Chapter 178: The Final Punch!
The Monkey King did not dodge.
That was the last thing Nicholas expected, and it was the only scenario he had no answer for. Every calculation he had made during that final spatial fold relied on one key assumption: the trickster would try to slip out of the way. That was how the god had fought during the entire match, hiding behind waves of clones and thick curtains of smoke. Nicholas was certain the god would never trade a direct blow. A creature built entirely on mischief and trickery was not supposed to meet a punch head-on. That was his entire nature. He was a god who won by simply never being standing where his enemy struck.
And that was exactly why he chose, in this single split second, to stand his ground.
The Monkey King had felt the danger in the instant before their fists collided. He had felt the power coiled tightly inside Nicholas’ fist—a hungry, endless abyss reaching out toward him. An ancient instinct, far older than the system itself, warned the god that this was not an attack he could simply dodge or ignore. This was a strike that had to be met with everything he had, or not met at all.
The wide grin across the god’s face stretched even wider. Instead of pulling back to safety, he drew his own fist back and threw it straight forward to meet Nicholas’ attack knuckle for knuckle.
The two fists collided directly in the center of the ruined stage.
And the world screamed.
The Monkey King’s punch carried an unbelievable force straight out of ancient myths. It was the raw power of a legendary creature that had brawled through heaven and cracked the pillars of the sky. It was enough strength to shatter an entire mountain range and turn it into dust. That power rushed down the length of his arm like a giant fist closing around the world itself.
And the Void existed for exactly one purpose.
It existed to eat it.
Every single ounce of that mountain-breaking force poured straight into the exact point where their knuckles touched. The Void opened its endless throat and began to swallow the impact whole. It drank down an absurd amount of power—energy that should have instantly erased Nicholas from existence. The Void consumed it, negated it, and turned absolute destruction into nothingness right at the single square inch where two fists refused to back down.
From the exact center of the impact, space itself began to rip apart.
The sheer strain of a god’s physical strength meeting a hunger that devoured strength was more than the air between them could handle. Reality split wide open along the seam of their collision. Cracks of raw white nothingness began spidering out through the air, across the cracked ground, and up into the night sky above the arena. It looked as though the fabric of the world could not support two absolute forces pressing directly against each other.
Up in the American alcove high above the field, Selena grabbed the metal railing with both hands, leaning far over the edge. "What is that? What’s happening to the air down there?"
"He connected," Dana whispered. She had completely forgotten about her clipboard, her eyes wide with genuine shock for the first time all day. "He actually landed the hit. That’s the Void, Selena. That’s what it looks like when it finally finds something worth eating."
Across the massive arena, the crowd fell completely silent in a way that felt dangerous. Sixty thousand spectators watched in awe as cracks of pure white light crawled across the sky above the stadium. They could feel it in their bones: they were looking at something human eyes were never meant to see twice.
"I... folks, I don’t even have the words for this!" Julie’s voice came shaking over the loudspeakers, trembling with excitement. "Space is tearing open around them! In all my years of broadcasting, I have never seen anything like what is happening on this stage right now!"
And slowly, impossibly, Nicholas began to push forward.
’I can do this,’ Nicholas thought through the overwhelming pressure. ’Just keep pushing.’
His boots dug deep into the crumbling stone floor. His broken ribs burned with severe pain. Blood flowed freely down his forehead and from the corners of his mouth. Every single muscle in his body strained far past its absolute limit. Yet inch by grinding inch, his fist advanced against the god’s own knuckle. The Void was drinking power faster than the Monkey King could pour it out. For the first time in the entire fight, the confident grin on the trickster’s face began to flicker.
Something deep behind that grin—something vast, ancient, and powerful looking out through the god’s borrowed eyes—went completely still. It had not expected this outcome. In all the centuries it had existed and all the forms it had ever worn, it had never expected a mortal to stand fist to fist with a god and actually win the exchange.
From the sides, the clones took action.
They dived at him all at once. Thirty-nine golden staffs were raised high into the air as the remaining copies hurled themselves toward the man locked in combat with their original body. Nicholas caught sight of them charging toward his flank out of the corner of his bleeding eye.
’If I miss this, it’s over,’ he realized, his mind racing as the golden weapons closed in. ’Not just the fight. Everything. If even one of those staffs hits me before the Void finishes swallowing his power, it will knock me loose. There won’t be a second teleport, no second opening, and no second chance to get this close ever again.’
He had one single moment left, and it was rapidly closing.
Nicholas threw his head back and roared—a raw, wordless sound ripped from the very bottom of two full lifetimes. Every year he had survived, every kill he had made, every sniper scope he had looked through, every rooftop he had crouched on, every silent contract, and every brutal fight of this endless day was poured directly into his closing fist. He threw in every scrap of borrowed strength he possessed, every point of Charm the world had bled into him, and every last piece of his spirit that refused—and had always refused—to lose.
’Drive through it!’ he commanded himself. ’Finish it now!’
He forced his fist completely through the god’s guard.
The Void surged with unbelievable power.
A massive, blinding explosion detonated right from the point where their fists met.
The shockwave blasted outward in a single blinding wave of light and force. The concrete platform beneath their feet buckled instantly, sinking meters deep into the earth as a massive crater swallowed the center of the stage whole. The diving clones caught the very edge of the blast and were immediately blown to pieces. Thirty-nine clouds of white smoke were shredded and scattered in an instant by the sheer wind.
The pressure slammed directly into the spectator stands, flattening the final standing ruins at the far end of the arena. The defensive barrier blazed bright white, screaming against the force as its hexagonal energy panels flared up one after another. The shockwave rolled all the way around the massive bowl of the colosseum and escaped into the night sky beyond.
Every person in the colosseum threw their arms up to shield their faces and turned away, unable to look directly into the blinding light and crushing wind pouring off the collision. Hands covered eyes and bodies turned away as sixty thousand people flinched together from a blast born from a mortal’s fist striking a god.
An instant later, everyone turned back to look. All sixty thousand people in the stands and two hundred million viewers watching behind their screens leaned in closer. Not a single person could bear to miss the final result. After an entire day of brutal battles, after five exhausting fights, a race, a tournament, and three long years of watching a man who had never lost a single match, they had to see who had won.
The thick cloud of dust and debris slowly began to settle over the ruined crater.
And through the haze, faint and completely unmoving, everyone could see a single silhouette standing proudly in the very center of it all.
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Thank you so much for reading! Hehe 💜