After taking the hit, Sage was in no mood to take more. While the Hellmouth Ray was circling back around for another attack run, Sage started swimming in the opposite direction. He wasn’t fast enough to escape from the ray, but that wasn’t his intention. Since he knew it was coming towards him, he could swim in the same direction that it was going in order to reduce the speed difference between them. If you were driving at 20 miles per hour and another car was coming up behind you at 60 miles per hour, it would be a lot harder to avoid them than if you were instead going 50 miles per hour. It would be even worse if you were stationary or traveling towards them. The relative speeds could drastically increase the amount of time you had to react.

Even if he couldn’t escape from the Hellmouth Ray, he could build up speed in order to give himself more time to react. It would also make it much harder for the Hellmouth Ray to sweep around to the sides to flank him or attack from an unusual angle. It would have to put more effort to catch up with him and have less room to pull any tricks. It wasn’t a perfect solution as it also meant it would be harder for him to take evasive action when he was focusing so much effort into moving quickly. Even so, he was staring behind him the whole time, examining the actions of the Hellmouth Ray with Foresight. With this vision of the future, combined with the expanded time on the Inner World he could make actions with even the most miniscule chance of success into reality.

When the Hellmouth Ray was on the verge of sweeping him up in its giant mouth, he opened his mouth and pointed his palms down. Divine Breath shot from his mouth while jets of air traveled through his Fluid Power Lines and shot from his palms, blasting him upwards to dodge the giant fanged pit of a mouth. He spun in place and used the technique that had become the most effective while fighting fish. His Jade Mantle shifted, extending a long blade from his wrist and hooking into the body of the Hellmouth Ray as it swept by just inches beneath him. With the hook set, he was dragged forward, attached to the ray’s back. He didn’t even have time to attach the hook from his other wrist, his attention had instantly shifted to bringing something out from the Inner World. A giant disk over ten feet in diameter appeared in his hand, which instantly caught the water current and nearly pulled him off the back of the ray. He had already positioned his feet carefully so when the water pulled on the disk in his hand his feet were slammed down against the body of the ray.

Sage held up the disk like a shield behind himself and just after he entered this braced posture there was a hard impact against it. The disk was a simple ring of metal covered in the silk of the Genesis Spider. It was woven in a tight net pattern, leaving room for water to pass through, but with enough cover to easily block the strike of the Hellmouth Ray’s spiked tail. The Genesis Spider spent much of its time under water and its silk was still perfectly effective under the sea, even so the shield he created only lasted a single hit. Many of the strands were snapped from a single strike and the tension of the webbed net was ruined by so much damage. He was planning on such a thing happening, but he only needed the shield to buy him a few more moments of time.

A mass of dark liquid and silvery fluid spread into the water around Sage. It swept over his whole body as he released the broken shield and brought his hand down to join the other. A second wrist blade stabbed into the flesh of the Hellmouth Ray to secure his position, while a third and fourth formed on his ankles. The energy that had formed flippers was used to become downward facing spikes instead. He stomped these new stakes into the ray’s body and the dark and silvery masses formed around his body. It had been some time since he used this technique, but he needed powerful defenses at this moment. The Black Enhydros built up in a thick layer around his body, forming into powerful muscles and a shield against damage. Over that oily black flesh was the Blue Icesilver which took the shape of thousands of layered spikes and blades to act as both a weapon and additional armor.

The Blacksilver Pawns had combined into one and then formed into a suit of armor to protect him. The Blacksilver King was strong enough to take the impact of the Hellmouth Ray’s tail, a theory which he had confirmed by the second strike that slammed against his back. It blew away most of the spikes and blades on his back, revealing the tar-like surface beneath. Even that layer was heavily damaged, blasted apart to leave a large crater but not quite enough to reach his flesh. Unlike the first hit, Sage didn’t have to vomit up blood from the residual internal injuries. His Jade Mantle lost a bit of its power resisting the remaining shock from the attack, but he was unharmed behind the three layers of defense. Sage sent power into the Blacksilver King to rapidly repair the damage, racing to see if he could repair it faster than the Hellmouth Ray could destroy it.

While it was smashing its tail against his armored back, he was pouring Poison Qi into its body through the four weapons he’d stabbed into its body. This had become his method of choice to disable fish, they were very agile and difficult to catch so it was much easier to let them come to him and then cling to their side. So many of these fish were absolutely enormous so they made for very easy targets once they were close enough. These fish weren’t quite smart enough to realize what he was doing until it was too late. After a few strikes against the Blacksilver King, Sage already knew that the repair rate couldn’t keep up with the rate of destruction. In order to buy a little more time he had the Blue Icesilver spikes and blades shift from the front of his body to the back. He couldn’t generate enough of this Heavenly Material to keep up with the destruction but he could move all the armor to his back, the only place being struck.

Sage couldn’t match the rate of destruction being inflicted upon him, but he could buy more and more time with this method. The more of his Poison Qi that got pumped into the Hellmouth Ray the weaker and slower it would get. Since he was slowly weakening the beast it was only a matter of time before it was slow enough that the repair rate of the Blacksilver King was adequate. Then, no matter how tough it was, the fight would become just a matter of time. Once it couldn’t hurt him, the poison would become a true inevitability.

With only a few slivers of silvery metal still upon his back, Sage coughed up a little more blood before the Hellmouth Ray had become so sluggish that the spikes on his back had recovered enough to take the hit. By the time the next one hit his whole back was completely covered. Two strikes later, the dark flesh of the Blacksilver King was completely covered up and all the damage was restored. The ray’s attacks became ineffective as it got slower and slower. Soon enough the Ruby Blood poison took full effect and the Hellmouth Ray’s huge body was left completely paralyzed.