Chapter 121: Chapter 121: Knock on the Door
As the away side, San Dimas stood over the ball.
The referee raised his whistle.
The stadium noise dipped, like a breath caught in a thousand throats.
Prrriiitttt!
Kickoff.
Victor tapped to Miles.
The ball barely rolled before Victor launched forward, body like an arrow loosed from a bowstring.
Lincoln’s line jolted into motion.
Riku snapped his head, tracking. Noah shifted his stance. Julian shadowed Victor’s run, legs coiled to mirror his stride.
But then—two steps in—Victor broke it off, pivoting sharp, sprinting back.
Miles slid the ball right back into his path.
A neat one-two. Clean. Almost lazy.
Except it wasn’t.
Victor flicked the ball off to San Dimas’s central midfielder and detonated forward again, this time dragging Lincoln’s shape with him. Blue jerseys bent toward his lane, the gravity of his run pulling them left.
Julian’s perception surged, a warning bell screaming in his blood.
[Rule The Pitch – Lv.2: +15 To
Perception ]He felt it. Not with his eyes, but with the map of the field imprinted in his mind.
Victor wasn’t the blade. He was the lure.
"Switch!" Julian barked, chest tight.
And then he saw it—the real spear.
Kai Mendoza, sprinting from deep on the right, his Blitz Run detonating like a cavalry charge.
The space was open, the flank naked.
Miles lifted his head once.
One step, one glance—then a pass, carved with the precision of Algorithm Pass.
The ball whistled through the air, arcing toward the right wing like it had been pre-written in code.
Lincoln’s defenders scrambled to rotate, studs ripping the turf in panic.
But Julian already knew.
They were late.
The ball had already landed at Kai’s feet.
On the bench, Crest and Laura froze mid-conversation.
The Lincoln crowd fell silent, the roar collapsing into a sharp, collective inhale.
"Tariq, get to him!" Coach Owen bellowed, voice tearing through the noise.
But no one was close.
Tariq lunged in from the flank, body angled, teeth clenched. Kai didn’t slow—his Blitz Run was merciless. He burned down the sideline, Tariq slamming into him, shoulder-to-shoulder, trying to force him wide.
Kai broke the contact, cut inside, ball glued to his boot.
One touch. Another. Inside the box now.
Lincoln’s defenders swarmed, but he’d already killed the passing lanes. No layoff. No cross. Just him.
Bang!
A shot—driven low, fierce, aimed to slip inside Cael’s right post.
But Cael was waiting.
Not a deflection. Not a parry.
A clean, hungry catch.
The ball smacked into his gloves, locked there like prey in a predator’s jaws.
The stadium gasped.
San Dimas’s section fell into uneasy murmurs.
"I got itttt!" Cael roared, fire blazing in his grin, leaping up with the ball in hand. His first save since his injury, and he let the world feel it.
Julian’s chest eased, a smile tugging at his lips. But beneath it, a chill stirred.
That strike wasn’t just an opening.
It was San Dimas knocking on Lincoln’s door.
Julian dragged in air, lungs burning as if the shot had whistled past him instead of Cael. The sound of the catch still rang in his ears, louder than the stadium itself. It was proof Lincoln had survived the first blow—yet his gut told him survival was not the same as safety.
Every heartbeat replayed the image: Kai cutting through grass and bodies like he was carving space itself. That wasn’t reckless speed. That was precision. The kind of attack designed to test more than defenses—it tested belief.
It was San Dimas knocking on Lincoln’s door, rattling the hinges, letting them know how easily it could all collapse.
...
Cael’s roar still echoed, gloves clenched tight, but San Dimas didn’t flinch. They didn’t sulk. They simply reset—like wolves who’d tested the fence, found it sturdy, and knew it would bend with the next push.
Julian’s eyes tracked them jogging calmly back into shape. No slumped shoulders, no hands thrown up in frustration. Just blank faces and steady strides. It was the silence of men who already knew their next move. That silence was more terrifying than any scream.
The way they retreated unnerved Julian most. Not frustration, not anger—just cold calculation, as if their attack had been nothing but a probe. The kind of patience that belonged not to boys, but to predators who’d hunted before.
Cael wasted no time, rolling the ball out wide. Lincoln surged forward, chasing the chance to flip danger into opportunity.
Riku cut inside, body low, driving the ball through midfield. Noah peeled left, hugging the touchline, his sprint tearing space open. Julian slipped between them, not just running—commanding the tempo, carrying Lincoln’s rhythm into San Dimas’s half.
But the pitch itself felt heavy. The shadow of Kai’s run hadn’t vanished; it lingered, humming through the turf like heat radiating off struck iron.
Julian’s breath slowed. His veins thrummed.
This wasn’t chaos.
Every step, every decoy, every false sprint from San Dimas—it was choreographed. Their press, their rotations, even their restraint.
And at the center of it all stood Victor.
Not just a striker.
A conductor.
Victor didn’t move like a forward chasing scraps. He moved like a general, tugging invisible strings.
Every time he drifted wide, defenders followed. Every time he held still, San Dimas’s midfield adjusted, the shape snapping tighter.
His presence was gravity, and Lincoln’s players were moons caught in orbit.
Julian narrowed his eyes, voice slipping out in a mutter that was half-warning, half-prayer.
"Don’t bite too fast."
His chest hammered as he realized what Victor was doing. The striker wasn’t trying to break them with one strike—he was loosening the screws, one pass, one run at a time.
The crowd’s noise rippled strangely now—half roar, half murmur—as if the stadium itself felt the match settling into a dangerous rhythm.
Sweat stung Julian’s eyes, the cold air burning his lungs, yet his pulse refused to calm. Every breath came sharp, the kind that left frost on his lips.
Cael’s earlier save still buzzed like electricity through the team, but beneath it, a silence stretched, a question unspoken.
Was Lincoln holding firm—or just standing on a cliff’s edge, waiting for the ground to give?