AutumnXd
patreon
Chapter 43: King of the Cup
🕑 Added 2025-06-30 13:48:31 +0000 UTCRussell's latest opponent didn't just lose—he disintegrated. The poor bastard's strategy crumbled before Russell even bothered to look interested. Another body for the pile, another step closer to the inevitable.
Quarter-finals. Semi-finals. Each match lasted barely long enough for the crowd to settle into their seats. Russell carved through New Metro's finest like a scythe through wheat, leaving behind a trail of shattered dreams and confused teenagers wondering what the hell had just happened to them.
The whispers followed him everywhere now. Monster. Freak. What kind of high schooler fights like that?
But whispers were all they were. The truth—that Russell operated on a completely different level—remained locked away in VIP boxes and director's offices, a secret too dangerous for the masses.
Finals day arrived like a fever dream.
New Metro had gone completely insane. The Prodigy Cup wasn't just a tournament anymore—it was a cultural phenomenon, a citywide obsession that had infected everyone from corporate executives to street vendors. The grand arena didn't just host a crowd; it contained a living, breathing organism of sixty thousand voices, all screaming for blood.
"COLE KONG'S GONNA RIP HIM APART!" A man in Aurora High colors nearly fell from his seat, beer sloshing everywhere.
"RUSSELL'S UNDEFEATED! UNDEFEATED!" The New Metro First High section roared back, their chant building like a war cry.
The noise was physically painful. It pressed against your eardrums, crawled under your skin, made your teeth ache. This wasn't just excitement—this was mass hysteria.
High above the chaos, the VIP box floated like a serene island of privilege. Mr. Sterling, Golden Talent Credit's silver-haired executive, accepted congratulations with the weary smile of a man who'd seen the future and found it boring.
"Already ordered the victory champagne, Sterling?" A guest's joke fell flat.
Sterling's smile never wavered, but his eyes held secrets. He'd sat across from Director Valerius, had seen the files, knew what was coming. Cole Kong was a genius, sure—the kind of once-in-a-generation talent that would dominate any other year.
Unfortunately for him, he was about to meet God.
The arena's iron gates didn't just open—they groaned open, like the mouth of some mechanical beast finally ready to feed. Spotlights carved through the artificial twilight, and the crowd's roar reached a pitch that seemed to crack the very air.
"SIXTY THOUSAND SCREAMING FANS!" Moby's voice cut through the chaos like a blade. "TWO WEEKS OF CARNAGE! ONE NIGHT TO DECIDE EVERYTHING!"
The cameras found their targets. Russell emerged from the shadows looking like death itself—calm, inevitable, utterly untouchable. Every step was measured, every breath calculated. He wasn't walking to a fight; he was walking to a coronation.
Cole Kong burst from the opposite gate like a man possessed. Nerves had transformed into something harder, more dangerous. His jaw was set, his eyes burning with the kind of desperate intensity that either forged legends or destroyed them entirely.
The microphones caught every breath, every heartbeat, broadcasting their souls to the world.
"Russell." Cole's voice cut through the arena like a blade. "You are strong. But this championship belongs to me."
Before Russell could even process the challenge, Moby exploded.
"FIGHTING WORDS! COLE KONG IS READY TO BLEED FOR THIS CROWN!"
Russell's eyes flicked toward the commentary box—one brief moment of pure, undiluted annoyance. The cameras caught it. Magnified it. Broadcast it to every screen in the arena.
"OH! DID YOU SEE THAT DEATH STARE? RUSSELL'S NOT IMPRESSED! THIS IS GOING TO BE NUCLEAR!"
Fucking showman, Russell thought, forcing his face back to neutral.
The whistle didn't just blow—it screamed.
Luffy materialized like a grinning nightmare, all rubber limbs and impossible confidence. But Russell's certainty wavered as Cole summoned not one card, but two, their combined presence making the air itself feel heavier.
The crowd knew the first monster—[Armored Beast · Bo], a walking tank of iron and fury that had demolished every opponent it faced. But the second card sent whispers rippling through the stands: a humanoid figure with skin like wet clay and a heartbeat that pounded through the arena like a war drum, making everyone's pulse synchronize with its rhythm.
"BREAKING: Intel from the commentary desk!" Moby's voice crackled with excitement. "That's [The Unbegotten]—another legend from the Classic of Mountains and Seas! And sources tell me it has a SPECIAL BOND with the Armored Beast!"
Cole's voice boomed across the battlefield. "Russell, you are very strong. So I won't be holding anything back!"
What happened next redefined impossible.
The Unbegotten leaped onto the armored beast's back with fluid grace, transforming into a cavalry unit that belonged in humanity's darkest nightmares. A ghostly lance materialized in its hands, crackling with otherworldly energy, as the beast charged forward like an avalanche of steel and fury.
But that wasn't the real surprise.
The ground beneath Luffy's feet suddenly became a bubbling swamp of viscous mud, trapping him in place like the earth itself had turned traitor.
"This is my special combination skill!" Cole roared, his voice cracking with triumph and desperation.
Luffy stared down at his trapped feet with the kind of innocent confusion that belonged in a children's cartoon, not a battle to the death. "Huh?" He tried pulling them out with his hands, tilting his head like a confused puppy.
The ethereal lance hurtled toward him. Sixty thousand people held their breath.
Then Luffy began spinning his legs like a propeller.
The arena erupted in laughter—not polite chuckles, but the kind of hysterical, disbelieving laughter that happens when reality breaks down completely. Luffy helicopter-lifted himself into the air, mud flying everywhere, his expression one of mild satisfaction.
"UNBELIEVABLE! RUSSELL'S CARD CAN FLY! I'VE OFFICIALLY SEEN EVERYTHING!"
But Cole wasn't finished. The lance dissolved, reforming into a massive longbow that hummed with dark energy. A jet-black arrow materialized, crackling with malevolent power, and shot toward the airborne Luffy like a meteor.
Luffy leaned casually to one side, the arrow whistling past his ear close enough to ruffle his hair. He wiped imaginary sweat from his forehead with theatrical flair.
"Phew, that was a close one!"
His voice, amplified by the mic, sent another wave of laughter through the crowd. But underneath the humor, something else was building—a sense that they were watching something impossible, something that didn't belong in their world.
Russell sighed audibly, the sound carrying across the arena like a judge's gavel.
"Okay, Luffy, stop playing around. Solve this quickly."
The arena fell silent. Not quiet—silent. Sixty thousand people stopped breathing at once.
"WHAT DID WE JUST HEAR?!" Moby's voice cracked with disbelief. "Did Russell just tell his card to STOP PLAYING AROUND?!"
Cole Kong's face flushed crimson, then went pale, then flushed again. His cards responded to his emotional storm—phantom swords shot skyward like accusations while The Unbegotten unleashed a barrage of arrows that turned the air itself into a weapon.
Luffy's grin widened until it split his face in half.
"Gum-Gum... BAZOOKA!"
Time didn't slow—it shattered.
Luffy's arms stretched impossibly far back, gathering power from dimensions that shouldn't exist. Then they snapped forward with the force of a collapsing star, two massive fists descending from the heavens like the judgment of an angry god.
The shadow of those fists engulfed the entire battlefield, plunging everything into darkness. Cole Kong's cards—his pride, his strategy, his dreams—looked like toys beneath the approaching annihilation.
The sound of impact was beyond description. It wasn't just loud—it was fundamental, like the universe itself was coming apart at the seams. The arena shook. Windows cracked. People grabbed their seats and held on for dear life.
A mushroom cloud of dust and debris erupted skyward, obscuring everything in a gray-brown apocalypse. The crowd fell silent, their minds struggling to process what they'd just witnessed.
Then, from within the chaos, came Cole Kong's voice. Not the confident warrior who'd entered the arena, but something broken, something that had just watched its entire worldview collapse:
"You're..."
"Bronze-level?!"
The revelation hit the crowd like a physical blow. Bronze-level. Not iron. Not even advanced iron. Bronze.
The dust began to settle. Through the clearing haze, they could see Russell standing exactly where he'd been before, untouched, unmoved, unimpressed. Cole Kong's cards had been reduced to scattered light particles, his dreams to vapor.
And in the sudden, crushing silence that followed, only one sound remained—the slow, deliberate clapping of a boy who had just claimed his throne.
The King of the Cup had been crowned.
(End of Chapter)
