Chapter 179: The Winner
The thick cloud of dust from the explosion finally began to settle over the ruined arena. As the grey haze cleared, a series of shocked gasps echoed through the massive colosseum.
Standing directly in the aftermath of the chaos, barely holding himself upright, was Tianzun.
He looked completely different. His arms hung loosely at his sides like limp noodles, completely drained of all strength. Blood dripped steadily from his bruised knuckles, splashing quietly onto the shattered stone floor beneath his boots. His heavy golden staff was completely gone, vanished into thin air as though it had never existed. But the biggest change was the aura around him. The overwhelming pressure of the Monkey King was gone. Tianzun had been forced all the way back down into the shape of a normal, completely exhausted mortal man.
A weak, tired smile hung on his face. His traditional saffron robes had been torn to rags by the sheer force of the impact. He swayed back and forth where he stood, clearly held upright by sheer willpower alone and nothing else.
Across from him, on the completely opposite side of the smoking crater, Nicholas was in much worse shape. The force of the collision had sent him flying backward through the air like a ragdoll. He had slammed cleanly into the arena’s heavy defensive barrier wall. For a brief second, his battered body had hung against the cracked stone before sliding down into a limp, crumpled heap on the ground.
Millions of viewers were watching online, and the live chat exploded with a frantic wall of text.
[Marypaz13: TIANZUN’S STILL STANDING. HE’S STILL STANDING!]
[Zerox4575: no. NO. after ALL of that phantom LOST??]
[Will_1631: the monkey’s gone though. look closely. he forced the god OUT of him. phantom actually broke the ability!]
[SirAnime_lord: but phantom is the one on the FLOOR. tianzun’s still up. that’s the whole rule of a knockout, isn’t it??]
[MarcoTiebosch: wait. wait, look where they LANDED. both of them. LOOK at their feet!]
[reinstate: ...are they both out? are they BOTH out of bounds??]
At first glance, it looked to every stunned soul in the massive building like the Chinese monk had somehow endured the blast and claimed the victory. Tianzun was standing on his own two feet. Phantom was not. After everything they had just witnessed—after the total collapse of the Monkey King and the terrifying tearing of the sky—it seemed like the undefeated champion had held on by a tiny thread and won the day.
But then, slowly, one by one, the people in the audience began to notice the reality of the situation.
They looked at the exact spot where Tianzun stood. Then they looked across the arena to where Nicholas had landed. Finally, they traced the distance from both fighters back to the giant, smoking crater in the direct center of the stage. The truth finally settled over the colosseum in a slow, spreading wave of understanding.
Neither of the fighters was actually on the stage anymore.
The massive blast had thrown them both. Tianzun was indeed standing, but he was standing up in the ruined spectator stands well past the official boundary line. His blood was dripping onto plastic seats that had been evacuated hours ago to protect the crowd. Nicholas lay completely crumpled against the outer barrier wall, which was also located well beyond the edge of the fighting platform.
The center of the arena, where they had traded that final world-shattering punch, was nothing but a smoking, empty crater of pulverized concrete. Not a single fighter remained standing inside the actual ring.
Up on the high commentary platform, Julie pressed a hand tightly against her earpiece. She listened closely to the officials speaking to her from the judging booth, and when she finally spoke into her microphone, her voice came out slow and thick with absolute disbelief.
"They’re... folks, the judges are confirming it right now. BOTH of them. Both fighters were thrown entirely clear of the ring by the blast." She paused, letting the reality sink in for the global audience. "Phantom is out of bounds. And Tianzun... Tianzun is out of bounds too." She swallowed hard, the sound echoing softly over the stadium speakers. "Neither of them won. By the official rules of the Combat Event, a double ring-out means... it means we have no victor. The final match is a draw. And that means a rematch. They will have to do it all again."
The entire colosseum roared with massive confusion. Sixty thousand people were loudly trying to process a match result that was technically no result at all. How could two men who had just destroyed an entire arena be expected to fight again?
And then, down in the ruined stands, Tianzun raised one bloodied, violently trembling hand into the air.
"No."
The single word was spoken quietly, but it carried perfectly across the ruined arena. The noise of the crowd immediately faltered and died down, a heavy silence falling over the stadium.
The monk was still wearing that weak, worn, strangely peaceful smile. He shook his head slowly from side to side.
"There will be no rematch," Tianzun said. His voice was incredibly steady, despite the heavy bleeding and the absolute physical exhaustion wearing down his body. "I forfeit."
For a long heartbeat, the entire world went completely silent. No one dared to breathe.
"I have fought in this global convention for three straight years," Tianzun continued, his calm voice echoing through the massive stadium. "And in all that time, no opponent has ever forced the gods out of me. No one has ever made a god blink, let alone break their manifestation entirely."
His tired, deeply respectful eyes looked across the ruined arena, finding the crumpled figure of Nicholas, who was just now beginning to weakly stir against the far wall.
"He did," Tianzun said clearly, projecting his voice for everyone to hear. "Whatever the ring says, and whatever the official rules say, I know exactly who won that final exchange. And I would sooner concede the match to the one man who actually earned it than insult us both by pretending that blast was anything other than my defeat."
The monk slowly lowered his trembling hand to his side.
"The match is his. America takes the crown."
Tianzun respectfully inclined his head, offering a single, deep bow toward the stirring figure of Nicholas.
And then, the last bit of strength finally left his legs. He collapsed forward, but two of his own countrymen rushed out from the Chinese alcove just in time. They caught the monk by the arms before his face could hit the ground, gently supporting their exhausted champion.
Across the crater, Nicholas gritted his teeth and dragged himself up against the barrier wall. One of his eyes was completely swollen shut, fresh blood ran down his chin, and his entire body felt like one single, deep, agonizing ache. Breathing felt like swallowing glass. He had heard Tianzun’s words perfectly. He understood exactly what the monk was doing.
And still, some part of his exhausted mind could barely believe it.
He had walked into this final fight with a strategy built entirely on a lie. He had watched that strategy die the exact instant the golden headband appeared on Tianzun’s forehead. From that moment on, he had clawed his way to a violent draw against a literal god using nothing but pure improvisation and a stubborn refusal to stay down. He had not won the fight. Not cleanly. Not the way he had meant to do it.
And yet, the host of the god had handed him the crown anyway, simply because the monk knew the difference between the technical rules of a tournament and the absolute truth of a battle.
’You didn’t have to do that,’ Nicholas thought, meeting the unconscious monk’s direction with a tired, respectful gaze across the wreckage. ’But thank you. I’ll remember it.’
The official announcement of the winner should have brought the house down. Winning the crown, securing the tournament victory, and deciding the fate of an entire year in a single impossible blow was a historic moment. Up on the platform, Julie opened her mouth wide to scream the official victory to the world, and sixty thousand people simultaneously drew in a deep breath to scream right along with her.
But she never made the announcement.
Julie pressed the speaker hard against her right ear, her left hand rising to cover her other ear so she could hear over the rising noise of the crowd. Whatever message came through the secure line from the Hero Association completely wiped every single trace of celebration off her face.
Her eyes went wide with pure terror. All the color rapidly drained out of her cheeks, leaving her looking sickly pale. The hand holding her microphone began, very slightly, to shake.
"...Say that again," Julie whispered. She didn’t speak into the public microphone; she spoke directly into her private earpiece. "Say that again, Sir Eric."
The rest of the colosseum was still roaring, still celebrating, and still riding the massive emotional high of the greatest fight they had ever seen. The crowd had absolutely no idea that anything was wrong.
Down on the floor, Nicholas was still slumped against the wall as Selena finally reached him, her hands grabbing his shoulders to help him up. But Nicholas wasn’t looking at Selena. He was looking all the way across the arena at Julie’s face in the commentary booth. He saw her expression change entirely, and a heavy, freezing cold sensation turned over in his gut before he even knew what was happening.
Then, Julie brought the microphone up to her mouth with a violently shaking hand. Her voice cut fiercely across the entire celebration. It was sharp, urgent, and completely terrified, killing the joyful roar of the crowd dead in a single instant.
"ALL HEROES!" she shouted at the top of her lungs, her voice echoing frantically over the speakers. "This is not a drill! Every hero currently in this arena is ordered to report to the Hero Association Prison IMMEDIATELY! There has been an invasion! Containment has been breached! We are looking at a maximum threat level!"