The pile of black oil had formed into a sort of bubble shape, nearly twenty feet high. Its presence had become more and more ominous as he tried to approach closer to Hei Bai, but now that feeling suddenly disappeared. He knew it wasn’t gone, it was only the calm before the storm. He had just recovered from the scream that attacked his spirit, and it was already too late for him to interrupt whatever process was going on inside the giant black bubble.

He stuck to his original plan and didn’t wait to see what came out of it, darting instead towards the old woman. Rushing directly towards her, he sent out his Twin Soul through the palm of one ‘hand’ when it came into contact with the ground. Pushing himself off and releasing the secret weapon. At that moment he fed Qi into the Cosmic Traction ability, using the empty air as a surface to slither along, combining the movement of a snake with the propulsion of his four limbs clawing the ground. He darted in rapidly and his head launched towards Hei Bai’s throat, his jaws opening wide.

Unfortunately for him, he had no idea that Hei Bai’s eye perfectly perceived the movement of the Twin Soul. The tiny green dragon reached Hei Bai and went for a bite, while the Twin Soul moved under the ground and attacked her from below. A normal opponent would do their best to fend off the snapping jaws, oblivious to the real threat from below. Sage had used the Twin Soul many times to shock a person’s soul with the sudden combat and then catch them with his physical body. Once he poisoned them with his fangs, they’d be even weaker against the Twin Soul attacking them from within.

Hei Bai saw it all coming. Sight beyond Death gave her a perfect view of all spirit forms and that included the Twin Soul. The old woman brandished her bone staff in front of her, holding it up to try and catch the teeth of the tiny dragon. Just as the Twin Soul was about to leap up out of the ground, she took a quick step backwards, hopping out of the way as the Twin Soul shot up out of the ground. Both Sage and his Twin Soul were now directly in front of her and she let out another blood curdling screech.

Sage was better prepared for it this time, stopping in place to bolster his defenses and stabilize the wave of force that invaded his Spiritual Sea for a second time. He used his own spirit power in a crude fashion to form a sort of breakwater, cutting down on the disturbance caused by the big wave. The Twin Soul, on the other hand, didn’t fare so well. A spiritual attack like that was the weakness of all spirit bodies and it was almost instantly destroyed. The attack that struck it caused nearly half of the Twin Soul to crack and crumble away. Losing half of its strength from one attack, Sage immediately recovered it into his body and roared at Hei Bai.

He wanted to attack again, but his window of opportunity was gone. The black bubble, now to the side of them, changed colors. A deep red light came from deep within the mass of oil and rapidly got brighter. Because of the color it looked almost like it was heating up, the whole mass turning a bright red before it suddenly exploded. Thankfully, he felt something off and brought out an Arrow Wall, curling up behind the shield before the red oil was launched like shrapnel in every direction.

Lifting his head, he peeked over the shield and saw Hei Bai gritting her teeth and using a knife to slice off bits of her own flesh. There were bits of the reddish oil stuck to her body, and little tufts of smoke were rising from them. He glanced down and saw the bending of light that signified a heat haze. Then he felt the heat building on his hand and dropped the Arrow Wall as it grew hotter and hotter. That wasn’t all, for the bubble wasn’t a bomb, there was something standing where it used to be.

Standing was not a good word to describe it, writhing on its feet would be far more apt. It was a figure that had a similar structure to the red ghost from before. A spindly humanoid form with backward facing legs, and huge claws on its hands and feet. It was made out of that odd red oil and was swaying from side to side. As it moved, it got smaller, like it was slowly compressing itself. Right after the explosion it was more than a dozen feet tall, but only a few moments later, it was the height of a man.

Sage had closed his eyes, gathering his Qi and reactivating his Foresight. He had suffered greatly because the technique was deactivated when he released the Human Seal. It took a few moments to open the Timeless Eyes, and he wanted to fully capitalize on releasing his true form. That oversight had severely weakened his Twin Soul and also led to him only narrowly avoiding that explosion of matter. He drew in a breath and prepared the Divine Breath technique, watching the results of breathing flames onto the creature in front of him. He even moved to bring out different weapons and saw the results a few seconds into the future.

The red figure stopped shrinking, instead turning to face towards Sage. Three orifices opened up upon its face, forming two pits of utter darkness where a person would have eyes and a mouth. There were no organs to speak of, but its red oil body looked quite like blood, almost like a bipedal beast that had been skinned. It lifted its hands, palms up, and slowly operated its fingers. They were tipped with vicious blades, each a knife six inches long. Hollow eyes looked down at its slowly fluttering fingers and then bent forward to watch as its toes did the same. It looked like it was learning how to operate its body.

Sage let it get familiar with itself while he did the same. Testing dozens of different ideas, viewing the future with Foresight. The strength of his Formation Plates were too weak against this creature, as were the Harpoon Cannons and Six by Six. His flame breath seemed to have little effect as this new creature somehow combined extreme heat into the oil golems. The Formation Machine was already setup to prevent Hei Bai’s escape, and his wood techniques would be quickly burned away by the extreme heat.

Hei Bai finished slicing off large strips of her own skin and flesh. The wounds didn’t bleed much, the heat having caused large burns that nearly cauterized themselves. She put the knife away and picked her staff back up from the ground where she dropped it. Sage had thought about going after it, but he saw with Foresight that it was a trap and she was ready to detonate it. He could see the pain on her face, but she couldn’t stop to treat her wounds in the middle of a fight. Instead just eating a few pills while watching the standoff between the red oil golem and the green dragon.

Her previous arrogance seemed very dampened, not saying a single word since the creature had finished its formation. She looked very impatient, gritting her teeth and struggling to maintain the glowing skull in her eye.

Looks like she’s not even really in control of this one. Now its time for the real fight!