Moments ago.

With the insurmountable force around him, Sage could only face it with his strongest power. He immediately transformed and used his coiled body to hide the emergence of the Formation Machine, filling it completely with Million Scale Shell Formation Plates. Blocking that attack had cost him five thousand Spirit Stones as well as nearly a hundred Formation Plates.

“King me!”

Even in the dire situation, he couldn’t help but internally shout the name of the new move he’d come up with. The Blacksilver Pawns piled onto his body and dissolved into liquid forms. The Black Enhydros coated him in a thick layer of defensive sludge and muscle while the Blue Icesilver formed thousands of huge spines to act as weapons and armor. Anchored in the thick layer of tar, they could absorb impacts without transferring the force to his body on the inside. Large as they were, they would also make contact with any attacks coming his way, diffusing their force before it reached him. More powerful attacks would strip off or destroy the spines, but that only meant they served their purpose. The dozen Soul Fragments that drove the Blacksilver Pawns would team up again, just like the Blacksilver Knight and give him greater control over the huge mass around him. The layer of armor no longer just a few inches thick like in the past, his body was now easily three or four times larger.

The dozen individuals were Pawns, and he combined them into a Knight. Now, when they were covering him like armor he called it the Blacksilver King. Despite chuckling to himself, he was still in a dire spot. The attacks started ripping through the defensive formation, but he didn’t let himself get distracted. The Warp Worm was already digging him an escape route while he started to grow a Sacred Banyan.

The tree wouldn’t do much to help him escape, but it was definitely something they’d probably never seen before and it was the precursor to his counter attack. The second wave of attacks had been disrupted by his use of Hypnotic Eyes. It hadn’t worked very well on most of the enemy, since their eyes were covered, but it was effective on enough of them to give him enough time to escape. He’d suffered injuries, but they weren’t debilitating. Sage downed a dozen different types of healing pills, sending them directly from the Universe Ring into his mouth.

Once he’d recovered somewhat, he slid into a side tunnel that the Warp Worm dug for him. He stopped there to rest and let the Warp Worm carry on. He instructed it to make more noise as it moved, acting as a decoy for the enemy while Sage continued to pour his Qi into the roots of the Sacred Banyan.

Back on the surface.

Three identical looking Flares, each with hands as large as their torsos, spread out into a triangular formation and slammed their palms onto the ground. The ground between them shattered and a huge hole was formed. Dirt was thrown into the air by the violent attack, but it was only the beginning. A man with a leg two times the size of normal stomped the ground rapidly, causing a fissure of his own. Ten Flares with matching masks and coats formed a line, and dropped into a low and wide stance. Then each of them lifted both arms into the air, their palms thrust upwards and then their arms came down again. When they smashed their hands down, the ground in front of them fell away. A perfectly square depression was formed in front of them, like a hidden elevator had been there just under the dirt and at their command it descended. Each time they repeated the gesture the pit deepened by ten feet.

Similar things were going on all over the area, thousands of Flares were using various means to excavate the ground. Digging a huge trench or moat to act as a perimeter and prevent their target from escaping. A couple of them even seemed to turn incorporeal and then their ghostly bodies disappeared beneath the surface of the ground. It was only a matter of time before they were able to find the creature tunneling around under the surface. There were just too many Flares and even if they didn’t all have special means to help them dig, their vast numbers meant they soon found the beast underground. A fellow with huge arms was the lucky winner. He had huge steel plates strapped to his knuckles and he was pulverizing the rock into sand with them. With a punch he broke into a tunnel and then smashed his fist against the limbless black body in front of him. Blood spilled into the dirt and sand and he kept punching while one of his nearby buddies threw down a huge steel hook. Others followed suit and in just a few minutes they had dozens of hooks sunk into the beast’s body and various super strong mutants pulled it up out of the ground.

“Why did it change colors to be black again?”

As more of the monster was revealed, they started to question what was going on, “Hey! That’s not the giant snake! This is just a big worm!”

By the time they realized that they hadn’t found their real target and only a decoy, there was already another threat. The area they’d formed a perimeter around had already completely transformed. Previously, it was an area at the edge of a desert. It had mostly dry and sparse vegetation along with sandy dirt and hundreds of different types, sizes, and shapes of rock. Now, the whole area had turned into a grove of trees. The dozen that had grown before had become dozens and those dozens had grown into hundreds. Already, vines were falling into the huge trench and starting to grow even more trees.

“Wait, what’s that?”

“Pink vapor?”

There was a soft pink mist coming from the trees, it was only barely noticeable and didn’t seem to block vision, instead just tinting the view to a pink shade. They had no idea what was going on, but the trees continued to grow and the ‘forest’ grew larger and larger. The trench slowed the expansion, but didn’t stop it. Once the trees had filled the trench their vines crawled up to the edge and breached the perimeter, more and more vines creeping up and wrapping around each other. Without anything for them to crawl up it took them quite a bit longer to expand further, but the vines were piling up and making a place for other vines to climb onto. Some of the Flares got curious and approached the trees.

“It’s just a tree, the pink mist doesn’t do anything.”

A few of them got bold and started messing with the trees and a few seconds later, there were cries of shock, “My whole hand has gone numb!”

Before long, they realized that touching the trees would cause numbness and started attacking them. Unfortunately for them, when they destroyed the trees, they exploded into a spray of plant matter that carried the numbing poison.

“Stop messing around! Maintain the perimeter. Earth Team, get in there and find it!”

The commanding voice took over again, seeming completely exasperated with the quality of his henchmen. After he spoke, the more skillful people setting up the perimeter moved towards the center, the group of men in matching uniforms pushing the ground around with just movements of their hands in the air. The incorporeal people flew nearby them, the two groups reinforcing each other as they searched carefully for where the beast had gone to.

Around ten minutes later, the ground exploded and there was a silver flash. The uniformed team was sent flying, like a wave of force had struck them. Some of them smashed against the trees and were coated in poison. Others flew back out to the perimeter and landed on the crowd of flares. The unlucky ones were split in half and sent to multiple places at the same time. Where the team had previously been standing, there was now a huge serpent, with a body about six feet wide and covered with thousands of three foot long spikes. With it turned towards them, they could now see the black tar-like material on the few exposed portions of the snake, like just around its eyes and mouth. The mouth that suddenly opened and released a virulent spray of green liquid towards the perimeter nearest to it.