The wisp of Spirit Sense he’d sent behind him to investigate was torn to shreds almost instantly, so he had to give up on that line of examination. The need to know was trumped by the need to survive and he stopped dallying, activating the Jade Mantle and Cosmic Traction to push his speed to the limits. Only when he enacted this burst of speed did he finally feel the mounting pressure start to lessen. The fact that he had to push his speed to such limits to gain some distance between them was utterly terrifying. What was even worse was that he was shooting directly towards the surface and when he started to change direction he felt it approaching again.

He burned more of the Jade Mantle to push his strength even higher and water jets shot out of his side, pushing him laterally. Something passed by beside him and he was knocked aside in its wake. He shot a few more jets of water and stabilized his ascent, firing towards the surface of the water like a missile. The world full of elongated and distorted sound suddenly fell away, replaced by the clear air. Sage breached the surface and flew into the air, his dolphin-like body was many times stronger and faster than any mortal dolphin could compare to. No longer having any water to swim through he was finally free to twist slightly and peek backwards.

The sea behind him no longer looked like a sea. It looked more like a pit full of snakes. There were so many writhing tentacles that the water was no longer blue. There were so many of these gray and brown tendrils that the water looked more like frothy mud. The tentacles stretched thousands of yards in every direction. The blue sea was now replaced by a carpet of writhing flesh covered with claws, scales, and suction cups.

This view was made worse by the fact that his trajectory was parabolic. Without the water there was nothing for him to be pushing against and the bit of water still in the Fluid Power Lines was not enough to keep him moving. If he put all his energy into Cosmic Traction to make the air like water he would be able to keep swimming but every flip of his tail displaced so much water that he could only swim at a tiny fraction of his full speed.

That’s why he’d already started transforming as soon as he broke the water’s surface.

A column of twisting flesh shot out of the water like a geyser of claw and scale. It was hundreds of feet wide and after shooting straight upwards it toppled towards him. It raked the sky, gaining speed as it fell like a skyscraper being demolished, leaving him little room to escape. He continued to maintain his trajectory, not even attempting to dodge away from this encroaching crisis. He was stuck in the process of transformation and couldn’t move even if he wanted to. As it got closer he saw many thousands of wrist thick tentacles woven and braided together to form a huge structure. They clung to each other with their own suction cups, combining their strength to allow the boneless flesh to form such a massive limb and swing it with such speed and power.

The monstrous tower of flesh smashed into the water in what seemed to be slow motion. It was so very large that the huge waves of water it displaced seemed to be barely moving in comparison to its size. Brilliant bolts of electricity suddenly shot across the sea of writhing tentacles, causing the fallen column of flesh to seize up and convulse. Sage hadn’t been able to avoid it.

At least not in the conventional way.

In the air where the huge column of scaled tentacles had just passed by there was no longer an armored dolphin. There was nothing there at all. Nothing solid that is. In place of the big dolphin was a cloud of crackling lightning. Over three hundred feet in length and a few dozen feet wide, the swirling blue mass of energy crackled with arcs of electricity and rose higher and higher into the sky. The huge column of interwoven tentacles passed right through this incorporeal body, receiving a shock as a reward for its attack.

Sage wasn’t sure if it was because of the shock or the difficulty in lifting such an immense pile of flesh out of the sea, but he escaped without facing another attack. He looked back towards the carpet of scaled tentacles that expanded for thousands of feet in every direction and saw a giant eye staring back at him from the center of it. Just a glance was enough to cause him to nearly fall out of the sky. Its gaze carried a mental attack that smashed against the Infinite Immaterial Seat protecting his mind like a massive tidal wave. It was so powerful that he lost control of himself for a moment, but it was just as fleeting as the monster’s physical attack.

In the sky, Sage used this second form of his to fly higher and higher. Once there were some clouds to use as cover he stopped ascending and changed his path to put some distance between himself and the center of the Depths. The rumors turned out to be far more legitimate than he’d ever expected. His curiosity had been sated, but not in the way he’d wished. One mystery had been replaced with another. What was that monster down there and what was its purpose? What kept it there? Would it destroy the Depths cities someday?

Sage could only leave these questions unanswered for now as he made a beeline for the cities of the Depths. He doubled back a few times just to make sure the monster wasn’t still following him. He wasn’t sure his conscience could handle it if he ended up being the reason a terrifying monster like that destroyed a city.

As for this second form? It was very simply a Cloud Swallowing Thunder Eel. The same body as Elder Manji of the Thundercloud Sect that Sage had gone to the Hidden Domain with. Quite a long time ago now for Sage he’d learned that if he wanted to retain the same power of incorporeality he’d have to copy the Cloud Swallowing Thunder Eel’s body exactly. That would also cut off his access to a lot of natural abilities and powers that he’d grown quite reliant upon so he had to settle for a very limited and momentary version of this body of lightning power instead. It was extremely draining of his energy and could only last for a few seconds at best.

Things were different now that he’d developed the Master Seal. Now he could become a true Cloud Swallowing Thunder Eel without being locked in to this body for years. There were many advantages to this form, though most of them stemmed from being made of energy rather than solid flesh and blood. Most of them were displayed in this single clash, allowing him to avoid the physical attack of that monster, retaliate with his innate lightning, and finally fly through the air to escape.

Strangely, it couldn’t actually move faster than the dolphin could. At least within an atmosphere. The density of the energy in the air was far thinner than it was down in the Depths, but even so he could feel it holding him back. From the memories of Elder Manji, Sage knew that this restraint was present around all planets and only when he got out into the open area of space could he travel at his full speed. That was where the Cloud Swallowing Thunder Eel was truly impressive as it could move as fast as light. Sage wasn’t sure if it was actually the speed of light he was familiar with from Earth, but he hadn’t experienced any time dilation when traveling to and from the Hidden Domain. At least not in the manner that he expected. There was the matter of a time limit and special tokens so there might be strange arrays involved to compensate for or alter the way such a thing worked. Elder Manji only had to act as a ‘taxi driver’ so to say and didn’t need to know any of the specifics of the voyage, so there was no telling what actually happened unless the Thundercloud Sect explained it for him.

Eventually Sage felt confident enough to return to the water. He dove back down into the Depths as a Dolphin to enter a new city.