Molting the Mortal Coil

Chapter 1002: Extreme Measures

Sage used the Master Seal to change his identity at a fundamental level, becoming a completely different person while acting with his Infernal Qi. He used this alternative identity to abduct those from the Chain Ocean Palace that carried important materials. Afterwards, he switched back to his other human form, using disguising techniques to change his appearance and capturing other debtors with the help of the Purple Mist Sect and Demonic Beasts.

He covered his tracks and hid his identity to fulfill his job as the agent of the Dream Dealer. Then, he used even more drastic methods to change who he was and cover his tracks to appear as someone entirely different. Most of his jobs were capturing the regular debtors and extorting them for payments. It was only once every few weeks where he would switch tactics and strike one of the important targets in a completely different fashion, but then tried to cover up his tracks to appear as if multiple people performed the crime using Demonic Beast mounts.

Thats because he never released that old man or the others like him. Anyone that experienced the Infernal Qi was captured to the Inner World and never seen from again. He went to the extra trouble of making it seem like a copycat was using the Agent of the Dream Dealer to cover up their crimes. Since Sage had openly opposed the Chain Ocean Palace and had not killed any of their members, it made it seem like his tactics were known. He moved around randomly and used different fake identities to attack with a large group. When they caught on to the fact that some of their members were missing, they would find the place scoured clean and then small bits of Demonic Beast fur as well as tracks from a large group. A superficial analysis would point the trail back to the Agent of the Dream Dealer, but sooner or later, a more skilled investigator would enter the mix and realize there was another party behind the disappearances.

Of course, Sage was also that third party, but he was quite sure of the Master Seals ability to change him in a much more complete manner than other disguising techniques. If the Chain Ocean Palaces people could tell he was using a low level disguising technique from the Little Birdy manual, then only the most suspicious person would ever imagine he would go to the trouble of also using an even more complete and hidden transformation technique as well. Even so, Sage was not expecting to go undiscovered forever. He was moving quickly, randomly catching debtors and trying not to push his luck to capture too many of the important people too quickly.

The people themselves werent that important, but they were in possession of certain materials that were important to Guan Zhenyan so Sage had to ensure he could retrieve them. These people were given a few options to surrender, but as soon as their prized possessions were mentioned, even those whod previously given in went on a warpath. They were then driven to madness and overwhelmed by Sages tactics. The long process of interrogation and brainwashing began, but that turned out to be mostly a failure given their turn to the darkness. Some of them retained enough reason to choose a more comfortable life in exchange for giving up their treasures. Others had the marks on their Storage Treasures forcibly broken through a long and painful process. Then, if the things they were looking for werent carried by these people they were forced to undergo an even worse process.

The only way to truly get what they wanted was to use the Hypnotic Eyes to influence their minds. Sages Clone on the Inner World could use the Master Seal to take on a perfected version of the Cobra body that Sage used in the past, and then combine it with Spirit Power techniques learned from their Psychic Crystal research. Even so, most of these captives were also Nascent Souls like Sage, so in order for him to break into their minds, these captives had to be weakened. They were subjected to a constant regiment of poisons and Infernal Qi, breaking them down over the course of decades until their Cultivation was forcibly suppressed enough for Sage to finally implant suggestions in their mind that could finally get them to spill the location of their secret vaults.

Out of the seven important materials, five of them were recovered. The owner of the sixth was already captured and the location determined. The problem was that it was hidden within the main headquarters of the Chain Ocean Palace. Due to this complication, they moved on to the seventh material. Sage had been ascending and descending floors rapidly over the last few months, bullying the members of Chain Ocean Palace to collect on their debts. Since he chose targets randomly it made it hard for them to guess which he was going to go after next.

At this moment, Sage was sitting atop the back of a large flightless bird with long powerful legs and a thick ruff of fluffy downy feathers along its throat that hid the large gular sac that hung there. It was reminiscent of a giant kiwi bird with thick knobby scaled legs like a chicken, and the head of a pelican. Sage was even more unrecognizable, appearing as a blond haired westerner, quite unlike the easterners that populated the vast majority of the Tianxia Empire. Hed even had a set of plate armor built in a western style, covering him from head to toe with a layer of metal. To complete the look, the armor even sported spikes upon the top of the shoulders and helmet.

Sage climbed off the back of the bird and walked through the underbrush of a coniferous forest that rose a hundred feet into the air. He placed his hand upon the trunk of a pine-like tree and looked out over a rushing river a mile wide. Just in front of him the rocky ground ended abruptly falling a dozen yards down where the river carved its own little valley through the stone. A light mist rolled out over his ankles, caused by the same thing filling the air with a loud roaring sound. He was at the top edge of a huge waterfall, stretching from one edge of the mile wide river to the other, with the exception of a quarter mile stretch in the very center where a large spire rose up into the sky. This lone structure was shaped like a spiraling horn, a narrow conical building with a circular ramp around the outside.

The river moved at high speed to feed the massive waterfall which made it a powerful fortification. Such a thing wasnt much more than a slight inconvenience to Cultivators, but it caused quite the problem for his Infernal Qi fighting style. The river was large enough that if he used his usual tactic of encirclement and then slowly closing the net the people in the spire would easily notice. That was without even mentioning the kind of disruption that would ensue from impeding the river. When all that water was redirected there was certain to be others downriver who would notice. The alternative was not to encircle the whole place, but then how could he ensure his target didnt escape? Since he intended not to give away his skill with formations in this identity, there would be no safety net to trap the target.

I either have to become a flawless hunter and succeed in a single ambush, or come up with something new. Its a good thing I have a whole world of help.