The dead hill in front of the mansions in the Hibye was surrounded by a huge purple Isolation Barrier yet again.
Ten years.
The warrior had remained somewhat sane for only ten years.
Then, that portal appeared, and when the guy came back, everything changed.
First, that guy just stood on that hill for a couple of minutes, not moving.
And then, he began to age rapidly!
He was turning into an old man in seconds!
All his hair fell out, his muscles vanished, his skin began to sack, and disgusting brown and grey spots appeared all over his body.
Then, he just fell over like a dead man!
The Bolts immediately contacted him. After all, Clouds weren't supposed to just die like this!
And what did he answer?!
"Everything's okay. Just ignore me."
The hell it was!
That guy was aging rapidly and dying right in front of them!
How was that okay?!
When Lucin saw that, he immediately took out his Communication Crystal and contacted Queen Primordium, who quickly informed him about everything.
After Queen Primordium hung up, Lucin just looked at his Communication Crystal with furrowed brows.
Couldn't they have tried to keep this secret?
He already had needed to come up with a lie for the portal, and now he needed to find a believable lie for why Shang was just fucking dying right there.
Lucin immediately decided to summon another Isolation Barrier around Shang.
Naturally, the Bolts were interested once more about what was going on.
"Cloud Shang is working right now," Lucin said.
"Working?" one of the Bolts asked in shock.
"Yes, they are testing the resilience and life energy of warriors. From what I've just heard, they gave him a couple of Spells and pills that he is supposed to use and ingest on himself."
"Naturally, the effects are quite pronounced, but he shouldn't be in danger as long as he keeps to the instructions," Lucin explained.
"Oh, that makes sense," one of the Bolts exclaimed.
The others also agreed.
Warriors had far more powerful bodies, which meant that their resilience was also far higher.
Some of the Bolts even became a bit envious. After all, such a job had to pay very well.
After Lucin managed to convince the Bolts that everything was okay, he released a covert sigh of relief.
Ever since Shang appeared, his job had become stranger and more stressful.
Inside the Isolation Barrier, a half-dead husk was lying on the hill.
It was difficult to tell if Shang was alive or dead.
It was like he was in limbo.
Or purgatory.
Yet, even though Shang's current state was essentially identical to the state he had been in ten years ago, he wasn't in even nearly enough danger as back then.
The reason was that Shang could just stop producing Death Mana.
And even more, he could actually make use of that Death Mana.
After having been a half-dead husk for just three minutes, Shang decided to try something.
In an instant, his entire body regenerated fully as all the Death Mana vanished.
He had pulled all the Death Mana into his mind.
'I want to die,' Shang thought. 'I just don't want to live anymore.'
Nevertheless, he trusted in his previous thought and simply did what he wanted to do.
If he still wanted to die after that, he could still do it.
Shang pointed his hand forward.
And then, some grey smoke came out of it.
Shang's mind recovered, and he realized that he had just wanted to die, which was essentially a first for him.
'Okay, that was too much Death Mana,' Shang thought.
Some seconds later, Shang started to rapidly age again, and he collapsed.
A couple more seconds later, Shang's body recovered again.
This time, Shang didn't gather as much Death Mana in his mind.
Yet, Shang still felt apathetic toward his own life.
He didn't really care if he lived or died right now.
Nevertheless, he had more motivation in this state than in his earlier one, and he even managed to release a half-hearted slash with his sword.
A black crescent with a bit of grey in it shot out of his sword, hitting the Isolation Barrier.
The crescent exploded into Darkness Mana and a bit of Death Mana.
The power of the Isolation Barrier made the Darkness Mana essentially useless, and it was used up in an instant.
Yet, the Death Mana remained.
It stuck to the Isolation Barrier and started to consume the Mana.
Naturally, Lucin was extremely powerful, which meant that Shang's attack still didn't do anything noteworthy to the Isolation Barrier.
However, it also didn't manage to get rid of the Death Mana.
The Death Mana just remained, and it continued consuming the Mana of the Isolation Barrier.
When Shang saw that, he realized the potential of Death Mana.
Natural Death Mana only consumed life energy, but by using the level one Concept of Death, Sickness, Shang managed to slightly alter the properties of Death Mana.
Instead of doing nothing to Lucin's barrier, the Death Mana clung to it and consumed it slowly.
It was like a parasite.
A tick.
Several possibilities of how to make use of this power shot through Shang's mind.
And that was only the level one Concept.
What about Weakness?
What about Purgatory?
Even more, Shang had just used his basic ranged attack with a bit of Death Mana. This couldn't even be called an actual technique.
By actually creating a real technique, the power of the Death Mana would increase severalfold.
But that would take time, as always.
A moment later, Shang aged again and collapsed in a half-dead husk.
After dealing with all the Bolts, Lucin just looked into his Isolation Barrier and watched Shang.
The only thing he could do was shake his head.
Why was everything involving Shang always related to suffering, torture, death, and depression?
Couldn't that guy just be normal?
Couldn't he just train like a normal warrior or Mage?
Like, do some pushups.
Maybe swing his sword.
Maybe meditate.
Lucin could only sigh.
