Chapter 167: Nectron Vs Tianzun 1
Nicholas leaned in close, his voice dropping so low that not even Selena, standing an arm’s length away, caught more than the shape of it. He spoke for only a few seconds. Nectron’s brow furrowed further with every word.
When Nicholas finally drew back, the giant stared at him.
"...You’re sure about this?"
"I’m sure."
Nectron held his gaze a moment longer, searching that flat, unreadable face for something, then let out a slow breath and turned toward the bridge without another word.
He dropped onto it, and the walk down to the stage felt longer than any he’d taken.
’Why would he tell me to do that?’ The thought turned over and over in his head, refusing to settle. ’It doesn’t make any sense. Against a man like Tianzun, that’s the last thing I’d have thought to do. What is Phantom planning?’
He couldn’t see the shape of it. That was the maddening part. Nicholas always had three moves layered under the one he showed you, and he never explained a single one until it was already too late to matter. Nectron had watched him do it to the strongest fighters in the world all day, and now that flat, patient stare was aimed at a god, and Nectron was the piece being moved.
He thought back over the whole day, over five straight fights, over the way Nicholas had walked into each one already knowing how it ended. The man had beaten a martial god, a sealing artist, a superhuman, all of it, and not once had he done the obvious thing. Every win had come from some angle nobody else had thought to look at. Maybe this was another one of those angles. Maybe the instruction that made no sense was exactly the kind of thing that only made sense afterward, when it was too late for anyone to have stopped it.
Or maybe, for once, Phantom was reaching too far.
’Doesn’t matter,’ Nectron decided, and the tension bled out of his massive shoulders. ’I’ve followed this man through worse than a bad idea. If he says it matters, it matters.’ He flexed his hands, felt the familiar weight of his power answer. ’I guess I’ll just have to trust him.’
He reached the center of the fresh stone and stopped.
Tianzun stood waiting, calm and steady, hands folded loosely before him, that same bottomless smile resting on his face as though the roar of sixty thousand people was a quiet afternoon. Up close, standing across from the mystery the whole world had spent a day failing to solve, even Nectron felt it, the quiet, wrong weight of the man, the sense of standing at the foot of something far larger than the shape it wore.
The monk inclined his head in greeting.
Then he raised one hand and unfolded three fingers.
"Three tries," he said, gentle as ever.
The colosseum shivered. There it was, the famous ritual, offered now for the last time in the tournament, the only door anyone had ever walked through to reach him. Three chances, and then the door closed, and no one who had ever seen it close had lived up to the memory of what came after.
But this time was different, and every soul in the building knew it. This time they understood what the trials actually were. They had heard nothing of Nicholas’ theory, of wheels and gods and avatars, but they had watched Mercury fall and Vixen erase the world and still lose, and the ritual no longer looked like mercy to them. It looked like a countdown. Three tries were not three gifts. They were three breaths a condemned man was allowed before the floor dropped.
And America was about to spend the first of them.
Nectron glanced back over his shoulder, up toward the American alcove, toward the man in black leaning on the rail.
Nicholas met his eyes and gave a single, small nod.
Go ahead.
Nectron turned back to the monk, squared his shoulders, and set his feet.
Above them, the great screens blazed, and the stream chat, which had been holding its breath through the quiet, detonated back to life. After what Vixen had done, after watching a woman erase the entire arena from existence, the whole world was leaning forward to see what America’s second card would bring.
[Marypaz13: okay Vixen deleted reality itself. what does the BIG guy do?? I’m not ready]
[Zerox4575: Nectron’s gravity vs a man who walks through collapsing space. someone protect me]
[Will_1631: they’re spending TWO heroes on this monk. two. that alone tells you everything]
[SirAnime_lord: after that last match my expectations are in ORBIT. show us something impossible]
[MarcoTiebosch: why did Nectron look back at Phantom like that. what did he SAY to him]
[Cyndy9338: the calm before the storm and the storm is a literal god. goodnight everyone]
[infinite_shadows_2972: last match of the day. winner takes the whole thing. I can’t feel my hands]
In the American alcove, Selena’s eyes flicked between Nicholas and the stage, her supervisor’s instincts screaming that something was happening she hadn’t been told about.
"What did you tell him?" she asked quietly.
Nicholas didn’t answer. His one good eye was fixed on the monk below, patient and cold, waiting.
"Nicholas." Her voice sharpened. "You benched the whole plan the second Nectron stepped up and told him something else. I’ve known you long enough to know when you’ve changed the game on everyone. What did you tell him to do?"
"You’ll see it when he does it," Nicholas said, without turning his head. "If I say it out loud now, I might change how he does it. And how he does it is the whole point."
Selena opened her mouth, then closed it again, because there was no arguing with that tone, and because down on the stage, things had already begun to move.
Nectron drew in a slow breath, and the air around his massive frame began to groan. The weight of his ability gathered, thickening, the stone beneath his boots creaking and spiderwebbing as gravity bent to his will, and a low pressure rolled outward across the arena that made sixty thousand people feel briefly heavier in their seats.
Tianzun’s smile did not change. If anything, standing calm at the center of that gathering weight, the monk looked almost pleased, the way a teacher looks at a student who has finally decided to try.
’Come, then,’ his expression seemed to say. ’Show me.’
In the commentary platform, Julie gripped her microphone, her voice climbing over the wall of sound to deliver the words the entire planet had waited an entire day to hear.
"The FINAL match of the Combat Event! America’s Nectron against the undefeated Star Dragon, Tianzun! Fighters ready...!"
The colosseum held its breath.
"THREE! TWO! ONE...!"
"START!"