiny clink sound behind him. Dashing forward, the four tendrils of Blue Icesilver reformed and swung towards Hei Bai. She didn’t respond as she did in the past. The black liquid seethed behind her, no longer forming into many humanoids, but instead a small hill had taken shape and it kept growing larger and larger. Hei Bai lifted her hand and a staff made of interconnected bones appeared. It had a skull with no jaw bone mounted on the top and a pillar of femur bones made up the shaft. She aimed the strange staff towards Sage as he approached, and the skull’s eyes lit up.

Eerie green flames appeared in the skull’s eye sockets. At a spot a few yards in front of Sage, a massive apparition appeared. A sort of classical ghost, it had only a sunken and gaunt head, shoulders and arms. Its fingers were tipped with cracked black nails, but large and sharp enough to serve as claws. Its facial features were hard to make out, the eyes and mouth being merely unrecognizable black pits. From the upper chest down, it lost cohesion. Its body was only a wispy and billowy form, a true version of the classic halloween sheet over the head ghost costume. Excepting of course, that this specter was constructed of flickering green fire instead of transparent white ghost matter.

Sage threw his arm violently to the side and his whole body was thrown in the opposite direction. Pulling hard on a thin, almost invisible, cable. One that he’d fired out behind him when he was charging earlier. While running, he had used the Spirit Strings technique to wrap it around a rock at the side of the cave. He had intended to use it as a sneak attack to entangle Hei Bai, but he was forced to use it to dodge the ghost of green flame. It was far from destroyed, but it was likely the ‘necromancer’ had seen his wire and would be on the lookout for them in the future.

The sudden motion meant the ghost was no longer blocking his path. Two of the Blue Icesilver tendrils shoved into the ground and solidified just in time for him to push off of them like a pair of ski poles, using his arms to help throw himself forward with an extra burst of speed. The other two tendrils formed into two yard long blades, each a long sweeping curve at the end of a blue tentacle like two massive scythes arcing up over his shoulders.

Hei Bai didn’t seem impressed by his actions, not the dodge, the speed boost, or the brandishing of his weapons. She just shook her skull topped staff a second time and the flame in the skull’s eyes went out. Then she pointed it at him once again and the specter of green flame reappeared, blocking his path yet again.

Sage brought the pair of scythes down, cleaving through the ghost while his other two tendrils formed into another set of scythes. All four of them rapidly swinging, dicing through the flames a dozen times before he hopped back and examined the effect. Hei Bai laughed loudly and the mound of black tar behind her grew even larger. Her mirth didn’t seem misguided. The green flames had never dissipated, the ghost only seemed to lose its shape for a while, but as soon as he stopped slashing, it rapidly reformed. It was once again blocking his path. A dozen tar people, still engulfed in flame, were approaching him from behind, and even if he reached Hei Bai there was that massive thing building up behind her.

Sage stared into the white skull in Hei Bai’s good eye, “Since you’re going all out, I will have to as well!”

A previously invisible symbol on his forehead lit up, like there was a layer of leds embedded under his skin. Or at least that’s how he thought it looked, he was sure people in this world would call him a lunatic for making up such strange ideas. The mental pressure of entering into combat with someone far stronger than oneself was suddenly alleviated. Somehow, merely thinking of how ridiculous it was to be in a world full of such supernatural and spectacular things was immediately sobering. He was already living a second life in a fantastical world, and it had already lasted far longer than his first life.

He threw his arms wide and released a deep roar. He even released a bit of the Divine Breath technique to amplify his volume. As he roared, his body transformed. No, that’s inaccurate. It wasn’t a transformation, it was a release. His human form was merely a shell. A fragile cover for the chimeric beast beneath. His flesh did not shift or metamorphose, he didn’t peel off his skin like it was a costume, nor did magic permeate his cells and change them into others. He had been sealed. When the seal was lifted, he was free. The fragile human wrapping dissolved like it had never existed. It was like he had been shoved into a vacuum sealer and all the air, his physical power, was sucked out. Then that shriveled bag was covered in a ‘wrapping paper’ known as a human body. Now that he was ‘unwrapped’, the ‘air’ returned and his body swelled with power.