Time seemed to stop.
The thin and frail silhouette of Shang stood in front of the foreign Mage as three spirals of spinning metal were shooting at him.
This was the moment that would decide the outcome of this battle.
The white crescent.
The white world.
The black world.
All of this was to make the two of them use up all of their Spells.
Two Late Archmages could conjure Spells at a terrifying rate, and Shang's only option to get past that was to use up all of his resources in a single barrage of attacks.
As long as Shang could get past the last three Spells, nothing would be between him and his enemy.
Yet, the three swirls of metal were about to hit him.
If he retreated now, Ice Princess would be able to ready the next barrage of Spells.
Shang swung his Long Sword with both of his hands.
CRKSH!
The first spiral of metal hit him.
The left half of Shang's abdomen below his torso exploded off his body, scattering across the world.
A Mage's body would have exploded from such an attack, but Shang's body was powerful enough to survive this Spell.
Shang's sword continued swinging forward.
CRKSH!
The second spiral hit, and Shang's upper right exploded off. The right side of his chest and his right arm were blown into the distance.
Only a thin area of biological mass connected Shang's upper-left half with his lower body.
Yet, the Long Sword continued swinging forward, supported by Shang's left arm.
And then, the third spiral hit.
CLING!
The last spiral hit the sword.
The sword was blown out of Shang's left arm, flying into the distance.
And at that moment, Shang's mind went wild.
'I won!'
SHING!
The world transformed yet again.
It was like a second sun had suddenly appeared in the sky.
It was Shang's Colossal Sword, filled to the brim with Light Mana!
Earlier, when Shang had bathed the world in light to hide the white crescent, he had actually absorbed the majority of the light with his Colossal Sword.
This wasn't just a simple summoning of light but Brilliance.
This was where half of his life energy had gone to.
The other half had vanished when Shang had summoned the world of darkness, Isolation.
Yet, Shang's body was nearly destroyed, and the Colossal Sword was insanely heavy.
WHOOOOOM!
Suddenly, the Mana in the world around Shang gathered behind the Colossal Sword and pushed forward.
World Connection!
The brightly shining Colossal Sword slashed down.
No one could see it, but inside the brightly shining ball, the Colossal Sword burned with black flames.
The world had suddenly transformed, and the two Mages felt like the will of the world wanted to kill them.
It was like their surroundings wanted to do nothing but end their existence!
It was like the world was pushing them into the brightly shining Colossal Sword!
They couldn't react.
And then…
Dusk arrived.
BOOOOOM!
CRACK!
Their combined Mana Shield exploded!
They took a shocked and terrified breath.
The white light vanished.
The Colossal Sword vanished.
And then, the foreign Mage felt a body arrive in front of her.
White Ghost's chest lightly hit her chest…
And it stopped.
The foreign Mage's terrified and shocked eyes slowly looked up, and she saw the white cloth directly in front of her eyes.
Time seemed to stop.
In the foreign Mage's mind, White Ghost had just stopped in front of her.
Why?
Shouldn't she be dead?
In her panic-filled mind, she suspected that she might survive.
It was hard for her to feel what White Ghost was thinking at the moment.
This was how the foreign Mage perceived her current situation.
Yet, from an onlooker's perspective, things looked very different.
At the moment, White Ghost's withered left arm stretched past the foreign Mage…
And the hand at the end of it was tightly squeezing Ice Princess' neck.
As the foreign Mage was looking in shock and uncertainty at White Ghost in front of her, Ice Princess' body was withering at a visible rate, her skin turning black and her muscles vanishing.
Shang was absorbing her life energy to recover.
A moment later, Shang's newly recovered right arm slowly moved toward the foreign Mage's head.
The foreign Mage didn't even notice it.
Shang's big hand engulfed the left half of her head.
And then, he squeezed.
It was like someone was scooping up snow from the ground.
The foreign Mage died in an instant, and Shang absorbed her life energy.
A moment later, the two dried corpses started to fall toward the ground, and Shang took a deep breath.
'Not using my Fire and Ice Affinities definitely made things difficult. I also only had access to two of my four States, and I even had to keep Silence a secret.'
'If I had access to everything, I could have used a weaker Dusk, followed by Star Shatter, followed by Silence to quickly take care of them while using my Ice and Fire Bursts to move faster without using up so much of my life energy.'
'Things would have been far easier.'
Shang took another deep breath.
'But it worked out.'
'I showed incredible Battle-Strength while keeping my status as the Child of Calamity a secret.'
'The more powerful I am, the more the Temple of Blood would want to foster me.'
'Yet, it is always better to leave the other side the impression that I didn't show my power on purpose.'
'Like this, they will be under the illusion that I never planned on joining and that they made the decision to include me in their inner ranks.'
'They were the ones that found me.'
'They were the ones that convinced me to join them.'
'There's no reason to doubt my allegiance.'
Shang took out his Communication Crystal.
'Yet, to make it truly believable, there's one last thing I have to do.'
"Mission complete," Shang told the Keeper.
"Sadly, Ice Princess was eaten by a wolf."
Silence.
'Appearing too loyal and perfect is bad.'
