Chapter 18: The Cold Weapon
Dallas Cowboys Stadium. Second Quarter. Score: 7:0. Time: 09:15.
The field was an execution ground, not a sporting arena. The air was heavy with the smell of defeat and raw desperation. The Cowboys' elaborate plan had imploded; two-thirds of their specialized "Legal Weapon" force lay broken on the sideline.
The score was a humiliation, but the real damage was existential—Levi had proven immune to both the crushing force of impact and the insidious agony of torque. The atmosphere on the Cowboys' sideline transitioned from tactical failure to sheer, primal malice.
The Head Coach, his face a mask of psychotic fury, screamed the final, desperate orders at Mark "The Hammer" Coleman, the last viable champion. Coleman, a man known for his brutal power, had become the team's final, sacrificial missile.
"Forget grappling! Forget the rules! You are an assassin!" the coach shrieked, his voice hoarse. "Hardness is useless against cutting! Target his ankles with the alloy spikes! Go for the Achilles, go for the tendons! We will bleed him out! We will end this monster's career here!"
Coleman, his eyes fixed with cold malice, returned to the field. He wore specially modified cleats: the standard plastic spikes replaced with sharpened, elongated alloy metal cones—a genuine cold weapon designed to bypass the blunt force protection of the Diamond Form by using acute, shearing pressure. His focus was not the ball; it was the vulnerable juncture of Levi's shin and ankle.
Levi took the ball and instantly felt the profound shift in the defensive strategy. The remaining Cowboys defenders scattered wide, adopting a formation designed not to defend the running back, but to funnel him directly toward Coleman.
"Dr. Sophie, what is their final plan?" Levi asked, the thrill of battle tightening in his throat.
Sophie's voice, crackling over the headset, was strained with professional dread. "They are targeting your shins and ankles! The goal is to lacerate the skin and cut the tendons! They've switched to cutting weapons! Be careful, Levi! The System never guaranteed absolute defense against cutting!"
Levi knew this was his true test. Impact was one thing; a precise, high-velocity cut against a specific weak point was another, relying on molecular separation rather than compression.
Coleman lunged, ignoring the ball, turning his body into a projectile. He aimed his foot, heel first, at Levi's lower shin. The alloy spikes, sharpened to surgical precision and gleaming with cold malice, flew through the air like daggers aimed at the tendons.
SOPHIE SCREAMED in the booth, a raw, primal sound of medical horror.
CRASH! SSSSPARK!
The alloy spikes hit Levi's Diamond Skin. There was no sound of tearing flesh. Instead, the horrifying, high-pitched shriek of metal grinding against metal erupted—a sound more appropriate for a forge or a machine shop than a football field.
Brilliant, yellow-white sparks flew! The immense kinetic energy of Coleman's full-force leap, combined with the impossible, molecular hardness of Levi's skin, generated an electrical friction that showered the field in fire! It looked like an arc welder attacking a bank vault.
Coleman's desperate attack did not scratch Levi's skin. The alloy spikes, designed to cut, had failed to find purchase on the diamond-hard flesh and had simply ground themselves down to dull, pulverized metal powder.
Levi stood perfectly still, the shockwave barely registering as a tremor in his core. He looked down at his shin. It was perfectly fine, save for a faint white chalk outline left by the pulverized metal.
He looked up at Coleman, who was staggering backward, his face a mask of disbelief and pain—his ankle wrenching from the reflected, unabsorbed impact.
The Coldest Contempt.
"What are you doing, Mr. Hammer?" Levi asked, his voice dripping with condescending humor. "Polishing me? Your technique is insufficient. The force wasn't enough to achieve even a micro-abrasion."
Humiliation and utter despair crushed Coleman's fighting spirit. He wasn't fighting a man; he was fighting a fundamental law of physics. He staggered backward, defeated not by strength, but by the sheer, unyielding crystalline structure of his opponent's body.
Levi's playful expression instantly evaporated, replaced by cold, absolute fury. He was done playing. "If you want to play dirty, if you want to bring cold weapons onto the field, I'll flip the table!"
He tossed the ball to the quarterback, effectively ending the offensive play, and initiated "Hunt Mode." His target was now personal. Levi charged Coleman like a speeding cannonball, slamming his Diamond Shoulder directly into the back of Coleman's ribcage.
The force, amplified by Levi's incandescent rage and the legally sanctioned Unrestricted Collision Rights, was equivalent to a high-speed vehicle impact—a car hitting a concrete wall. Coleman only felt a sudden, explosive internal pressure that detonated his consciousness; he never screamed. He simply flew out of bounds like a discarded ragdoll, smashing through the sideline billboard with a sickening KRAKOOM and falling into immediate, total unconsciousness.
The Final Warning.
Levi calmly walked over to the wreckage, retrieving the twisted, broken alloy spikes that lay near Coleman's head. He presented them to the head referee, his eyes cold and unwavering. "They attempted murder with these weapons," Levi stated, his voice devoid of emotion, yet possessing terrifying authority. "If you throw a flag against me for that impact, I guarantee you will be the next accessory to be investigated by the FBI. This is evidence of attempted assault with a deadly weapon."
The referee, trapped between Goodell's legal orders and Levi's physical reality, pocketed the yellow flag, his hand shaking uncontrollably. "The game continues. Ball remains with San Francisco."
Levi turned his back on the wreckage and faced the Cowboys' remaining, utterly defeated players. His voice, amplified by his posture and the surrounding silence, was a cold decree.
"Now, who else wants to polish the Diamond?"