Chapter 194: [194] "Synergy"

Hugo struck a perfectly weighted, first-time through ball that skimmed across the wet grass, slicing the remaining two center-backs wide open.

Dário collected the ball in stride, breaching the penalty area. The Aquitaine goalkeeper, Vasseur, rushed off his line, arms spread wide. Dário opened his hips, aiming for the far post, and fired a low shot.

Vasseur managed to get a desperate boot to the ball, deflecting it wide for a corner kick.

It didn’t result in a goal, but it indeed added to the psychological damage. Aquitaine realized that if they pushed up, Valois would carve them open. If they stayed back, Valois would pass them to death. It was tactical checkmate.

The rain continued to hammer down as the clock crept toward the eightieth minute.

The mud was now so thick that the players looked as though they had been dragged through a trench. The numbers on the back of the SC Valois away kits were barely visible beneath layers of brown mud.

But Hugo Blanc and Max Caster looked as though they were playing a different sport entirely.

The two teenagers had developed an almost telepathic synergy in the central spaces. They operated in a constant, fluid rotation, pulling the Aquitaine midfield apart with rapid give-and-go sequences. They were too agile to be tackled, and too intelligent to hold onto the ball long enough to be fouled.

Minute eighty.

SC Valois took possession deep in their own half. Amadou Fall passed the ball to Zack Florez on the left touchline.

The eighteen-year-old left-back looked up the pitch. The Aquitaine right wing-back, completely exhausted from seventy-nine minutes of relentless tracking, was standing with his hands on his knees, gasping for air.

Zack didn’t pass. He put his head down and initiated a blistering sprint.

He drove up the flank, his legs easily outpacing the shattered Aquitaine defender. Zack crossed the halfway line, then the edge of the final third, finding himself with acres of uncontested space.

"Keep going!" Luc shouted, his voice echoing in the empty apartment.

Zack reached the edge of the penalty area. He didn’t cut inside. He didn’t slow down. He looked up, assessing the chaotic scramble inside the eighteen-yard box.

Max Caster had made a darting, late run from deep, arriving near the penalty spot perfectly unmarked. The remaining Aquitaine center-backs were desperately backpedaling, trying to organize a defensive line that simply did not exist.

Zack whipped his left boot around the ball, delivering a vicious, chest-height cross that ripped through the rain.

The delivery was slightly too high for a volley, and far too powerful to trap cleanly on the muddy turf.

Max Caster saw the trajectory. The sixteen-year-old prodigy possessed a processing speed that rivaled veterans a decade his senior. He calculated the weight of the wet ball, the slickness of the grass, and the proximity of the desperate center-back closing in on him.

He knew that if he attempted to bring the ball down, he would be tackled.

He also knew exactly where Hugo Blanc was.

Max didn’t jump to head the ball, instead he planted his feet, arched his back slightly, and met the violent cross perfectly with his chest.

It wasn’t a trap. It was a meticulously calculated, first-time set.

Max cushioned the wet ball, absorbing the momentum and angling his torso to redirect the ball perfectly to his right. The ball popped off his chest, floating softly backward, hovering beautifully in the air just at the edge of the penalty arc.

Hugo Blanc had continued his trailing run from the midfield.

The seventeen-year-old maestro arrived at the exact coordinates of the dropping ball. He didn’t break his stride or take a touch to settle the momentum of the ball. He didn’t even look at the goalkeeper.

Hugo’s eyes were locked with cold-blooded focus on the ball.

He planted his left foot deeply into the ground, securing his anchor, and leaned his body over the ball. He pulled his right leg back, locking his ankle into strike zone, and unleashed a ferocious, first-time volley.

The connection was immaculate. The sound was a percussive thud that cracked through the stadium, audible even over the torrential rain.

The strike possessed no curve. It was a pure, unadulterated laser beam of kinetic energy. The ball tore through the air, slicing through the space between two frozen Aquitaine defenders, and rocketed toward the top right corner of the net.

Vasseur, the Aquitaine captain and goalkeeper, didn’t even move his feet. He only turned his head, his eyes tracking the motion as it passed by him.

The ball slammed into the underside of the crossbar, snapping the mesh backward, and crashed down into the back of the net with devastating authority.

Goal.

3-0.

Luc Beaumont leaped off the sofa, forgetting the mandated medical rest, ignoring the agonizing spike of pain that shot through his leg, and let out a massive, echoing roar of absolute triumph that filled the apartment.

His arms thrown wide in a massive showing. For a second, the adrenaline of Hugo Blanc’s volley completely masked the severity of his physical condition. But injuries, as always, remained undefeated.

As Luc came back down, his right foot brushed against the floor. He didn’t put his full weight on it though, his athletic instincts forcing his left leg to take the brunt of the landing, but the slight impact was enough. A sharp jolt shot straight through his leg from the bone bruise beneath the compression sleeve.

Luc winced, his breath catching in his throat, and he immediately collapsed backward, dropping heavily onto the plush leather cushions of the sofa.

He lay there for a moment, his chest heaving, waiting for the prolonged throb that usually accompanied a bad movement. He braced himself, expecting the joint to swell against the confines of the freezing sleeve, expecting the regret of breaking Juliette’s strict mandate of zero impact.

But the escalation never came.

The sharp sting lingered for a few seconds, just a little ache that felt more like a mild reprimand than a catastrophe, before slowly fading back into the background of his ongoing recovery.