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 pieces of marble shot past

had entered a hallway with a stairway that went upward,

emblem again

Diagonally down.

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

he noticed that the angle was different,

this stairway led

kick diagonally

He realized something.

looked at the arrow again and oriented himself perfectly

adhere to the planned layout if he was already accidentally destroying the walls

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

moving but that he was getting

prepared himself for a battle

Yet, nothing was happening.

to move rapidly when Shang was just moving

bit, Shang realized that his target was essentially

could already

forward and

then, he saw

a small cube of

wasn't particularly surprised about

permanently resist the pressure at the bottom of

was even deeper than

pressure underground was even more brutal than the pressure

probably been

her Mana Shield

her Mana had

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

the body of an Early Ancestral

Not very strong.

as strong as Shang's body

Shang, it was

already under quite

could imagine how a Mage's

dug the Space Ring out of the cube of meat

'Pretty good,' he thought.

a couple of

of meat to the

the layout of the trial and kept checking

he wasn't destroying

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

followed that hallway for a bit and noticed that it led to an inconspicuous spot at the bottom

This was the exit.

around again and followed the hallway

and after opening it, he began to dig