Sword God in a World of Magic

It was a Mage!

A beast!

A Mage!

"You're a Mage?" Shang asked.

"Can beasts not be Mages?" the Thunder King asked calmly.

"Can beasts below the Beast Lord Realm not be Mages?" Shang countered.

The Thunder King threw an emotionless glance at Shang.

If Shang hadn't come here under the Lightning Emperor's orders, the Thunder King would have killed Shang for his answer.

So, he did the next best thing.

He refused to answer any questions.

"Go into the barrier. I will send opponents to you. You are not allowed to kill anyone," the Thunder King said curtly.

Shang realized that he had annoyed the Thunder King, but he also didn't care a lot.

His question had already been answered.

Naturally, beasts below the Beast Lord Realm didn't have human intelligence. Sure, there were some beasts that acted like Mages, like Proto-Mages and the Serpents, but they were not Mages.

Proto-Mages weren't experienced or intelligent enough to create really advanced Spells, and Serpents simply followed their instincts.

But a Beast Lord was about as intelligent as a human.

So, why wouldn't a Beast Lord be able to learn Magic at that point?

Maybe the Thunder King had once asked one of the humans about Magic.

Shang could imagine a researcher, like the Myriad King, becoming very interested in a beast that wanted to learn Magic.

"Don't send anything below the Late Beast Lord Realm," Shang said.

The Thunder King didn't answer.

"If they have the power, they are allowed to kill me, but if any of them try to land cheap shots after I have obviously emerged victorious, I will kill them," Shang said.

The Thunder King didn't show any reaction.

Eventually, Shang entered the Isolation Barrier and waited.

Naturally, since the Thunder King had created the Isolation Barrier, it could still see what was going on inside.

The only reason why it had created the Isolation Barrier was to stop any potentially spying human from watching Shang fight.

Inside the Isolation Barrier, Shang waited until his first opponent arrived a couple of minutes later.

It was a silver horse with a long horn, its majestic mane crackling with lightning.

Shang was reminded of the Thunder Horse when he saw this one.

Obviously, the Thunder Horse couldn't compare to this one.

After all, this one was a Late Beast Lord.

Even though the Thunder King didn't answer, it had obviously listened.

A moment later, the lightning around the horse's mane intensified and gathered on its horn.

This was its way of politely telling Shang that the fight would start now.

BANG!

Suddenly, the lightning exploded forward.

At the same time, the Mana in the surroundings vanished as Shang used Void Break.

A vibrating darkness appeared in front of Shang, and the lightning the horse had shot over vanished.

The darkness vanished, and the horse saw its lightning being absorbed by a sword.

At this moment, Shang held a long and somewhat broad sword in his right hand.

It was about 150cm long and about 50% wider than his original long sword.

In fact, it looked just like his original long sword, just a bit wider and longer.

After many years, Shang had decided on this form for his newest and last sword.

Its tip was very sharp, allowing Shang to effectively use it as a thrusting weapon.

Additionally, it was long and wide enough to also have a lot of force behind it when swung.

However, it was obvious that there were still quite some issues regarding this new sword.

It wasn't wide enough to block Shang's entire body from view, and it wasn't small enough to move with maximum flexibility and speed.

So, how had Shang solved these problems?

By training in something new.

When Shang had created the blueprint for this weapon, he had first worked on something completely different.

He had worked on controlling his Affinities simultaneously but separately.

This was something that many Mages had learned in the High Mage or Archmage Realm, but something Shang hadn't touched before.

Naturally, Shang picked it up rather quickly and included it.

Shang had decided to permanently include the usage of Mana in his swordsmanship.

Without Mana, Shang's weapon would actually be quite heavy. It would be just as heavy as Shang's Addum would be.

However, by constantly storing a bit of Darkness Mana with an abnormal extreme of void, Shang could reduce the density and weight of the sword.

About 10% of a Void Break in Darkness Mana was constantly included in the sword to make it as fast as possible.

If Shang wanted the sword to be hefty and strong, he would transform half of the naturally stored Mana into Light Mana with an extreme of mass. This would result in 5% of a Void Break being stored as Light Mana and 5% being stored as Darkness Mana.

The weight and density difference would be nullified, returning it to its original weight, the weight of an Addum.

With just a tiny thought, Shang could transform the sword in his hand into something completely different.

On top of that, Shang had decided to include a tiny version of his Domain of Entropy.

Reducing and increasing the weight of something consumed Light or Darkness Mana.

That meant that Shang would need to refill it from time to time.

But by creating and using just the tiniest and weakest Domain of Entropy, Shang could make it so that his sword absorbed Neutral Mana, which it then transformed into Darkness or Light Mana.

As long as Shang's Domain of Entropy didn't vanish, his sword would be filled with the Mana necessary to wield it, and since Shang's Domain of Entropy had no associated cost anymore, it would only deactivate when Shang died.

And as for the insufficient width of his sword, it didn't matter anymore.

Any opponent that was dangerous to Shang had power to the degree that Shang would die many times over when hit.

Blocking his entire body with a sword didn't matter.

He had his Domain of Entropy, and he could evade.

With all of this considered, one could see that Shang's newest sword was something that only he could use.

It needed the True Domain of Entropy and a Light and Darkness Affinity to even work.

In the entire world, only Shang had all of these things.

Only Shang could use it.

At this point, it didn't matter what name Shang gave this newest sword.

It was unique and one-of-a-kind.

It couldn't and wouldn't be replicated.

Therefore, naming the type or kind of sword was redundant since it would be synonymous with the name of the individual sword.

And the individual name of the sword was also redundant to Shang.

After all, the sword wasn't its own being.

It was just Shang.

Shang Sword.