It all seemed to happen in a blur. By the time Sage had turned his head from right to left, wondering what the flicker of light was, it was already too late. He saw Black Saber’s naked saber and then he felt a force smash against his chest. He heard a cracking sound as he was thrown backwards. He saw that Whitestaff’s namesake was in her hands and held in the air where he’d just been standing. He also saw an object falling towards the ground.

That’s my arm…

Sage smashed through three walls of Wu Chang’s manor before he finally came to a stop. Rolling through a side-hall, his body smashed a table into splinters and knocked a painting off the wall when he thudded against it. He scrambled to his feet, suddenly struck by a terrible pain both in his chest and from his shoulder. Before he could even examine the damage he caught a change at his peripheral vision. A portion of the destroyed wall split apart and Sage leapt out of the way. The wall where he was standing gained a finger wide rupture.

Black Saber’s signature technique released cutting waves with unpredictable arcs that were nearly invisible from the front. Now, on their receiving end, Sage found them extremely terrifying. He’d faced them down once before when Black Saber was controlled by someone else, but it was much worse when Black Saber had his full mental capacity. Sage tried to bring out an Arrow Wall to increase his defenses, but nothing happened. Then he dove through a window and into the courtyard.

The Universe Ring! My arm!

He was frantic inside, and all he could think of was to flee. He ran as quickly as he could, using Cosmic Traction to avoid the objects in his path with the highest efficiency he could muster. He’d been caught completely off guard and didn’t have any time to figure out what was going on. He could feel deadly danger behind him and didn’t dare to take a straight path in his escape. As he zigged and zagged he’d already seen a half-dozen objects getting cleaved in twain by invisible waves of energy. With his focus upon avoiding Black Saber’s slashes, it left him open to others. He was driven like cattle towards an encirclement by Wu Chang, Whitestaff, and the three Strongfist Brothers.

He darted towards the Strongfist Brothers. Even though there were three of them, none of them had reached the 5th rank. Last he saw them they were only level 45, but all three fighting together could just about hold off a Core Formation Cultivator. Even so, that was much better than taking on either of the actual Core Formation Cultivators. One of the three brothers took a horse stance, a position that was like he was at the gym doing a squat, except his legs were a little wider apart and his arms were held out straight in front of him. The second brother dove in front of the first and performed a loose handstand, except instead of his legs standing straight up, he moved his feet to the first brother's hands. The third brother ran up behind the first and leapt onto his back. At the same time, the second brother did a sort of pushup and lifted into the air. The first brother now had the second brother balancing on his hands and the third brother balancing on his shoulders.

The second and third brothers leaped forward at the same time, diving towards Sage with outstretched fists. Sage ducked underneath the second, using him to shield against the third. Amazingly, in mid-air, the second brother grabbed the third brother’s arm and swung him towards Sage. Sage was struck by an axe-like leg and thrown towards where the first brother had now moved to, tackling the falling Sage with his shoulder. He wasn’t sure of it before, but now he confirmed he had a few broken ribs, skidding across the ground Sage threw himself further and dodge another crack forming on the ground.

The others were still rushing up after them and Sage barely avoided another saber slash. Unfortunately, his mad roll across the ground took him closer to Whitestaff and she didn’t hesitate bringing down that heavy staff towards him. Sage had released his Twin Soul as he rolled across the ground and at that instant it interrupted Whitestaff’s attack when it dove into her foot from below.

Or that was what he hoped for. Whitestaff was indeed interrupted, but the Twin Soul didn’t dive into her. She flipped backwards, performing an acrobatic maneuver which she punctuated with a forceful sweep of her white staff. Then, Sage felt pain from the link with the Twin Soul. Whitestaff’s white staff actually hurt it, and not only was it hurt, but it was heavily injured. Cracks spread across its surface and it instantly lost ten percent of its mass. The tiny motes of spirit energy crumbled off and faded away.

Scrambling for his feet once again, Sage now knew his arm was gone. Even without having the leisure to look down and examine the stump, after trying to push himself up a few times, his predicament was pretty obvious. Thankfully, Cosmic Traction could help to make up for the loss of limb. Using different densities of air to control his fall or provide things for him to push off of to keep avoiding attacks. It took everything in him to scramble away from the attacks as he tried to regain his bearings. The Universe Ring was gone. It was being worn on the left hand that had just been severed. He used to wear it around his neck to keep it hidden, while wearing a decoy ring on his hand, but after he’d formed his Inner World he got tired of the inconvenience of constantly transferring stuff from the Universe Ring to another smaller Storage Ring before taking it out. It had also caused problems when he used the Human Seal to return to take his true form. A necklace was quite uncomfortable on the neck of a serpentine body. If he instead wore it as a ring, it automatically changed sizes. Only now did he realize his earlier caution had been correct.

The Formation Machine was still damaged, but even if it wasn’t it was inside the Universe Ring. The Steam Tank had already been turned into a lump of twisted metal, and it too was in the Universe Ring. All of his weapons: Plate Cannon, Net Gun, Six by Six, Horde Halberd, Stumblebow, Auto-crossbows, the Triple Edged Dagger he found on Hei Bai, and even the set of Formation Swords that he’d had left over from crafting for Song Lu Tian. All of them were inside the Universe Ring. The only things he had left on his body were one Web Bracer, and a common Beast Bag hanging from the Wardrobe Spider Belt.

He fired off the claw from his Web Bracer and shot it towards the peak of a wall. It almost instantly started retracting, propelling him towards the wall at high speed. Sage had to twist in mid-air and push off a bit of space to avoid the inevitable saber beam coming his way. It caught him across the calf as he twisted away, but it was only skin deep. Unfortunately, it severed his wire and he fell towards the ground. He somersaulted and took off running again, darting behind buildings to keep out of Black Saber’s line of sight. He felt another hit to the Twin Soul and didn’t even have time to worry about it. The Twin Soul was being hit by Whitestaff, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use it to help delay Wu Chang and the Strongfist Brothers. It had been hit by Whitestaff, but that also meant it was delaying her too.

Sage had already started to exude a pale neon colored mist from his body, the Cerulean Cloud technique would conceal him from Spirit Sense and kept Black Saber from sensing him through the walls and buildings. He was slowed dramatically, forced to keep changing direction to avoid Black Saber, and so he could never pull away. Finally, he climbed onto a three story building and leapt into the air, while a huge hawk appeared above him. It was quite unusual, with sandy tan colored feathers and with splashes of green, grey, and yellow. Most unusual were its talons and beak, looking as if made of blue tinted glass. Sage grabbed hold of one of its legs, and let it carry him away.

King, get me out of here!