Chapter 168: Nectron Vs Tianzun 2
"START!"
The entire world expected the same thing.
They had watched Nectron all year. They knew what the giant was. His gravity could double the weight of a mountain, could pin a charging beast flat to the earth, could crush stone to powder with a thought. So when the horn sounded, sixty thousand people braced for the obvious: Nectron would pour everything he had into that first trial, drop the full crushing weight of his power onto the monk, and try to press Star Dragon Tianzun into paste against the stage before the god could so much as smile.
That was the play. That was the only play anyone could imagine.
Nectron did not make it.
He came in fast, gravity flickering under his boots to launch him, and he swung, a heavy, clean, textbook right hand. A good punch. A normal punch. The kind he might throw at any hero in any match. No world-crushing weight behind it, no gravity well opening beneath the monk’s feet, nothing extraordinary at all.
Tianzun tilted aside, and it passed him by.
"Trial one," the monk said softly.
The colosseum blinked.
’This feels wrong,’ Nectron thought, resetting his stance, everything in him straining against the instruction. Every instinct he had built over years of fighting was screaming at him to open the gravity well, to bring the full weight of his power down and end this before the god could answer. It went against everything he knew to stand in front of Tianzun and hold back. ’Trust him. Just do what he said. Exactly what he said. Nothing more.’
Nectron reset and came again, and again it was ordinary. He used his footwork. He used his reach. He threw combinations a mid-tier hero could have thrown, augmented with just enough gravity to move his own bulk, and not one gram more. He fought the god of the tournament like he was sparring in a training hall.
He did not once try to crush him.
"...What is he doing?" Julie’s voice was climbing toward bewilderment. "That’s, folks, that’s not Nectron’s power! Where’s the gravity?! Where’s the WEIGHT?! He’s fighting the strongest man in the world with, with jabs?!"
In the American alcove, Nicholas’ one good eye was locked on the stage, cold and unblinking, watching not Nectron but the monk. Watching how Tianzun moved. Watching what he did, and more importantly, what he didn’t.
’Ordinary attacks,’ he thought, his gaze tracking every fold and slip of the monk’s body. ’Nothing that threatens him. Nothing that makes him reach for the wheel. Let’s see what a god does when he isn’t forced to become one.’ His eye narrowed a fraction. ’Show me the man under the mercy, Tianzun. Show me the rule.’
The stream chat lost its mind.
[Marypaz13: WHY IS HE NOT USING THE GRAVITY. USE THE GRAVITY]
[Zerox4575: is he hurt?? did something happen to his ability??]
[Will_1631: no way. NO WAY he’s wasting the trials on love taps. there has to be a reason]
[MarcoTiebosch: this is what Phantom whispered to him isn’t it. THIS. but WHY]
[Cyndy9338: my grandmother throws harder punches than that and she’s a sweet woman]
[reinstate: he’s scouting? testing? SOMETHING? nobody walks into a god and shadowboxes on PURPOSE]
[SirAnime_lord: three years undefeated and America’s answer is to... not try? I’m so confused]
[Ybbev: nah there’s a plan here. phantom doesn’t do anything by accident. WATCH]
[yanko_abreu: the whole world’s yelling at their screens rn and Nicholas is just... standing there calm. that scares me more than the god]
Tianzun slipped the second flurry with the ease of a man stepping around a puddle, hands still folded loosely at his center, and inclined his head.
"Trial two."
In the American alcove, Selena’s jaw had dropped. "He’s throwing them away. He’s just... throwing his trials away!" She rounded on Nicholas. "Whatever you told him, he’s WASTING all three chances against the one opponent where chances actually matter! Nicholas, what is he DOING?!"
Nicholas said nothing.
Beside him, though, Dana had gone very still, her pen frozen above her clipboard, her eyes moving between the calm monk and the calmer man at the rail. She didn’t understand it yet, not fully. But she had spent enough time around Nicholas to recognize the look on his face, the particular stillness he wore when he was watching a trap he had already set, waiting for something to walk into it. Nectron wasn’t wasting the trials. Nectron was the bait. And whatever Nicholas was fishing for, it wasn’t a victory this round.
"He’s not trying to win," Dana murmured, almost to herself. "Not yet. He’s trying to learn something."
Selena turned to her. "Learn what? He told me he already understands the ability."
"Then maybe," Dana said slowly, her eyes never leaving the stage, "this is the part where he finds out if he’s right."
Down on the stage, Nectron threw his third and final sequence, ordinary as the first two, a workmanlike combination that any hero in the stands could have named, and Tianzun flowed around all of it without lifting his weight off his heels.
The giant stepped back, breathing steady, having spent three full trials against a god and shown him nothing at all.
To the entire watching world, it looked like the single most baffling waste in the history of the tournament. Nectron had been handed the one mercy that had ever let anyone touch Tianzun, three free strikes, three real chances, and he had used them to throw punches he could have thrown in his sleep. Fans who had waited all day for a titanic clash sat in stunned, murmuring confusion. Analysts in a dozen broadcast booths argued over dead air. It made no sense. It couldn’t make sense. And yet the man in the American alcove who had orchestrated it wore the calm, focused expression of someone whose plan was unfolding exactly as intended.
"He... he’s used all three," Julie said, almost mournful. "All three trials, and he never once used his real power. I don’t understand it, folks. I don’t think anyone does. It’s over. The trials are done."
Tianzun lowered his hand.
For a long moment he simply looked at Nectron, and something behind that bottomless smile shifted, a flicker of quiet, genuine interest, as though the monk had noticed something the crowd had not.
Then he drew his hands from his sleeves.
The strange, vast energy began to pour off him once more, the air around his frame growing heavy and wrong, and behind him, unseen by all but one man in the arena, something immense began to stir.
The trials were over.
Now it was Tianzun’s turn to fight back.