Sword God in a World of Magic

A harsh wind blew.

On top of a hill was a broken castle.

Mere moments ago, this castle had been whole.

Now, the back of the castle was missing.

What had once been a room was now a ruin.

Half-broken walls were behind Shang as the bright sun shone down on him.

The bright sun didn't reflect Shang's feelings, but the weather didn't care about the feelings of living beings.

Shang's body had become a husk. Nearly all his muscles had shrunk to a sickly degree, making him look like a skeleton with merely some skin on it.

The two empty eye-sockets only strengthened this perception.

About 140 years ago, Shang sacrificed his left eye.

Today, he had sacrificed his right eye.

Shang couldn't possibly sacrifice his arms or legs since that would severely weaken his Battle-Strength.

Organs couldn't be sacrificed because that would reduce Shang's maximum life energy tremendously.

The ears or the nose weren't enough to achieve any kind of significant power with Entropy.

Shang had decided to go with the eye.

Due to his Spirit Sense, he wasn't reliant on vision anymore.

However, all of this was actually only of secondary importance.

In fact, Shang didn't even really think about what to sacrifice.

His mind had been someplace else.

Jerald.

His friend.

His only friend.

His closest companion.

Shang's life had always been surrounded by a cloud of darkness.

His Affinity made it impossible for him to have friends or companions.

His goal made it impossible for him to have friends or companions.

He was alone.

The world was dark.

His life was dark.

willing to walk

Shang had walked into this

searching for power, he wouldn't need to be surrounded by this

But he couldn't.

needed to achieve

was the only purpose of

he had more purposes

but ever since Shang had stepped onto this dark path, all the other

had to reach the end of the path, no matter

The consequences didn't matter.

The sacrifices didn't matter.

The price didn't matter.

to reach

needed to reach

he had already made

had already come

weight

journey, Jerald had been like

A ray of light.

a place of nothing but

wasn't actually that hard to walk

hand lying in front

on it, and

that Relon had given Jerald, Relon would know that

eye-sockets only stared at

He didn't move.

blew across the now

sun mercilessly shone down

was so

only saw

of the hand without

Step.

walked out of the still-standing part of the castle behind Shang, and her eyes widened in horror at

the

What about King Storm?!

for organizing everything in the

husk and the solitary hand on the ground, she took

world around

around

anything, her

Shang didn't move.

eye-sockets only

couple more True Mages arrived shortly, but they died as

took Shang two minutes to move, and the only reason he was moving was that he was seeing someone approach

Sylvia was returning.

her face as she activated one Mana

stepped forward and scooped up