My Unique Adaptation Skill in Another world-Chapter 33 - 32: Divine Might

Suddenly the air above the arena shifted.

Leo felt it even from the tunnel, an immense pressure that made his chest tighten

A figure materialized in the sky above the Grand Arena, floating, the dome immediately coming undone.

The man was old, silver hair pulled back in a tight topknot, robes that looked simple, academic even, but moved wrong, like the fabric existed slightly outside normal reality. His eyes swept across the chaos below with calm.

"Headmaster Veyron," Daichi breathed from beside Leo. The first time Leo had heard actual reverence in the Daichi’s voice.

The headmaster raised both hands.

The air sang, leo had felt overwhelming pressure, much more than he’d even felt with anyone else, this man was definitely more powerful than Iori.

Geometric patterns bloomed in the air around the headmaster, covering the entire arena, it looked intricate, and three-dimensional, rotating in ways that hurt to look at directly.

Once the spell activated, tens of thousands people still remaining in the arena, vanished Instantly.

One moment the arena was packed with screaming civilians, fleeing delegates, panicked guards, the next, empty. Just stone, and dead bodies and the lingering heat of mass teleportation, even the injured or those that showed any sign of life, just gone.

Leo’s jaw dropped. "Wh—what the hell just happened!?..."

"Nine-star spatial mage," Daichi said quietly. "One of three in the capital, maybe ten in the entire empire."

The demon worshiper stood alone in the center of the arena floor, surrounded by corpses.

Their dark robes whipped in wind that had no source, corrupted energy radiating off them in waves that made Leo’s skin crawl even from this distance.

The headmaster’s voice carried across the empty space, magically amplified but not shouting, conversational, Like addressing a classroom.

"You wished to make a statement. Very well."

Another gesture.

The air around the arena floor crystallized—a dome of shimmering energy that sealed the demon worshiper inside a sphere perhaps two hundred meters across, even much more powerful than the previous dome.

A stage, and a cage.

"The empire will make one in return."

A second figure dropped into the barrier from above. Landed hard enough to crack stone, a crater five meters wide, spiderwebbing out from the impact point.

Leo’s breath caught.

The man who straightened from the crouch was massive, not just tall like Iori, but massive.

He stood at seven and a half feet, maybe more, shoulders as wide, arms thick as tree trunks, corded with muscle that looked carved from granite, his skin was dark, deep brown that gleamed with sweat and faint silver markings that might have been scars or something else.

He wore no shirt, no armor, just simple cloth pants and boots, and gauntlets.

Heavy looking steel, reinforced at the knuckles, etched with symbols that pulsed faintly with his aura. The kind of weapon meant for one thing: turning human bodies into broken meat, even worse a puddle of blood.

The brawler rolled his neck, casual, almost lazy, each crack of vertebrae was audible even from the tunnel.

"Been a while since I got a real fight," he said. His voice was deep. Amused. "Don’t disappoint me."

The demon worshiper laughed, the sound was wrong, layered and scraped against Leo’s ears.

"You think yourself strong, empire dog?"

Dark lightning crackled along the worshiper’s arms. This wasn’t anything like normal lightning or even like the one Leo felt with the lynx, this one was something deeper, and wrong.

The kind of energy that didn’t just burn, it corrupted.

"Let me show you the power of a true believer!."

They moved with such speed that leo couldn’t track it.

The demon worshiper crossed fifty meters in what felt like a blink, dark lightning propelling them forward with acceleration that left afterimages burned into Leo’s vision.

Their fist, wreathed in crackling black energy, drove toward the brawler’s face.

But the impact never landed.

The brawler’s gauntleted hand came up, almost casual, and pushed forward.

Space in front of his fist rippled, sending the demon worshiper flying backward like they’d been hit by a battering ram.

They tumbled through air, hit the barrier wall hard enough to send out a shockwave that rattled the environment and dropped.

But the demon worshiper caught themselves mid-fall, dark lightning surging.

"Spatial manipulation," the elf whispered from beside Leo, her eyes were wide, tracking movements he could barely see. "He’s not just strong, he’s bending the space around his strikes."

The demon worshiper blurred forward again, faster this time, enhancement magic flooding their body with corrupted power.

Their form split into three, afterimages or technique, Leo couldn’t tell, but it seemed like the demon worshiper was attacking from different angles simultaneously.

The brawler didn’t even try to dodge.

He pulled arms back as if draw something towards himself.

His gauntlet swept in an arc and space compressed, the three afterimages collapsed into one, yanked together by invisible force.

The demon worshiper stumbled, suddenly off-balance, and the brawler’s fist was already there in response.

BOOM.

The sound was thunder, the kind that would shatter glass.

The punch caught the demon worshiper square in the chest.

A direct hit.

They flew back again, ninety meters in a straight line before crashing into the far side of the barrier. The impact crater was massive, fifteen meters across, stone pulverized to powder, dust and debris exploded outward.

Leo felt the shockwave through the tunnel floor, felt the stone beneath him vibrate.

"Holy shit," he breathed.

The demon worshiper emerged from the crater, coughing, blood on their lips, but laughing.

"Yes! YES! This is what I wanted!"

Dark energy poured off them in waves now, Just flooding out like a broken dam, their demonic energy spiked, visible as a black-purple miasma that writhed and twisted.

Eight-star pushing to nine.

The air around them began to decay, stone cracking, turning gray, brittle then turning to dust. The corrupted energy was eating reality itself.

"Demonic apotheosis," Daichi said, voice tight. "He’s burning his soul for temporary power, he won’t survive this fight either way now."

The demon worshiper raised both hands, dark lightning erupted from their palms, not a bolt, a torrent, dozens of branching streams that filled the air, seeking, hunting, devouring.

Each one trailing corruption that left the air shimmering with wrongness.

The brawler didn’t run, he clapped and began folding the space around him.

The gesture was simple, almost dismissive, but when his gauntleted hands came together, reality bent around him.

The dark lightning streams hit the distortion and curved, turned back on their caster like water flowing around a stone.

The demon worshiper had to dodge their own attack.

In that moment, that single instant of distraction, the brawler moved.

Leo saw the first step, saw the brawler’s foot plant, saw his aura flare silver-white.

He didn’t see the rest. In one instant the brawler was thirty meters away.

The next he was there, inside the demon worshiper’s guard, way too fast, that Leo’s eyes couldn’t process the movement, just the before and after.

The brawler’s fist drove into the demon worshiper’s gut.

Space compressed around the impact point. The brawler’s technique—Void Fist— it didn’t just hit, it created a localized distortion that multiplied force by crushing space itself into the target.

The demon worshiper folded around the blow, multiple ribs shattering like glass.

They flew backward again, ragdolling and limp, they hit the barrier, bounced, hit the ground, then rolled to a stop.

The crowd Leo couldn’t see, teleported away, was watching through magical projection by the floating mage, must have been going wild.

The barrier prevented sound from coming in, but Leo could imagine the roar.

The demon worshiper rose slowly, broken, and beeding. One arm hanging at the wrong angle.

Still laughing.

"More... give me MORE!"

They thrust their working hand forward, dark lightning exploded from their palm, not streams this time, a solid beam.

Concentrating all their remaining power channeled into one attack.

The air along its path screamed, molecules super-heating, tearing apart. The beam’s diameter was easily two meters across. It carved a trench through the arena floor as it traveled.

The brawler’s aura flared.

He didn’t dodge.

He caught it.

Both gauntleted hands came up, palms out, space warped around them, layered distortions that created a buffer between his flesh and the corrupted lightning.

The beam hit, and the brawler pushed back, overpowering the beam.

His aura blazed brighter, silver-white so intense it hurt to look at, the muscles in his arms bulged, veins standing out, skin glistening.

Every ounce of his nine-star power focused on one task: stop this attack.

He roared, primal and raw. The sound of a man refusing to yield.

And then the beam... stopped.

It just Just... halted. Mid-air, held in place by sheer force of will and spatial manipulation.

Then the brawler pulled, his technique—Gravity Well—created a localized point of massive attraction, the dark lightning beam bent, twisted, and collapsed inward, drawn toward the point between his gauntlets.

Compressed, contained, crushed.

The energy imploded with a sound like reality tearing. A sphere of absolute darkness formed for just an instant, anti-light, consuming everything, then vanished.

The demon worshiper stood there in utter and absolute disbelief, panting having their corrupted energy depleted, blood running from their eyes, nose, ears, the cost of pushing to nine-star artificially.

The brawler walked toward them, unhurried, each step deliberate, then stopped give feet away.

"All that demonic energy all that corruption, all that power..." The brawler flexed his gauntleted hand, testing his knuckles. "And you’re still just a weak man pretending to be strong."

The demon worshiper tried to laugh. Coughed blood instead.

"You... cannot stop... what comes..."

"Don’t need to stop it." The headmaster said, waving his hand—Spatial Lock—and space around the demon worshiper froze,They couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, just locked in place like insects in amber. "We just need to stop you."

He gestured.

Imperial soldiers materialized inside the barrier, teleported by the headmaster above.

They moved quickly, efficiently, energy-suppressing shackles, and ninding chains, immediate medical attention to keep the prisoner alive.

The demon worshiper couldn’t resist.

The fight was over, the brawler looked up toward where the headmaster floated, gave a small nod, then vanished, teleported away as quickly as he’d arrived.

The barrier fell.

Leo realized he’d been holding his breath. Let it out in a shaky exhale.

"That was nine-star," he said. Voice hoarse. "That was what nine-star actually looks like."

The elf nodded, she looked pale, and shaken.

Daichi’s expression was unreadable, but his hand on his blade’s grip was white-knuckled.

They’d just witnessed the empire’s true power.

Overwhelming and absolute, and somewhere in the city, in dozens of locations, similar scenarios were playing out. Imperial forces crushing cultists with terrifying efficiency.

The demon cult had made their move, but the empire was showing them exactly why that was a mistake.

Leo pulled back from the hatch, his legs felt weak.

"We need to keep moving," Daichi said. Voice flat. "This isn’t over. Not for us."

He was right.

They were still underground, still separated from Iori’s group, although they could come out now, but nothing was stopping them from being hounded by the imperial forces on sight.

Leo took one last look at the arena floor, at the crater where two titans had clashed, at the blood, broken stone and the lingering traces of power that made his skin prickle.

Then he turned and followed Daichi deeper into the tunnels, toward the outer ring, toward whatever came next.