Chapter 143: An Ability Like Void?
The first flag was red, white, and blue.
The second was red and gold.
"CHINA... VERSUS... AMERICA!"
The colosseum did not cheer so much as combust. The two titans of the standings, the two names at the top of every projection, called to the stage before the first day had even reached its evening.
[Opalion: IT’S HAPPENING. FIRST VS SECOND. IT’S ACTUALLY HAPPENING TODAY]
[Ybbev: the selection system said "why wait for the finale" 💀]
[Demiurge666: 350 vs 300 in the standings. this match could decide EVERYTHING]
[SirAnime_lord: my exams are tomorrow. my exams do not matter anymore]
In the American alcove, Selena turned, and the argument was already in her eyes before it reached her mouth.
"You just fought Hunter. You’ve barely cooled down. Nectron can take this one, that was the whole point of having three..."
"The plan hasn’t changed." Nicholas was already unbuttoning his coat cuff, checking the matte black watch out of new habit. "Every fight is mine until the monk. That was the agreement."
"The agreement assumed you’d get rest between..."
"Selena." Dana’s voice was mild, but it carried. She hadn’t looked up from her clipboard. "Let him work."
Selena’s jaw tightened. Her eyes flicked from Dana’s unreadable smile to Nicholas’ flat calm, and whatever she saw in the space between them made her click her tongue and step back from the rail.
"Fine. Go." Then, quieter, as he passed her: "You promised. Remember that."
"I remember everything," Nicholas said, and dropped over the rail.
The colosseum saw him fall, land, and start across the connecting bridge, and the sound that rose was equal parts thunder and confusion.
"AMERICA HAS ANSWERED!" Julie announced. "AND IT’S... IT’S PHANTOM AGAIN! For the SECOND consecutive time, America sends the same man! Folks, I’ve called this event for years, and I have NEVER seen a nation refuse to rotate! Is this arrogance? Is this strategy? Is America seriously planning to run ONE fighter through the entire Combat Event?!"
[Marshall_prat_4819: wait. WAIT. are they really doing an anime protagonist run???]
[Decato: no rest, back to back, against CHINA?? this is either genius or a war crime against their own guy]
[ThePathOfTheHunt: think about it. every fight Phantom takes is a fight his teammates’ points aren’t risked in]
[yanko_abreu: or the other two are carrying the vault and he’s the toll gate. Brazil taught everyone this morning]
[TruMagi: sixty thousand people doing point math instead of watching the hot people fight. I love this event]
Nicholas reached the center of the rebuilt stage, rolled his shoulders once, and looked up at the Chinese alcove.
And his stomach went still.
Tianzun was standing.
The monk had risen from his seat at the rail, prayer beads gathered into one broad palm, saffron robes settling around him like a mountain deciding to move. Sixty thousand people saw it in the same heartbeat, and the noise of the arena changed pitch, climbing toward something hysterical.
[infinite_shadows_2972: HE’S UP. THE MONK IS UP!!!]
[Marypaz13: TIANZUN VS PHANTOM?? IN MATCH FIVE?? I AM NOT EMOTIONALLY PREPARED]
[reinstate: the undefeated vs the undefeated. somebody’s 0 has GOT to go]
’No.’ Behind Nicholas’ flat expression, calculations were tearing themselves up and rewriting at speed. ’Not now. Not like this.’
The plan lived and died on sequence. Nectron first. Vixen second. The monk’s three trials worn down, his ability mapped, his stamina taxed, and only then the Phantom, with the Void rested and ready. That was the architecture Nicholas had spent his birthday night building.
If Tianzun walked down that bridge now, the architecture burned. He’d be facing the strongest man in the tournament fresh off the Hunter match, alone, unscouted, with a choice between spending the Void half-blind or fighting three trials on his own hands.
’If they send him, I adapt. I always adapt. But every path from here gets uglier and...’
Tianzun shifted.
He stepped, not toward the bridge, but aside, one broad hand extending in a gesture of invitation, and from behind the mountain of saffron a second figure emerged, bowed to the monk, and started down toward the stage.
The breath Nicholas released made no sound and moved no muscle of his face, but inside, it emptied him out like a tide going home.
’... that’s a relief.’
The figure crossing the bridge was young, perhaps his own age, in the grey-blue training robes of a temple rather than a hero suit. His head was shaved. His forearms were wrapped, wrist to elbow, in coils of dark iron prayer-chain that clinked with each step, and his face held the particular severity of a man who had never once been late for anything in his life.
He reached the stage, pressed his fists together, and bowed to Nicholas with textbook precision.
"REPRESENTING CHINA!" Julie called as the screens flashed his profile. "The youngest disciple of the Wudang Sanctum! The man his own temple calls the Ten Thousand Locks... FENGYIN!"
[Daniel_Hoeving: the DISCIPLE. china really said "you don’t get the boss, you get the boss’s student"]
[Ybbev: why do his chains look like they’ve locked away things I’m not allowed to know about]
[Opalion: temple robes at an international tournament is such a flex. no armor. just faith and cardio]
"Phantom." Fengyin straightened from his bow. His voice was quiet, even, and completely without heat. "My master says you are the most dangerous man in this arena. I have watched you twice today, and I believe him."
"Flattery from China," Nicholas said. "That’s new."
"It is not flattery. It is diagnosis." The prayer-chains on his forearms shifted with a sound like a lock turning over. "A dangerous illness requires the correct treatment. My master also says your sickness and mine are... related. I confess I did not understand him."
Nicholas’ eyes narrowed a fraction.
’Related?’
"FIGHTERS, READY!" Julie’s hand went up, and the colosseum’s roar compressed into that held-breath silence the day had trained it for. "THE CLASH OF THE TITANS BEGINS IN... THREE! TWO! ONE..."
"FIGHT!!"
Fengyin did not charge.
He did not raise his hands. He did not settle into any stance Hunter would have recognized. He simply pressed his palms together as though in prayer, closed his eyes, and stamped one bare heel against the stone.
Tak.
The sound was small. What followed was not.
Light poured out from beneath his foot, and it poured in language. Rings of glowing script raced outward across the stage, circle within circle within circle, characters Nicholas didn’t know arranging themselves into patterns his instincts understood immediately and hated. The rings spread past his boots, past the crater field, past the boundary, sinking their light into every broken inch of the arena floor until the entire stage had become a single, breathing, golden formation.
A seal, drawn at the scale of a battlefield. And Nicholas was standing inside it.
The moment the outermost ring closed, he felt it.
It was not pain. It was worse. It was absence. The teleport, folded and waiting at the edge of his mind since morning, was simply not there. The gravity. The Third Eye. Even the Charm system. None of it seemed to function right now!
Every ability he owned, every power he’d copied, every system-granted gift, vanished in the space of one small footstep, like candles in a sealed room.
Nicholas stood very still in the golden light, and for the first time since the tournament began, his heartbeat actually moved.
Across the formation, Fengyin opened his eyes.
"Now we are both healthy," the disciple said quietly.
’This...’ Nicholas’ gaze dropped to the script flowing beneath his boots, and the thought landed like a blade being drawn in the dark.
’An ability similar to the Void...?!’