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.

of marble

entered a hallway with a stairway that went upward, and

emblem again and looked at the

Diagonally down.

through the room, and then through

but he noticed that the angle was different, which

this stairway led

just about to kick diagonally down when he suddenly

He realized something.

again and oriented himself perfectly in the arrow's

didn't need to adhere to the planned layout if

he advanced, the more the arrow

didn't mean that his target was moving but that he was getting

himself for a battle

Yet, nothing was happening.

when

a bit, Shang realized that his target was essentially directly in

already move

his arms forward and dug

he saw

small cube of bloody

particularly

couldn't permanently resist the pressure at the

even deeper

more

had probably been taken by surprise

Shield

had already been

explosion of earth had killed

strong was the body of an Early Ancestral

Not very strong.

as strong as Shang's body had been at the Mid

to Shang, it

current body was already under quite a

a Mage's

dug the Space Ring out of

'Pretty good,' he thought.

guessed that the contents were worth quite a couple of

cube of meat to the side again

the trial and kept checking what

Shang noticed that he wasn't destroying marble anymore and

layer of the trial until he found one single hallway that

it led to

This was the exit.

turned around again and followed

door, and after opening it, he began to dig