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.

couple of pieces of marble shot

hallway with a stairway that

the emblem again

Diagonally down.

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

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

that this

about to kick

He realized something.

at the arrow again and oriented himself perfectly in the

to adhere to the planned layout if he

forward, and the more he advanced, the more

target was moving but that he was getting

prepared himself for a battle as he

Yet, nothing was happening.

rapidly when Shang was just moving the emblem

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

arms could already

forward

then, he saw

a small cube of bloody meat surrounding a Space

particularly surprised

permanently resist the pressure at the bottom of the

even deeper than

underground was even more brutal than

the Cloud had probably been taken by surprise while undertaking the

her Mana Shield

her Mana had already

the sudden explosion of earth had

the body of an

Not very strong.

probably about as strong as Shang's body had been

Shang, it

already under quite a lot of

a Mage's

the Space Ring out of the

'Pretty good,' he thought.

contents were worth quite a couple of Grade Seven Mana Crystals. Way better

meat to the side again

a mental map of the layout of the trial and kept checking what kind of material he

a while, Shang noticed that he wasn't destroying marble anymore

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

for a bit and noticed that it led to

This was the exit.

the exit, Shang turned around again and

and after opening it, he began to