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

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

again and looked at the

Diagonally down.

door, through

was different, which

meant that this stairway led

about to kick diagonally down

He realized something.

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

to adhere to the planned

more he advanced, the more the arrow was moving left

was moving but that he was getting closer to

himself for a battle as he punched

Yet, nothing was happening.

rapidly when

realized that his target

could already

arms forward and dug more

then, he saw his

was a small cube of

wasn't particularly

couldn't permanently resist the pressure at the

spot was even deeper

was even more brutal than the pressure in

probably been taken by surprise while

Mana Shield had been

her Mana had already

had killed her and compressed her into this tiny cube

body

Not very strong.

as strong as Shang's body had been

to Shang, it

already under quite

a

Space Ring out of

'Pretty good,' he thought.

quite a couple of Grade Seven

the cube of meat to the side

the trial and kept checking what kind of

noticed that he wasn't destroying marble

couple of minutes, Shang kept searching through the highest layer of the trial until he found one single hallway

led to an inconspicuous spot

This was the exit.

around again and

found a door, and after opening it, he began to dig