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

out the emblem again and

Diagonally down.

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

but he noticed that the angle was different, which meant that he had just punched through the slanted

meant that this

to kick diagonally down when

He realized something.

that, he looked at the arrow again and oriented himself

didn't need to adhere to the planned layout if he was

he advanced, the more

target was moving but that he was

a battle as he punched

Yet, nothing was happening.

move rapidly when Shang was just moving the

his target was essentially

could already

moved his arms forward and dug more

he saw

small cube of bloody meat surrounding

particularly surprised

permanently resist the pressure at

spot was even deeper

pressure underground was even more brutal

Cloud had probably been taken by

Mana Shield

Mana had already been

pressure of the sudden explosion of earth had killed her and compressed her into this tiny cube of

strong was the body of an Early Ancestral

Not very strong.

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

to Shang, it was

already under quite

imagine how a Mage's body

of

'Pretty good,' he thought.

of Grade

of meat to the

of the trial and kept checking what kind of material he

that he wasn't destroying

the highest layer of the trial until he found one single hallway that led

noticed that it led

This was the exit.

around again and followed

opening it, he began to