With these three ton fish swimming towards him from both directions and eager to snap him to shreds, Sage had only seconds to react. Each of their mouths were filled with a forest of daggers that they called teeth and if even a few of them raked his body as the two fish passed each other in opposite directions there was no way even his enhanced body could resist it. These two beasts were swirling with a law energy related to strength and their orca sized bodies were packed full of powerful muscles that they used to wave about their weaponized nose and fins. Their strength made them a match for his Body Cultivation, which put him into quite a difficult position.
At least it did when they were swimming in the open water. He was in the shape of a human and the human body was severely unoptimized in comparison to the giant swordfish. Unfortunately for the fish, he was no longer in the open ocean and was essentially ‘riding’ the Trifish. With a new ‘ground’ for him to act against he was no longer at such a disadvantage and even as injured as he was, now that he was grappling with the fish it was no longer a threat in his eyes. The jade aura around him suddenly shrunk, thinning out over his whole body but glowing a brighter color instead.
The power of the Jade Mantle, along with the original Golden Mantis Body that it was derived from, was its ability to convert Qi into a solid form to act as armor, and then to also burn that same energy to provide an increase to strength and speed. It was a sort of powered exoskeleton that burned away its own defenses to boost its power. Sage sacrificed the layers of protection that proved unable to stop the Trifish, and instead used that energy to increase his strength. He twisted at the waist and pushed his feet against the Trifish’s upper and lower jaw. There was another pop and the flesh of his shoulder that the Trifish’s nose was speared into split apart. He doubled the amount of damage to his shoulder to rip the triangular point out in the most gruesome method. It was like tearing out a hoop earring except that this thing had a gauge size that was off the chart given that it could be measured in the centimeters rather than millimeters.
With a diameter of 8 centimeters, over three inches, the thing had shattered his shoulder into multiple pieces internally, but the flesh was still mostly intact and kept him trapped. Now that he’d ripped it out sideways, all of that meat was left to hang free and some of the shattered bits of bone had gone with it, spilling into the water. His left arm was only barely attached at this point, but it also meant he was no longer trapped. No longer strung up on the spear-like nose, he rolled to the side, avoiding the snapping jaws of the Trifish and pressing his body against the front of its head. He was already getting washed away by the sea water rushing by, but his right hand shot out and his forearm blade shot out once more. He stabbed it downward like an ice pick and drove it into the forehead of the Trifish. It found purchase between two of its finely patterned scales but was stopped by the fish’s skull. It dragged him for a few hundred meters more before the friction of the water pulled him hard enough to drive the tip of the blade through the bone. Sage hooked a leg around one of the tall spikes of its dorsal fin and used it to pull backwards and drive the forearm blade into its brain.
The sudden change in situation caused the two Trifish to mess up their intercept course and the last of Sage’s attackers finally caught up to him just as he was pulling the blade out of the dead fish’s head. He had only one uninjured leg left, and he was ready to put it to use against his last enemy. He was bleeding from many small nicks and cuts in addition to the holes punched in his bicep and thigh. His left arm was useless, but his right leg hads only a single shallow scrape. Just as he was ready to fight for his life, the last Trifish spun around and flicked its tail fin to propel it away. Even as he suspected it was just gaining speed for another attack, he saw that it had no such idea in mind and instead escaped at its maximum speed. Within a few moments it was so far he could no longer see it, the thick water blurred the light and soon it was gone.
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Sage blinked his eyes and one of his pupils was replaced by a field of stars. Foresight. He looked into the future and glanced all around him, but there was nothing. His suspicion that an even bigger predator approached was proved false and he realized that the Trifish just turned out to be far smarter than its kin, or perhaps it had some special power. Either way, it fled without looking back and after a few minutes Sage disappeared, leaving only a small rock in his place. The stone held a small golden ring and this stone fell to the seabed, completely unnoticed among a pile of other rocks.
That was way too difficult. Those Trifish were all under level sixty three while I’m already sixty seven. Without using Foresight and poisons I can barely fight with four of them. Our physical strength was comparable, but I should be able to easily take on four idiots. It really is a shame that my Laws don’t match up with my Body Cultivation well. It barely counts because my Jade Mantle is made of Poison Qi, and the more times I can touch them the more they’ll be weakened. The problem is I have to survive long enough to make it that far.
In order to improve his understanding of the laws, he had to push himself to the limit. Again and again the only thing that everyone said about them was that they were easier to comprehend while on the edge of life and death. Only the struggle for survival brings out the deepest reserves and gives the greatest push for a breakthrough. Sage chose to use only his Body Cultivation and the Poison Qi of the Jade Mantle to fight four Demonic Fish that were only a few levels beneath him. In the past he would never dare to do such a thing, but thousands of years of training and practice on the Inner World had made up for his lack of talent.
On the Inner World, Sage could instantly mobilize the strength of the whole world to intervene when his Soul Clone was in trouble. While this kept his training battles from ever becoming deadly it also left him a huge lifeline. No matter how dangerous he made his training he knew he was always a blink away from salvation. With that knowledge he could never fully reach that state of near death.
Now, on the outside world he could easily reach that state. He couldn’t just control the world’s energy to bail himself out. Even if he had many abilities in reserve it still didn’t change the fact that if he died all those of the Inner World also died. That huge weight of responsibility multiplied his sense for danger and there was also the fact that at any time something impossibly stronger than him could just stroll by out of nowhere.
He finally had the chance to put so many years of practice into use, a battle with his life truly on the line. Even so, Sage was no fool and while the pressure wouldn’t be as intense, rather than using his full capability to challenge something he had no confidence to defeat, he chose to restrain his strength and fight weaker beasts first. Only when he was really using his every ability to the peak would he push himself to the true limit. He planned to first test if he could break through while restraining himself. He was already far closer to death than he’d ever been on the Inner World. Even when putting himself through extreme torture that brought him to near death, he was always conscious of being utterly safe.
The conditions now weren’t anywhere near as harsh, but without that absolute safety net he felt far more pressure. In this world, everything was for real.