Sword God in a World of Magic

Shang noticed that the barrier before him started to distort under the pressure.

Shang pulled his hand back and healed himself to his peak.

He had filled the barrier with an unreal amount of Death Mana, and it wouldn't stop absorbing Mana anytime soon.

Shang watched the barrier distort more and more until…

BANG!

The barrier shattered.

WHOOOOOOM!

As the entire barrier around the trial vanished, all the wet ground surrounding it suddenly imploded, filling the spots that had been filled with normal air until now.

In the short moment when the barrier had been destroyed but the earth hadn't yet filled in the empty space, Shang had been able to feel his surroundings with his Spirit Sense.

The image Shang had seen was of a rather large room with several pitfalls, several Magic Circles, and several platforms.

Shang assumed that this had probably been some kind of trial where people had to find out how the Magic Circles worked to divine the correct way across the platforms and pitfalls.

But now…

As soon as the barrier broke, all the earth rushed into the room, destroying the platforms, filling the pitfalls, and disrupting almost all the Magic Circles.

Shang remained standing on his spot for a couple of seconds until all the ground around him had calmed down.

Then, Shang took out the emblem and looked at the arrow.

Diagonally down.

Shang hadn't seen his target in the brief moment before the earth had filled in the gaps, which meant that his target was inside a different challenge within the trial.

Shang remembered where one of the doors had been and dug towards that spot by punching more dirt.

None of the pitfalls, platforms, and Magic Circles worked anymore.

Some seconds later, Shang reached the doorway, and one punch later, the door opened slightly.

WHOOOM!

The door immediately exploded outward, and the earth around Shang rushed into the opened doorway.

Shang simply continued punching forward.

BANG!

After one particular punch, Shang noticed that he had destroyed something that wasn't the normal kind of ground.

pieces of

a hallway with a stairway that went upward, and he had just now punched through

took out the emblem again and looked

Diagonally down.

door, through the room, and then through the other

angle was different, which meant that

this

about to kick diagonally down when he suddenly

He realized something.

that, he looked at the arrow again and oriented himself perfectly in the arrow's

adhere to the planned layout if he

forward, and the more he advanced, the more the

target was moving but

a battle as

Yet, nothing was happening.

to move rapidly when Shang was just moving the emblem

a bit, Shang realized that his target

could already move

forward and

he saw

cube of bloody meat surrounding a

wasn't particularly surprised about

resist the pressure at the bottom of

was even deeper

even more brutal than the pressure in the

had probably

Mana Shield had been

Mana had

had killed her and compressed her into this tiny cube of

strong was the body of an Early

Not very strong.

strong as Shang's body had

to Shang,

body was already under quite a lot

how a Mage's body would

of

'Pretty good,' he thought.

were worth quite a couple of Grade Seven

to the side

of the layout of the trial and

noticed that he wasn't destroying marble anymore and turned

kept searching through the highest layer of the trial until he found one single hallway that

that hallway for a bit and noticed that it led

This was the exit.

finding the exit, Shang turned around again and followed the

opening it, he began to