Three full minutes. For three agonizing, electrifying minutes, the battle raged. The arena floor was a warzone, scarred black with lightning strikes and gouged by furious, crackling claws. To the thousands watching under the deep purple of the Jamaican twilight, the outcome was a foregone conclusion.
"And Jin Kai continues his relentless assault!" the announcer's voice boomed, a clear note of pity creeping in. "The Rock Vole is doing an incredible job just to survive this onslaught, but it's completely suppressed! It hasn't been able to land a single clean hit!"
Up in the VIP box, the Guild executives were already shaking their heads. "The gap in raw power is simply too wide," one of them murmured, adjusting his tie. "A brilliant defensive strategy from the boy, but you cannot win a championship by only defending. It's over."
On the field, Jin Kai could taste victory. He saw the Rock Vole, panting hard now, its movements just a fraction slower, the network of cracks on its shell looking deeper under the harsh lights. He saw the championship medal. He saw glory.
"Is that all you have, bookworm?" he roared, his voice a taunting, ugly sneer that carried across the arena. "Tired of running and hiding? Let's end this farce! PANTHER, ONE MORE LIGHTNING RUSH! FINISH HIM!"
This was it. The grand finale. The Volt-fang Panther gathered every last scrap of its remaining energy, its sleek black body becoming a blinding storm of crackling blue light. It let out a triumphant roar and launched itself forward—a living projectile of pure, predatory instinct.
The crowd gasped, a single, unified sound of awe and finality. The end was here.
But they couldn't see what Lin Ke saw.
He wasn't a tamer in a desperate defense; he was a scientist who had just successfully concluded the first phase of an experiment. In the swirling chaos of the battle, his mind was an oasis of absolute calm, the Gene Editor's interface a silent, ceaseless waterfall of cold, hard data. He watched the panther's energy signature, once a raging bonfire, now a sputtering flame, plummeting into the red. He saw the wireframe overlay on its muscles flicker with indicators of extreme fatigue. And then, in the instant it coiled for its final charge, he saw it. A micro-tremor in its left hind leg, born of exhaustion. A tiny, fatal flaw. His predictive model flashed a single, stark conclusion: Trajectory locked. Lateral evasion capability: reduced by 90%.
Got you. Lin Ke had weathered the storm. He had drained the battery. Now, he was going to flip the switch.
As the panther launched its final, glorious charge, Lin Ke's eyes, which had been calm and analytical, flashed with a sharp, predatory light. The time for defense was over.
His voice cut through the roar of the arena, clear, absolute, and utterly insane.
"Don't dodge."
The command was so unexpected, so completely suicidal, that it stunned the people nearest the field into silence.
The Rock Vole obeyed. It stopped its frantic scrambling. It planted its feet, its tired body trembling with exertion. It did not use Rock Harden. It did not brace. It stood there, completely exposed to the oncoming doom.
"He's given up!" someone screamed from the stands.
Jin Kai laughed, a triumphant, mocking sound that echoed through the stadium. "Too scared to even move?!"
But then came Lin Ke's second command. A command that made no sense. A command that would be burned into the memory of everyone watching for the rest of their lives.
"Target, ground. 1.5 meters ahead of you. Full power. DIG."
Without question, without hesitation, the Rock Vole lowered its head and slammed its powerful claws into the solid, packed earth of the arena floor. It wasn't an attack. It wasn't a defense. It was a desperate, frantic act of excavation.
The Volt-fang Panther was just meters away now, a bolt of living lightning about to strike. The championship was about to end in a single, reality-breaking moment.