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 past

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

emblem again

Diagonally down.

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

he noticed that the angle was different, which meant that he

meant that this stairway led

to kick diagonally

He realized something.

he looked at the arrow again and

realized that he didn't need to adhere to the planned layout if he was already accidentally destroying

punched forward, and the more he advanced, the more the arrow was moving left

moving but that he

for a battle as he punched

Yet, nothing was happening.

when Shang was

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

arms could already move behind the

moved his arms forward and

then, he saw his

was a small cube of bloody meat surrounding a Space

wasn't particularly surprised

resist the pressure at the bottom of

spot was even

even more brutal than the pressure

Cloud had probably been

Mana Shield

her Mana had already

earth had killed her and compressed her into this tiny

the body of an

Not very strong.

strong as Shang's body had been at

comparison to Shang,

body was already under quite a lot of

imagine how a

dug the Space Ring out of the cube of meat and

'Pretty good,' he thought.

quite a couple of Grade Seven Mana Crystals. Way

the cube of meat to the side again

mental map of the layout of the trial and kept checking what kind

that he wasn't destroying marble

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

a bit and noticed that it led to an

This was the exit.

around again and

opening it, he began to