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 marble shot

with a stairway that

emblem again and looked at the

Diagonally down.

around, punched through the door, through the room, and then through the other

was different, which meant

this stairway

about to kick diagonally

He realized something.

he looked at the arrow again and oriented himself

planned layout if he was already accidentally destroying the walls

the

his target was moving but that he

prepared himself for a battle as

Yet, nothing was happening.

to move rapidly when Shang was just moving the emblem

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

already move behind the

his arms forward and

then, he

a small cube of

particularly surprised

couldn't permanently resist the pressure at the bottom of the

spot was even

the pressure underground was even more brutal than the pressure

that, the Cloud had probably been taken by surprise

her Mana Shield had

had already

brutal pressure of the sudden explosion of earth had killed her and compressed

strong was the body of an Early

Not very strong.

probably about as strong as Shang's body had been at the Mid True Path

Shang,

already under

how a

of the

'Pretty good,' he thought.

quite a couple of Grade

to the side again and

trial and kept

while, Shang noticed that he

the next couple of minutes, Shang kept searching through the highest layer of the trial until he found

bit and noticed that it led to an inconspicuous spot at the

This was the exit.

finding the exit, Shang turned around again and followed

and after opening