Unfortunately, without a body he couldn’t use the Timeless Eyes. Unlike whatever Hei Bai had used, his own eye techniques actually required eyes to perform. It was also the most obvious reason he couldn’t use them both at the same time. Despite staring down the giant tortoise, Sage couldn’t use the same trick he used to beat Hei Bai. His seal knowledge was quite lacking, and without a sufficiently pure crux, turning the Living Disaster even 30% human wouldn’t do much more than piss it off. He might just make it smarter or give it hands and make it even more powerful.

In fact, while looking up at the mountain that wished for his death, Sage had little confidence of success. Despite hating the choice, he was going to stay inside the Universe Ring and accept his fate. Except at that moment of finality he suddenly felt something change. That strange sunken feeling within him disappeared. Instead of feeling like a hole, he now felt a sense of confidence. It was definitely foolish, but that newfound sensation grew more powerful as soon as he thought about risking it all and confronting the Living Disaster.

While he may be at his lowest point in many years, he was never out of ideas. If there was anything that Sage could be counted on, it was to come up with another idea. Whether or not they were dumb ideas was still to be seen, but he always had more of them. Before he realized what he was doing, he had exited the Universe Ring and was staring down the huge monster. He ignored the other Nascent Souls and their hundreds of subordinates, focusing only on the most imminent threat to his continued existence. At this moment, with his life balancing on a razor edge he felt exhilarated.

The flames burning in the Living Disaster’s eyes looked like the fires of hell, beckoning to him. Ready to take him to the underworld, amused by his foolish attempt at resistance. The tortoise’s huge beak swung open and flames roared forth from its throat.

With the torrent of flame coming towards him, Sage didn’t move to avoid it. Instead, he held out his hands, the two palms of the Nascent Soul formed a cup shape and a spark appeared between them. It ignited into a brilliant orange flame, forming the shape of a many spoked wheel. The wheel of fire flew upwards, growing rapidly in size. The column of fire coming from the tortoise’s mouth met the fire wheel, but was turned aside. The orange wheel of fire moved horizontally and when the flame struck it, it was like it splashed against a disc-shaped shield, spilling out in every direction, unable to progress forward. The wheel flew through the stream of fire, scattering it in every direction and flying into the monster’s mouth.

The Living Disaster threw its head back, smoke poured from its mouth and a pained sound came from its lungs. The sound was muffled, like something had been trapped in its throat.

Sage had time to recover his Qi while riding in the Universe Ring and he put everything he had into that burst of Samsara Flame. He fought fire with fire, but he knew that would only be a temporary distraction to the turtle. While it was fighting to overcome that flame, Sage focused his Spirit Power and reached into the distance. His mind was pushed into a special state, throwing open all the doors and diving into that of another.

A terrible pain shot through him, like rubbing salt into an open wound, except that open wound was the whole of his brain. Pain from every direction and dimension, stinging and smashing up everything, completely avoiding the ‘Pain Demon’ that had to handle all of his physical pains. This was a pain that came from smashing two minds together.

Sage found himself among a dark wave. A tide skittering through the darkness. He moved along with it without any conscious effort on his part. He felt his conscious thought falling away. In this place he merely was, there was no choice. The dark wave spread further and as it did it became thinner. Soon, that darkness scattered into many small bodies. Like a million blades of grass, tiny black limbs clicked this way and that, thousands of tiny spiders spread out in every direction. As they moved, there were flashes of motion. Large gusts of wind were the only warning before something flew past and scooped up dozens of the others. They entered and left the non-blurry area with startling speed. Just like the others, he continued to move, the only protection he had was the vast numbers of others moving with him. They were killed by the hundred, but still thousands of them remained.

Eventually the wave had faded and those that remained scrambled into whatever cover they could find. They entered huge crevices and ran under towering cliffs, the darkness was safe while the blurry light meant uncertainty and death. He saw one of the others consume another, and fled quickly. Nothing was safe. Skittering. Skittering. Constantly moving.

Plop. Plop.

The sound of water dripping into a pool was like music and soon he was slipping into the cold water. The water felt like home. One of his little arm’s poked up out of the water and then dipped back down again beneath the surface. By pure instinct he wove a web, creating a layer beneath the surface of the water, one that he hid underneath. It was a false bottom for the little puddle and his new home.

Some drank from the water. Others walked by. Some of them fell in and never came back again. A ball of webbing would fly out and catch them, pulling them down into the water and through the hole at the center. They struggled like they had fallen into a frozen lake, trapped beneath the layer of ice and trying to find the hole they fell through.

Time passed. He molted, growing a larger body and expanding the size of the puddle by digging out the edges. Eventually, it wasn’t large enough and the most stressful time came, finding a larger body of water. Larger and older, he saw much further, making the migration from the mouth of a cave to a small stream. There were more dangers. Large scaly monsters tried to eat him, but they were captured by the web and poisoned by his fangs. The web got larger and larger, turning a portion of the stream into a pond. Years passed and he had to move again. He followed the stream to a river and formed a lake. A shallow lake that became a swamp. The muddy water was breathed in to the combs on his limbs and nutrients were extracted.

So many seasons passed by, and he followed the river to a sea. The water without limit. The saltiness was foreign, but he knew deep down that he was now an adult. He built another domain, a web that spanned miles, turning a beach into a swamp. Larger and larger, always larger. He changed the coastline, giant webs became a scaffold for reefs to grow onto. He created giant air bubbles to support parts of its web. The small fish used the web to hide from predators. With every season that passed, the transformed area grew larger.

Slowly, his mind grew blurry. A floodgate in his mind was released once again and his perspective shifted. I am not a spider.

Sage was back in his own body, or he would be if he still had a body. He remembered that he was a Nascent Soul now, a spirit without a body and staring at a giant spider in the distance, while facing down a mountain sized tortoise. A very pissed off mountain sized tortoise.