Sword God in a World of Magic

Even though the fish bird had created its True Path, Shang still didn't have more issues than before.

The fish bird was a Late Beast Lord. A couple of techniques from the Fourth Realm didn't make any difference.

The two of them continued fighting for about five years.

It seemed like creating an Impose wasn't very easy for the fish bird, and it would probably need another couple of decades to create one.

So, while the fish bird stopped improving in the fight, Shang continued to become stronger.

In comparison to the fish bird, Shang was already working towards comprehending something that would allow a normal warrior to reach the Seventh Realm.

After another five years, Shang wasn't on the edge all the time. The fish bird was still insanely fast, but his usage of his sword had improved tremendously.

Shang still didn't know what beyond the Sword Heart was, but he knew that he was making progress. Otherwise, he wouldn't be growing more powerful right now.

Ten years after Shang had started to fight the fish bird, his body suddenly transformed into a weakened husk.

Shang became slower and weaker, but thanks to his improvements, he could still resist the fish bird.

A couple of seconds later, Shang's body recovered, and he struck the fish bird's beak.

Nothing seemed to change.

Shang's body became weak again and struck the beak once more.

CRACK!

Suddenly, the fish bird's beak completely broke apart, and Shang stabbed his sword toward the fish bird's head.

Shang's sword only buried itself up to the fish bird's skull before it stopped.

However, if he wanted to, Shang could have killed it.

Shang had used the Concept of Purgatory to weaken the beak until he could break it.

The fish bird knew that it had lost.

"Leave," Shang said. "I don't want to see you for at least a century. If you appear in front of me again, I will kill you."

The fish bird looked at Shang with an unreadable expression.

CRK! CRK!

Then, it turned back into a normal fish, signifying that it wasn't interested in battling anymore.

Although, that might not have been the correct phrase. It definitely wanted to fight Shang again, but it also didn't want to die.

Shang had improved tremendously in the last decade, but he couldn't keep fighting the same opponent again and again. He needed variety to improve different parts of his swordsmanship.

A couple of minutes later, Shang's next opponent appeared.

This one was quite a tall and powerful fortress of a tortoise.

In comparison to the other beasts, this one wasn't the biggest fan of keeping its body size suppressed, and it took up nearly half of the Isolation Barrier.

This meant that the tortoise could barely move inside the Isolation Barrier.

'Earth and Metal Affinity?' Shang thought as he felt the Mana around the tortoise. 'I expected to only fight beasts with a Lightning Affinity here, but now, we got another outlier.'

Shang quickly noticed that this opponent would also be quite difficult to beat but for an entirely different reason.

In order to win against the fish bird, Shang needed to improve his speed and defense, but both things wouldn't help him a whole lot against the tortoise.

This time, Shang would need to increase his power.

As soon as the tortoise fully entered the Isolation Barrier, Metal and Earth Mana gathered all over its shell.

BOOOOM!

In an instant, rocks and pieces of ore exploded out of the turtle, right at Shang.

Shang didn't have a lot of trouble avoiding all the projectiles since they were not that fast, but he also couldn't completely relax. Just like with the fish bird, Shang couldn't allow himself to get hit by anything.

Even though it was shooting many projectiles at Shang, he actually had some opportunities to use Sword Heart since its assault wasn't as relentless and accurate as the fish bird's.

CRRRRRRK!

Shang hit the tortoise's neck, but he could only cut through about 10% of it.

Even more, the cut was sealed with a mixture of earth and metal just moments later.

The next time, Shang tried to hit the tortoise's body with a real physical slash, but the speed and number of projectiles increased the closer he got.

Sure, he could still get close and attack, but he couldn't gather enough power to actually injure the tortoise significantly.

The next moment, Shang decided to use Infection, but before it could reach any significant power, the part that Shang hit was cast off.

The tortoise's body acted like the teeth of a shark. All the rock and metal on its body kept expanding until it ultimately fell off.

Shang wasn't sure if this was normal for the tortoise or if someone had told it about Shang's attack.

Nevertheless, Infection became useless.

So, Shang decided to use Injection and place an Infection very deep inside the tortoise's body.

It took longer, but even that part eventually fell off the tortoise's body.

It was almost like the tortoise wasn't a beast but some kind of elemental construct.

When Shang got that thought, he decided to try something.

Shang used Needle to infuse the tortoise's head with Purgatory.

But nothing changed.

The tortoise didn't even show a sign of slowing down or being confused at all.

'I think this entire thing is actually just armor,' Shang thought.

'This probably means that the real beast is somewhere inside the tortoise.'

That was quite a clever tactic. As long as no one had enough power to penetrate the thick armor, the beast would be safe.

Obviously, this tortoise's goal was to win in a war of attrition. It couldn't be killed, and it wouldn't stop attacking.

As long as it kept fighting, it would eventually win.

At first glance, this seemed to be a perfect strategy as long as the enemy couldn't escape from the battle.

However, after knowing what was going on, Shang knew what he could do.

Suddenly, the air around Shang shone in a bright light before grey waves started to come out of his body.

And then, the tortoise stopped attacking.

Shang was just standing in front of the tortoise, but it wasn't doing anything.

BOOOM!

And then, it resumed attacking, but this time, it didn't perfectly target Shang.

It was shooting its projectiles in random directions.