Having removed the immediate threat from the servant, Grikori, as well as the Cerberus and any surprises that might be waiting in the carriage, Sage turned his attention to Voctem. It was also somewhat of a loss as he hadn’t dealt with Grikori permanently, but the Blacksilver Pawns and the injuries should keep him out of the way. This wasn’t bad, but he’d allowed Count Voctem time to complete whatever move he was doing over there. It was always a good rule of thumb to not let the enemy do whatever it is they wanted to do. Unfortunately, without any way to know what was more of a threat he chose to remove the weaker targets since he felt they could be handled quickly.

The Shard Rifles floating above him spun towards the Count and they lit up, releasing bright streaks of light. Unfortunately, Voctem already knew this was coming and he stepped behind the thick tree trunk. The Shard Rifles spread out towards the side to get an unobstructed firing angle, but then the tree warped around him, creating a space at its center to shelter him from the attacks. Sage was most surprised to see that this central tree was far more resistant than those forming the cage around this area. It had just crawled out of a crack in the ground and formed itself out of intertwining roots, yet the crystals fired from the Shard Rifles only cut inch deep marks into its bark.

By the time the Shard Rifle swung around behind the tree, Count Voctem had already been completely concealed in the core of the tree’s trunk. While this was going on, the large pods all over the branches had continued to grow reaching a size of three feet long. Then they started to shrivel and split apart along one side. This split widened and then from the center of the fruit something was released. To most they would only see round clouds of fog crowding the branches, but Sage could see these detailed fruits growing and splitting apart before releasing what looked to be people. These people had a ghostly chill to them and while they were of varying shapes, sizes, ages and gender, there was one thing consistent about them: they were all covered in gruesome wounds.

A woman with a flayed face, a disemboweled young man struggling to hold his guts in, an old man with one boneless leg, the flesh squashed and flattened. Another man had a gruesome cut splitting him from one shoulder all the way down to his navel, exposing his spine and a slice clean through all the ribs on one side. Another was punched full of holes with one eye clearly showing daylight from the hole that punched clean through the back of his skull. These ‘people’ spilled out of the large slit on the side of the fruits, but they didn’t plop onto the ground beneath the tree. Their bodies hit the ground without a sound, and mist splashed outwards.

Then a moment later they rose up from the soil and floated into the air. Even those with twisted or mangled legs had nothing to worry about as none of them had a fleshy body to worry about. These gruesome beings were only a grisly reminder of their past selves and almost immediately Sage realized they were ghosts. Tortured spirits that were now being harnassed by this Count Voctem to be used as weapons. Sage had heard of similar things in the past, and Hei Bai had also used dark methods related to spirits, but this is the first time Sage had directly encountered someone using ghosts of this nature as more than just materials. It was said to be quite common for evil Cultivators to create these sorts of tortured spirits, but they were usually used as raw materials to make evil Magical Tools or to power their twisted cultivation techniques.

The ghosts kept falling from the tree even as the fastest of them had already started to rush towards Sage. He first stomped the ground a few times and cracked the hard earth. The ground was quite rock-like, likely to keep him from escaping underground, but it also made it perfect for this test. A crack a few inches deep formed on the ground which he then kicked. A rock half the size of his head was freed and then kicked at high speed towards one of the ghosts. Carrying nothing but its physical force it passed through the ghost like it wasn’t even there.

Then the Shard Rifles twisted in mid-air and fired a few times, forming what looked like lances of light that stabbed through the ghosts from multiple angles. This shot holes right through them, but as soon as the light faded the ghost’s bodies were already reforming themselves. They were barely slowed down by the attacks, and continued towards Sage with full speed once the holes had repaired themselves. After a few shots, and with the aid of the Adjutor, he could measure the density of their energy and speed of repair. The holes he shot through them were not meaningless as they did end up consuming some of the energy of the ghost. It repaired slightly slower and was slightly less dense in energy after each of the hits, but this change was so small that it would take quite a lot of effort to defeat them through this means.

Rather than shooting each ghost a hundred times he called the Shard Rifles back. This is also because while he’d focused on one ghost, another had rushed towards one of the Shard Rifles that was closest to the tree. It struck the rifle with a punch and the Shard Rifle creaked. It was still in one piece, but from the slight curve and rattle it seemed something was bent or broken. He darted away from the ghosts, dodging between them while carefully moving the Shard Rifles to do the same. He circled the area, scooping up the weapons and putting them away. As he moved, he took the opportunity to extend the blade from his wrist and draw it across some of the ghosts he passed. Their bodies parted like mist in the path of his forearm blade and found that the damage was about double that of the rifles. The poison Qi of the Jade Mantle didn’t have much of an effect, but the law energy it carried seemed to make the difference.

After the rifles were collected he felt another injury and realized that he’d neglected the Blacksilver Pawns. While he wasn’t looking, a couple ghosts had mobbed one of the Blacksilver Pawns and sunk their teeth into its body. Despite their previously tested intangible nature, the ghosts harmed the pawns. They didn’t do much to their bodies, but the Qi powering them as well as the Soul Fragments controlling them were disrupted. When the Blacksilver Pawns struck back, they weren’t much more effective than the Shard Rifles. They could dissipate some of the ghost’s energy but it was quite slow. The Blacksilver Pawns, which Sage had used to mob people in the past, were now the victim of a mob of ghosts.

Dozens of ghosts had already swarmed towards Sage, cutting off his path to the Blacksilver Pawns so he focused on his own defenses. After collecting the rifles and calculating the effectiveness of his Poison Qi, he put the blades away and ran past a group of ghosts with ground shattering steps. A loud wail filled the air, cutting through the low moans and growing uttered by the ghosts. One of the ghosts flipped through the air, nearly colliding with the dark tree. Then another was sent flying in a different direction before Sage came to a start and looked down at his hand. The glowing greenish energy of the Jade Mantle stopped at his wrist and his hand was bared to the cool air.

He jumped forward and a ghost’s face was a few inches in front of his own. This face was clearly struggling and letting out a choked sound. Sage’s hand was locked around its throat and holding it at arm's length. He ignored the dozen gaping holes surrounded by gangrenous skin on the ghost’s abdomen. Instead he tightened his fingers and the ghost he held suddenly burst apart. The mist-like energy sprayed apart like a giant popped balloon. Sage watched as this mist slowly seeped along the ground and then started to reform into a ghost a few dozen feet away from him. While he was watching, Sage slapped another pair of ghosts that had closed in on him and focused on the one he’d popped.

It seems the power of the Bone Mantis to affect spirits applies only to my physical body.