A humongous explosion appeared in the middle of the arena.
The powerful storm inside the arena immediately destroyed all the smoke the explosion had created, revealing Shang.
Shang's body was nearly destroyed. His entire body was filled with cracks and burns.
Shang had offset the power of the explosion by cooling his body rapidly, but that process required more control than Shang had.
If Shang cooled his body a little too much, he would completely freeze, stopping the function of his body and his mind in an instant.
So, Shang had to err on the side of heat. It was better for parts of his body to burn away than to risk his brain freezing and being unable to think or act.
The damage inside Shang's body was severe, but he immediately used his life energy to heal himself.
He could heal himself just as fast as with his old body, but every bit of life energy was just that more valuable since it wouldn't recover nearly as fast.
In past fights, Shang always managed to recover 10% to 100% of his life energy just by staying alive, giving him more opportunities to heal himself.
Now, every bit of life energy wasted was permanent.
The time Shang needed to recover even 1% of life energy would be longer than this fight would take.
On top of that, Shang's maximum level of life energy was already at only 70% due to his new body, making it even more difficult.
These were the negative effects of Shang's new body.
But it was worth it.
Having the ability to have a mind as powerful as his body was too valuable for Shang.
But for now, Shang needed to heal himself.
He used 30% of his life energy, leaving only 40%, and it would not go above 40% during this battle.
It would only go down.
DING!
At that moment, something glittered in Shang's hand.
Shang's Subsis had transformed!
Instead of being a black stick, there was now a beautiful and long icy edge on it, and even more, there were tiny red things moving into it.
Shang had defended against the explosion, but he had also used his Subsis to absorb a lot of the Fire Mana.
All the absorbed Fire Mana traveled through Shang's body, being transformed in the process.
And then, Light Mana entered Shang's Addum.
Shang slashed horizontally.
BOOOOOOOM!
The arena shook!
The eyes of the onlookers opened in surprise.
All the wind had stopped!
Shang had transformed the Fire Mana into Light Mana on the extreme end of mass.
After that, he released the mass in the surroundings, making the surrounding space much denser and heavier.
The wind didn't have enough power to move that much, and since it had only been pushed by its own momentum, the wind very quickly lost its power.
There was nothing that actually pushed the wind forward.
It was just Wind Mana being Wind Mana.
Shang's body withered a bit, but he didn't use any life energy to heal himself yet.
As soon as the Wind Mana vanished, Shang shot at Cindy again.
With all the wind gone, Shang finally regained full control over his body, increasing his agility to its usual levels.
Cindy's eyes sparkled.
SHING!
Cindy used Mana Step just before Shang arrived.
Shang had expected something like that.
If he couldn't kill a Mage very quickly, it transformed into a battle of attrition.
Every use of Mana Step was an additional 10% to 20% of Mana wasted by his opponent.
Shang had fought hundreds of battles against powerful Mages inside his inner world, and he knew exactly how to handle them.
About two more uses of Mana Step and Cindy would be critically low on Mana.
Shang was currently in the arena on ground level, and Cindy had appeared in the middle at the very top, at the edge of the barrier surrounding the arena.
From several kilometers high, she looked at Shang with a serious expression.
Then, she took a deep breath.
At that moment, Shang felt an unreal amount of Mana gathering around Cindy.
It was difficult to believe that Cindy had access to that much Mana!
As soon as Shang saw that, he knew that Cindy wasn't planning on having a drawn-out battle.
She had managed to injure Shang once, but she hadn't managed to kill him.
On top of that, she had already used several Spells and two Mana Steps.
She knew that if things continued like this, there was a very real chance of her losing.
She felt that she wouldn't win in the long run.
Because of that, she had to end the fight immediately.
And she was planning on doing just that.
Cindy lightly touched her Focus.
SHING!
Her Focus vanished and reappeared at the bottom of the arena.
Cindy had used Mana Step on her Focus.
As soon as the Focus arrived, a fiery red wave shot out from it.
It was an extremely dense wave of Fire Mana!
However, when Shang felt the properties of this wave, he grew extremely shocked.
He had never seen anything like it!
Shang knew that this couldn't be anything good, but before he could do anything, Cindy was already unleashing an extremely dense storm of Ice Mana.
A storm of ice from the top.
A wave of fire from the bottom.
And they met in the middle.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
An extremely loud noise akin to a powerful circular saw reverberated throughout the arena as an intense white wall appeared in the place the two kinds of Mana met.
The intense wave of Fire Mana filled the bottom half of the arena and completely buried Shang.
However, Shang didn't move or do anything.
The intense wave of fire seemed to encompass Shang like water, filling his entire body.
But it wasn't doing anything else.
Everything around Shang and even a lot of space inside Shang was filled with this kind of Fire Mana, but nothing was burning or exploding.
Since Shang knew the Concept of Addition and the Concept of Subtraction, he managed to see the Fire Mana's attributes early, and that was exactly what shocked him so much.
The Fire Mana was not truly Fire Mana.
In a way, it could be compared to the effect of mass Shang had released with his Light Affinity earlier.
Obviously, no one would consider a dense and heavy space to be light, and the same thing was true with the Fire Mana here.
The properties of explosion and heat had been removed from the Fire Mana!
Instead, it was filled with the properties of penetration from ice!
This meant that the Fire Mana had no destructive effect but could permeate everything.
Meanwhile, the Ice Mana at the top of the arena was the polar opposite.
The Ice Mana had the missing properties of the Fire Mana, making it extremely explosive.
However, since there was no heat inside the Ice Mana, the explosion was harmless.
The Fire Mana was harmless.
The Ice Mana was harmless.
But when the two of them met…
The power inside that tiny white space in the middle of the arena was extremely powerful.
Yet, that wasn't the true danger.
Shang's body was filled with the harmless Fire Mana.
And if he touched any of the harmless Ice Mana…
The Fire Mana inside of him would transform and explode.
Even more, all the Fire Mana was permeated with Cindy's will, and if Shang wanted to get rid of that, he would need to use his own Mana or body.
But since Cindy had used so much Mana, it would be nearly impossible for Shang to get rid of all of it while passing through the border.
She had him.
Shang's Spirit Sense focused on the Focus just two kilometers beside him.
It was unprotected, and Shang could destroy it with a simple hit without having to pass through the border.
That would stop the outpouring of Fire Mana.
Then, Shang focused on Cindy.
Cindy obviously wasn't stupid.
This was too easy to counter.
So, was she actually banking on the fact that Shang would destroy her Focus?
Was this a trap?
But what if she expected that Shang wouldn't underestimate her, and destroying the Focus was actually the correct thing to do?
Shang realized that this train of thought could continue indefinitely.
It was a 50/50.
Nevertheless, Shang had to make a decision now.
If he didn't do anything, either the Mana would become even denser, or Cindy would recover Mana, maybe both.
But what should Shang do?
