The clock showed one second. Just one.
Everything was noise. The roar of a hundred thousand people, the shriek of energy blasts, the thunder of bodies hitting kinetic shields. It was a storm, and I was in the center of it. Then, for a moment, it was quiet. Real quiet. It was the calm that happens right before the world ends. Or begins.
My system screamed at me. Red warnings flashing all over my vision, the kind I told myself to ignore. Neurological damage imminent, one said. System integrity at 3%. I didn't care. All that mattered was the one second on the clock.
My body screamed too. Every muscle fiber felt like it was tearing apart, burning from the inside out. This was the cost of [Legendary Momentum]. The power to see the world as pure data, to move faster than thought, it had a price. And the bill was coming due.
Across the zero-g arena, he was there. The main antagonist, the head of OmniCorp, in his golden Aether Gear. A man who bought his power. He moved like a blur of light, a god of the arena. His cannon was charging, a sun-sized ball of energy that could turn me to dust. But to me, in this moment, he was just data. A set of probabilities. A problem to be solved.
I saw the path. Not with my eyes. My system showed me. A single blue line, a perfect trajectory cutting through the chaos of the battlefield. It weaved past two of his guards, went under a burst of plasma fire, and ended right at the goal. It was an impossible shot. A one-in-a-billion chance. For anyone else, anyway.
Replication Complete, a quiet notification pinged in my mind. The skill I'd just analyzed from him, his own signature move. The ultimate irony.
My opponent fired. The world turned white.
But I was already gone.
I moved, my body following the blue line my system drew. Time felt thick, like moving through water. The ball of Aether in my hand felt heavy, pulsing with all the momentum I had left. It felt like the whole world. The final play.
The goal was right there. Open.
I let the shot fly.
The clock hit zero. The stadium, the world, it all held its breath.
And waited for the roar.