Estádio da Luz, Lisbon.Tuesday Night. Second Half.Score: Benfica 1 - 1 Bologna.
The second half didn't begin with a tactical adjustment. It began with a volcanic eruption.
As the referee signaled the restart, Benfica resumed their geometric pressing immediately. Their red shirts shifted in unison, forming a kaleidoscope of pressure designed to suffocate Bologna inside their own defensive third. To the sixty-five thousand souls watching in the stands, the game looked exactly the same as the first half.
But to Rio Valdes, the world had slowed to a crawl.
The Entity of The Phenomenon (R9) was active.
It wasn't just a stat boost. It was a biological hijacking. Rio felt his muscle fibers vibrating, thickening, and screaming with potential energy that his frame wasn't designed to hold. His quadriceps felt like coiled steel cables pulled to their breaking point, ready to snap at the slightest provocation. A deep, burning heat radiated from his core, spreading to his extremities like molten lead.
Minute 48.
Bologna's left-back, Lykogiannis, panicked under the relentless pressure and cleared the ball blindly upfield. The ball bounced awkwardly near the center circle, landing in a dead zone surrounded by three Benfica midfielders.
Normally, Rio would use his Elastic Hips to shield the ball, waiting for support like a traditional target man. But the ghost inside his blood whispered a different command: Hunt.
Rio didn't trap the ball. He let it bounce past him.
Florentino Luís, Benfica's defensive anchor, turned to chase. He had a five-meter head start. In the ruthless geometry of modern football, a five-meter gap at the elite level is an ocean. It should have been impossible to close.
Rio dug his right foot into the turf. The Phoenix Bone in his hip groaned audibly in his own ears—a terrifying creak of stress—but it held firm, acting like a titanium piston driving a runaway engine.
Then, he ignited.
ZWOOSH.
It wasn't a run. It was a violent release of kinetic energy. In three strides, the ocean evaporated. Rio breezed past Florentino as if the Portuguese midfielder were standing in quicksand. The displacement of air generated by Rio's sprint actually ruffled Florentino's jersey, a phantom wind born of pure speed.
"What the...?" Florentino gasped, reaching out to grab a shirt that was already ten yards away.
High above in the commentary box, the Portuguese announcer lost his composure. "Look at that acceleration! Valdes has turned on a jet engine! He's eating the ground!"
Rio reached the ball. He was now thundering toward the defensive line at full tilt. Shoulders hunched, head down, ball glued to his feet despite the terrifying velocity. António Silva and Nicolás Otamendi, the center-back duo, stepped back instinctively. Terror flashed in their eyes. They had studied speed, they had prepared for pace, but this was different. This was heavy, locomotive power.
Rio wasn't just a runner. He was a freight train with the brakes cut.
Minute 55.The Destruction of Order.
"Stop him! Foul him! Do something!" Roger Schmidt screamed from the technical area, his stoic demeanor shattering like glass dropped on concrete.
Benfica's tactical discipline crumbled. The famous "12-meter distance" rule became useless when the opponent moved faster than the defenders' synapses could fire.
Rio received a pass from Ferguson thirty meters from goal. Otamendi realized he couldn't match the speed in a footrace, so he decided to gamble. He slid in aggressively, studs up, aiming to sweep everything into the stands—ball, man, and ankles included.
It was a career-ending tackle.
Rio saw it coming. The logical move was to brake or dive. But the entity within him sneered at logic.
He utilized the Explosive Acceleration (Grade S+).
Just as Otamendi made contact, Rio didn't dodge. He simply tapped the ball forward and hurdled the tackle.
CRACK.
Pain shot through Rio's hip as he launched himself into the air. It felt like a hot needle piercing the joint. His muscles screamed in protest at the sudden vertical force. But he flew over the Argentine veteran with the grace of a gazelle and the landing impact of a bull.
He hit the ground and instantly accelerated again. Zero to thirty kilometers per hour in a single heartbeat. The pain in his hip became a dull roar, drowned out by the adrenaline.
The Estádio da Luz fell into a stunned silence. The older fans in the stands rubbed their eyes, hit by a wave of déjà vu. They recognized that gait. The explosive burst, the terrifying directness, the sheer arrogance of running straight through a defense. They were seeing Ronaldo Nazário in a Bologna shirt.
Rio entered the penalty box.
António Silva was the last line of defense. The young defender tried to jockey, staring at the ball, terrified of committing a foul.
Rio performed a Pedalada. It was a single, lightning-fast step-over executed without breaking stride.
Silva froze for a microsecond.
That was all the ghost needed. Rio shifted the ball to the right and blasted past him.
Now it was just Rio and Vlachodimos.
The keeper rushed out, spreading his arms to cover the angle, making himself big. The "Old Rio" would have chipped him or curled it into the corner.
The "Phenomenon Rio" did neither.
He rounded him.
With a touch of humiliating brilliance, Rio tapped the ball to the side, leaving the goalkeeper grasping at thin air, and simply jogged the ball into the empty net.
GOAL.Benfica 1 - 2 Bologna.(Agg: 1-2)
Rio didn't smile. He jogged to the corner flag and stood there with arms outstretched and his index finger wagging. It was the iconic celebration that had once ruled the world.
Inside his mind, the System notification flashed crimson. The Borrowed Attribute was consuming his stamina like a furnace. His lungs burned as if he had inhaled smoke. His muscles were swimming in lactic acid. The cost of channeling a Legend was immense, and the bill was coming due.
Minute 78.The Collapse of the Machine.
Benfica was broken. Not tactically, but psychologically.
Their "Perfect Machine" had no answer for a player who treated their defensive lines like traffic cones.
Gonçalo Ramos looked lost. He tried to rally his team, shouting instructions, pointing at spaces. But every time Bologna got the ball, the Benfica defenders retreated in fear. The compact shape was gone. The algorithm had crashed.
Rio Valdes was everywhere. He wasn't just scoring; he was terrorizing.
In the seventy-eighth minute, he chased a loose ball to the corner flag, beating the full-back purely on acceleration, winning a corner kick just to waste time.
He leaned against the advertising board, gasping for air, chest heaving like a dying engine. Sweat poured into his eyes, stinging them. The 45-minute timer was ticking down. He had twelve minutes left of the Phenomenon's power, and his body felt like it was disintegrating.
Adrian Vance watched from the bench, his knuckles white as he gripped his wheelchair. "He's redlining," Adrian whispered to the coach, his voice trembling. "Look at his chest. He's hyperventilating. We need to sub him off."
"No," Italiano refused, his eyes fixed on the field, a mix of awe and concern. "If we take him off, Benfica will realize the monster is gone. His presence alone is pinning them back. He stays until the final whistle."
Minute 90+4.Survival.
The Fourth Official raised the board: 5 minutes of stoppage time. The Phenomenon entity had faded at the ninetieth minute.
Rio felt the power leave his body like water draining from a tub. Instantly, the magic vanished. His legs felt heavy as lead. The fatigue hit him like a physical blow, nearly buckling his knees. The pain in his hip returned with a vengeance, sharp and throbbing.
"Hold on," Rio gritted his teeth, tasting iron. "Just hold on."
Benfica launched one final, desperate assault. A long ball was pumped into the box. Ramos won the header, towering over Bologna's defense. Ideally, he would have knocked it down for a teammate. But desperation made him selfish. He tried to head it directly at goal from fifteen yards out.
Skorupski leaped and plucked the ball from the air.
The referee checked his watch. He brought the whistle to his lips.
Fweeeeet! Fweeeeet! Fweeeeeeeeeet!
The game ended. Benfica 1 - 2 Bologna.
The Bologna players erupted, hugging each other, screaming into the Lisbon night. They had conquered the Estádio da Luz. They had taken a massive step toward the Quarter-Finals.
But Rio didn't celebrate. As soon as the whistle blew, he collapsed to his knees. He didn't have the strength to stand. His right hip throbbed with a dull, rhythmic warning. It held up, but only barely.
Gonçalo Ramos walked over to him. The Benfica striker looked down at Rio. The arrogance and cold calculation were gone from his eyes, replaced by a genuine, unsettling confusion.
"That speed in the second half," Ramos said, his voice quiet amidst the celebration. "That wasn't in the data. Your top speed increased by 4.5 kilometers per hour compared to the first half. Biology doesn't change that drastically in a fifteen-minute break."
Rio looked up, sweat dripping from his nose onto the grass. "Maybe your data set is too small, Gonçalo."
Ramos shook his head slowly. "No. You are cheating. I don't know how, but you are cheating nature."
Ramos turned and walked away, not waiting for a handshake. "Enjoy the win. But machines learn. In the second leg at Bologna, we will be ready for the speed."
Rio watched him go. He wanted to retort, but he had no breath left. Ramos was right. The Global Gacha Tier 2 had a cooldown. He couldn't use the Phenomenon again for the next match. He had shown his trump card, and now the enemy would spend two weeks dissecting it.
The Tunnel.Post-Match.
Rio limped toward the locker room, his arm draped over Orsolini's shoulder for support. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He expected a text from Tyler Stone or his mother. Instead, the notification came directly from the System app.
The holographic screen confirmed the match completion with an S-Grade Performance. The reward was a welcome addition: +5 Days of Lifespan. His total counter ticked up to 219 Days.
But then, a jarring crimson warning blocked his vision. The Global Gacha Tier 2 had a hidden price tag, and the bill had arrived.
[Side Effect Activated: Muscle Atrophy]
The text was clinically brutal. It explained that his quadriceps muscles had suffered micro-tears due to exceeding their natural capacity. The penalty was severe: Sprint speed reduced by 15% for the next 7 days.
Rio cursed silently. Reduced speed for seven days. That meant for the next Serie A match against Juventus—the biggest game of the domestic season—he would be slower. He would be vulnerable.
This was the trade-off. To be a god for 45 minutes, he had to be a cripple for a week.
He looked at the tunnel ahead. It was dark and long. Just like the 219 days he had left.
"Worth it," Rio muttered, clutching the Man of the Match trophy that a UEFA official had just handed him. "Totally worth it."