The Concept of Purgatory had an interesting effect on an opponent, which was very different from the effect it had on the user themselves.

The Concept of Sickness absorbed someone’s Mana and life energy.

The Concept of Weakness weakened someone’s defenses.

And the Concept of Purgatory put the effects of old age on the target.

Important to note was that the target wouldn’t just continue to age indefinitely but that the strength of the effect was based on how much Death Mana Shang had used.

And what specifically did all of this mean?

Well…

Shang shot forward again, and the peacock released its Blaze again.

Shang could react in time and adjust his temperature.

The peacock was quite surprised again. Sure, it was quite far away, but it had also noticed that its attack wasn’t as fast as usual.

Of course, that was to be expected.

Older people aren’t as fast.

Then, the peacock noticed that Shang had come close to one of its mines and detonated it.

The mine detonated, but Shang managed to defend himself from it, even though he still got quite injured.

The peacock grew frustrated when it realized that it had detonated the mine a bit too late.

But that was to be expected.

Older people sometimes grew distracted, and they couldn’t focus as well anymore.

Nevertheless, Shang had still received quite some injuries from the latest mine, and he had already used up over half of his life energy.

Shang also couldn’t use Void Break since there were probably more mines placed around him.

There were still around 20 kilometers to go, and the closer he got, the more dangerous it would become. After all, even though the peacock wasn’t as focused and fast as before, it was still far superior to Shang in these things.

In the distance, Shang could see the peacock preparing some kind of complex tornado.

If it managed to unleash that, Shang would need to evade far to the side, which would destroy all of his progress.

Even more, the peacock could also use the same thing it had used earlier and shoot into the distance when Shang came closer.

This was very problematic.

‘Seems like I can’t win the normal way,’ Shang thought.

Shang readied his Addum.

And then, black fire burst out of his Addum.

Shang slashed forward, and a powerful black wave of fire shot at the distant peacock.

The peacock could feel the power of the attack and wanted to cancel its own attack and evade to the side.

Yet, it noticed that the attack was rapidly growing weaker the closer it got.

Even more, the feeling of threat from the attack also rapidly reduced.

All powerful beings trusted their instincts since they were very reliable.

Even Shang trusted his instincts.

Hiding the danger of something was only possible when the target was in a relaxed state of mind and only when the attacker was quite a bit more powerful.

Obviously, none of these things were applicable to the current situation.

So, when the feeling of threat from the attack vanished, it actually meant that the attack stopped being dangerous.

After just half of the way, it had already stopped being dangerous to the peacock.

And then, the attack completely vanished just one kilometer away from the peacock.

It was just gone.

The extremely powerful black wave of fire was just gone.

And the peacock’s opponent was still around 18 kilometers away from it.

The peacock grew a bit confused.

The next moment, all the burns on Shang’s body disappeared, replaced by withering flesh.

Shang pointed his Subsis at the peacock’s head from 18 kilometers away.

And then, he shot a Needle at the peacock.

From such a distance, Shang obviously couldn’t hit the fast peacock.

After all, there were 18 kilometers between them.

…or were there?

In an instant, the Needle reached the peacock’s head.

BANG!

And the needle made of darkness exploded on the peacock’s head!

The tornado the peacock had been readying dispersed as the peacock became shocked by what had just happened.

What had been that speed?!

How had its opponent hit it from so far away?!

Well, the truth was that Shang hadn’t hit it from far away.

In fact, Shang had only been a bit less than two kilometers away from the peacock.

In the past, when Shang had used a ranged attack with the Entropy ability of his sword, it didn’t grow weaker as it traveled.

This time, it did.

The reason for that was that Entropy was consuming Mana.

What kind of Mana?

All Mana!

Including Space, Gravity, and Time Mana!

Shang had destroyed everything between him and his target, essentially deleting 16 kilometers of distance between them.

To illustrate, this was like putting two dots at opposite ends of a piece of paper, cutting out the middle 80% between the two dots, and then gluing the two remaining pieces of paper together.

The next moment, the peacock fell into a panic and burst away with its Wind Mana.

In an instant, it traveled another 50 kilometers away and land-

BOOOOOM!

The peacock hit the ground and lost its footing!

Its body rolled forward, leaving a humongous crater behind!

In a panic, it quickly righted itself, but many of its feathers were damaged and destroyed.

The next moment, it noticed that Shang was already shooting at it again, and it used even more Wind Mana to retreat.

This time, it didn’t land and decided to stay in the air.

But that also felt quite exhausting.

It wanted to get to the ground, but it felt uncertain and insecure.

It feared that it would lose its footing again.

Nevertheless, the peacock focused on Shang again and readied its attack.

Yet, the Blaze it created was very unstable, and the peacock realized that it had to release the attack early.

It just couldn’t control as much Blaze as usual.

The Blaze shot at Shang, but Shang quickly managed to dodge.

The next moment, the peacock felt like it was slowly sinking toward the ground, which made it realize that it had lost focus, and it shot into the distance again.

Shang kept flying after it.