Shang slowly walked down the Caves with a narrowed eye. His focus was at its peak, and he kept watch over his surroundings with all of his concentration.
This was no longer the safe area where only Commander Stage beasts lived. No, this was the place where the True Path Stage beasts lived.
Shang's body had already reached the most powerful state possible for a Commander Stage warrior, which meant that he wouldn't be able to become more powerful without working on his Path.
Theoretically, Shang could break through the True Path Stage without a Path by relying on the barbarian strengthening technique, but that would lock him out of the warrior Path.
At that point, he would be like King Skythunder, someone with a powerful body but no advanced techniques.
This was not what Shang wanted.
He wanted to push himself further and further.
He wanted to create the ultimate Path for anyone using a sword.
Shang had already been working on his Path for over 20 years by now, and he wasn't even halfway done.
There was so much more to learn and so much more power to gain.
As Shang slowly stepped down the Caves, he felt like he was alone.
There were no beasts anywhere.
The Caves were dark, but Shang could rely on his Pseudo-Spirit Sense to make sense of his surroundings.
Yet, there was just nothing there.
Only walls.
Shang continued walking forward.
By now, the tunnels had reached a width and height of over a hundred meters, which was far bigger than the upper Caves.
Being alone in such a grand structure had a certain feel to it.
Suddenly, Shang focused on his right and furrowed his brows.
He could feel something charging at him.
Since Shang wasn't at the True Path Stage yet, his Spirit Sense also wasn't as big and accurate as it was supposed to be, which meant that the beasts would most likely find him first.
And, sure enough, the first beast had already found Shang and was charging at him with a lot of speed.
Shang couldn't see it yet, but the closer it got, the clearer the image his Pseudo-Spirit Sense sent him became.
The beast was really long but not very wide. Of course, Shang was talking in terms of average size for a True Path Stage beast. Even though the beast wasn't very big for a True Path Stage beast, it was still a good twenty meters wide.
But its length was definitely impressive.
Shang estimated that it was nearly 200 meters long.
Obviously, it had already seen him.
Shang readied himself mentally and took out Sword. He had never fought a True Path Stage beast before, and he also hadn't fought such a big beast before.
The beast reached Shang's cave in just a couple of seconds due to its incredible speed, but Shang had felt the vibrations already earlier.
By now, Shang also knew what it was.
It was a gigantic centipede. Its entire body was black, and there were three rocky spikes on every segment of its body. Its head had two gigantic pincers, and its eyes had already focused on Shang.
Right now, it was charging toward Shang from the ceiling.
Shang only watched it.
Usually, he would have already charged forward, but he could tell that this would be a bad idea.
BANG!
Sure enough, Shang was right.
As soon as the centipede could see Shang, the rocky spikes on its back exploded off and flew right toward him.
Shang easily evaded the first spike. It was fast, but not super fast. Additionally, it didn't have that much power. Shang could probably block it with his sword.
However, that was not the problem.
If it were only one spike, this would be easy.
But the centipede shot over 30 spikes per second.
It was almost like a gigantic machine gun was shooting at Shang with huge spikes.
BANG! BANG!
Shang blasted to the side and then blasted away once again, but the avalanche of spikes just didn't end.
There came more and more, and the centipede kept charging toward Shang as he retreated.
In just a single second, Shang had needed to evade over ten of the 30 fired spikes, which forced him to use several Blasts already.
'This definitely isn't a weak beast, and it definitely isn't at the Initial True Path Stage. It's most likely an average or above-average Early True Path Stage beast.'
Shang smirked.
'Just right as my first opponent.'
Shang stopped evading towards the back and began to charge directly at the centipede.
The centipede didn't stop and kept running at him.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Shang parried most of the spikes shooting at him and got closer to the centipede.
That was when the centipede reached him and readied its pincers.
As soon as Shang saw the centipede ready its pincers, his insides shook.
His instincts were telling him that these pincers were far deadlier than he had anticipated.
A moment later, a small light appeared in Shang's right eye, and his body withered to a considerable degree.
Then, he charged forward.
Just when Shang was about to reach the domain of the pincers, he used a powerful Ice Blast to change his trajectory.
He was now trying to pass below the centipede's head.
But at that moment, the pincers angled downward.
Shang had expected the centipede to commit to the attack and miss him, but it had waited with its attack.
And then, the pincers struck.
They were incredibly fast, far faster than the centipede's body and its spikes.
CRACK!
The pincers crushed Shang's entire body, turning him into dust.
Or, at least, they would have.
As soon as the pincers crushed Shang, he transformed into Darkness Mana and vanished into the surroundings.
An instant later, Shang appeared below the centipede's head. It was almost like an even deeper darkness than the darkness around them had hidden him.
Ten years was a lot of time, and Shang learned a couple of new tricks.
This was one of them.
Shang called it Shadow Image.
By sacrificing quite a bit of his life energy, Shang could create an image with his own aura and could control it for a short time.
At the same time, Shang would use another new trick, which he simply called Vanish.
By sacrificing even more of his life energy, he could hide his aura to a certain degree.
Now, since Shang wasn't a Mage, these two abilities were not very powerful. If Shang only created a Shadow Image but didn't use Vanish, the enemy would immediately be able to tell where he was.
If Shang only used Vanish but not Shadow Image, the enemy would still be able to feel the slight traces of his aura.
But with both tricks at once, Shang could fool the centipede.
Sadly, in order to fool something this powerful, Shang needed a darkness-rich environment.
Additionally, beasts weren't the smartest beings.
A High Mage would very likely not fall for that trick.
These two abilities had tons of weaknesses, but on the right occasion, these weaknesses didn't matter a lot.
At this moment, Shang was below the head of the centipede.
And then, he readied his sword.
An instant later, the air around Sword began to vibrate and warp.
