Molting the Mortal Coil

Chapter 222: Birdwatching

After another check just to make sure, Sage was ecstatic. The Breach Hawk was exceedingly rare, and not many knew where it came from. Sage had only seen a picture of it once before in the Timeless Masters library. There he found a real description, detailing the origin of the Breach Hawk. It was descended from an exceedingly rare creature called the Void Wyrm. The Void Wyrm was a type of half-dragon that lived in the depths of the void. It was the combination of a true dragon and a sort of worm that fed upon the light of the stars.

The Breach Hawk was exceedingly rare because of its unusual ability. It had the power to treat space as a physical object. Dependent on its level of strength it could tear through any armor by stabbing its talons through a layer of space, bend space around its body to avoid attacks and air friction, or even compress it with a flap of its wings to fly faster. Despite being extremely powerful because of its ability, it was unrelentingly hunted every time it was seen. Its body was a treasure trove of materials because its parts carried the innate power of space and was very important in the construction of space manipulating devices. Its feathers could be ground up into a heavy dust like sand. Just the tiniest bit of this dust was used in the creation of a Storage Bag. Given how large the birds were, they provided plenty of feathers for this purpose, and that was merely the weakest material harvested from the Breach Hawk.

Sage felt just as greedy as the rest, his eyes nearly sparkling at the treasure in front of him. Even more so as he not only wanted to collect its body, he wished for even more. Different plans and ideas flashed through his mind as he ran through the options. A direct attack was foolhardy, while a siege would no doubt be impossible. Even if he could keep the hawk from escaping the many birds in the canyon would probably come to its aid. Building a formation strong enough to battle it would never get done right under its nose with the Breach Hawk still in the center of it, not to mention making something strong enough would push the limits of his ability as a Formation Master. Seems like all his prior tricks werent going to cut it here.

Seems like Ill have to try something new.

The next time the Breach Hawk left, Sage set to work. He hid himself carefully, even going so far as to cover himself in the Cerulean Cloud, hiding himself from spiritual sense. Taking his time even used the Hypnotic Eye to control any of the birds that saw him, doing his utmost to avoid the ones at the same rank he was. A little glowing green seed was thrown against a tree and just beside it, Sage placed down a large tubular object with a round disc on the front of it. He touched it a few times more and then ran off to another tree to do the same thing. He was walking from tree to tree placing items, these trees were the ones that encircled the clearing and bushes that the Breach Hawk used as a nest.

Quickly, he moved off into the distance and had the Warp Worm dig him a blind. More of a foxhole with concealment, it was a hole that came up to his chest with a tiny roof to cover his head and some carefully piled and tied grass to camouflage it. A few hours later, the Breach Hawk returned and Sage continued to emit a bright blue mist from his body to stay hidden. Thankfully, he was far enough away to avoid bumping into the beasts aura. The Breach Hawk seemed aware that something wasnt quite right, but Sage didnt act, wanting it to be relaxed before he did.

The many birds didnt seem to react any differently than before, so eventually it looked like the Breach Hawk had calmed down. It sat back down in its nest and the swarms of birds flew in and landed among all the nearby trees, just as they had last time. The huge bird lowered itself down and curled up among the grasses, confirming that it was no longer worried.

No movement for an hour. Time to get started!

Sage disappeared for a few minutes, replaced by a tiny golden ring. Reappearing in the blind he reached forward and grabbed hold of something. When he did an object suddenly became visible. Threads. Many many silk threads. Focusing his Qi, he sent it into the many threads all at the same time. Each of the threads were connected to either a green seed or one of those tubular objects. The Qi flowed down the strings and into the objects at the end of them. The seeds began to sprout, Sage held the bundle of threads with one hand and a pile of Spirit Stones with the other, replenishing his energy as he used it.

Just at this instant, the Breach Hawks eyes snapped open. The rest of its body was completely still and it would be hard for most people to notice. Sage was one of those people. At least he was in the future that he saw. Hed already activated the Timeless Eyes, and as soon as he saw that the Breach Hawk sprung up from the ground and into the air, Sage knew he had been found out.

The green seeds had sprouted roots that were slowly wrapping around the trees like vines and growing into Sacred Banyans. Or at least that was the plan. The Breach Hawk was not actually asleep so he had to push up the timetable. Instead of turning into full Sacred Banyans, they wrapped their roots tightly around the trees and also the heavy metal tubes. Sage sent energy into the other threads to the objects that looked like a pair of metal cylinders, one twice as large as the other, which lit up with small array symbols.

The Breach Hawk suddenly lifted itself off the ground and started to spread its wings. As if he was waiting for this, since he was, Sage acted a split second faster than the hawk. The many cylinders were lifted by the roots and flipped forward from a vertical position to the horizontal. A large cylinder with a disc on the front was pointed towards the hawk. To the side of the large cylinder was a much smaller cylinder that was glowing red hot. Sage started to pull pairs of threads, somehow able to tell which was which. When he did there was a loud hiss and something whistled through the air. At the front of the cylinder, the disc suddenly glowed with array symbols and then disappeared just as a speartip darted forth from the hollow tube. Somehow the disc dissolved and coated the spear tip with glowing energy as it flew past. A spool at the front of this cylinder, a metal barrel, started to unwind, rumbling with noise as a thick cable was payed out rapidly.

All over the forest from around the Breach Hawk were loud explosive hisses as the tubular devices, Steam Harpoons, launched spears trailing with cable towards it. If it were just a handful of spears carrying ropes, there was no chance that they would bother the Breach Hawk. It could easily dodge them or possibly even warp space to slice or deflect them. On the other hand, there were dozens of them flying towards it right now. Most of them were aimed high to pass over the Breach Hawk but a few of them came in at low angles, forming a cage all around and through it. If it were just numbers then it might get trapped, but there was no way it was going to let itself be hit.

Its too bad that Sage could see a few seconds into the future. He could see where it was most likely going to dodge and by firing with careful waves it overwhelmed the Breach Hawk. Half of the harpoons flew over its head and the other half ringed it in before aiming at its body. Most of them missed, but one of them stabbed right into its thigh and another caught one of its wings, passing through and continuing out the other side. When the harpoons flew past, their spear tips would then get embedded into trees or the ground, carrying their cables along with them. As they hit something, the glowing energy on those spear tips seemed to spread out into that object and solidify it. The energy served to bind the speartip and the object together.

The many Steam Harpoons fired off from every direction to rapidly form a net, pinning down the Breach Hawk. Sage saw the Breach Hawk spin rapidly and entangle the wires with its wings. Then it gave another hard spin and used the slack in the cables to gain momentum and snap them in one fell swoop. Sage immediately reacted before the Hawk in the future and sent energy down the lines to the Steam Cannons, diverting the power from the steam engine to a piston and flywheel that rapidly retracted the cable reel. Just as the Breach Hawk began to spin and shifted his center of gravity the many cables all tightened and pulled the Hawk down to smash against the ground.

Hopefully that buys me enough time.