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 shot past

a stairway that went upward,

out the emblem again and looked at the

Diagonally down.

he turned around, punched through the door, through the

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

that this stairway led

kick diagonally down when he suddenly

He realized something.

he looked at the arrow again

to the planned

he advanced, the more the arrow was

his target was moving but that he was getting closer to

a

Yet, nothing was happening.

rapidly when Shang was

it around a bit, Shang realized that his target was essentially directly

arms could already move behind

moved his arms forward and dug more

he saw

small cube of bloody meat

particularly

the pressure

even

more brutal than the pressure

top of that, the Cloud had probably been taken by surprise while

her Mana Shield had

had

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

strong was the body of an Early

Not very strong.

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

comparison to Shang, it was

already under quite a lot

could imagine how a Mage's body would

Ring out of

'Pretty good,' he thought.

contents were worth quite a couple of Grade

of meat to

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

noticed that he wasn't destroying marble

layer of the trial until he found

led to an inconspicuous spot at the bottom

This was the exit.

finding the exit, Shang turned around again and followed the hallway

after opening it, he began to dig more