Chapter 269: Setback

Sage didn’t have time to worry about whether or not the Hoplites received his order. He was far too busy running for his life from his own subordinate. While on the move, he couldn’t help but to reflect on his decisions up to this point. In the past he would have never made such an overt assault. All it took was a need for revenge and a timer to make him throw caution to the wind and made an all out attack in the pursuit of riches?

It seems I was naive to think that I could get through a metamorphosis without any changes.

Putting that issue aside for now, Sage ran with his full strength. While he would have liked to escape the city, the City Guards would always keep the walls manned and there was no way he could get out without drawing attention. If the enemy wasn’t his own subordinate then the City Guards might be helpful. Instead, Sage drew Black Saber towards the most run down parts of the city. Since he’d only just entered this city for the first time today, he had to resort to searching street by street. He at first tried to blend into the crowd and lose Black Saber. Somehow, Black Saber seemed to be tracking him and no matter where he went the man always caught up. Hiding among the crowd led to Black Saber slowly closing in before launching a few assassination style attacks.

Sage gave up on losing him and ran down the town’s alleyways. Turning corners constantly to keep Black Saber from sending those unpredictable and deadly attacks his way.

If it weren’t for the Twin Soul, Sage was sure he would have been caught by the City Guards or killed by Black Saber within the next few hours. While Sage focused on running from Black Saber and hiding from his attacks, the Twin Soul moved building to building, looking for somewhere large and empty. After about half an hour of running, the Twin Soul finally found an empty warehouse and he led Black Saber over. Once inside, Sage quickly threw up a Windscreen. During the run, the Twin Soul had checked every corner for traps or security devices. Sage took out a Formation Plate and fed his Qi into it. The designs on it lit up and the room rapidly started to fill with thick fog.

At the same time he blinked his eyes and when they opened again, his right pupil was replaced by a boundless sea of stars. He saw himself being sliced into bits in a dozen different ways. In the past, before recruiting Black Saber, he’d thought about how he’d deal with the man if the negotiations went south.

The Dark Knight would have already prepared a contingency plan for all of his subordinates and allies. I’m a failure!

Unfortunately, his plan at that time was focused around escaping. The Twin Soul had been drastically weakened by that person from the Yi Yang Group and he hadn’t taken the time to reform it. It was still easily able to distract the lower level guards, but as he sent it to attack Black Saber his fears were realized. Whether it was the special condition he was under or the current weakness of the Twin Soul, unfortunately Black Saber wasn’t affected in the least.

Sage had already blocked off vision and hearing with a formation and the Windscreen technique, respectively. He was worried about what information the one’s controlling Black Saber could gather from afar. There was also the matter of how much Black Saber himself might remember afterwards. Whatever methods he used to defeat him might be exposed to an unknown enemy.

That just means I’ll have to use something completely different.

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Sage endured the visions of his many vicious and gruesome maimings and deaths, finding the path of safety between the invisible cuts. He was walking along the razor’s edge, only barely avoiding Black Saber’s signature attack. The closer he got, the more dangerous it became. He spun and bent at the waist, sweeping his leg out to balance the shift in weight. The move sending him just under the horizontal line of energy that he couldn’t see, but knew was there. He’d just seen himself getting cut in half at the waist and his head removed at the neck when he hadn’t dipped low enough.

Black Saber altered the path of his saber, sending the physical blade towards Sage’s outstretched leg. It was the most deadly moment, he had to avoid both the material and immaterial cuts of the saber. No matter how he tried to dodge, the visions he saw with Foresight ended up with him losing one of his limbs. So, he didn’t dodge. Instead, a large chunk of unrefined Cloudmetal appeared between the two of them and Black Sabers blade chopped into it. The blade slashed halfway through it, and then Sage rolled on the ground, the invisible follow up cut sliced clean through the Cloudmetal and grazed Sage’s arm. Sage came up from his roll and clamped his arms around Black Saber’s sword hand.

Even with his arm restricted, Black Saber was still a threat and Sage grit his teeth. Black Saber held out his other hand, holding it flat and chopping it downwards. Sage twisted to take the hit upon his back. Black Saber’s invisible cutting technique could even be used with his bare hands, Sage’s blood splashed into the thick mist. Barehanded, the cut was far weaker only cutting flesh and not severing bone. Black Saber raised his hand to perform another chop, but slowed to a stop. It felt like thick tentacles were writhing over his body, tying up his limbs and restraining his motion. He changed the target of his chop and severed one of the tentacles.

Sage flipped his body and wrestled the blade out of Black Saber’s hand. The man gave it up to focus on chopping the many tendrils that were rapidly restraining him. Black Saber couldn’t keep up and before long his entire body was completely covered up, and the wide brimmed helmet on his head was the only part of him that wasn’t completely buried. The helmet was still humming with energy and it seemed to emit some sort of barrier that wasn’t physical, but drained the energy of the tendrils that tried to capture it. As their energy faded, so did the tendrils, shriveling up and falling away.

That’s one unusual effect.

Sage extended his senses to take a closer look and realized it wasn’t just draining the tendrils it was also draining Black Saber. He still had Foresight active and started exploring different methods of removing the helmet. Most of them ended with the death of Black Saber’s body or mind, but eventually he found the solution. He used the most basic array symbol creating technique, Spirit Carver, and scratched out one of the symbols on the helmet. Instead of draining energy, it started leaking it. It took only a few moments and then the helmet shattered and fell off. Sage checked to make sure there were no other energy signatures in the area before he turned off the mist creating Formation Plate, dissolved the Windscreen and carried Black Saber away as quickly as he could.

There was no telling what other minions of the Yi Yang Group might still be on their tail.

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