Sage didn’t bother to check if the people he’d showered in flames were alive or not. He had better things to do. Running quickly towards the cages that still had people in them and sending them into the Universe Ring. At the same time he yelled out to the others, “Collect the cages and get to the center of the room!”

King was heavily injured, but he mustered up enough strength to push the women away and then waved his least injured arm. Sending out wind blades to shatter the locks on the nearest cages. Then he started hobbling towards the center of the room, where the Formation Machine was. The women were confused for a second and then they were startled into action. Rushing around the nearby area and helping the prisoners out of the cages, carrying them towards the center of the room.

Ruanfu and Wanqian Lei were not as injured as King, but they also weren’t as strong. Ruanfu had to spend a bit of effort to break a lock, and then Wanqian Lei would finish opening the cage and helping the occupant out. They couldn’t free nearly as many as King could, but luckily there wasn’t as many nearby them.

Given the mess of bodies on the ground and the strength of Sage’s team, the Slavers were advancing slowly, filling the room to slowly corner them in. Sage was at one of the corners of the room, so he had the least time to finish. Thankfully, he was also the fastest at the job, simply making cages disappear when he ran past them. He collected the cages towards the center of the room and then ran back deeper into the corner to pick up the rest. As he did, the Slavers spread out and blocked him into the corner, sneering at him as they did. He could have ran away instead of heading to the farthest corner of the room, but that would mean leaving behind the people locked in the cages.

If there was a way to keep these people out of slavery, he was going to take it.

When he collected the last of the cages in the corner of the room, he turned around to face the wall of villains that were penning him in. At that time he also took a look around the room at the progress King and Ruanfu had made. They’d collected most of the remaining people, but Sage felt a twinge of sadness when he saw a few scattered cages still left in the room.

I’m sorry, I did the best I could for you.

He leaned forward and took hold of the floor, drawing in a deep breath. The Human Seal on his forehead lit up again and he attached himself to the floor with both hands and feet, bracing himself. The Slavers thought it was weird, but a few that had seen him breathing flame right when they entered pulled up their shields to hide behind. Too bad for them, this time it wasn’t a flame. Instead, Sage called on the Heavenly Material that was the most compatible with the Divine Breath technique. Stormbreath. A gentle cloud of blue tinted water vapor rose up from his back like a cloud of colored fog or steam. At the same time, from his opened mouth, a cylindrical vortex blasted outwards. Like a freight train, the horizontal tornado cleared a wide swath perfectly through the crowd of Slavers.

Of those in the direct path of the hurricane windforce, the lucky ones were only thrown onto the others in the crowd. The unlucky ones had their bones snapped like twigs from the impact force, or were thrown into the floor or ceiling with enough force to crack skulls or snap vertebrae. Sage shot through the gap like a rocket, throwing himself forward with his hands and feet while releasing a second serving of Divine Breath by tilting his head down. Barreling him forward and upward, he had to roll over and push off the ceiling, skipping across the room like a thrown stone. He rolled far too many times, trying to slow his momentum, sliding across the floor until his back slammed into the Formation Machine.

He released a grunt of pain and then quickly pushed himself to his feet, storing the Formation Machine as well as the freed prisoners. Then he gave his bird friends a smile, “Hurry up and get in.”

They didn’t know what he was talking about, until they realized that when Sage said that, a large object appeared behind him. A huge box like pile of Spirit Steel, it had a wide belt of woven Steelsilk wrapped around a dozen small wheels on either side of it. Between the two bands of Steelsilk, there was a doorway with a ramp leading up to it. Atop the big box was a smaller box with a bunch of small sloping panels on it.

Sage didn’t waste any time, ushering the group up the ramp and into the big box. Then he pointed to a handle attached to a small winch and ordered Wanqian Lei, “Blondie, turn that till it stops.”

They had all entered into a small room, only the size of a few closets or a washroom. The two walls had folding seats and above them were small cabinets. The far side of the room was dominated by a large steam engine, the type powered by Spirit or Fire Stones. Slightly closer than the engine there was a wide pole running from the floor to the ceiling. Sage walked up to it and grabbed a bar over his head, then he flipped down a seat that was connected to the large pole with his foot and sat on it. His head was pushed up into a small depression on the ceiling. Then he reached up and pushed a bar over to the side, opening a small window in the Spirit Steel body, just large enough to peek out of.

Just as he glanced outside he saw a flurry of brightly colored lights and he immediately slid the view slit closed. The steel box they were in suddenly shook and they heard loud booms. Sage heard the metal creak and shift, but it still seemed to be in one piece. He released a sigh inwardly, glad that it had held up so far.

“It stopped!”

Wanqian Lei yelled out from the entrance, where he’d finished closing the back door with the chain winch. Sage nodded and then hopped down from his seat, he moved to the center of the room and pulled down a small beam from the large pole, laying it flat like a small catwalk. Then he removed a pair of automatic crossbows from the Universe Ring and held them out to Ruanfu and Wanqian Lei, “Take these and hop up on the catwalk here.”

They were the weapons he’d confiscated from the Fierce Tigers a while back. The Stumblebows he had developed were slightly inferior and much cheaper than these weapons. They didn’t have a strange weight increase when reloading and had a large storage dimension to hold bolts. They also cost ten times more than a Stumblebow. When Ruanfu and Wanqian Lei hopped into position, their heads were only barely into the raised ceiling area, the two were still young and not quite tall enough, but they would have to do.

“Okay, you see those sloped square panels? They’re going to open up and you shoot out of them,” Sage explained very rapidly, giving them no time to react he pushed a lever and it swung the panel open in front of Ruanfu. She didn’t disappoint him and started firing through the tiny window. Then he waved a hand to stop her and pushed the lever the other way to close the window.

“Did you see what I did? Go ahead then. All the levers up there open the windows, we’re surrounded so shoot wherever you want.”

That should buy us a little more time.