Chapter 171: Tianzun Vs Phantom (2)
Everything had been built for this exact moment.
Five fights. A day spent dismantling the strongest heroes of every nation, not for glory, not for points, but to arrive here with the truth of Tianzun in his hands and the Void rested and ready. Nicholas had spent his birthday night designing the road to this stage, and now that he stood on it, he was not going to falter.
’He might be bluffing.’
The thought was calm, practical. Tianzun’s smile after the reveal had rattled him, that easy, knowing calm where fear should have been. But a smile proved nothing. A man with a secret laid bare might panic, or he might smile to make you doubt what you already knew. There was only one way to learn which.
Attack him, and watch what answers.
And that was why Nicholas already knew exactly what he was going to do with his three trials. He had known since before he stepped onto the bridge. The whole plan lived or died on these first three strikes, and he had chosen them with the cold precision of a man who had planned a thousand kills.
The crowd watched in breathless anticipation.
The match the entire world had waited for, an entire day, three whole years, was finally unfolding before their eyes. Sixty thousand people sat in a hush so complete it felt like the building itself was holding its breath, eyes wide, none of them daring to blink, as though a single lost second might rob them of the spectacle about to begin.
Nicholas took a slow, casual stride toward the monk.
The chat detonated.
[Marypaz13: what does he OPEN with?? he’s got every copied ability in the world]
[Zerox4575: gravity? teleport? the space seams?? WHAT is the first hit]
[Will_1631: he’s gonna threaten the god HARD so he has to answer with something huge. that’s the trap right??]
[SirAnime_lord: does he end it in one? CAN he end it in one??]
[MarcoTiebosch: everyone’s holding their breath. even the COMMENTATOR went quiet for a sec]
[reinstate: this is the fight of the century and it hasn’t even STARTED. I can’t breathe]
[Cyndy9338: whatever he does next decides everything. one wrong move against a god]
"This is IT, folks!" Julie’s voice came low and trembling, riding the edge of the silence rather than breaking it. "Phantom walks up to the undefeated Star Dragon! Whatever he opens with sets the tone for EVERYTHING! Does he go all out?! Does he hold back?! What is the plan?!"
Tianzun watched him come, and the smug little grin never left the monk’s face. He did not raise his hands. He did not brace. He simply stood, serene and certain, and let the man in black close the distance as though genuinely curious what he would do.
The two of them came to a stop barely inches apart.
Neither moved.
For a long, suspended heartbeat, the champion and the god simply stood there, close enough to feel one another breathe, and the entire world leaned in around them.
’Whatever he drew against Nectron was weak because Nectron showed him nothing,’ Nicholas thought, his mind cold and clear beneath the roar, running the last of the math one final time. ’So I’ll show him less than nothing. The weakest thing I can offer. And whatever crawls off that wheel to answer it will be the smallest, frailest god he has ever been forced to wear.’ His fingers flexed at his side. ’And a small god, stripped of every other defense, is exactly what the Void was made to swallow.’
It was a gamble. If he was wrong about the rule, if there was some layer beneath the layer, he was about to hand the strongest being alive three free breaths and gain nothing for them. But he had tested it through Nectron. He had watched the gravity bite. The shape of it was right.
He just had to trust that the shape was the whole of it.
Then Nicholas raised one hand.
Sixty thousand people surged forward against their rails. This was it. The first strike. The opening move of the greatest fight ever broadcast. Every eye in the colosseum locked onto that raised hand, every mind racing with the same desperate question.
What was Phantom about to do?
And then, unspectacularly, almost gently, Nicholas drew back his fist and gave Tianzun three simple punches to the chest.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Three dull, ordinary impacts, no heavier than a man knocking on a door, echoing flat across the silent arena. No gravity. No space. No stolen power at all. Three plain taps to the sternum of the strongest being in the world.
For one full second, nobody understood what they had just seen.
Then the colosseum exploded.
"DID... DID PHANTOM JUST WASTE HIS ENTIRE THREE TRIALS?!"
Julie’s shriek tore through the arena, and sixty thousand people erupted into wild, disbelieving gasps at the exact same moment, a wall of sound crashing up into the night sky.
[Zerox4575: WHAT. WHAT DID HE JUST DO]
[Marypaz13: THREE LOVE TAPS?? AGAINST A GOD?? IS HE INSANE]
[Will_1631: he threw them away. HE THREW ALL THREE AWAY]
[SirAnime_lord: NO NO NO that’s not the plan that CAN’T be the plan]
[MarcoTiebosch: Nectron held back and LOST. why would Phantom do the SAME THING?!]
[reinstate: the whole world just gasped at once. I felt that in my SOUL]
In the American alcove, Selena was on her feet, her knuckles white. "What is he doing? He watched Nectron try that and lose! Why would he throw the trials away against the one opponent where they MATTER?!"
Beside her, Dana had gone very still.
Because Selena was right. It made no sense. Nectron holding back had left him alive but beaten, unable to finish a god who couldn’t quite finish him either. Doing the same thing again should, by every piece of logic they had, produce the same stalemate at best.
Unless Nicholas wasn’t trying to do the same thing at all.
’He’s not copying Nectron’s result,’ Dana thought, her mind racing to catch up to a plan she still couldn’t see the end of. ’He proved the rule through Nectron. Now he’s using it. But using it for what? Three weak trials means Tianzun draws a weak god. A god weak enough to be...’ Her breath caught. ’No. Surely not. Surely he isn’t planning to...’
Down on the stage, the last echo of the third dull thud faded into the roar.
Nicholas lowered his hand and stepped back, calm as still water, and looked up into the monk’s face to see what he had summoned.
And Tianzun was no longer smiling.