Shang landed beside the corpse and quickly put his hand to it before it vanished.

The corpse barely shriveled up, but Shang managed to refill his entire Mana and life energy beyond its normal maximum.

Then, the cheering returned, and the corpse started to vanish.

Shang quickly took out more ore and stabbed Sword into it, returning it to its Colossal Sword State.

p、a,nd a-n、o、ve,l The Colossal Sword State was simply the best State when it came to killing beasts and closing in on opponents. It was a perfect starter for any kind of fight.

"Level twelve: Powerful Late True Path Stage beast."

Shang took a deep breath as the wheel returned.

‘The next fight is not going to be easy. No matter what I will fight, I doubt that I will be able to end it by only closing in and using Dusk. That might work against normal beasts, but powerful ones have terrifying instincts and hidden weapons.'

‘Additionally, the speed gap is only going to get bigger, and I might even need to use more power with Brilliance to actually create an opening.'

Shang glanced at the wheel. ‘I will probably have to use more than one State during this fight.'

‘Luckily, my Great Sword State is the ultimate counter to beasts.'

All in all, every State Shang had created was good for something.

The Colossal Sword State was great for starting the fight against any kind of opponent.

The Great Sword State was great for killing beasts.

The Saber State was a good allrounder, useful for basically everything.

The Long Sword State was great for killing Mages.

The best part was that Shang could transition into any kind of State from his Colossal Sword State. If necessary, he could burn more to immediately get to the Long Sword State, for example.

The Colossal Sword State would always be his starter, but after that, he could choose which State he wanted to use.

The only drawback was that Shang couldn't go back to higher States during the fight, but that wasn't really an issue.

The Great Sword State wasn't very useful for fast and flexible opponents anyway. Might as well use more of Sword's mass to strengthen the attack and immediately go to the Saber State. Nimble opponents wouldn't have it easy evading the barrage of Shooting Stars and Hidden Suns.

But if the opponent wasn't as fast, Shang could directly enter the Great Sword State and unleash devastating attacks.

Sword finished absorbing the ore just when the wheel stopped, and Shang looked over.

The image of his opponent grew, and he finally saw what kind of opponent he would be fighting.

It was a cartoony lightning bolt with a devious smirk.

Shang raised an eyebrow.

He wasn't quite sure what this image represented.

SHING!

Then, Shang's opponent appeared, but this time, it didn't appear a kilometer away from Shang.

No, this time, the God apparently had something else on his mind.

The opponent appeared in the sky, about three kilometers away from Shang.

It was a Serpent.

It had white scales, four small feet with sharp claws, and an imposing head. The scales on its head were sharp, jagged, and made the Serpent look similar to a viper.

And the beast was absolutely massive.

Shang guessed that it was probably over 500 meters long and nearly 30 meters wide.

It looked like a snake that could swallow the world.

Right now, it was just hovering in the air with closed eyes, curled into a ball.

‘Sure enough, this won't be easy.'

Serpents were always problematic for two reasons.

First of all, a lot of them could inherently fly, making it very difficult for anyone to reach them.

The second problem was that they were essentially the Mages of the beast world. They could release terrifying Spells while still having very powerful bodies.

However, even a powerful Serpent was weaker than an average Mage of its level.

There were two reasons for that.

First, even though the Serpents had terrifying Spells, their Spells were not as varied as the Mages' Spells. They also didn't have access to a Focus.

Second, and most important of all, Serpents didn't have access to Element-Neutral Spells.

That meant no Mana Shield and no Mana Step.

Due to these two reasons, even an average Mage could kill a powerful Serpent on their level. The fight wouldn't be completely effortless, but it also wouldn't pose a real danger to the Mage.

The jester slowly lifted his hammer and struck the bell.

DING!

Shang prepared himself, and the Serpent opened its eyes.

BANG!

Shang shot forward as he activated Distortion. He was also using Fire and Ice Blasts to fly upward.

With his new body, Shang could stay in the air for a very long time with his Blasts. He couldn't stay there indefinitely, but he could stay long enough that it wouldn't be a big concern during a fight.

When the Serpent saw Shang, it extended its body and released a world-shattering hiss.

The air around Shang seemed to vibrate by the sheer power of the hiss.

BANG! BANG!

Several bolts of lightning appeared in the air and shot to a place behind the Serpent.

There were hundreds!

The air around the Serpent became filled with electricity and friction as a humongous ball of lightning formed behind it.

Shang could feel that the Lightning Mana inside the Serpent had dropped drastically.

It had probably wasted over 70% of its reserves for that move!

Shang decided to slow his approach.

After all, if the Serpent decided to throw this humongous ball at him, he would die.

That was simply too much power.

However, instead of immediately launching an attack, the Serpent began to coil around the ball.

At that moment, Shang looked at a gigantic Serpent that calmly circled a humongous ball of lightning like it were its egg.

Random lightning bolts shot out of the ball.

Eventually, the Serpent faced Shang again.

Then, a brief flash of lightning appeared in its eyes.

And Shang immediately had to dodge!