Chương 203: So Kowalski was Right

Chicago Bears Training Facility, November 9th, 2030 Coach Thompson of the Chicago Bears had coached for thirty-one years. He'd seen players fake injuries and discover mysterious back issues right before tough matchups. He understood the instinct. Professional sports were brutal, and self-preservation was human nature. But he had never, in three decades of coaching, seen his three starting flyers standing in his office asking to be benched. The Bears were 7-2. They were leading the NFC North.

They were on track for a first-round playoff bye.

"Let me make sure I understand this correctly." Thompson leaned back in his chair. His desk sat between him and the three starting flyers like a barricade.

"The game is tomorrow. And you want me to bench you. All three of you. Against the New York Giants." Swift shifted his weight from foot to foot. Odunze stood with his arms crossed. Montez hadn't moved since he walked in.

"Yes, Coach," Swift said.

"You realize what you're asking me to do." Thompson looked at each of them in turn.

"You want me to bench three Pro Bowl caliber players because you're afraid of a rookie. The media will have a field day.

'Da Bears Too Scared to Face Leo Chen.' That's the headline. That's what they'll run."

"I can live with a bad headline," Odunze said.

"I can't live without my sword." Thompson's jaw tightened. He pulled up footage of last week's game on the TV behind him. McCaffrey flying through MetLife Stadium, Leo clinging to his sword, drawing with his formation brush.

"We spent the week on this. Every coach, every analyst. You know what the conclusion was?" Thompson jabbed a finger at the screen.

"Chen got lucky. McCaffrey underestimated him. The 49ers let him latch on because they didn't know what he was drawing." Swift watched the footage. McCaffrey was spinning, diving, reversing hard enough to dislocate a shoulder. Leo's brush kept moving. Sure didn't look like McCaffrey 'let' him latch on.

"Leo needs sixty seconds of uninterrupted contact." Thompson paused the footage.

"Sixty seconds. Do you know how long that is in an NFL game? An eternity. McCaffrey gave him that time because he didn't know what was coming. You do. The cat's out of the bag. Shake him off in five seconds and the formation fizzles." He spread his hands.

"The same trick doesn't work twice." Odunze studied the frozen frame. McCaffrey's panicked face was visible through his visor.

"And if we can't shake him off?" Montez's voice was quiet.

"If one of us loses a sword?"

"Then the organization will compensate you. Full market value." Thompson met his eyes.

"You have my word." The three flyers exchanged glances. Odunze laughed bitterly.

"Coach, I talked to McCaffrey yesterday." He uncrossed his arms and stepped closer to the desk.

"You know what kind of sword the 49ers gave him? Base model. Stock T4 blade. McCaffrey put twenty years of upgrades into Ravensblood. Gone." He shook his head.

"If McCaffrey wants to fly like an All-Star again, he's going to have to put up his own money. We're talking seven figures, minimum." Thompson's eye twitched.

"I heard the same thing," Swift added. He was fidgeting with the zipper on his jacket.

"The organization promised him full support, and now they're hiding behind contract language. Something about..."

"That's the 49ers." Thompson cut him off.

"We're not the 49ers. The Bears organization takes care of its players. I will personally guarantee..."

"Put it in writing." Thompson stopped. Montez's expression was flat.

"A binding contract. Full replacement value for any sword lost to Leo Chen's formation, paid within thirty days, no exceptions, no loopholes. Signed by the owner, not just you." The office went quiet. Outside, the distant sound of defenders running drills drifted through the window. Thompson's jaw worked. He knew what would happen if he asked. Legal would drag their feet. Review the language. Flag concerns. Request clarifications.

And somehow, despite everyone's best efforts, the contract wouldn't be ready until the day after the game with the Giants.

"I'll see what I can get in writing," Thompson said finally. He didn't meet their eyes.

"But." Thompson's voice hardened.

"Whether or not that contract gets finalized, you will be playing tomorrow. All three of you." Odunze opened his mouth.

"You think I want to send you out there?" Thompson rubbed his face.

"The league called me this morning. Apparently half the teams on the Giants' schedule have players trying to sit out. Mysterious injuries. Family emergencies. One guy claimed his sword needed spiritual recalibration, whatever the hell that means." He stood and walked to the window, his back to them.

"The Commissioner has decided to make a statement. Anyone who ducks a game against Leo Chen, anyone who mysteriously gets injured, anyone who refuses to engage? They're opening competitive integrity investigations." He turned back.

"You know what the punishment is for that?" He stared them down.

"Permanent ban from the game." Swift froze.

"You signed contracts. You are professional athletes. You will do your jobs." Thompson walked to the door. He paused with his hand on the handle.

"The coaching staff will have a revised game plan ready by this evening. We will stop Leo Chen." He looked back at them.

"And you will not embarrass this organization by running away from a nineteen-year-old with a formation brush." Thompson left. The door clicked shut behind him. The three flyers stood in the empty office. The frozen footage of Leo still glowed on the TV, his formation brush pressed against McCaffrey's blade. Swift was the first to move. He slumped into one of the chairs facing Thompson's desk and tilted his head back.

"Man." He stared at the ceiling.

"What are we supposed to do? I really can't take on more debt right now. Jenny's already on my case about the boat."

"You bought a boat?" Odunze turned to stare at him.

"It was a good deal! The guy was desperate to sell, his wife was leaving him, he practically gave it away..."

"Okay, okay!" Odunze cut him off.

"What are we actually going to do tomorrow?" Montez walked to the window their coach had been standing at. The practice fields stretched out below, empty now. The defenders had finished their drills.

"You do what you signed up to do," he said without turning around.

"That's all there is to it." Swift sat up.

"That's easy for you to say. You've got what, twenty years of savings? Some of us are still paying off our training loans."

"If I lose my sword tomorrow, I'll probably just retire." Montez sighed.

"I'll breakthrough to Gold Core. Find something else to do with my life." Odunze frowned.

"Montez. You're at what, eighty thousand Si? You're so close to a hundred thousand. You could qualify for the Apex Flyer program. Taking on some debt would be worth it if you could..."

"Could what?" Montez turned from the window.

"Become an Apex Flyer?" Something in his tone made Odunze stop.

"You know how long I've been in this league? Twenty years. And every single contract, every loan, every equipment advance, I've made sure not to swear any Dao heart oaths." Montez walked to the desk and leaned against it, facing them.

"My credit's worse for it. Interest rates are higher. But if everything goes wrong, I can walk away with my cultivation intact." Swift looked confused.

"What does that have to do with the Apex Flyer program?"

"The kind of resources they pour into the Apex Flyer program. The techniques. The body refining." Montez shook his head slowly.

"They're going to want guarantees. They're going to want Dao heart oaths."

"So?" Swift spread his hands.

"If you're an Apex Flyer, you're basically invincible. You won't need to walk away from anything." Montez was quiet for a moment.

"You know why the Apex Flyer program exists, right?" Neither of the other two flyers answered.

"We're all told they're superweapons. Our trump card against Nascent Souls," Montez said.

"The way I see it, we don't actually need more T4 combat power. We've got that covered. The Apex Flyers aren't being trained to help us secure a few more T4 spirit veins." He looked at them both.

"They're being trained to do what the Monarchs of Earth are supposed to do." The room went quiet.

"If you join the Apex Flyer program, they won't send you after Nascent Soul Lords." Montez pushed off from the desk.

"Your job will be to crack the Gate of Contrition. To fight the Monarchs of the Catacombs. To die in place of the T5 Deity Transformation Monarchs who don't want to risk their own lives." This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Montez turned to leave.

"If you haven't already sworn a Dao heart oath, I would think very carefully before you sign up for the Apex Flyer program." He walked out. The door closed softly behind him. Odunze stared at the floor, turning Montez's words over in his head. Swift's face had gone pale, his hand drifting absently to his dantian.

The Bears game broke every ratings record the NFL had set since the league's founding. Seventy-seven million viewers watched live. Another ninety million caught the highlights within twenty-four hours. The Bears spent the first two quarters running from Leo. Every time Leo's chainhook swung toward a Chicago flyer, they burned T4 qi to escape. Every time he drifted into their airspace, they scattered.

The strategy worked in the sense that no one lost a sword, but by halftime, the Bears had exhausted most of their T4 reserves just running away. In the third quarter, the Giants went on the offensive. Chicago's flyers tried to run, but running required T4 qi they no longer had. One by one, the Giants picked them off. By the eight-minute mark, only Montez remained. He hung in the air near the Bears' fort, tower shield raised, watching Damari and Leo close in from opposite directions.

Damari didn't try to eliminate him. Instead he crashed shoulder-first into Montez and wrapped both arms around his torso. They tumbled through the air, grappling. Montez tried to break free, but Damari's body refinement was freakish even by NFL standards. The striker absorbed every elbow, every knee, every desperate thrash, and just kept squeezing. They hit the turf hard. Damari rolled on top, pinned Montez's arms with his knees, and looked up at Leo. Leo landed beside them.

His chainhook wrapped around Montez's sword. He pulled it down and pinned it under his knee. The stadium went silent. Everyone knew what came next. Montez didn't struggle. He lay there beneath Damari, watching Leo draw, and his expression behind the visor was oddly peaceful. He'd made his choice in Thompson's office. He'd played the game. Now he could walk away. Sixty seconds later, his sword was seeking enlightenment.

The endorsements piled up faster than Vivian could process them. Red Bull was first. Their slogan was "Red Bull Gives You Wings," and their marketing team had apparently been waiting for someone like Leo their entire careers. They offered twelve million for a three-year deal with minimal obligations. Vivian negotiated it up to fifteen million and removed a clause that would have required Leo to attend European promotional events. Etihad Airways followed. Then Emirates. Then three separate luxury watch brands.

By December, Leo had signed endorsement deals totaling seventy-three million dollars. He had paid off his debt. His accounts were finally in the positives. But it could have been more. Vivian had turned down over two hundred million in offers. The pattern was always the same: generous upfront payments, reasonable time commitments, and somewhere buried in the fine print, open-ended service clauses. Obligations that didn't specify what Leo would actually be doing.

Commitments that could be "activated" at the sponsor's discretion. Language that sounded like endorsement work but read like enlistment contracts. She rejected every one of them. The attention was harder to manage than the money. Leo got invitations from every podcast, talk show, and magazine in the country. He declined most of them, but there were too many to avoid entirely. He did GQ because Vivian said it would be good for his brand. He did ESPN because Harbach said it would help the team.

He did a live stream with a popular gaming YouTuber because the guy seemed nice and Leo had two hours to kill. Flyer Seven wasn't just a player anymore. He was a phenomenon. A nineteen-year-old rookie was embarrassing Pro Bowl flyers on national television. Games hadn't been this exciting in decades, and everyone agreed on the reason: young blood. The pundits ran with it. If one teenager could do this, what could dozens more do? The talent was out there, they said.

Thousands of cultivators in their thirties and forties who'd reached Gold Core but were barred from Flying Aces. The league's cultivation restrictions were keeping the best players off the field. Leo never made that argument. But every time he sent a sword into the heavens on national television, someone else made it for him.

The first league to act was the Premier Flying Aces League in England. The announcement arrived three days after Leo's game against the Vikings. The Premier League was relaxing its cultivation restrictions. Previously, only Foundation Establishment cultivators could compete in professional Flying Aces. Now, Gold Core cultivators would be permitted to participate, provided their divine sense did not exceed one hundred thousand Si. Within a week, four other European leagues announced similar rule changes.

La Liga in Spain. Serie A in Italy. The Bundesliga in Germany. Ligue 1 in France. All five announcements used nearly identical language, calling for a new generation of competitors. Young Gold Cores flooded the European leagues. In Spain, a twenty-eight-year-old Gold Core named Alejandro Vega debuted with a hat trick in his first quarter. His divine sense was only sixty-two thousand Si, unremarkable by professional standards. But his Gold Core reflexes let him react faster than any Foundation Establishment player.

In Germany, a thirty-one-year-old Gold Core named Ingrid Weiss micrododge through overlapping flak bursts at point-blank range. The footage spread across social media within hours. Analysts who had spent months calling Leo's micrododging a one-of-a-kind gift watched Weiss do it in her debut. The reason Leo was the only flyer in the league who could micrododge was his remodeled governing vessel. The Profound Clarity Spirit Nectar had sped up the pathway between his mind and his dantian.

Weiss had closed that gap through Gold Core mental refinement techniques Within a month, four other Gold Cores in Europe had demonstrated Leo's signature technique. The ratings climbed. European Flying Aces viewership had been declining for years. The flyers moved faster than the average person's eyes could track, and the same teams won every year. Fans had stopped tuning in. Now the numbers reversed. La Liga saw a 340% increase in viewership after Alejandro Vega's debut.

The Bundesliga sold out stadiums that had been half-empty for decades. The Premier League signed a broadcast deal worth three times their previous contract. Sponsors poured money into the European leagues. Endorsement deals that had once gone exclusively to NFL players were now split across two continents. Young Gold Core flyers who had been locked out of Flying Aces signed seven-figure deals for their rookie debut. The sports media called it a revolution.

The next generation of flyers was here, and they were better than anyone expected.

The pressure on the NFL began building in early December. Social media campaigns demanded rule changes. Fan petitions circulated with millions of signatures. Sports commentators devoted hours of airtime to debating whether the league should follow Europe's lead. The arguments were compelling. Look at the viewership numbers. Look at the excitement in European leagues. Look at the opportunities being created for young cultivators who had been locked out of professional competition by arbitrary restrictions.

Why should age matter more than ability? Why should a thirty-year-old Gold Core with brilliant technique be banned while a hundred-thirty-year-old Foundation Establishment player with fading reflexes was permitted to compete?

Three days before the Cowboys game, the Giants' locker room was quieter than usual. The regular season was almost over. One more win and they'd clinch the top seed in the NFC. Leo sat on the bench next to his locker, scrolling through his phone. Across the room, Damari was stretched out on a foam roller, eyes closed, earbuds in. Nikki had her feet up on an equipment crate, painting her nails a shade of blue that matched her jersey. Kowalski stood in the corner, arms crossed, staring at Vince.

Vince was on the phone. He'd been on the phone for twenty minutes. The conversation was entirely one-sided. Vince just listened, occasionally grunting.

"Uh huh." Vince turned away from the room.

"Uh huh. No, I hear you. That's..." He went quiet.

"Yeah. Yeah, I got it. Thanks, pal. I owe you one." He ended the call. For a long moment, Vince didn't move. He just stood there, phone in hand, back to the room. Nikki looked up from her nails.

"Vince? You good?" Vince turned around. His face was wrong. Leo had seen Vince talk his way through contract disputes, bad calls, and a three-hour delay at Newark Airport. The man never stopped smiling. Right now, he looked devastated.

"It's all bullshit," Vince said. Damari pulled out one earbud.

"The viewership numbers." Vince walked to the center of the room, phone still clutched in his hand.

"The European leagues. The ratings explosion. All of it. Complete bullshit." Leo sat up straighter.

"What do you mean?"

"El Clásico was today. Barcelona versus Real Madrid. You know what the official numbers said?" Vince held up his phone.

"A quarter of Spain tuned in. Twenty-five percent of the entire country watching a Flying Aces match." He lowered the phone.

"My buddy runs a sports bar in Madrid. Chain of them, actually. Been in business thirty years. I called him to ask how the crowds were. He said the bars were empty. Nobody showed up. The locals didn't want to watch." Vince shrugged.

"'If people could barely follow Foundation Establishment flyers, why would they want to watch Gold Cores?'" Nikki's nail polish brush stopped mid-stroke.

"That doesn't make sense," Leo said.

"If nobody watched, how did they get the ratings?"

"That's what I'm telling you, kid." Vince spread his hands.

"The ratings are fake. The whole thing is fake. Somebody's cooking the books." Damari sat up slowly. He put away his earbuds and looked at Kowalski. Kowalski hadn't moved. His arms were still crossed, his jaw tight.

"Hold on." Nikki set down her nail polish.

"The endorsements. The sponsorship deals. Companies don't throw around hundreds of millions of dollars based on fake ratings. Their accountants would catch it in a week."

"Loss leaders," Vince said.

"That's my guess. Somebody with deep pockets is subsidizing the whole operation. The sponsors aren't making money. They're not supposed to make money. The point isn't profit. They are after something else." Everyone looked at Kowalski. Leo expected Kowalski to be smug. This should have been his moment. Kowalski had spent the whole season warning them about hidden agendas, surveillance formations, and institutional conspiracies.

He'd been laughed at, ignored, and fined for stuffing aluminum foil into his helmet during games. Now he was vindicated. But he wasn't smug. He wasn't satisfied. He was angry.

"Dale." Nikki's voice was careful.

"You don't really think this is about..."

"Yeah." Kowalski's voice was quiet.

"I do." Nobody spoke.

"The rich families. The old money. The Deity Transformation Monarchs who decide what gets printed and what gets aired." Kowalski clenched his fists.

"They're not just content owning the teams anymore." Leo frowned. He didn't like where Kowalski was going with this.

"Think about it." Kowalski started pacing.

"The European leagues open up to Gold Cores. Suddenly all these young prodigies are dominating the sport. Getting endorsements. Getting famous." He stopped and looked at them.

"You know who has kids at Gold Core in their thirties and forties? The aristocrats. The old families. The people who can afford mental refining techniques and private tutors and spiritual medicines." Nikki set down her nail polish.

"Dale, I've watched the European matches. Those new flyers aren't rich young masters. Alejandro Vega grew up in a fishing village. Ingrid Weiss's parents were factory workers." She shook her head.

"They're commoners. Just like me and you."

"For now." Kowalski looked at her.

"But what about five years from now? Ten? When it's too late to change the rules back and the players union is full of flyers on the aristocrats' payroll?"

"They want to remake the league," Kowalski said.

"No more commoners who came up through hard work. No more veterans who earned their spots over decades. Just their spoiled kids, doped up on mental refining techniques that money can't even buy." He laughed bitterly.

"They'll call it progress. They'll say they're making the sport more exciting. And when it's done, people like us won't be able to compete anymore." No one knew what to say.

"The rich kids are jealous of people like us. People who had to work hard to earn what they have." Kowalski's clenched fist shook.

"They feel like it's their right. They should be the ones on TV. They should be the ones who get to play to their hearts' content. Not commoners. Not nobodies who clawed their way up from nothing." Leo wanted to argue. He thought about Edward, about Harry, about Jimbo. His friends. They wouldn't be part of something like this. He wanted Kowalski to be wrong. But he couldn't explain the empty bars in Madrid. He couldn't explain the fake ratings.

"I always had a feeling," Kowalski said.

"That someday the rich families would figure out a way to shut down the NFL. Make it so commoners couldn't play anymore." Kowalski shook his head slowly.

"But now I realize. They don't plan on shutting it down." He looked at Leo.

"They plan on replacing every player inside the league. Starting with us."