NOVEL WEB Chapter 23: Chapter 23
Attack Clash Defense
The storm that bends must first be swallowed by the sea.
Opening – Stadium Atmosphere
The stadium breathes like a living beast.
Chants rise from the stands like war drums, echoing into the sky. Flags of blue and white whirl like tides in the wind. The sun hangs high above the pitch—hot, unbothered, divine. Napoli's fans are unrelenting in volume, and yet their noise only sharpens my focus.
I look up at the sky. Clear. Endless. Unforgiving.
Then I look forward—Napoli in blue, their players sleek and charged with an energy that feels almost predatory.
I'm slotted in as second striker, playing just behind Amadou Femi, the iron spearhead of our attack. He glances at me with silent confidence.
And then…
Kick-off. 00:03 – 20:00
Femi taps the ball back.
The orchestra begins.
We shift into our attack rhythm like storm fronts crashing into a coastline. The midfield presses forward under the calm command of Captain Varga, whose eyes sweep the field like sonar. Every run, every touch is precise—our roles moving together like the cogs of a machine tuned for pressure.
I move like smoke through Napoli's formation, unnoticed at first—trailing, floating, waiting. Then I make my first sprint, a diagonal burst. Tanaka reads it. Pass.
I flick it wide.
Grim tears up the flank, ghosting past defenders like vapor. A heel tap from him to Femi, who draws in Napoli's left back. Switch. Tanaka loops around, dragging the structure thin.
Back to Varga, who body-feints like he's about to shoot—
And I steal the ball from him mid-motion.
Falcon Impact Flow – Step 1.
A flick of the outside foot. I step out. Then in. My path blurs. The defenders are tracking ghosts now.
Their formation? Still compact. But not fast enough.
A blind turn.
Step 2 – Burst.
I pull the trigger from the dead angle. No look. No warning.
Backspin. Trivela. Kaiser Impact Magnus.
Boom.
The sound is visceral. The ball rockets away from my boot at 180 km/h, not straight but away—a paradox shot.
It should be a miss. But then the spin catches.
A 70° curve sharpens to 60°, then 50°, then 37°.
The Napoli keeper doesn't even see it.
It tucks behind him—from the wrong side, bending across the width of the box, sliding between the post and his spine.
GOAL.
Celebration – 1:0 Bayern
I throw my arms up as the stadium shifts into stunned silence. Captain Varga grabs me and pulls me into a huddle.
That tactic—our plan in training—worked. We mapped their press. We knew how to unravel it with misdirection and feints.
Commentator:
"AND THAT'S WHY HE'S BACK! KAISER WITH A GOAL THAT DEFIES PHYSICS! That wasn't just football—it was alchemy. A ball curved like a blade of light, and Napoli's fortress has cracked!"
Kick-off – 17:00 – 40:00
But Napoli is not the kind of team that panics. No, they adapt.
Their midfield becomes mist—slow, suffocating, intelligent. Their structure draws us in with false mistakes. Every loose pass, every stumble? A trap.
We press—too eager. They pull us in deeper.
Their center-backs begin to creep forward like shadows on a sundial. Their full-backs tuck inside. The midfield tightens—snaring us like a net.
My head throbs.
Meta Vision is offline today.
The patterns don't make sense. I can't process the flow. The ball moves too fluidly.
Left back. Defensive mid. Forward. Winger. Backline. Mid again. Forward. Sideways.
I feel like I'm drowning.
The movement peaks when their winger drifts inside, dragging our right back. Cross?
No. Ground pass.
Attacking midfielder flicks it left—
Boom.
Low shot.
Net ripples.
GOAL. Napoli. 1:1.
Commentator:
"What a play! Napoli's triangle press has turned into a serpent! Bayern look out of options, out of ideas—and out of breath."
Half-Time – 45:00
Back in the locker room, sweat coats my back. My shirt clings like armor after war.
I sit, breath heavy.
My mind flashes through the first half.
The way they moved. Tight. Pressured. Each pass bent us, cracked us, stretched us.
Then—
An idea.
A new axis.
I rise, walk over to Varga, and whisper.
His eyes light up like fire catching dry grass.
He stands.
"Everyone. Listen."
Even the coach pauses.
Kick-Off – 45:04 – 60:00
We return to the pitch reborn.
New formation.
A 3–4–1–2.
Grim on the left.
Tanaka on the right.
Kron as a destroyer in DM.
Varga now centrally dominant.
Ness, the mind of the midfield, inserted as a free 10.
I'm behind Femi. Just us two.
But it's enough.
This formation isn't about domination.
It's about denial.
We suffocate their rhythm in the center. Push them to the wings. Funnel their movement.
And control the skies.
From the first second, Napoli looks confused.
They don't know how to respond.
Grim forces a turnover. Kron crushes a pass. Ness releases a one-touch ball that splits two midfielders in half.
I smirk.
"Let's see if they can fly without wings."