"Earth, Water, Thunder, Fire, Wind, Light, Dark, Metal and lastly Physical," Jin mumbled to himself but it seemed that Orochi had caught wind of their plans when Jin started to emit a tremendous amount of Maqi that would naturally make any monster or enemy be on guard.
He needed more time to deploy the seven other different elements and Orochi knew that he would be vulnerable. Even Genbu had begun to interfere by intensifying his own Maqi to reinforce the magical barrier around his serpent partner. In addition to that, his Maqi had an ominous presence of Yin Energy that hindered the gathering of Jin's Maqi.
While Byakko's personal electrical energy barrier was nullifying Genbu's magic shield, it started to become ineffective and Byakko could literally see his barrier fizzling and breaking apart. He had to focus on regenerating while keeping sufficient Maqi for the simultaneous attack with Jin.
Orochi had decided to strike as well, knowing that idling would bring forth its imminent demise. Thus, from all cardinal and sub cardinal directions, the serpents zoomed into the peak of the mountain, hoping to disrupt their gathering of Maqi.
Yet when Jin and Byakko seemed to be at the doorstep of death, a sludge-like creature suddenly emerged from the back of Jin and instantly prevented the coordinated assault from the serpents themselves. As the serpents impacted against the sludge creature, they felt their energies being s.u.c.k.e.d out and thus caused them to retreat away from it. Soon, the sludge creature began to form up and slowly they realised that it took the shape of a half body armour suit.
"You have forgotten something Genbu, Orochi! I am still the master of this subconscious realm. It seems that you did not only unlock my chi and mana circuits! My link with my abilities in the real world is also available to me too!" Jin shouted as he called forth the Titan Knight to protect them from the relentless assault of the serpent.
"Hahahah! Stupid fool!" Genbu laughed heartily that Jin and Byakko had to keep their footing stable. "Have you not seen the clue I gave you when you came out of the serpent's mouth?"
"What do you mean?!" Jin questioned while he continued to try his best concentrating the essence of Maqi into his palms.
"The by-product from the innards of the serpent you felt was my creation. It's my product to block your chi and mana circuits. Thus, these so-called sludge you created from your body was all because of me. And since it is my property, I am able to control them." Genbu scoffed and pushed his Yin energy into the sludge in order to take charge of it again. This would enable the Turtle of the North to take full control of the Titan Knight and obliterate Jin and Byakko immediately before it could inflict any hurt on Orochi's serpents.
But for some reason, the sludge did not seem to be responding to Genbu's command. The Titan Knight remained stationary and never moved a single inch away from Jin and Byakko. "Come on, I am still waiting for your counter move, what are you waiting for?" Jin smirked widely as his Maqi essence was getting more concrete.
"What? What is happening? What did you do to the sludge?" Now it was Genbu's turn to get to the bottom of the situation. There was no way his Yin Energy was not able to control a humanoid sludge creation. For its size, the turtle even inserted more Yin Energy than he should assert its dominance.
"Why should I tell you? When you did not even explain to me when I asked for answers! It's a tit for tat!" Jin said but he was lucky that his gamble paid off. When he first saw the sludge by product, there was no way it was a case of a lucky coincidence. The Astral Panda Cultivator knew that the sludge he created had to be part of either Genbu or Orochi. Also, there was no way his enemies for this 'friendly' match would allow him to do what he liked while he gathered his Maqi.
He embodied the Titan Knight with his Astral Body.
By doing so, the Sludge would be a part of Jin instead of being a separate entity. In fact, if one were to look closely, the Titan Knight while body-less from the bottom half, there was a fabric like portion that was attached to Jin. It was a new technique that Jin had created on the spot and Jin would eventually name it Astral Alter since the minion sludge was still a part of him.
And thus, his gamble paid off with Genbu revealing that the sludge was a by-product of his, confirming Jin's suspicion and began to infuse Yin Energy into it, confident that he would control it. But because the Yin Energy was not invasive or 'offensive' in nature, Jin was able to absorb the Yin Energy to make it part of him. While the conversion was not entirely a 1:1 rate, the energy output was enough to strengthen his circuits and aided him to have sufficient Maqi for the one shot.
"Impossible! I do not believe you are able to control it. Are you using some freeze technique or spatial time lock?!" For a turtle of his age, Genbu got a tad more irritated than usual which made Byakko quite surprised that the old man could still have anger as part of his repertoire of emotions. Yet, Jin refused to answer him and used the delay to further cement his Maqi powers.
However, Genbu's anger was not to be underestimated. With the entire atmosphere choke full of his Yin Energy and the ground they were on was on his shell, he and Orochi had the home ground advantage and they were going to use it to thwart Jin's plan as much as possible.
