The world slowed to a crawl.
Jax was a statue in the distance, his body coiled in the final moment of his wind-up, a miniature sun of orange energy held in his palm . The air itself felt thick, charged with an impossible amount of raw, untamed power. The rest of the court, the other players, the distant goals—it all faded into a blurry periphery. My entire universe was the oncoming Jax Hammer and the two glowing notifications in my vision.
[Momentum Chain at maximum. MP Meter is Full: 100/100]
[Crucial Feature Unlocked: [Replicate].]
My mind raced, processing a thousand possibilities in a nanosecond. I could try to dodge, but the blast radius of a shot that big would be huge. I could use my own Power Shot (Pierce), but it was like trying to stop a cannonball with a needle; my perfected technique was useless against such overwhelming, brute force.
Or… I could trust the System.
I could trust the beautiful, perfect logic that had guided me this far. For ten chapters, the plan had been to survive by playing my game. But the plan had just changed. The System was offering me a new path. Not to evade, not to counter with precision, but to meet power with power.
It was the ultimate irony. The ultimate insult. To use his own crude, sloppy, signature move against him.
The players on the court only saw me standing still, frozen, seemingly paralyzed with fear before the oncoming storm. They thought it was over.
I made my decision. Replicate.
The System responded instantly, my hundred hard-earned Momentum Points vanishing in a single, silent flash.
[Replicate function engaged. Target: 'Power Shot' (Crude). Cost: 100 MP.]
MP: 0/100
[Replicating now… Temporary skill synchronization at 100%.]
A torrent of data flooded my mind. It was the same information from my first analysis of the Jax Hammer, but this wasn't passive knowledge. This was a command protocol. My body moved, but I wasn't the one moving it. The System was in control, a ghost in my machine, puppeteering my limbs with a speed and precision I could never hope to achieve on my own.
My feet planted. My hips twisted, mimicking Jax's over-rotation with perfect fidelity. My arm swung, copying the premature wrist-flex that I knew wasted so much energy.
From the sideline, Coach Valerius's eyes widened. He saw me, the kid with the perfect, efficient form, suddenly abandon it all to copy Jax's sloppy, brutish posture. It made no sense.
Then, I started gathering Aether.
Because the System was replicating the crude skill, it bypassed my own refined control. It pulled in a massive, chaotic amount of energy, leaking heat and light in every direction, just like Jax's did .
A huge, unstable, blazing orange ball of Aether formed in my palm. It was identical to the one across the court.
The other players gasped. Ren, my captain, stared with his mouth agape. It was impossible. They had all seen my small, controlled, blue shots. This massive, raging orange fireball was something else entirely. It was like watching a stray cat suddenly roar like a lion.
Across the court, Jax's mind shattered. He was in the middle of unleashing his ultimate attack, the pinnacle of his power, and he saw his mirror image. He saw the zero, the rat, the trickster, effortlessly wielding the very same power. For a split second, his focus, his rage, his entire sense of self, faltered.
I felt the raw, untamed energy coursing through my arm. It felt… inefficient. Wasteful. A blunt instrument compared to the surgeon's scalpel I was trying to learn. But it was undeniably, overwhelmingly powerful.
At the exact same moment, we both fired.
Jax's roar of effort was met by my own silent, System-driven release.
Two identical suns rocketed toward each other from opposite ends of the court.
The world turned white.
BOOM!
The impact was a physical thing, a shockwave of force and sound that shook the entire arena. The other players threw their arms up to shield their eyes from the blinding flash of light. The two massive, unstable energy signatures, identical in every way, collided in the dead center of the court and annihilated each other in a perfectly symmetrical explosion.
They cancelled each other out completely.
The neutral Aetherball, which had been at the heart of the clashing energies, was blasted high into the air from the force of the explosion, tumbling end over end towards the distant ceiling, completely out of play.
When the light faded, the court was still.
The players, from both teams, were just floating there, staring at the spot where the two attacks had met, their faces a mask of stunned disbelief.
Jax was on the other side of the court, his arm still outstretched, his chest heaving. The rage was gone, replaced by a hollow, broken confusion. He looked at his own empty hand, then at me. He had thrown his very best punch, only to watch his opponent throw the exact same punch and fight him to a perfect standstill.
I was equally drained. The cost of the replication was immense. Channeling that much raw, unrefined energy had pushed my body to its limit. I was panting, my muscles screaming, the familiar throb of a system-induced headache returning behind my eyes.
The scrimmage had come to a dead stop. No one knew what to do. The game, the score, none of it mattered anymore. They had just witnessed something that broke the rules of their world.
A long, sharp blast from a whistle cut through the stunned silence. Coach Valerius was walking onto the court, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated shock. The usual anger and intensity were gone. In their place was something I had never seen before. Awe.
He stopped, his eyes locked on me. He wasn't looking at a player anymore. He was looking at a phenomenon. An impossibility.
"What," he said, his voice barely a whisper, but it carried across the silent court. "Was that?"