Golden armor covered Tom's entire body, while intricate runes spread from his shoulder guards all the way down to his wrists. His originally unruly black hair had turned completely golden, whipping wildly in the gale stirred up by his magic.
Tom flexed his fingers.
He could clearly feel the power flowing through his body. Every bit of magical power had been compressed to an extreme degree.
Every time magic circulated through his body, it strengthened his bones, muscles, and reflexes.
He raised a hand.
Then lowered it.
A blinding golden spear of light condensed in the air and crashed down toward Mystryl.
The spear hadn't even reached the ground when the space ahead of it was already being compressed, producing visible ripples.
The earth below couldn't withstand the force. It collapsed before the spear even landed, forming a crater hundreds of meters across.
However, Mystryl's figure suddenly became as insubstantial as a reflection on water.
The spear of light passed straight through her body without causing the slightest effect, then slammed into the earth and carved a deep scar into the ground.
The rocks on either side of the impact were hurled away by the shockwave. The weaker fragments were sent flying several kilometers.
And after the golden light passed through her, Mystryl's blurred figure gradually condensed back into solid form.
Tom stared at her technique in disbelief.
"Well, damn."
Uchiha Mystryl, huh? She could even use Kamui?
While Tom was marveling at Mystryl's methods, Mystryl was equally fascinated by his transformation. "You really have quite a few tricks up your sleeve, little one. Compressing and condensing magic, then using it to strengthen your own body?"
"Mystryl, you really know how to read people."
The instant Tom finished speaking, he had already appeared beside her.
At some point, his Hakuna Matata had condensed another spear of light.
He thrust it forward like lightning.
As the spear shot out, the space around its tip visibly warped inward.
Before the spearhead even touched Mystryl, the lightning attached to it had already torn through the magical barrier surrounding her body.
Mystryl raised a hand.
A spell orb met the attack head-on.
Countless rays of brilliant light flowed together like a river of magic, intercepting the spear's thrust.
A deep boom erupted where the two forces collided.
The shockwave spread across the sky, tearing the thick clouds overhead apart.
Tom twisted his wrist and swept the spear sideways.
Meanwhile, Mystryl took half a step back.
A translucent force-field wall appeared in front of her.
The golden spear struck it, and spiderweb-like cracks immediately spread across its surface.
Before those cracks could widen, Mystryl had already disappeared.
Tom wanted to fight her at close range, but Mystryl always had some way to create distance.
Short-range teleportation. Spatial folding. Mirror-image displacement.
Almost every time Tom attacked, she had already appeared outside his range.
With every movement, she landed on a different spatial node.
After who knew how many instantaneous teleports, a gigantic magical web suddenly appeared across the sky.
The web stretched for dozens of kilometers, with every node connected to a different spell structure.
Even Tom, who possessed partial authority over the Divine Realm, could only vaguely grasp how complex the web was.
Mystryl didn't need incantations. She didn't need to chant.
All she needed was a thought, and the magic filling the entire space was instantly mobilized.
Countless streams of cold-colored magic erupted.
Annihilation Rays, Astral Strikes, high-level arcane spells...
Wave after wave of devastating magic poured down.
Meanwhile, the human emotions in Tom's eyes were gradually fading. His golden pupils held the detached indifference unique to divinity.
Golden armor covered his entire body. He seemed completely oblivious to the magical storm before him as he charged straight through it without the slightest hesitation.
The first Annihilation Ray struck his shoulder armor, leaving behind nothing more than a shallow mark.
The second Astral Strike slammed into his chest.
His body paused for an instant.
Then he continued moving as though nothing had happened.
Dozens of high-level arcane spells exploded simultaneously. Violent waves of energy shot into the sky, completely swallowing Tom's figure.
But in the next moment, a golden spear tore out of the magical storm.
The residual energy exploded in every direction.
The scattered energy from the magical web had slipped out of Mystryl's control.
Instead, Tom compressed it into pure magic and absorbed them into his body, strengthening his body.
Buzz!
Tom's aura rose another level.
He took one step forward.
The magical web covering the sky shattered.
The golden spear swept through the air, carrying overwhelming force as it smashed through layer after layer of spatial barriers.
One force-field wall after another shattered.
The final few hadn't even finished forming before the lightning magic attached to Tom's spear dispersed them with a violent shock.
Mystryl raised her hand and pressed it against the void.
Thousands of spell formations lit up simultaneously.
Lightning, flames, and ice descended from three different directions, converging in midair to form a gigantic sealing barrier.
The space inside the barrier rapidly solidified.
Even the flow of magical power within Tom's body slowed.
Tom didn't retreat. He thrust the Hakuna Matata forward.
The spearhead struck the center of the barrier.
Crack!
The entire sealing barrier split apart from the center outward.
The frozen space returned to normal, and the berserk elements lost control, exploding wildly in every direction.
The area affected by the clash between the two combatants rapidly expanded from 5,000 kilometers to 15,000 kilometers.
The terrain was repeatedly destroyed and reshaped.
Mountain ranges collapsed in rows. Rivers flooded into newly formed ravines.
Hundreds-of-meters-high waves had barely risen before the energy falling from the sky crushed them back into the sea.
If the Study Space (Divine Realm) hadn't been sturdy enough, this single exchange would have been enough to sink an entire continent.
"Looks like I'll have to show you my ultimate." Tom took a deep breath.
Mystryl asked curiously, "You still have something stronger? Like completely awakening the power within that wand of yours?"
She didn't understand what this wand really was, but she could still sense that there was something extraordinary about it.
Unfortunately, far too little of the Power contained within Hakuna Matata had been awakened. For the moment, it wasn't enough to threaten her.
Tom didn't answer. He simply raised a finger toward the sky.
In an instant, countless chains emerged.
They drilled out from the depths of the Divine Realm, passing through the clouds and space itself.
Under Mystryl's stunned gaze, they wrapped around her and bound her tightly.
It wasn't that she hadn't reacted in time.
It was that every method she tried to use was completely nullified the moment it came into contact with the chains.
So all she could do was watch helplessly as she was tied up, even ending up suspended in the air in an extremely embarrassing pose.
Tom was satisfied.
He floated over to Mystryl and smugly raised an eyebrow.
"Man. The power of the Divine Realm really is more convenient. It rejects all that flashy nonsense."
During the battle, Tom had indeed borrowed some of the study space.
But he'd only used it as an assist, increasing the efficiency with which he gathered and compressed elemental energy, allowing his magic to form larger and faster.
Otherwise, with his current mastery of magic, he wouldn't have been able to compress his magic to such a degree and use it to strengthen his body.
But all his other techniques were abilities he possessed himself. He hadn't relied on the rules of the Study Space to bully Mystryl.
It was only just now that he'd finally used his administrator privileges.
He had simply banned Mystryl's account.
"I have to say, Tom, that's pretty pathetic." Mystryl stared at him with a complicated expression. "You used the power of your divine realm to fight me. You might as well have just declared me the loser."
"That's different," Tom answered with complete confidence. "When I first started fighting you, I was using abilities I'd painstakingly developed myself. But precisely because I worked so hard to obtain them, they're naturally kind of flimsy when I actually use them."
"But directly suppressing you with the power of the study space is different. That's a cheat code. It's an ability handed to me by the system. It's way more solid and reliable than anything I could've created myself."
Mystryl blinked several times, as if Tom had just given her an entirely new definition of shamelessness.
She couldn't tell whether there was something wrong with her ears or whether Tom's worldview was the thing that had gone completely off the rails.
For a moment, Mystryl genuinely had no idea what she was supposed to say.
.
.
.