Sword God in a World of Magic

Over the next couple of days, Shang's body recovered.

The Judgment Palace stopped sending in new people, which was not what Shang had expected.

He had expected that they would either send someone to kill him or restart with killing Archmages. After all, they couldn't possibly be this unlucky again, right?

Yet, it seemed like they had abandoned their plan.

When Shang was fully healed, he flew through his territory to look at the surrounding barriers.

That was when Shang saw that the colors of the surrounding barriers had changed.

Shang was now encompassed by the Judgment Palace.

Interestingly enough, the Judgment Palace had effectively used all their Defender Flags to stop Shang from moving.

A year ago, they had been prepared to intercept Shang, but that was probably no longer the case.

Instead of constantly having to keep an eye on him, they decided to simply build him in and ignore him.

Covering the east and northeast was a barrier for Ancestral Mages with four stars.

Covering the north and northwest was a barrier for Ancestral Mages with one star.

Covering the west and southwest was a barrier for Ancestral Mages with five stars.

And the south and southeast were covered by one with three stars.

Shang couldn't leave his territory unless he decided to assault another territory.

Naturally, three of the four barriers were essentially impossible for Shang to tackle.

The one-star one was just straight-up impossible, and the four and five-star ones probably had people with fourfold Spirit Senses defending them.

Shang could jump one level against someone with a fourfold Spirit Sense, but not two nor three.

The only one Shang could attempt to attack was the south and southeast one since it only had three stars, representing a Mid Ancestral Mage.

However, attacking and conquering that territory would move Shang further into the Judgment Palace instead of away from it.

After that, since he couldn't defend two territories at once, the Judgment Palace would conquer the territory he just left behind, making it even easier to bunker him in.

Even more, assuming Shang continued, he would eventually reach a Zone that wasn't meant for Ancestral Mages to fight, which would stop his advance.

At that point, the three Defender Flags from the other directions would probably have moved, enclosing him in the corner.

This reminded Shang a bit of chess.

Shang was stuck.

didn't mean that

Ancestral Mages busy, and on top of that, the Judgment Palace used four of its five Defender Flags for the Ancestral Mage Realm to

only had the two-star flag

power of a

blocking

this was how things

and the opponent would ignore

Shang couldn't join.

four Defender Flags

that made this trade quite detrimental

of

allowed to reassign them every century, which

was, who would get to decide which Zone? After all, the Zone Shang was currently in was a square with a

if big parts of the Zone belonged to different Empires? Who would get to

There were two rules.

to control over 50% of it. If there was no Empire

rule: If the original owner of the Zone still held control over a territory inside a given Zone, they still had control over

was implemented to give the biggest geniuses of each Empire

the second rule was also the reason why Shang would

remained in his territory, the attackers couldn't change the Zone to something more favorable to them. They would need to send in more

wanted to conquer this Zone, they needed to produce someone

would probably

meant that Shang was stuck

war would continue without

how did he feel about

Great!

could return to training

Shang still kept an eye

However, nothing was happening.

was entering his

barriers surrounding him

being watched became weaker

couple of days, Shang only felt a couple of careless glances from some powerful people every couple of

which meant that they

Judgment Palace truly stopped caring about him and what

territory had essentially transformed into a

dead territory, he felt a profound

kilometers belonged

No one would enter.

No one would exit.

He was alone.

wouldn't have it any other

Shang summoned his humongous

of curious glances from

was he doing

Shang only remained sitting in the middle of his