Sword God in a World of Magic

"This is the middle of the place we call Deep Crevices," the Bolt explained. "The Wilderness Hunt will be held within a radius of 10,000 kilometers. Leaving the area voluntarily results in death."

"Naturally, you will be able to tell where the wilderness ends based on a very noticeable Magic Circle, which you will see and pass through on your way down."

"As soon as you pass through the Magic Circle later, you are not allowed to pass through it until a Bolt tells you so."

"Well then," the Bolt said with a smile, "I think that should be everything."

"You can descend now."

BANG!

Half of the Clouds immediately shot into the water at their full speeds, even using Mana Step.

The other half slowly started to float and made their way downward.

Shang was amongst the half that traveled slowly.

Usually, one could tell someone's confidence in their power based on how they acted in this situation, but that wasn't very easy here. After all, the Clouds knew how certain people would act and could emulate that behavior.

Shang slowly floated into the water, although his kind of slow wasn't exactly an average human's kind of slow. He still moved two kilometers per second.

As Shang continued going downward, he was reminded of the time he had run away from the Grandmountain Kingdom. Back then, he had also swum to the bottom of a huge lake.

However, the Shang from back then had just reached the Commander Stage, and he hadn't been able to sense anything down there since it had been just too dark.

But this time, Shang had a Spirit Sense, even if it was only restricted to a radius of ten kilometers for now.

The Clouds split up the further they descended. As soon as they passed through the barrier, they would be allowed to attack each other, and most of them didn't want to be attacked.

In a matter of seconds, Shang was alone again.

Right now, there was only water in all directions.

Shang had no idea how deep the Eternal Ocean actually was, but it was probably very deep.

After nearly a full minute, Shang could see the Magic Circle the Bolt had been talking about.

There was a purple barrier in front of Shang, impossible to miss.

This meant that the Wilderness Hunt would start from here.

'The wilderness is supposed to have a radius of 10,000 kilometers. I wonder if that also extends upward, which would mean that the bottom of the Eternal Ocean is over 10,000 kilometers away.'

Shang had expected the Eternal Ocean to be deep, but he hadn't expected it to be this deep.

However, Shang didn't stop descending, and in nearly an instant, he passed through the actual barrier.

BANG!

Suddenly, Shang's surroundings seemed to crack apart!

The space in the surroundings had received cracks!

Obviously, someone was planning on attacking Shang, and Shang was shocked by the sheer power of the oppressive space in his surroundings.

All the space in Shang's surroundings was pulled to him as it cracked apart, putting immense pressure on his body.

Shang felt his Mana Pathways crackling under pressure, but they managed to hold.

An instant later, numerous Magic Runes appeared in Shang's surroundings.

Shang didn't know anything about Magic Runes, but he could feel that Concepts of Space and Gravity were currently trying to press him into a tiny cube of meat.

Shang didn't move and remained in the middle of the oppressive space and gravity.

'This has to cost a lot of Mana,' Shang thought calmly.

Using Mana Crystals as power sources was forbidden in any fights between Clouds. Otherwise, the battles would deteriorate into whoever could build the better defensive Magic Circle and offensive Magic Circle since everyone had access to such a ridiculous sum of Mana Crystals.

This meant that whoever attacked Shang needed to use their own Mana to keep this Magic Circle going.

Nearly an entire second passed, which was an insanely long time for a fight on this level.

Shang didn't receive a single injury and didn't use up any Mana.

If a Mage were in this position, they would be forced to use Mana Step. After all, every bit of damage would consume the Mage's Mana.

Meanwhile, Shang's defense worked like flat damage reduction. If the power of the attack wasn't strong enough to get through, Shang would literally take no damage at all.

Naturally, this Magic Circle wasn't meant to kill him but to make him move. After all, the easiest counter was to just rush out of the Magic Circle.

But then, Shang would probably be attacked by another attack that the opponent had readied, which would be their actual killing move.

The Magic Circle was strong enough that staying inside would be a bad idea but not so strong that it would consume too much Mana.

WHOOOM!

In an instant, Shang noticed that a terrifying beam of concentrated space was shooting toward him from a hidden location outside the Magic Circle.

If Shang had left the Magic Circle, the beam would have probably been fired at Shang from just a couple of meters away, making it impossible to avoid it.

At that moment, time seemingly stood still.

Shang was surrounded by oppressive space and gravity as a beam of powerful gravity shot at him from barely a kilometer away.

As soon as that happened, Shang became active.

In an instant, the entire Magic Circle around Shang vanished!

It was like it had never been there!

However, Shang hadn't used his Domain of Entropy.

This was the power of Void Break!

Shang had consumed the momentum of Void Break and had strengthened his body, but the actual ability of Void Break still existed.

Just now, Shang had absorbed all the Mana in the surrounding kilometers, including the Water Mana and the irregular Space and Gravity Mana.

The surrounding ten kilometers had turned into a black void.

There was no Mana in this void.

It was just nothingness.

All of the absorbed Mana was currently pressed into Shang's Mana Pathways, putting immense strain on them.

The beam had barely moved a couple of meters in that instant.

Shang's head moved toward the direction of his opponent, who had been unveiled since all the Mana around them had also been absorbed, canceling their cloaking Spell.

At this moment, the opponent's face was agonizingly slowly transforming from a serious one to a shocked one.

It was like everything but Shang was moving in slow motion.

With all of this Mana inside Shang, his body had reached a bit more than the power of a Mid Ancestral Beast.

Right now, Shang could punch a Mid Ancestral Beast, and it would be thrown back.

All the foreign Mana inside Shang moved to his legs.

The void behind and below Shang seemed to solidify.

Shang put his feet to the solidified space.

And then, he jumped.

BOOOOOOM!

Shang shot toward his opponent with unreasonable speed!

In an instant, he arrived at the beam, which had barely moved 150 meters up to now.

Shang's left arm swung the simple metallic rod that was his Subsis at the beam.

The beam vanished, and a translucent blade made of space and gravity appeared around the Subsis.

However, the blade vanished just as quickly as it had appeared.

The Space and Gravity Mana moved through Shang's Mana Pathways, which had already been emptied of foreign Mana by using it to jump forward.

The new foreign Space and Gravity Mana replaced the old foreign Mana, essentially activating the ability of Void Break again.

But this time, the foreign Mana only traveled through Shang's body and entered his Addum.

The Addum began to vibrate and shake under the power of Gravity and Space.

Shang's Addum wasn't made to use Gravity and Space Mana, but it was strong enough to house them anyway. Sure, the efficiency was far lower, but that didn't really matter.

Shang swung forward, and at that moment, he used up a majority of his life energy, which was instantly refilled by using a big part of his Mana.

The Addum didn't seem any different from before, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Shang had used the Concept of Addition to transform his Light Mana to the extreme of mass.

Right now, Shang couldn't even accelerate or stop his Addum anymore.

The added power of space, gravity, and mass had made his Addum so insanely heavy that Shang couldn't even hope to move it.

Yet, Shang had already inserted a ton of kinetic energy before the Addum had become that heavy, and that energy didn't just disappear.

The Addum continued slashing forward.

And it hit the Mage's Mana Shield.

At that moment, the grey-haired man inside the Mana Shield was finishing the word for Mana Step.

CRACK!

The Mana Shield blew apart like a marble made of thin glass.

All the Mana in the Mage's body completely vanished.

Suddenly, a powerful hand grabbed the Mage's throat and pulled him forward.

The grey-haired Mage looked with terror at the white bandage right in front of him, covering the opponent's eyes.

For just an instant, he thought that his opponent might spare him.

But then, he felt like he was losing all his youth, energy, happiness, and strength.

His body was turning into a husk.

He wanted to scream, but his neck and face had already atrophied.

And in just two seconds, the grey-haired Mage had turned into a lifeless husk.

Shang remembered that this Mage had talked to another blue-haired Mage before the trial started.

What surprised Shang was that this grey-haired Mage had only been at the Initial Ancestral Mage Realm, while Shang's amulet told him that he was at the Early Sixth Realm.

Well, it seemed like this Mage had been quite confident in his power and thought that he could kill this warrior as long as he ambushed him.

Shang calmly ripped the bony finger off that carried the Space Ring and looked inside.

Three Grade Seven Mana Crystals.

'Beggar.'

Shang threw the dried corpse to the side and continued descending.