Zhao Bing reflexively looked down in his arms to see the ‘girl’, elder monk Chen’s companion and he realized why she was hot to touch. It was not a nice sight, the clothes she wore hung no longer over her or on-top of her, they now hung glued to her. The words that jumped into his mind were cooked or its more appropriate cousin roasted but he refrained from given any hint of his thoughts away lest he forfeit his life. Zhao looked up and saw her already walking back towards Gabriel, all the while using measured steps and an irrational fear took hold of him. As she passed the small way, she had made, back into Gabriel’s flames. Zhao Bing felt himself lose control of the remaining pillars. In real time, he saw branches grow out of his pillars and his ice pillars started to disintegrate as he lost control of it and from within emerged just as many trees as there had been pillars of ice and creeping vines formed on the trees and tangled together to erase any and all spaces to peephole through. It had become a fence of dense forest blossom trees instead of a fence of ice. This time, there was no backlash on Zhao Bing’s end.
Sage Enduring Blossoms took her disciple’s recently vacated position in front of Gabriel, she even placed her hands upon his head. Fires in the sixth tier licked at her skin but could no more hurt her than they could their own flesh. One would need more than an intent-less sixth tier arts to hope to hurt a her.
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“you sure have caused a lot of trouble, little dragon.” She stroked Gabriel’s hair “Now, shall we take a look at why?” She asked, expecting no reply and getting none.
With those words, the sage closed her eyes to the physical world and opened her soul sense to Gabriel’s soul space, a scholar’s seat of power. The soul space was where a scholar’s energy body was actualized and where it was refined till sage hood.
Gabriel’s soul space was a crude thing, as ill-developed as its owner. The totality of it was a barren land of cracked earth filled with ghostly green flames. Floating above this barren land were two translucent forms or more accurately, one aether body with two forms connected by a thread. One of the forms was a perfect replica of Gabriel’s physical form, from the present style of his black head of hair to the clothing he currently wore. The other form was a true dragon with four legs, a pair of wings and mostly serpentine form.
She had always been morbidly impressed by the ability of her fellow sage, the Pale physician-King. The legend of the nine dragon knights of the Pale king was still talked about now more than a century later. Only sages knew the connection between those knights and this sickness, the names fittingly created as a reminder and a warning. The dragon increasing in size a little more reminded her of the situation. The replica was like a candle stick compared to the dragon form, if the situation kept up as it was, the dragon form will takeover, effectively killing the current Gabriel in his own body.
