Molting the Mortal Coil

Chapter 863: Lion Seal

As soon as the double sized seal with the lions mane turned towards him, the others that he presumed were the females of the species started to move towards him. They didnt follow a direct path and it took only a moment for him to identify that they were surrounding him. He had a few moments where he could have easily escaped their encirclement, but what would that test? Once the females moved into position, the large male rushed towards him. Sage was on guard for the others moving in to harass him, especially those behind him that he couldnt see with Foresight.

Even so, it was hard for those in high level combat to be surprised from behind. His Spirit Sense was spread out around him and if someone approached him from behind he would feel them coming. Since they were already fighting, there was no longer a need to keep it fully restrained as his position was already given away. On the other hand, he still had to carefully control and focus his Spirit Sense. It was much like an energy based sense of touch expanded over a wide area, and its basic usage reminded him of a wrestling match. It would be foolish to take an unbalanced stance and stretch out his limbs as far as possible. Instead, he would want to keep his limbs near the center of his mass and be ready to react quickly. You dont want someone to get a firm grip on one of your limbs, pull it towards their center of mass and then use it to manipulate the rest of your body. Just as a match of that style becomes a contest over center of mass, Spirit Sense also becomes a fight over concentration of energy. Spreading it over a larger area reduces the concentration and puts one at a disadvantage. With the enemies surrounding him he had to draw his Spirit Sense in tighter, but it was still large enough to cover a few dozen yards and still remain at full force.

The seal with a huge blue lions mane rushed towards him, roaring violently. The sound was distorted by the water to be quite different from the explosive tearing sound of a lion on land, but it was no less fearsome. Too bad it was also quite intensive for the lion to perform as well and Sage released a cloud of red into the water in front of him even as he was extending a blade of energy from his wrist. The Lion Seal charging toward him couldnt avoid the cloud while also maintaining momentum, so it could give up its charge or rush into the cloud. It seemed to sense the sharp intent of Sages blade and rushed in to meet it. It twisted with agility uncommon for its size, spiraling like a snake to curl around the blade and snap its teeth towards Sages body.

Faced with a choice of his own, Sage could let the giant mouth close around him and ensure sinking his blade into the roof of its mouth, or he could try to avoid the lions jaws and use his blade to create separation. Not wanting to test what the inside of the beasts mouth was like, he chose the latter. With the help of Foresight he maneuvered his hand perfectly, twisting it so the tip of the blade pressed into a small divot in one of the lions fangs and its rush towards him only served to push him away. While he was being pushed away, a pair of the females swam towards his back from above and below. He turned towards them quickly to get a peek at their coming actions while the huge male Lion Seal realized its folly. The reddish cloud of water was infused with poison and started to accumulate in its body.

Ruby Blood is a contact poison, and just running into the cloud of it was enough for it to spread against the skin and fur of the Lion Seal and introduce it into its body. As soon as the concentration of poison reached a certain level, the victim would suffer from paralysis. The male seal was large enough that it wasnt immediately incapacitated by this single contact, but it was still given a shock to the system that made it pause long enough for Sage to escape its reach.

Sage kicked hard, pushing his body upward, twisting, and heading directly towards the female coming at him from above. He aimed towards its mouth, and the smaller size of this Lion Seal meant he had little chance of being cleanly swallowed. He might be able to carefully dive into its mouth purposefully, but it was far more likely itd bite down and catch him somewhere in the middle. While his body was far tougher than other Cultivators, Demonic Beasts spent their time tearing each other to bits with tooth and fang. Sage was sure that the Violent Sun Body Instruction made him tougher than most beasts, but this was not a good situation to try it out.

When the female Lion Seals teeth were closing in on him, he burned away some of his Jade Mantle, using the condensed energy to empower his body. He gained a sudden burst of speed and strength, darting out of the way of its mouth and flipping around to stab his wrist blade into its back as it rushed past. This move had become his main method of fighting with swimming creatures as they were very reliant on making joust-like attack runs. The innate Poison Qi of his Jade Mantle seeped into the Lion Seal, but just before he could stab in the second blade to get a firm hold he felt an attack coming from behind and was forced to push off from the seals back in order to avoid the strike. The seal had twisted around like a snake, using its rear flippers to curl forward and slap at him like a tail might. Hed forgotten that these werent fish and there were inherent differences in their bodies. Sage made a note to keep this in mind as there were also many fish and eel species with the same level of extreme flexibility and his poisonous hitchhiker plan was not infallible.

This momentary misjudgement pushed him into a difficult situation, giving the other seals time to surround him and attack him from multiple sides. With the attack from all sides he could no longer rely on just the Timeless Eyes and finally put to use the hundreds of years of practice on the Inner World. He seemed to spin in place, twisting to meet each of the incoming Lion Seals with a carefully placed blade edge. He used his Spiritual Sense to gauge the timing of their attacks and plotted a pattern of motion so his two blades would intercept each of the attacks while he remained in constant motion. Given the large size of the seal's bodies they could only attack from so many directions at once. If too many of them attacked at once they would be crowded together and he would kick hard to position himself away from their groups.

They found that they could not outrun him in a straight line, so they had to choose between spreading out to box him in or attacking as a large unit. The Lion Seal females didnt hesitate to switch up their tactics and to him it seemed they were already familiar with this sort of fight. They surrounded him and three of them approached from opposite sides, one always from the front and the back while the third delayed a while before striking from above or below to try and catch him off guard. He continued to spin and rotate, directing his blades to intercept the snapping jaws. The Lion Seals pulled back just before making contact with his blades, somehow seeming able to sense the danger of them.

Similarly, Sage also sensed the danger of the huge male, who just so happened to be bearing down upon him once again.