The team of Fubei Li, Dave, Xyankor and Perketta immediately found shelter under a piece of rock near the lake they were just trying to avoid a few seconds ago. Fubei Li carefully peeked outside of their cover to observe what was happening out there.
The big mouth creature made of pale green energy closed its big mouth like a giant bear trap, yet the floating sea urchin creatures caught in its bite did not appear to be affected at all at first. They just stopped floating away and kept at their original positions midair.
The mouth creature continued its path of hunting down other sea urchin creatures, leaving its victims in the same status - still, floating, but not doing anything. When Fubei Li concentrated on the status of the sea urchin creatures, he noticed that there was something indeed different about them after they had been attacked by the pale green energy mouth creature, something he felt he might be familiar with but could not tell for now.
"What did that thing do?" Fubei Li asked with a low voice: "I don't think it's a normal predator - it was trying to take some other things from its prey. What is it?"
"It's taking 'it'." Perketta answered.
"Well, what's 'it'?" Fubei Li was both somewhat frustrated and a little amused at the non-answer.
"It's a kind of blessing. The kind of blessing only immortal voidborns have." Xyankor sighed and said: "It's something that was not that functionally or magically substantial in most areas, but still quite noticeable amongst all voidborns, especially in cases of new elementals and other entities with voidborn lineage. Legend says that after the rupture, 'it' was taken away and was no longer manifesting in newly birthed younglings. This is the main reason that many elementals stopped calling themselves voidborns."
"Many of us theorized that 'it' could be tied to how elementals and all voidborns gain immortality. But we have no way of knowing or proving this theory, thanks to the Depth Dwellers." Perketta scoffed and said.
"Okay. Someday you've gotta explain these to me. Like why would these creatures of the gaps have 'it' and not you." Fubeil Li peeked outside once again: "But it looks like that thing is still here, chasing after the sea urchins. What should we do? Any way to destroy it?"
"It's not that hard to heavily wound or destroy it." Perketta said: "But it's tricky - because that thing - it marks its attacker and killer through some kind of curse. The curse served no other purpose than attracting more of its kind even from a great distance. So if you kill one and do not remove the curse soon, you soon will be flooded by a group of them."
"Ah, so it's a curse based on grudge and enmity." Fubei Li scratched its jaw, then asked: "What if it didn't know who was behind the attack?"
"I - I don't know." Perketta thought for a brief moment and said: "I think most of us only engaged in fight against it while we're forced to, so I guess - "
"No one ambushes it?" Fubeil Li immediately started searching in his pockets - then he pulled out a folded paper sigil and a wooden doll, which looked like a dog standing on its hind legs and dabbing with its forelegs.
"Curse scapegoat." Dave nodded: "It's risky, but if it comes to it it's worth a try."
Fubei Li pulled six hairs from his head, then he wrapped one around the doll's neck, one on each arm and one on each leg, then he infused the final hair with his Xuanli, making it as hard as metal and impale the doll's heart with it, "Okay, done. Now we just need to find a way to get this paper sigil inside one of those sea urchin creatures, without it knowing."
"Let me." Dave took the paper sigil, then he looked out from the rock under which they were hiding to look at the situation outside. Before long, his eyes locked onto one of the sea urchin creatures being chased, then he retreated under rock and closed his eyes. With a short moment of preparation, he threw the folded paper sigil out, which then instantly disappeared behind a small and thin portal.
"Geez, how much knowledge did you download?" Fubei Li shook his head, for he knew full well how difficult it was to create a portal inside of another portal, not to mention one that linked to the inside of a living and moving creature.
"Well, enough for me to know the ending to a comic book just by one touch if I don't control it." Dave sighed and looked outside their shelter again: "Any minute now."
In just around three seconds, the mouth creature made of pale green energy caught up to the sea urchin creature targeted by Dave, and closed its bear treap like mouth on it. The "thing" that was once possessed by this sea urchin creature was thus stripped away and absorbed by the mouth monster. Only this time, some kind of energy released from the folded paper sigil inside of the sea urchin creature's body was also absorbed by the mouth creature.
A loud and high pitched squeal came from the mouth creature. And when all four members of the team peeked at it from the rock, and found that some kind of orange and golden flare, or fire was burning from inside of the creature's body. The flare was tearing the creature up from the inside, and releasing some kind of rainbow colored smoke from its wounds seemingly made of tiny crystal grains.
The mouth creature continued to squeal and struggled to control its positions in the air, and while the team of four watched, its whole body went up in green and orange flames like a paper plane on fire. And like a paper plane on fire, it flew around randomly in the air, eventually crashing into the empty space beyond the edge of the land.
A strange energy wave burst through the air, leaving a barely tangible mark on the sea urchin creature in which the paper sigil was placed. And then, the dog doll on Fubei Li's hand shook as if it was hit by a shockwave, then, a small green marking appeared on its chest.
"Did you feel anything?" Fubei Li nodded at the sight of his dog doll, then asked Dave.
"No. Nothing spilled over to me." Dave nodded at Fubei Li then turned to Xyankor and Perketta: "Looks like we're good. Let's go."