The corpse of the bug quickly vanished, and the cheering returned.
An average beast, a level above him, wasn't very difficult for Shang to kill. He only needed to release three attacks and didn't even need to move from his spot.
Shang's offensive power in his Saber State was insanely powerful. He could essentially release over ten attacks equivalent to basic Spells of High Mages in just a single second.
The wheel returned and began to spin again.
"Level six: Powerful Early True Path Stage beast."
Shang looked at the wheel with a bit of subdued interest.
When it stopped, the picture it landed on enlarged, and Shang could see the image of an old tortoise with a cartoony castle on its back.
SHING!
Shang's opponent appeared, and he looked over.
It was big.
Like, really big.
Shang guessed that it was probably around as big as the Exploding Mountain Turtle he had seen back then at around 500 meters high.
It was a gigantic, black tortoise completely surrounded by a thick layer of black metal. Even its eyes, ears, and mouth were surrounded by the metal. In a way, it looked like a humongous statue made of metal.
However, the Exploding Mountain Turtle was obviously not on the level of this imposing armored fortress.
Shang could already guess why the tortoise counted as a powerful beast.
There were two ways to become truly powerful in general.
The traditional and most-used way was to eradicate all weaknesses and become good at everything.
Good speed.
Good attacking power.
Good defense.
Good tactics.
However, there was a second, rarer way.
It was to push one aspect so incredibly high that the others didn't matter anymore.
If one got access to insane speeds, defense didn't matter. The opponent wouldn't even be able to unleash an attack before they died. Offensive power also wouldn't matter as much since the combatant could make up for their lack of offense by simply attacking an insane number of times in a short moment.
This tortoise had obviously pushed its defensive powers to the absolute limit.
If it was impossible to injure it, it wouldn't die. It could just slowly suppress its opponent into nothingness.
Sure, its offensive power and speed were probably not very great, but it had all the time in the world to win.
It probably wouldn't mind slowly exhausting its opponent to death over several hours. At some point, its opponent was bound to make a mistake.
'High defense is the weakness of my Saber State. I wonder if the God chose this opponent on purpose,' Shang thought.
Yes, Shang's Saber State had an insane offensive power, but it was released in the number of attacks he released, not the attacks' individual power.
One turret from Earth could kill thousands of people in one continuous barrage, but it couldn't punch through a tank with the same ammunition. The tank could just drive forward and drive over the turret.
Did that mean that the turret didn't have a lot of destructive potential? Of course not! After all, it had killed thousands of humans already.
It simply lacked the necessary power to penetrate the tank's armor.
Shang's Saber State was essentially such a turret.
Shang considered changing his Saber into a Great Sword. He would need to evade for a couple of seconds to let Sword absorb the ore, though.
'Actually, this tortoise is just perfect for testing my other attack.'
In the end, Shang decided to leave his Sword in its Saber State.
The jester slowly lifted its mechanical arm and hit the bell with its hammer.
DING!
Shang immediately launched several Shooting Stars and Hidden Suns.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
All of them hit the tortoise's head, but it only heated up.
However, heat could also kill a beast, and Shang could see that the tortoise was already in a bit of pain.
SHING! SHING! SHING!
At that moment, over thirty metallic spears appeared around the tortoise.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The metallic spears intercepted Shang's attacks and made them detonate early as its head cooled down again.
Shang continued unleashing his attacks, and he even started to use Ice Blast to keep his body at a good temperature while running around the area.
After around ten seconds, Shang had already unleashed over a hundred attacks, and he didn't need to stop anytime soon. He could continue this barrage until tomorrow.
After these ten seconds, some of his attacks began to connect with the tortoise's head, but it wasn't because of Shang's overwhelming offense.
The tortoise simply let some of them through so that it didn't waste too much Mana.
Just like Shang, the tortoise could probably continue keeping up its defense indefinitely. Its entire power was based on long and drawn-out battles.
'Sure enough, Shooting Star and Hidden Sun won't get me far against this tortoise,' Shang thought.
BANG!
Suddenly, Shang changed his trajectory and kept using Ice Blasts to advance toward the tortoise. During the advance, he still kept shooting attacks at the tortoise. His attacks might not have the power to injure the tortoise, but they stopped it from using its spears to target Shang.
As Shang approached the tortoise, he had a thought.
'Is this how Mages fight each other?' he thought. 'Is this the kind of battle the powerful Mages have with each other?'
Shang imagined several hours of only this happening until one of the opponents made a mistake.
Sure, a couple of seconds and maybe even minutes were interesting, but several hours?
The two opponents were probably the only two that wouldn't get bored by such a fight.
Shang could understand why the God was bored.
"Right?" the jester suddenly shouted from his wheel. "It's boring!"
Shang didn't answer.
After a while, Shang reached the tortoise's gigantic leg. By now, the spears no longer appeared above the tortoise but beside its body. It could summon the spears wherever it wanted.
Shang just kept unleashing his assault.
But then, his attacks suddenly changed.
Shang's Saber touched the ground and swung forward like he was releasing another Shooting Star, but this time, he wasn't using Shooting Star.
A fiery red line appeared on the ground, and it traveled forward until it was below the tortoise.
CRRRRRRRRR!
As soon as the line arrived below the middle of the tortoise's gigantic body, a gigantic pillar of flame shot upwards.
It was like a gigantic welding torch had appeared below the tortoise.
The tortoise was used to using its spears to stop the attacks, but this time, the attack was not explosive, which meant that its spears didn't work. The violent flames simply went around the spears.
When the tortoise saw that, it changed its tactics.
All the spears pointed towards Shang, and it fired.
BANG!
Shang kept using his Ice Blasts to move around at incredible speeds. His speed was far faster than the tortoise, and it was even a bit faster than its spears.
He had to be careful not to get hit by the spears, but that wouldn't be a problem in the short run. Sure, if he did that for multiple hours, he might slip up, but not in just a couple of seconds.
While bursting around the tortoise, Shang kept releasing more and more pillars, and the violent flame below the tortoise never stopped burning.
Just two seconds later, the tortoise's belly started to turn red with flames, and Shang could tell that the tortoise was in quite a lot of pain.
At that moment, the tortoise's attacks stopped, and the next moment, its belly began to grow.
It was like the tortoise's belly was trying to grow until it reached the ground.
CLINK!
But then, the metal of its belly suddenly fell off and hit the ground.
Its belly wasn't growing. It had simply created another wall of armor beneath its outer wall and dropped the old one.
The new layer was still a bit hot but not nearly hot enough to injure the tortoise.
Additionally, the new layer of metal on the ground severely weakened Shang's flames.
It seemed like Inferno didn't work.
Yes, Inferno was the name of this attack.
Shang had specifically created it to deal with enemies with a lot of defensive powers while he was using his Saber.
It was meant to burn the opponent alive by adding more and more heat to their bodies.
Sadly, as a very powerful beast completely focused on defense, this didn't work.
The tortoise had used quite a smart way to deal with Inferno.
'Well, seems like Inferno doesn't really work,' Shang thought.
The only thing he was feeling right now was a bit of disappointment and annoyance.
'I don't really want to dodge its attacks while Sword absorbs some ore. I'll just end it now.'
Shang changed direction and charged away from the tortoise again while switching back to Shooting Star and Hidden Sun.
The tortoise also changed back to its spears to intercept Shang's attacks.
After Shang swung his Saber upwards, he didn't release another Shooting Star.
Instead, he pulled his Saber even further back.
His left leg rose to compensate for Shang bending backward by so much.
And then, he slashed forward with all his power…
And threw his Saber at the tortoise's head!
The Saber flew with even more speed than Shooting Star.
WHOOOM!
At that moment, black fire appeared around the Saber, and it transformed into a shining black bullet.
And it hit the tortoise's head.
CRACK!
It immediately broke past the armor!
CRACK!
And shot out of the other side of the tortoise's head.
The tortoise's assault stopped, and a muffled moan thundered throughout the surroundings. If Shang had to describe it, he would say it sounded like a crying mountain.
A moment later, black fire came out of the holes in the tortoise's head.
At the same time, Shang caught Sword. At this level, Sword could fly with a lot of speed, and it had already returned to Shang.
However, now, Sword was in its Long Sword State.
BOOOOOM!
And then, the tortoise collapsed.
It was dead.
This was Shang's last new attack for his Saber State, and he used it as a hidden trump card that either killed his opponent or severely injured them.
If Shang were forced to use this attack, it would mean that his opponent could deal with his barrage of attacks, and they would have already gotten used to Shang's rhythm.
However, the wind-up of this attack was nearly identical to how Shang released a Shooting Star, and the increased speed would also take the opponent by surprise.
And if the opponent was still alive after that, Shang would surprise them by transitioning into his Long Sword State.
It was an incredibly deadly attack hidden amongst a flurry of normal attacks.
Shang called this attack Star Shatter.
