Sage’s human body disappeared like an illusion and in its place was a green scaled dragon. More than eight feet long and as wide as a man’s thigh, his body was long and curved like a snake with the torso of a crocodile along with human sized arms and legs, though they were quite thin, had five clawed digits, and were covered in scales. The head was distinctly draconic, with a long snout, vicious fangs and terrifying vertical pupils. Oddly, though his body looked eastern, his head appeared like a western dragon, missing the antlers and whiskers common to eastern dragons, instead his face was covered with short spines and spikes to protect his facial features. The tail was also missing any whiskers or long hairs, having only a large metallic blade like plating along the top and bottom.

A feature taken directly from the Blade Tailed Viper, it was the most recognizable feature of Sage’s true form. From above the plates were somewhat chevron shaped, and from the sides they looked like parallelograms. The metallic looking plates took the place of bony ridges, spikes, or horns running down his spine, and they also ran up the underside of his tail, the final third of his body. If something were to jump on his back they wouldn’t be punctured by spines, they’d be leaping onto a sharp blade. His body and the hide carrying the scales was quite flexible, and his spine could rotate quite easily. With a twist and flick of his tail, it became a whip-sword; that purely fictional video game weapon, but quite feasible when that wildly uncontrollable cord or whip was a part of his body.

Even as patently impressive as his true body was, it wasn’t actually very large. At least not in comparison to his previous two bodies, the mindless monster and the fixed form that saved him from it. Those bodies had been downright monsters, while now he was something of a tiger sized serpent. Only waist high, he certainly didn’t look all that impressive considering his circumstances. The specter made of green flame was the height of a man, but considering it had no body from the waist down, it was actually at double scale. Huge arms swept towards Sage even as the dozen flaming tar people rushed towards him from behind.

Hei Bai was shocked at the sudden change, the roar had taken her off guard and seeing Sage’s true body made her exclaim, “You’re a Demonic Beast that took human form? Which species are you?”

While she was confused by his change, Sage coiled his body into a small pile. He’d activated the Tree Spring Stance and he wasn’t just making himself smaller or tensing his muscles to strike, he was storing potential energy. The claws of his forearms dug into the ground to steady himself until, like a coiled spring, he shot towards the ghostly spirit. Hei Bai was ready for the ghost to slash him with its flaming claws, eager to hear his cries of pain and experience the smell of his flesh burning in her necromantic fire.

Unfortunately for her, the result was completely different than what she expected. The dragon’s mouth opened wide, jaws unhinging so it could open a full 180 degrees. Tilting its head back, the open mouth now resembled a funnel. The ghost of green flame felt a strange suction force and tried to escape. Its arms flailed as it retreated, but it wasn’t fast enough, and that unusual force compressed, and squeezed it. A moment later, the specter was completely gone and the dragon’s mouth snapped shut. The sharp fangs fitting together even created a nicely satisfying clack.

Hei Bai watched with horror as her bone staff didn’t just dim like before, instead the skull cracked just like it had been smashed with a giant hammer. Many smaller fractures spreading through the bone. The dragon didn’t seem fazed in the least after swallowing the fiery ghost. In fact, it actually spun its head back and opened its mouth again, releasing another one of those huge gouts of flame. This time, the fire was green, just like the ghost had been. It washed over the burning tar people like a wave. Unlike the first few times, this fire was far more intense. Instead of a quick puff, it was a full on flamethrower. A 45 degree cone, raging forth like a super massive blowtorch.

When the flames finally stopped, the tar people were completely gone, only softly burning puddles of green flame remained. Hei Bai felt a shiver crawl up her spine, but she fought against that unwilling fear with another screech. It wasn’t actually soundwave, but a carrier for her Spirit Power. The dragon had yet to close its mouth after spewing the green flames, and when the power of that screech struck it, it fell to the ground, looking dazed. Hei Bai felt her confidence return and she turned her eye towards the black mass behind her. One of her eyes was dead and lifeless, a permanent hindrance upon her strength. Even though she had ‘Sight beyond Death’, with one eye missing it could never reach its full potential.

Whenever she used her special eye, it reminded her of losing the other one and drove her into a rage. The skull shaped pupil showed her the true shape and form of all spirits and souls. Others could only see a hazy outline, while she saw them in perfect detail. All their strengths and weaknesses were perfectly obvious to her. Battling among spirit type enemies was performed using Spirit Power, so it was no surprise that her scream knocked the dragon down. It was actually more impressive that it was immediately recovering. She felt a great threat from the beast and so she focused upon the mass of black oil behind her.

On the other side the dragon, Sage, had never truly been struck by a purely spiritual attack. He’d often battled spirit type enemies with the Twin Soul, but that was more like two souls doing direct combat. He’d never really learned any purely spiritual attacks or defenses, merely going by instinct or being helped by the Seed of Life. When he’d reached the fifth rank, his soul had migrated from his Spiritual Sea to be housed within his core, but the spiritual sea was still present. When he was struck by that scream, his perception and consciousness had been instantly sent into the Spiritual Sea, causing his body to be knocked off balance without him to control it.

Thankfully, it was a long ranged attack and that woman wasn’t smart enough to quickly follow it up, or I might already be dead!

Within his spiritual sea, it was like a huge gust of wind blasted through. It kicked up the water into huge waves and dispersed some of the dark clouds in the sky. It was no real damage, but it was a big distraction. Sage ignored the disturbance in his mind and regained control of his body, quickly rising up to avoid a follow up attack. Hei Bai hadn’t attacked him in that instant and instead used the time to complete whatever it was that she was building behind herself.

Sage saw a ghostly apparition emerge from her chest. It didn’t carry a green flame like the last time, instead it was a blood red color. If he couldn’t feel the undulations of spirit power from it, he would have thought she had torn open her heart and was spewing her blood directly outwards. Instead, the blood red shadow grew larger and larger, splitting and forming into a head and a pair of arms. It spun at the waist and then braced its arms against Hei Bai’s shoulders. It pushed down, and slowly climbed its way out of her chest. Unlike the previous specter, this one had a lower body, one with backwards bending knees like a beast. Its whole body glowed with a vicious light, and after giving Sage a glance its featureless face grew a smile. Huge fangs of black shadow were revealed, grinning over at its new target for a moment before it dove into the twenty foot high pile of black oil.

After it left her body, Hei Bai collapsed to the ground, the glowing skull in her eye dimmed. She sneered, just like the red spirit had, “Your end has come, Beast. Die and hand over your Heavenly Materials.”