Over the next couple of days, Shang's body recovered.
The Judgment Palace stopped sending in new people, which was not what Shang had expected.
He had expected that they would either send someone to kill him or restart with killing Archmages. After all, they couldn't possibly be this unlucky again, right?
Yet, it seemed like they had abandoned their plan.
When Shang was fully healed, he flew through his territory to look at the surrounding barriers.
That was when Shang saw that the colors of the surrounding barriers had changed.
Shang was now encompassed by the Judgment Palace.
Interestingly enough, the Judgment Palace had effectively used all their Defender Flags to stop Shang from moving.
A year ago, they had been prepared to intercept Shang, but that was probably no longer the case.
Instead of constantly having to keep an eye on him, they decided to simply build him in and ignore him.
Covering the east and northeast was a barrier for Ancestral Mages with four stars.
Covering the north and northwest was a barrier for Ancestral Mages with one star.
Covering the west and southwest was a barrier for Ancestral Mages with five stars.
And the south and southeast were covered by one with three stars.
Shang couldn't leave his territory unless he decided to assault another territory.
Naturally, three of the four barriers were essentially impossible for Shang to tackle.
The one-star one was just straight-up impossible, and the four and five-star ones probably had people with fourfold Spirit Senses defending them.
Shang could jump one level against someone with a fourfold Spirit Sense, but not two nor three.
The only one Shang could attempt to attack was the south and southeast one since it only had three stars, representing a Mid Ancestral Mage.
However, attacking and conquering that territory would move Shang further into the Judgment Palace instead of away from it.
After that, since he couldn't defend two territories at once, the Judgment Palace would conquer the territory he just left behind, making it even easier to bunker him in.
Even more, assuming Shang continued, he would eventually reach a Zone that wasn't meant for Ancestral Mages to fight, which would stop his advance.
At that point, the three Defender Flags from the other directions would probably have moved, enclosing him in the corner.
This reminded Shang a bit of chess.
Shang was stuck.
However, that didn't mean that he was useless.
Shang was keeping several powerful Ancestral Mages busy, and on top of that, the Judgment Palace used four of its five Defender Flags for the Ancestral Mage Realm to stop him from interfering.
The Judgment Palace only had the two-star flag remaining.
Shang had already showcased the power of a well-placed Defender Flag.
Just by existing, Shang was essentially blocking several strategic weapons from being used.
And this was how things would stay.
Shang would remain here, and the opponent would ignore him.
Shang couldn't join.
The four Defender Flags couldn't be used.
Yet, there was one thing that made this trade quite detrimental to the Lightning Manor's enemies.
The assignment of the Zones.
The Zones had been assigned one year ago, and the Empires would be allowed to reassign them every century, which would be coupled with a temporary ceasefire.
Now, the question was, who would get to decide which Zone? After all, the Zone Shang was currently in was a square with a length and width of 500,000 kilometers.
What if big parts of the Zone belonged to different Empires? Who would get to decide?
There were two rules.
First rule: In order to change a Zone, one Empire had to control over 50% of it. If there was no Empire controlling over 50% of the Zone, the Zone would stay the same.
Second rule: If the original owner of the Zone still held control over a territory inside a given Zone, they still had control over it, no matter how much they owned.
The second rule was implemented to give the biggest geniuses of each Empire more importance.
And the second rule was also the reason why Shang would continue to be a pain in the ass for the attackers.
As long as Shang remained in his territory, the attackers couldn't change the Zone to something more favorable to them. They would need to send in more and more Ancestral Mages.
If they truly wanted to conquer this Zone, they needed to produce someone that could kill Shang.
But that would probably take a long time.
This meant that Shang was stuck here.
The war would continue without him.
And how did he feel about that?
Great!
Finally, he could return to training in peace!
Just to be sure, Shang still kept an eye on the outside world for another couple of days.
However, nothing was happening.
No one was entering his territory.
The barriers surrounding him weren't moving.
Even more, the feeling of being watched became weaker and weaker.
After these couple of days, Shang only felt a couple of careless glances from some powerful people every couple of minutes.
Naturally, no one knew about the secret of Shang's bandages, which meant that they also wouldn't know whether Shang knew they were looking at him or not.
In short, this meant that the Judgment Palace truly stopped caring about him and what he was doing.
Shang's territory had essentially transformed into a forbidden area.
As Shang walked through his dead territory, he felt a profound feeling of isolation.
These 10,000 kilometers belonged to him.
No one would enter.
No one would exit.
He was alone.
And he wouldn't have it any other way.
Eventually, Shang summoned his humongous Isolation Chamber.
This drew a couple of curious glances from the Mage Kings again.
What was he doing with that?
For a couple of days, Shang only remained sitting in the middle of his Isolation Chamber, the entrance barely open.
The Spirit Senses had to weasel their way in through the little crack, making it a bit uncomfortable and difficult to look inside.
But they kept looking.
They wanted to know what Shang would do.
Yet, nothing happened.
He was just sitting there.
Eventually, the Mage Kings started to look away again, but they frequently looked back.
BANG!
One small moment, when not a single Mage King was paying attention, Shang summoned an Ancestral Abomination and immediately shut the entrance.
The Mage Kings immediately looked over when they felt the entrance shut, but they had been too late.
They hadn't noticed the Abomination in that split second.
In the Isolation Chamber, Shang absorbed the Abomination and continued sitting in the middle for a couple of hours.
Eventually, the Isolation Chamber opened again, and the Mage Kings looked inside.
Shang was just sitting there.
The same as before.
The Mage Kings grew interested again and looked at him.
Nothing was happening.
He wasn't doing anything.
A year passed.
He still wasn't doing anything.
BANG!
The door closed again, and the Mage Kings cursed each other.
Why had no one paid attention?!
Some hours later, the entrance opened again.
Shang looked the same as always.
The Mage Kings furrowed their brows.
What was he doing in there?
Why did he even have such a huge Isolation Chamber?
Was this one of the Lightning Manor's plans?
