The fact that the Magic Circle had been triggered meant that Shang had just taken a hit that would have killed him.
Shang quickly realized what his opponent had done, jumped back, and left the poisonous cloud.
And when Shang looked up, he saw his opponent coming toward him.
The Magic Circle had appeared above Shang's head, which meant that an attack had come from above him. His opponent hadn't had much time to evade, and the normal decision would have been to back away or jump to the side inside the poisonous cloud.
However, Shang's opponent had jumped up, immediately leaving the poisonous cloud just when Shang had entered it. Then, she had shot one of the unprepared metal rods into Shang's head. Firing a rod wasn't nearly as accurate as firing an arrow, but from such a short distance, she wouldn't miss.
Without the uniform, the rod would have pierced Shang's brain.
And the thing Shang had hit with his sword?
That was the front half of her left foot.
He had just barely managed to sever that part while she had passed over him.
And, right now, she was about to land on him.
That sounded great for Shang, but there was one issue.
A new arrow was already pointing at his head.
For a second, time seemingly stopped.
Shang couldn't evade this arrow. There was only a meter between them.
The arrow would hit his head.
At that moment, a fire appeared in Shang's eyes.
And he jumped towards her.
Her arrow left the bow.
BANG!
The arrow punched through Shang's gritted teeth, destroying them in the process.
Then, it hit Shang's neck through the back of his mouth.
CRK!
Shang's neck cracked…
But it held!
In this moment of crisis, Shang had decided to jump into the arrow so that it wouldn't hit his brain.
First, he would use his teeth to weaken the arrow a bit.
And then, he would trust in the power of the beast bones inside his body!
The bodies of beasts were way more powerful than the bodies of humans, and Shang was banking on the effect of the procedure!
His entire body was only a bit more than half as powerful as the body of a beast, but the bones of his spine had been replaced with beast bones!
This meant that his spine was as hard as the spine of a beast!
An arrow stuck out of Shang's bloody mouth, purple mist coming out of the opening of his broken teeth.
The arrow was already poisoning him!
The woman's eyes widened.
How was he still alive?!
This should have severed his neck!
A moment later, Shang reached his opponent.
Clink!
Shang let go of his sword, and it fell to the ground.
Shang grabbed the bow with his left arm and pulled back.
The stupidest thing in a fight was to throw one's weapon away, and Shang's opponent knew that. Because of that, she kept holding her bow with her hands.
And this decision would doom her.
Her elbow punched Shang in the chest, but Shang knew how to take a hit.
His right hand touched her back.
BANG!
An explosion of fire came out of his right arm, shooting his opponent to the ground and shooting him into the sky.
Then, Shang pointed his right arm to the sky and released an Ice Blast.
BANG!
Shang's right arm was decimated.
BANG!
The Magic Circle on the woman's uniform activated as Shang's knee hit her spine.
Due to the explosion, she had hit the ground, torso first.
The Magic Circle broke Shang's right knee, but he didn't even really notice it.
Shang's two hands quickly wrapped themselves around her head, and he pulled.
Another Magic Circle appeared over the woman's head, but there was nothing to block. The Magic Circle had noticed that its host was under a life-threatening attack, but it couldn't deal with grapples.
The woman screeched in pain.
And then, the sound of ripping muscles and flesh echoed throughout Shang's world.
A moment later, the body below Shang went limp, and Shang threw the head in his hands to the side.
And then, Shang fell over as his hands gripped the arrow in his mouth.
CRK!
Some flesh was ripped out along with the arrow.
The flesh was black as death.
Shang's mind was swimming, and he tried his best to remain conscious.
While doing this, Shang focused all his Mana on his neck, and it was just barely enough to heal the injury.
However, Shang's head still hurt like hell, even with his unreal tolerance for pain.
The poison had attacked his weak mind, and Shang's Mana had issues healing the damage.
There was a very real possibility that Shang could die since the poison was still attacking his mind.
Yet, due to his warrior's body, he couldn't send his Mana into his mind!
He couldn't do anything against it!
Right now, the only thing he could do was to remain conscious and survive.
'I can't die!'
'I can't die!'
'I can't die!'
Shang repeated that phrase several times in his head as his mind went back to the time the silver hawk had looked into his eyes after he had been nailed to the ground.
The pain was horrible, and it only intensified.
Shang's vision swam, and he barely remained conscious.
And then…
The pain lightened.
Shang managed to take hold of his vanishing consciousness and tightened his grip.
And the pain became lighter.
'I will survive!' Shang screamed in his mind.
And the pain became lighter again.
Some seconds later, the pain completely vanished.
Shang was lying on the ground, silent, only looking at the sky of his own world.
Silence.
'I survived.'
At that moment, the cheering returned.
The corpse of his opponent was vanishing as Shang only remained on the ground.
'It's all thanks to the procedure,' Shang thought.
Shang's regenerative abilities had been increased by the procedure, which had been shown when the Dean had kicked him.
While Shang's warrior's body couldn't heal his mind, the passive regeneration of the Abomination could.
If it hadn't been for the regenerative abilities of the procedure, Shang would have succumbed to the poison.
After some seconds, Shang took hold of Sword and stood up.
"Are you ok?" Sword asked.
"I'm fine," Shang answered. "The regeneration of the procedure has saved my life."
"Good, because I don't think we have any time left," Sword answered.
"Level seven: Weak Middle General Stage warrior."
Sure enough, the announcer returned, and the two wheels reappeared again.
"Can you fight?" Sword asked.
The wheels began to spin.
"I am still a bit woozy, and my life energy hasn't fully regenerated yet."
The first wheel landed on the image of a gigantic club.
"I don't think my body is in a condition to push my speed to its limits. The poison ate up too much of my Mana and life energy."
The second wheel stopped on the Earth Affinity.
"I still need some rest before I can fight with my full power."
A moment later, some light appeared, and Shang's opponent arrived.
It was a huge, middle-aged man with a nearly two-meter-long iron club. He wore no armor and only wore scraps of fur.
Shang looked over at his opponent and readied his sword.
"But I don't need my full power," Shang said.
The jester lifted his hammer and struck the bell.
The man opened his eyes, and when he saw Shang, an arrogant smirk appeared on his face.
The man charged toward Shang.
Shang began to walk toward him.
Shang hadn't even looked at the two wheels.
