A moment later, Sage found out first hand that his guess was correct. The green eyed zombies gave him a little more space, leaving a large clearing like this gloomy forest was a dance floor, or a bare knuckle boxing ring. The burly woman and the thin Count stepped into the ‘ring’ and lifted their large weapons. They spread out to try and circle around to two sides of him, and he moved to prevent this. Unfortunately, if he strayed too close to the edge of the circle the zombies would try to grab and hold onto him. He pulled free of a half-dozen grasping hands before more of them could latch onto him.

It was just in time as well, because the huge bat-wing shaped axe blade came slicing through the air towards him. Sage dipped out of the way of it and he was careful not to stray too close to the edge. He was now in a cage within a cage, the trees and zombies both ringing him in. Ducking to the side, Sage rolled out of the way of the woman’s axe only to end up in range of a scythe. He jumped into the air to avoid this second blade, but he felt a coldness on his chest. Leaping into the air and out of their range he looked down to see a deep cut, his robe was sliced clean through and there was blood leaking out.

Count Voctem’s scythe had suddenly extended its blackish-green energy and cut into him. Sage had avoided the inwardly curved blade, which would have severed whatever it caught in its crook, but Voctem used that to his advantage and struck him with a blade of energy instead. More surprising was that it was able to pierce his Jade Mantle without him even noticing. At this moment, the cut through his greenish aura was still clean and there was a hint of that black energy clinging to it. It was even spreading slightly.

His energy can be corrosive to other energy? How unusual.

The two of them down below had spread out so that when he landed from this high jump, they would be able to strike him from the front and back at the same time. Just before he entered their range he opened his mouth and released a burst of air to launch himself away, flipping through the air to land in the center of the clear area. He learned his lesson from the earlier attack, keeping his back towards the circle of zombies so Count Voctem and the woman couldn’t get behind him. As long as he kept the two in his sight he didn’t fear their attacks. Having already experienced the Count’s trick he made sure to not just pull out of reach, but to avoid the whole ‘plane’ of their attack. By treating each attack as a move with infinite range, it was impossible for that move to work again.

The two of them swung the sharp polearms at him from his left and right, but no matter what angles they took, he was still able to duck, dip, dive, and dodge his way out of their path. They moved closer and closer, reducing the area he had to maneuver in, but still couldn’t connect with him again. Then Sage stopped and dove forward. In time with his action, the burly woman stomped upon the ground and sharp spikes of rock shot up out of the ground, completely covering the whole area that Sage was fighting in. In time with this move, Count Voctem had charged up a huge amount of energy upon his scythe and swung just above head level, aiming to catch Sage when he jumped in the air to avoid the ground spikes.

Unfortunately for the two of them, Sage had already seen the moves coming and he dove forward. From the speed he’d shown already he would land face first in a bed of spikes, but what they didn’t expect was that he would release jets of air from his palms and feet to rocket him between the two of them and send him back into the center of the fighting area.

What else can you two do? I guess I need to increase the pressure, they think they’re in control.

Sage tapped the ground with a foot to stimulate all the Qi he’d been pumping into it so far while the fight was going on. The soil split apart and masses of root vines sprung out, growing rapidly to form a field of brambles around the ring of green eyed zombies. Like a smaller version of the dark trees ringing this large clearing, Sage called up a weaker version of the Sacred Banyan, using it as a base to spread underground and then to build a thick copse of bushes to trap the zombies. The branches of the bushes pressed into the zombies and from those branches many thin threads spread outwards. With the vines of the bushes wrapped around them, they couldn’t avoid the tiny threads burrowing into their bodies.

In just moments the small army of ghost empowered zombies were captured by vines and Parasitic Roots sunk into their bodies, draining away all the energy that the ghosts infused into them. The roots consumed their strength to spread themselves further. Voctem turned around used his scythe to cleave through some of the bushes, but before Count Voctem could free more than three of them, their whole bodies were completely impregnated by the thin roots. The burly woman rushed towards Sage, swinging her axe at him and aiming to disrupt whatever he was doing while Count Voctem tried to free his zombies. Too bad for them it was already too late. The Parasitic Roots took their energy from the zombies they’d burrowed into, so even when Sage was pushed back and forced to lose contact with the ground it didn’t hinder the roots at all.

In fact, while Count Voctem was distracted, Sage focused on the ‘super zombie’. The woman stomped the ground to summon out more spikes, but Sage didn’t dodge it this time. Instead he stomped the ground as well and his Qi collided with hers. The burly woman’s Qi was faint and colorless making it hard to see spreading through the ground. To oppose her, Sage was not using his normal Qi, instead he had sent a different energy into the ground. When the spikes burst from the ground they were glowing red this time and the closer they got to Sage the more crooked they became. When they finally reached him they looked more like molten noodles, limply splashing onto the ground beside him.

Then a wide area around the woman started to redden. Even as she tried her best to cleave him in half he merely tilted to the side to avoid her attacks and kept his feet placed on the ground to keep pumping energy in. Sage wasn’t sure if it was because she was a corpse, or if she was just a standard muscle brain, but by the time she noticed what he’d done it was already too late. The ground suddenly fell away. A large circular area of the soil sunk downwards making Sage and the burly woman sink into the soft ground. Unfortunately for her, this ground wasn’t just soft, it was molten.

Count Voctem infused his blackish-green energy into a dozen of the zombies to expel the roots within them before realizing the danger that the woman had fallen into. He let out a loud hiss and rushed towards the rapidly heating pool of magma. The heat continued to climb, the power of two Heavenly Jewels combining together and boosted by Sage’s Thermodynamic Law. The Sovereign Stone reigned over all Heavenly Jewels and empowered the Heart of Eruption, the Heavenly Jewel that Sage had liberated from the Living Disaster, that mountain sized turtle. As time passed the ground continued to heat up, transforming from a solid to a liquid state as it did. Once Count Voctem started to rush over, Sage slapped the surface of the magma causing it to splash upwards in a small wall. Then he used his swimming skills to build up some speed and then launch himself out of the pool. Before Count Voctem could bail out the woman Sage met him head on with poisonous blades on his wrists. He continued to dodge the scythe while striking back with his blades to interrupt the offensive. Without all the other helpers, Voctem was quite easy for him to suppress.