Chapter 157| Collision

Chapter 157: Chapter 157| Collision

The sphere crossed the floor in a silence so complete that Zane heard his own pulse.

It didn’t look like an attack. It looked like a hole, a patch of air folded in on itself, the light around it bending inward. Ryan’s output had gone past anything Zane had seen from a first year.

’Sixty percent,’ he thought. ’And I’m capped at ten.’

『 System Note: Impact Breaker cannot match this output. The system recommends redirection. 』

’Redirect what? I can’t...’

He stopped and began remembering.

Arena 3. Nyx’s palm against his shockwave. The tremble in her forearm. The turn of her wrist.

’She didn’t stop it,’ he thought. ’She bent it.’

He pressed his palm into the floor. Overdrive at B-rank 40% snapped open, the arena slowed to a crawl, and the sphere stretched toward him like a drop of water about to fall.

He didn’t wait for it.

He met it with Impact Breaker at B-rank 10%, driving the shockwave into the floor just in front of him. The wave surged up through the mat and hit the sphere from below.

The two forces collided.

The floor cracked outward in a ring, and a boom rolled across the arena that shook dust from the rafters. The gallery lurched backward as one. Zane felt the sphere slam into his palm like a truck.

"Zane!" Maren screamed, on her feet.

"Sit down!" Dex yelled, grabbing her sleeve. "He’s still standing!"

"He’s going to be crushed!" Nil said, her face pale.

"He’s not," Sera said quietly, her eyes locked on the floor. "Look at his feet."

Zane’s boots skidded back across the mat, leaving two long grooves. His arm shook. His shoulder screamed. The pressure poured through him, and for one sick second he felt it start to win.

Then he felt the seam.

Faint. Thin. The same line he’d found in Arena 3, running through the third slot like a crack in a wall.

Kinetic Force. Zero percent.

’No power,’ he thought. ’But there’s a handle.’

He reached for it anyway.

Nothing flared. No light, no surge. But the force pouring through his arm shifted by a few degrees, a soft pull in the wrong direction, a tilt in the compressed air.

The sphere slid sideways along his palm.

It didn’t vanish. It tore past his shoulder instead of through it, hit the wall behind him, and burst in a thunderclap that rattled every seat in the gallery.

Silence followed.

Zane stood in a haze of dust with his arm hanging limp and his lungs burning. A thin trickle of blood ran from his nose.

’It worked,’ he thought. ’A little.’

『 System Note: Kinetic Force produced a measurable redirect at 0% output. The effect was minimal but non-zero. The system recommends not mentioning this. 』

’I wasn’t going to.’

High on the observation rail, Nyx had gone very still. Her eyes were on his hand.

_ _

Ryan was down on one knee.

The sphere had cost him. His breathing came ragged and shallow, his palms trembled against the floor, and a pale sheen of sweat covered his face. The shimmer around his hands had dimmed to almost nothing.

Zane’s gaze dropped to Ryan’s left side.

’Sera said left.’

The Afterimage timer in his vision ticked to zero.

『 Afterimage cooldown complete. 』

He moved.

Overdrive at 40% dragged the room into slow motion. He crossed the ten metres in a blur, and a pale copy of him peeled away mid-stride, hanging in the air where he’d been. Ryan’s head snapped toward the echo, and his hand lifted by reflex.

Zane was already inside his guard.

He drove his palm into Ryan’s left ribs.

Impact Breaker, B-rank 10%.

The shockwave cracked through the mat. Ryan flew back two metres, hit the floor on his shoulder, and rolled to a stop with his face pressed against the mat.

He didn’t get up.

The gallery held its breath.

Zane stood over him, panting, his hand still extended. His legs shook. His vision tunnelled at the edges, and the arena tilted in slow, sickening arcs.

’Stay down,’ he thought. ’Please stay down.’

A hand flexed against the floor.

Ryan pushed himself up on one elbow. His arm gave out. He tried again. His teeth were clenched, a thin line of blood at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes were still sharp.

He got one knee under him. Then the other.

Then, with a long, rasping breath, he staggered upright.

He swayed there, one hand pressed against his ribs, and looked at Zane.

"Still have a little left," Ryan rasped.

Zane stared at him, chest heaving.

"You still have energy?" he panted. "Seriously?"

"Always." Ryan’s mouth twisted. It wasn’t quite a smile. "You think I’d go down to one hit?"

"It wasn’t one hit."

"It was one that counted."

He lifted a shaking hand. The air in front of his palm thickened, weak, a thin ripple of pressure that wouldn’t have knocked over a chair. His fingers trembled. His knees buckled, and he caught himself with a short curse.

Zane lowered his hand and raised both palms.

’He’s done,’ he thought. ’He just doesn’t know it.’

"I think that’s enough," Vael said.

Her voice cut across the arena like a knife laid on glass.

She’d stepped forward without a sound, her tablet down at her side, her eyes moving between the two of them. She didn’t look angry. She didn’t look impressed. She looked like someone calling the end of an experiment at exactly the right time.

"This match is concluded," she said. "Calloway, Zane, wins by incapacitation of his opponent’s output."

"I’m not incapacitated," Ryan said.

"You’re standing on one leg and your Sigil’s down to a whisper, Castellan." Vael didn’t raise her voice. "I’m declaring it. Sit."

Ryan opened his mouth. Closed it.

His shoulders dropped half an inch, and he sat down heavily on the mat.

The gallery exploded.

The noise hit Zane like a physical thing. Cheers, shouts, stamping feet, someone banging a rail with a bottle. The blue banner had been trampled on the stairs, and somebody was already waving the remains of it over their head. Dex stood on his seat with both arms in the air.

"SUPER DEX CALLED IT!" Dex bellowed.

"You did not," Maren said, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.

"I called it in my heart!" Dex said.

"You called it a draw in the training grounds!" Maren said, referencing what he heard from Zane .

"I was being strategic!" Dex said.

Nil threw her arms around Maren’s neck and shrieked something unintelligible.Zane could feel the weight of her boobs on his back barely, he felt the pains he had sustained more. Maren pushed her off, laughing despite herself.

Zane stood in the middle of the floor, swaying, with a bloody nose and a hand that wouldn’t stop shaking.

’I won,’ he thought.

『 System Note: The host has won. The system recommends sitting down. 』

’I’m fine.’

『 The host is swaying. 』

He sat down.

Not gracefully. His knees gave out and he landed on the mat with a thump, and the whole gallery laughed.

Ryan watched him from three metres away. Still sitting, still holding his ribs, with something unreadable behind his eyes.

"That sphere," Ryan said.

"Yeah?" Zane wheezed.

"You shouldn’t have been able to deflect that."

"I got lucky."

"No." Ryan tilted his head, studying him. "You didn’t."

Zane said nothing.

"Next time," Ryan said, "I won’t hold back."

High above, Nyx lowered her hand from the rail and gave one small nod.

Just one. Barely a movement at all.

It was enough.