Molting the Mortal Coil

Chapter 844: Locked On

The cause of such a commotion was likely to be something interesting so Sage swam over with a powerful kick of his legs. The jade aura around his body was formed into a set of large flippers over his feet. It was just like how he formed forearm blades on his wrists, but on his ankles and in a different shape. It took a few years of practice on the Inner World, but that time was just a few moments for him in the outside world. At this time he was already able to reshape the Jade Mantle in dozens of different configurations for different uses. The downside was that the structures he formed could not move independently so he couldnt make anything truly useful like wings, extra limbs, or fins that could move on their own. There was only so much that shaped armor could do to assist him. Even so, creating flippers was a drastic improvement under the water. Without them he had to move his legs extremely quickly in order to kick enough water to gain higher speed. With the flippers he could move at a much more leisurely pace while also displacing many times more water and moving far faster.

Once he approached the bloody cloud he saw something straight out of a nightmare. The general shape of this creature was something he was quite familiar with as it held the sleek lines and aggressive dorsal fin of a shark. The problem came from the fact that it was the size of a truck, enough to easily swallow a man whole, and that its mouth seemed to be an independent limb. Its jaws spread wide and it darted towards a fish that was twice its size. When it got close, the sharks mouth shot forward and twisted slightly, biting into the flesh of the fish and then twisting side to side, drilling its many rows of overly long teeth in deep. Then it twisted its whole body and tore a huge piece of flesh out of the giant fish.

The sharks strange jaws and teeth left what looked like a core sample sized hole in the side of the fish. A single bite was like a hollow tube had been driven into its flank and a cylindrical plug pulled clean out of it. Sage quickly counted thirty fish that were over a hundred feet long being sieged by eight sharks that were much smaller in size. The sharks ranged from fifty to seventy feet long, looking much like the ancient megalodon that Sage had heard of on Earth. The huge fish had crescent moon shaped tail fins which they were using like sharp blades to try and fight back against the sharks, but the sharks were just too maneuverable and coordinated. Along with the sharp tail, the fish had a sharp blade-like fin on top and bottom that made it look like a giant barbed arrowhead. They were too slow to strike with their bladed dorsal and anal fins, and the sharks dodged the flicks of their bladed tail.

Sage recognized the fishs distinctive shape as the Moon Palometa, but it took a bit longer for him to remember the deceptively tame name of the Plug Shark. He had of course gathered the necessary information about all the sealife in the area before leaving Coral Shallows, but the reference material on the beasts only had simple illustrations to use for identification. He was quite annoyed that Memory Spheres werent popular here and they used Stone Tablets for storing and transferring most of their information. He was willing to pay a high price for the greater detail of Memory Spheres but no one had any to sell. He wasnt sure if it was because certain groups couldnt use them or if there was simply such a large shortage of them here that nobody wanted to waste them on general information.

After observing the battle for a few minutes, Sage rushed in to join the fight. The Moon Palometa were constantly on the losing end, but they were slower than the sharks so there was no chance of them escaping. They schooled together, swimming in spherical rings to try to create a defensive ring with their sharp dorsal fins. Even if they couldnt individually catch one of the Plug Sharks, it would be a different story if the shark swam into them. It was much like a three dimensional version of circling the wagons, the fish swimming around like they were valence electrons orbiting an atom. Even so, the Plug Sharks with their large bodies were like undersea fighter pilots, dodging the array of blades and then sinking their jaws into the unprotected flanks of the Moon Palometa.

The Plug Sharks looked to be the most threatening, so Sage targeted them first. Just as the sharks had the palometa beat in the agility department, Sage had them beat in speed. He was not a fish so he couldnt dart around and change directions as easily as they could. A humans center of mass was not as ideal for operating under the water. Instead of darting to the side, it was actually easier to spin around and point towards a new direction then swim forward. The sinuous bodies of fish could curl around on themselves and then propel on this new heading very rapidly. On the other hand, Sages physical strength was immense for his small body so with the addition of his flippers he could move far faster in a straight line than the Plug Sharks. They were much larger so they faced far more resistance.

It was a thrilling feeling to swim faster than a fish and Sage made full use of this capability to make rapid attack runs, swimming up to the side of a Plug Shark and then burying both of his forearm blades into its flank. Then with his two curved blades acting as hooks he clung to its side and let the Poison Qi that the Jade Mantle was made of seep into the beast. A few times he had to pull out one blade and swing around to the side, avoiding the jaws of other Plug Sharks that attempted to bail out their friend. Once the Plug Shark he clung to started to slow down, he pressed his feet against its body and then kicked off, sending him shooting towards another Plug Shark that was biting into a Moon Palometa.

He repeated his act as a poisonous stinger, clinging to the shark and pumping poison into it until it grew slow and groggy. The Moon Palometa were quite large which meant their power was not as concentrated. All of these beasts were just barely in the sixth tier, and they all used sharpening laws on their teeth or fins. That meant Sage put his priority upon the creature with the smaller body since it would be more beneficial for Blood Refining. Even though Sage hadnt much chance to use this simple Body Refining technique much, it didnt mean others couldnt. Sage had fused with so many different beasts over the years that his bloodline had been purified quite a bit. The same was not true for all those on the Inner World or even the later generations of the Lang Clan. While they still started in his line, over time mixing with normal humans and just the variation that came with every generation created a vast range of bloodline concentration. Some could be born with weaker versions of their natural abilities, while others would be born with stronger ones.