Years passed.
Shang had no idea what was going on outside, but nothing changed in his little world.
Every day, he just kept fighting against the most powerful beasts he was allowed to summon inside his inner world.
He kept dying over and over, but sometimes, he managed to win.
Every couple of months, he would summon an Ancestral Abomination when no one was paying attention and absorbed it.
As more years passed, Shang even accidentally comprehended more Concepts just due to the sheer number of fights against powerful beasts.
Shang had learned the level two Concept of Light, Particle, which worked on the mass-aspect of light.
Sadly, as a level two Concept, it wasn't that useful to Shang. It only increased the mass aspect of his Light Mana by a bit.
Shang also comprehended the level two Concept of Darkness, Blindness, which worked on the brightness aspect of Darkness Mana.
With that, Shang wouldn't need as much Mana to suppress an enemy's senses inside a domain or corridor of darkness.
Just like the Concept of Particle, it wasn't that useful.
Shang also comprehended the level one Concept of Ice, Icicle.
This Concept increased the power of Shang's icicle-based attacks by a bit, but it wasn't really worth mentioning.
Eventually, a hundred years had passed.
In Shang's world, nothing had changed.
This century had passed without anything happening inside Shang's little world.
Shang had kept track of the time and paid attention to what the Lightning Manor would do.
This was the best time to communicate with Shang.
If an Empire decided to change the assignment of Zones, the current defenders and inhabitants of that Zone needed to vacate.
This meant that if the Lightning Manor decided to assign this Zone to Mage Lords or Archmages, someone would come to retrieve Shang and the Defender Flag, bringing him back to the Lightning Manor.
Eventually, the day had arrived.
And passed.
And another day passed.
And another one.
That was when Shang realized that the Lightning Manor didn't change the assignment of his Zone.
This meant that they were happy with how things were currently.
Having Shang in this spot tied up a lot of resources of the Judgment Palace.
They obviously wanted him to stay there.
The sheer value that Shang brought to the Lightning Manor in this war was absolutely insane.
He had killed so many talented Mages, had cost the Judgment Palace millions of Archmages, had cost them 275 Grade Eight Mana Stones in damages for the Pit of Death they made, and he was even locking up valuable Defender Flags and talented people.
One single person in the Sixth Realm had achieved all of that.
Even more, he was a constant dormant threat to the Judgment Palace.
If they decided to give him a bit of freedom, Shang might manage to fight his way back to the Lightning Manor's territory.
And then?
That would be even worse!
At that point, they couldn't possibly use Early or Mid Ancestral Mages to attack.
If they did, Shang would just tear through them, one at a time, only needing some seconds per Ancestral Mage.
That would make things even more difficult!
Due to Shang and the heavy defenses of these territories, the Judgment Palace had already lost a lot of valuable Ancestral Mages, and they would prefer attacking with anything other than Ancestral Mages.
Especially due to what had happened in the last century.
As soon as the Judgment Palace managed to join the war, it put immense pressure on the Lightning Manor with its Ancestral Mages.
With all three Empires putting so much pressure on this corner Zone, it would fall quickly.
Except, there weren't three Empires.
After the other two Empires had lost so many of their talented people, and since they also weren't the biggest fan of the Judgment Palace killing their talented Mages to join the war, they took it very easy for the next years.
This meant that the Judgment Palace had been the only Empire putting immense pressure on the Lightning Manor.
And the Judgment Palace had lost A LOT of Ancestral Mages due to the lack of support from the other Empires.
They really didn't want to fight with their Ancestral Mages right now, but they had no other choice.
They hadn't managed to enter a different Zone yet inside the Lightning Manor.
The Lightning Manor was throwing so many Ancestral Mages at them just to stop them from entering any other Zone.
Eventually, the Judgment Palace also calmed down with their aggression.
They could produce talented Ancestral Mages far faster than the Lightning Manor.
Even more, the Lightning Manor had to deal with two other Empires at the same time.
In the long run, they would outlast the Lightning Manor.
Also, after the century passed, a bit of their locked-up resources became available again.
When Shang looked around his territory again, he noticed something.
The three-star barrier to the southeast had vanished, replaced with nothing.
However, Shang wasn't really surprised.
The territory to the immediate southeast belonged to the Judgment Palace, which meant that the Lightning Manor had no sway over it.
When it was time to rearrange the Zones, the Judgment Palace had probably changed their northwestern Zone from Ancestral Mage to something else.
This meant that Shang wasn't even allowed to assault that territory, which also meant that the Judgment Palace didn't need to use that specific Defender Flag anymore.
Now, the Judgment Palace only needed three Defender Flags to contain Shang.
Yet, except for that, nothing else had changed for Shang.
Shang still had no idea how the Lightning Manor was doing or what it was doing.
He remained stuck inside his little isolated world.
By now, all the Death Mana had vanished, and life had come back to Shang's world.
The huge craters had been filled with water, creating huge lakes.
The wastelands had turned into a place swarming with animals and plants that could survive in a low-humidity environment.
And other parts had transformed into steppes.
There were even a couple of small forests.
A century was a long time.
Yet, this wouldn't be the only century that would pass for this small world.
