Chapter 77: Round Two

With all but one of his previously matured insects already dead, Sage was deciding whether he should escape now, or make one last attempt. He’d only exhausted two of his preparations so he still had a few more options available.

While he was contemplating whether or not he should take the plunge, the Demonic Plant locked onto him. That huge vine whip swung directly away from him. While it might seem like it was heading in the opposite direction, Sage immediately recognized it as a wind-up for a whip attack. He’d practiced with whips quite extensively so he understood that motion preempted an attack directly where he was hiding.

It has me in its sights… might as well go for broke!

Sage’s coiled serpent tail suddenly exploded with motion. Starting with the tip of his tail and smashing it down towards the ground. Every one of the multitude of muscles along the tail added their strength to the motion and launched him forward off the wall. Leaping out into the air to close the distance between his body and the place where the first Centipede had been killed. While falling through the air, he quickly pulled out a scent bottle and drew in a deep breath. Qi circulated within his lungs and created such powerful suction that it acted as a pulling force, accelerating his motion in the air.

Right as the gigantic rope vine smashed towards him, Sage turned his head to the side and unleashed the air he’d gathered. The Divine Breath technique was not intended to be used as a propulsion mechanism, but Sage had the idea when he learned Divine Breath could control the shape, pressure and volume of air so well. By maximizing the pressure to a small area, Sage could create a pretty decent amount of thrust. It wasn’t enough for him to fly around on his own, but it was enough to change his direction in mid-air. The sudden blast of air launched him to the side. Twisting in mid-air as the huge vine smashed downwards. The location on the wall he was previously hiding at was struck by the tip of the vine just as it was accelerated to the speed of sound. A loud crack ringing out just like when using a bullwhip, the Demonic Plant seemed to have mastered using its vines as a whip.

The sonic boom blasted away the dust and debris where he was standing at earlier, even smashing one of the rocks nearby into pieces. Sage would have taken a much weaker hit if his dodge had failed, since all the energy was focused to reach its peak at the tip of the whip. Just like if a person tried to kick a ball and their toe hit the ground half way, the motion would be interrupted and the kick would be flubbed. At the same time, from how strong that vine seemed to be, even a small percentage of the power would cause him some injuries.

Divine Breath had bought him a couple seconds, the Giant Vine swaying around to try and grab him. He had just enough time to fall down towards the ground. Thankfully the majority of the vines were part of that massive tentacle in the air which gave him room to move. He only had to smash through a couple vines to make his way to the huge blossom that had been severed from the Demonic Plant. Time was running out as the huge vine pillar swung towards him. Using up another one of his surprises, a spectre like miniature clone of himself flew out of his body. The Twin Soul he had created was released, darting into the ground and assaulting the Demonic Plant’s roots. The thick ground and vegetation protected the roots from his physical body, but the Twin Soul was incorporeal, passing through the soil like it wasn’t even there. Only taking an instant to dart out and dive into one of the main roots.

The huge vine was slowed down as the Demonic Plant suffered a sudden attack on its soul. Most creatures would suffer at least a few seconds of inaction when their soul was attacked unexpectedly. Even if they were ready for it, it would cause difficulty when trying to control their physical body while also having to mount a mental defense internally. Certainly there was probably many people who were experienced with combating those who used soul attacks, but Sage was sure they were rare, or at the very least very powerful people he had a low chance of encountering.

The large snowy white blossom was scooped up into his Storage Ring just as the newly matured Emerald Dragonfly was released from his internal space. Almost immediately, Sage disappeared. To the untrained eye it would seem as if the half-serpent Sage had transformed himself into an eight foot long bright green dragonfly. The Dragonfly took off back towards the wall, trying to make the best use of the few seconds he’d gained by using his Twin Soul. The soul attack didn’t keep the Plant distracted for long. Just as the Dragonfly was cresting the upper edge of the wall, the Vine had nearly caught it.

Sage watched with anticipation as the Vine passed over the first set of four Formation Plates. The first one it passed didn’t seem to do anything, but as soon as the Vine was over the other three Plates they started to glow brightly. From each Plate a forest of vines erupted. Sage had chosen to fight fire with fire. Or in this case, vines with vines. The ‘Grasping Tendril’ formation was a 2 star array used for trapping and capturing. It had no offensive or defensive power to speak of, but the entangling vines could trap a target quite well to interrupt an attack or set the target up for a strike. The Vine was far more powerful than the Grasping Tendril array, but Sage had a row of three set up like a wall. Since the formations were all the same they didn’t interfere with each other and the number of vines attempting to bind the Demonic Plant’s huge vine multiplitied.

Unfortunately, the first set of Formation Plates were not enough to stop the huge vine. They only served to slow it down. At this point the huge vine reached the second set of Formation Plates adding another set of three Grasping Tendril formations into the mix. With six sets of glowing tendrils grasping the huge vine it was slowed down to a trickle. Finally, it was moving slow enough for the fourth Formation Plate in each group to activate.

Sage had set the Grasping Tendril formation to activate by proximity, using his outer trigger plates that were made to check for proximity of a few feet with the exception of himself or Spirit Insects. The other two Formation Plates were actually set to trigger only when something was in its proximity for a few seconds. The idea was to set a trap with the vines and then if the target was captured for long enough the fourth plate in each group would trigger the real attack.

These countdown traps were set without any target or targeting so their excess energy could be channeled into improving the power of the array they activated. In this case the two Formation Plates were loaded with the formation ‘Cloying Flame’. It was a simple rank 2 array just like Graping Tendril. It wasn’t all that impressive in volume or temperature, but it was known for being hard to extinguish. Sage liked to think of it as Qi powered napalm. With the extra power from the trigger array, the two plates exploded upward with a campfire sized burst. It was far from defeating the huge vine, but just like the other tricks he’d used the idea was to cause a delay!

The sudden burst of fire made the vine rear back in fear, while the Emerald Dragonfly buzzed off at maximum speed, doing everything that it could to escape from the Demonic Plant’s reach!

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