Stadio Renato Dall'Ara, Bologna.Tuesday Night. 24th Minute.Score: Bologna 0 - 0 PSG.
Physics usually has rules. It dictates that a human body, a construct of flesh and water, has a terminal velocity on a grass pitch. When that limit is breached, reality begins to tear at the seams.
Kylian Mbappé didn't run. He detonated.
When he activated Mach One, there was no build-up. No gathering of momentum. One moment he was standing still, the next he was a blur of white and blue tearing a violent hole through the midfield structure.
Rio Valdes saw it happen. His Eye of the Storm was active, dilating his perception so that the world moved at half speed. In this slowed-down, underwater world, he should have been able to react.
But seeing a lightning bolt and outrunning one are two very different things.
Rio's brain screamed: INTERCEPT. His neural synapses fired. His muscles contracted. But before his leg could even lift off the ground to block the path, Mbappé was already gone.
WHOOSH.
The displacement of air actually ruffled Rio's jersey as Mbappé blew past him. It wasn't football speed. It was the kind of velocity usually reserved for apex predators chasing prey on the savannah. It was primal.
"Foul him!" Rio screamed, spinning around, desperation clawing at his throat. "Drag him down!"
Sam Beukema, the last defender, tried. He saw the monster coming. He didn't try to tackle the ball; he stepped out to body-check Mbappé, willing to take a yellow card—or even a red—to save the team.
It was a futile gesture.
Mbappé didn't change direction. He simply knocked the ball twenty meters ahead—a heavy touch that would be a mistake for any other player on Earth. Then, he accelerated again.
Beukema lunged. His hand grabbed at Mbappé's jersey. But the momentum was too great. The fabric slipped through his fingers like water. Beukema was spun around like a top and left collapsing on his knees, defeated by pure kinetic energy.
Now, it was just Mbappé and the goalkeeper, Skorupski.
Skorupski rushed out, making himself big, screaming to intimidate the striker. Mbappé didn't look at the keeper. He didn't look at the ball. His eyes were dead, devoid of emotion, focused only on the efficiency of the kill.
He reached the ball a fraction of a second before Skorupski's hands. A simple toe-poke. At 44 km/h, a toe-poke had the force of a cannonball.
BANG.
The ball vanished into the roof of the net before Skorupski could even blink.
GOAL.Bologna 0 - 1 PSG.
The stadium didn't go silent. It gasped. A collective, horrified intake of breath from thirty thousand people who realized they were watching something inhuman.
Mbappé didn't celebrate. He didn't smile. He didn't run to the corner flag. He simply stopped running, turned around, and walked back to the center circle. As he passed Rio, he didn't say a word. He just stared.
Do you see now? the stare said. This is the summit.
Minute 35.The Cost of Godhood.
The game resumed, but the atmosphere had shifted. Fear had infected the Bologna players like a virus. Every time Mbappé twitched, three defenders flinched. They were terrified of being humiliated again.
But Rio Valdes wasn't looking at Mbappé's face. He was looking at his legs.
[Skill Active: The Eye of the Storm][Target Scan: Host No. 04]
Rio noticed something. When Mbappé walked back to position, there was a microscopic hesitation in his right stride. A limp so faint it was invisible to the naked eye, but screaming loud and clear to Rio's enhanced perception.
Rio narrowed his eyes, focusing his skill until the world faded away, leaving only the biometric data of his opponent.
He didn't need a medical diagram. He could see the heat map overlaying Mbappé's right leg. The Biceps Femoris—the long muscle of the hamstring—was glowing an angry, violent red amidst the cool blue of the rest of his body.
The Mach One skill removed the brain's safety limiter. It allowed the muscles to contract at 100% capacity, bypassing the Golgi tendon organ that usually prevents muscles from tearing themselves apart. Mbappé was running on borrowed time.
He's hurting, Rio realized, watching the muscle fibers vibrate with tension in his mind's eye. He's tearing himself apart to maintain this dominance.
"Adrian!" Rio shouted toward the bench during a throw-in break. He pointed discreetly at his own hamstring.
Adrian Vance, watching the telemetry on his tablet, frowned. He checked the heat map hacked from the broadcast feed. Adrian's eyes widened. He nodded at Rio. Confirmed. His muscle temperature is spiking into the danger zone.
Rio smiled grimly. Mbappé was a Ferrari engine inside a human chassis. If he kept revving at max RPM, the chassis would crack.
I don't need to be faster than him, Rio thought. I just need to survive until he breaks.
Minute 41.The Trap.
Rio changed his approach. He stopped man-marking Mbappé deep in defense. Instead, he moved slightly forward, hovering in the "half-space" between the midfield and defense.
He was inviting the pass. He was baiting PSG to feed the monster again.
Vitinha took the bait. Seeing Mbappé isolated against Lucumí, he launched a long ball over the top.
"Mine!" Mbappé shouted. The Speed King activated Mach One again. The blue aura flared around him. He exploded off the mark.
But this time, Rio wasn't chasing him from behind. Rio was cutting across the angle.
Rio used The Eye of the Storm to calculate the intersection point. He knew he couldn't beat Mbappé to the ball. But he could beat Mbappé to the space just before the ball.
Rio sprinted. Not at 44 km/h, but at his maximum 36 km/h. Just as Mbappé was about to reach the ball, Rio threw his body into the lane. He planted his feet. He engaged The Heavy Tank.
He became a wall.
Mbappé, moving at supersonic speed, saw Rio too late. His brain, boosted by his System, registered the obstacle. DANGER. COLLISION IMMINENT.
Mbappé had two choices:
Crash into Rio at full speed (Risk of injury: Extreme/Bone Fracture for both).Emergency brake (Risk of muscle tear: High).
Mbappé's survival instinct kicked in. He tried to brake. He dug his heels into the turf, shifting his weight backward against the immense forward momentum.
RIIIP.
The sound of cleats tearing through grass was loud, but it was drowned out by a sickening, wet pop from inside Mbappé's thigh. Like a thick rubber band snapping under tension.
Mbappé stopped, wincing violently. He didn't fall, but he grabbed his right hamstring for a split second before masking the pain. The ball rolled past them both, out for a goal kick.
Rio stood up, chest heaving. He looked at Mbappé. The Frenchman was sweating profusely. The arrogance was still there, but beneath it, there was shock.
"You..." Mbappé hissed, the word strangled by pain. "You forced me to decelerate."
Rio walked closer, his voice cold and clinical. "That is the problem with being a god in a mortal shell, Kylian."
Rio pointed at Mbappé's trembling leg. "Your System gives you infinite output, but your tendons are finite. Every time you use Mach One, you roll the dice on your career."
Rio leaned in, whispering the final verdict. "How many more sprints do you have left? Three? Two? Or will the next one snap your tendon completely and end your season right here?"
For the first time all night, Kylian Mbappé didn't have a comeback. He looked at his leg. He looked at Rio. The "Predator" had just realized that the "Prey" had teeth.
[System Notification][Mental Damage Inflicted on Host No. 04.][Opponent 'Confidence' Stat reduced by 15%.]
Rio turned to his team, clapping his hands thunderously. "He's bleeding!" Rio shouted, metaphorically. "The shark is bleeding! Attack now!"
The momentum of the Quarter-Final had just shifted.