Will You Use Your Own Weakness to Attack Your Enemy's Strength?
When the match-up announcement hit the MMA world, a storm exploded.
Message boards, podcasts, and sports shows erupted with accusations. Many fans believed the UFC was deliberately setting up its newest rising star to fail—throwing Yogan to a dangerous stylistic nightmare before he had time to develop.
The fury only intensified after Cole Miller himself poured gasoline on the fire with his arrogant "Spider Web Declaration" during an ESPN interview:
> "Lightning is wonderful, but it can't shatter a carefully woven spider's web. I'll drag him into my world, show him what real despair feels like, and then I'll break his limbs!"
The bold statement shot across social media like a spark. In gyms and living rooms from Shanghai to Chicago, people repeated his words.
But for Yogan, the insult did not plant fear. It ignited something far deeper—the desire to crush his own fate.
The greatest shadow from his previous life had been his ground game. He felt no terror at the thought of grappling with a jiu-jitsu expert. Instead, an unprecedented hunger burned within him to trample his destiny underfoot.
"I didn't return from rebirth just to hide my weaknesses," he whispered to himself that night. "I came back to crush them."
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The War Room
That evening the tactical-analysis room at AKA blazed with light. Fight footage of Cole Miller looped again and again on a giant screen. Each replay was slowed, reversed, and annotated.
Around the long table sat Coach Javier, Daniel Cormier (DC), Khabib, and Yogan. The atmosphere was like a general staff meeting before a decisive battle—serious, sharp, and focused.
"Look here." Javier aimed his laser pointer at the screen. "Miller's punches are deceptive. He's not trying to hurt you; he's closing distance to create takedown opportunities. Think of his fist as a tentacle he can grab onto."
DC stroked his chin. "His core strength isn't elite. Pure wrestling and top control aren't his forte. But he's crafty, very good at keeping his opponent off balance. When he lands something—even just a glancing shot—he comes alive."
On screen, Miller clung to his opponent like a boneless snake. In one fluid motion he shifted to an awkward angle and locked in a triangle choke. The man on the bottom struggled, then tapped with a look of shock and pain.
"Yes," Khabib said coldly, eyes like an eagle's. "A snake. His technique is unorthodox but effective. Watch his hips. Every submission is built on the flexible rotation of his hips. Control the hips, and the 'spider web' is half broken."
Yogan remained silent, his mind working at high speed. His Godlike Reflexes allowed him to see details most fighters missed—tiny shifts of weight, micro-hesitations, invisible patterns.
He noticed something: Miller always made a habitual, split-second pause to adjust his center of gravity before fully locking a triangle choke. For ordinary fighters, that pause was imperceptible. For Yogan, it was a lighthouse in the dark.
"I have an idea." He finally broke the silence.
Walking to the tactics board, he picked up a pen and drew a simple diagram. "All of Miller's offense is based on one assumption: he believes his opponents are terrified of his ground game. What if I launch a proactive ground threat at him when he least expects it?"
The room fell silent. The idea was bold—maybe reckless. Should he use his own weakness to attack the enemy's strength?
DC frowned. Javier opened his mouth, then shut it.
But Khabib's eyes lit up. He understood instantly. "You mean… when he shoots in?"
"Exactly." Yogan nodded. "When his head and neck are completely exposed, the moment he goes for the takedown—instead of defending, I take his neck."
A groundbreaking tactic bloomed in their minds: the standing guillotine choke.
From that day, Team Yogan's preparation turned ruthless and clear.
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Hell on the Mat
Khabib became Yogan's personal torturer. He wasn't just a sparring partner anymore; he became the "Ultimate Spider," stronger and more skilled than Cole Miller himself. He devoured Miller's fight footage, then used more power and trickier setups to recreate every possible ground-attack scenario.
The wrestling mat became Yogan's private hell. Again and again he was dragged into suffocating triangles, his vision blurring, air leaving his lungs. The fear from his previous life surged like a ghost, testing his nerves over and over.
More than once, he wanted to give up. But every time, the image of himself lying in a hospital bed after his past-life defeat—and Cole Miller's smirking face on TV—flashed in his mind.
"No!" he roared inwardly.
He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to calm down, feeling every micro-shift in Khabib's body, every ounce of pressure. His Godlike Reflexes went into overdrive. He wasn't just fighting instinctively now; he was anticipating, seeking a tenth of a second to escape.
Then, during one brutal session, it happened. Just as Khabib's triangle was about to lock in, Yogan caught the "little pause" he'd calculated countless times. He twisted his body at an unusual angle and used his shoulder power to break the choke's alignment.
He popped his head free.
For the first time, he had escaped Khabib's "spider web" not through brute force but through skill and foresight.
Surprise flickered in Khabib's eyes, then turned into something fiercer—a hunter recognizing another hunter.
From then on, Yogan practiced the standing guillotine choke in secret after every training session. While DC mimicked Miller's clumsier setups and Khabib recreated the most cunning takedowns, Yogan drilled snatching necks from every angle and distance, refining speed and balance until his arms were bruised and his neck bore purple marks.
But the light in his eyes grew brighter with each session.
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Building the Machine
Off the mat, Team Yogan also moved at full speed. David Chen proved his worth as a top-tier attorney, reaching out to ESPN and other mainstream outlets to shape Yogan's image as "hard-working, intelligent, and fearless," counterbalancing Miller's trash talk.
At the same time he opened preliminary talks with Under Armour and Monster Energy, using Yogan's viral knockout highlight as leverage to pave the way for endorsements.
The newly hired nutritionist, Mary, became Yogan's "sweet devil." She prepared his meals down to the gram: boiled or steamed, no extra spices. While DC and Cain devoured pizza after training, Yogan chewed his plain chicken breast and broccoli in silence.
His extreme self-discipline even inspired the veterans.
Late at night, when fatigue set in, the heart demon crept back. Lying in bed, memories of the crowd's disappointment after his old loss flooded him.
He didn't run from it. He sat up, closed his eyes, and meditated. He imagined his fear as a vast sticky spiderweb and placed himself in its center. No longer struggling, he observed every strand, every node. Gradually fear turned to calmness, calmness to strength.
"You can't trap me," he whispered to the master in his heart.
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Final Sprint
As fight week approached, Team Yogan became a high-efficiency machine.
Javier handled tactics. DC and Khabib oversaw sparring. David Chen managed media. Mary fueled his body.
They boarded a flight to Atlanta. As the plane cut through clouds, Yogan looked out at the endless blue sky, heart calmer than ever. Eight weeks of hell had transformed not only his ground game but also his relationship with fear.
He knew this fight wasn't just about winning. It was about reckoning with his past self—stepping into that spiderweb called despair and tearing it apart with his own hands.
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Arrival
The moment they landed, humid Southern air wrapped around him like a damp blanket—so different from California's dry sunshine. Herbal scents mixed with the heavy smell of rain-soaked earth.
Every away fight was an invisible first round: adapting to the environment. Yogan took a deep breath, letting his lungs adjust.
A black Cadillac from the UFC waited outside the VIP channel. Inside, David Chen opened his tablet and distributed an electronic schedule to everyone's phones.
"This is the next seventy-two hours, minute by minute," he said crisply. "Media day, open workouts, weigh-ins, hotel arrangements—Mary's nutrition plan has already been sent to the head chef. They guarantee one hundred percent compliance."
Coach Javier nodded, satisfied. He leaned back and closed his eyes, though his twitching eyelids betrayed a mind still calculating every variable.
DC and Khabib, more relaxed, pointed out the red-brick buildings outside, chatting quietly to lighten the mood.
Yogan said nothing. His gaze drifted over the passing scenery but his mind was already in the Octagon. For eight weeks, Cole Miller had been an omnipresent ghost in his training.
He knew the significance of this fight went far beyond another notch in the win column. Without conquering the ground-game barrier, he would always remain a powerful fighter with a fatal flaw—never able to ascend the throne.
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The Fighter's Hotel
The Marriott Hotel felt like a fortified base. The air in the lobby carried an invisible pressure. Pale, steely-eyed fighters moved like silent engineers handling volatile materials—final stages of weight cuts evident in chapped lips and sunken cheeks.
No fans, no tourists, only tension before the peak of competition.
Mary headed straight to the kitchen with her digital scale to oversee every gram of Yogan's meals. Javier swept the hotel room for wiretaps, then drew the blackout curtains.
"Rest well," he said, patting Yogan's shoulder. "From now on, in your world, it's just you and Miller."
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Media Day
The next morning brought the final war of words. In a large conference hall, hundreds of journalists aimed their long lenses like rifles. Camera flashes glittered like summer lightning.
The organizers seated Yogan and Cole Miller side by side, only a few meters apart—close enough to smell the faint acetone odor of each other's weight cuts.
Miller, the hometown favorite, basked in attention. Gesturing wildly, he spoke into the microphones, still playing the "Spider's Great Master":
> "I've prepared my net—a net of despair—made especially for 'Lightning.'"
He jutted his chin at Yogan.
> "Look at that Chinese kid. He won't even look me in the eye! I can smell the fear on him like a rabbit sniffing a fox. He's terrified of being dragged into deep waters, terrified of my jiu-jitsu. I'll strangle him slowly and gracefully, like every overconfident striker before him."
Reporters roared with laughter. Camera flashes burst faster, like sharks smelling blood. Microphones swung toward Yogan.
He sat straight-backed, eyes calm. The noise around him blurred into silence. In his mind he saw not Miller's face but the spiderweb he had studied for weeks—the web he had already begun to unravel.
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