The silence in the Aethelgard locker room after the match was a stark contrast to the roaring crucible they had just survived. It was the silence of spent shells, of a battlefield after the charge. Players sat slumped on benches, too exhausted for words, their new royal blue jerseys stained with virtual grass and sweat. The only sounds were the hum of the nanite regenerators and Jiro's hissed intake of breath as Anya, the physio, carefully removed his boot, revealing the avatar's ankle and calf already blooming with an ugly, shimmering purple-and-black graphic—the visual representation of a severe Hamstring Tear.
"Seven to ten days, minimum," Anya stated, her voice clinical and devoid of pity. She applied a stabilizer field that encased Jiro's leg in a glowing amber cast. "No weight-bearing exercises. Light regeneration only. You are out for the Dragoons and Cerberus matches."
The words landed with the force of a physical blow. Jiro slammed his fist against the locker, the metal ringing dully. "Damn it! Of all the times…"
His frustration was a spark in the tinder-dry air of their exhaustion. The single point they had fought so hard for suddenly felt paltry, the cost absurdly high.
Kairo felt the mood curdling, the hard-won pride of their resilient stand rapidly giving way to a cold, gnawing anxiety. He saw it in Daichi's furrowed brow as he no doubt ran the defensive statistics without Jiro. He saw it in the way Taro's usual energetic post-match debrief was replaced by a quiet, worried stare at their injured teammate.
"We knew the Copper League would be a war of attrition," Kairo said, forcing his voice to remain steady. "This is our first casualty. We adapt."
"Adapt?" Jiro bit out, gesturing to his leg. "How? You saw what they did to us when I was just limping. The Dragoons are going to press us into dust."
It was Chloe, their Logistics Officer, who cut through the rising panic with cold, hard data. She summoned a holoscreen, displaying the scouting report for the Vermilion Dragoons, now highlighted with new, alarming annotations.
"He's not wrong," she said bluntly. "Look at their pressure triggers." She pointed to a heat map that showed the Dragoons' defensive engagement zones, which started ruthlessly high in the opponent's half. "Their entire system is designed to force mistakes from defenders under pressure. They feast on hesitant back-passes and poor clearances." She looked directly at Daichi and the other potential replacement defenders. "Without Jiro's vocal leadership and aerial dominance, our defensive organization is our biggest vulnerability."
The financial reality, delivered by Taro, was no more comforting. "The 1,000 credits keep us afloat, but just. A loss against the Dragoons means no prize money, and our sponsorships have performance clauses. If we start losing, the money dries up fast." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I've checked the emergency loan market for defenders. The ones we can afford are… not great. Stat downgrades across the board."
The kingdom they had built felt fragile, its walls cracked after the first real assault.
The next forty-eight hours were a tense, grueling test of their new structure. With Jiro confined to the medical bay, a pall hung over the training ground. Coach Silas immediately shifted focus, running endless drills on playing out from the back under intense pressure. He used training bots set to "Dragoon Press" mode, which harried and hunted their backline relentlessly.
It was a disaster.
Daichi, forced to step into Jiro's role as the defensive organizer, was a brilliant reader of the game but lacked his teammate's commanding presence. His instructions were logical but delivered without the raw, galvanizing force of Jiro's roar. The communication was a half-second slow, the understanding fuzzy.
Yumi, tasked with playing as a temporary center-back, was a fish out of water. Her instincts were to push forward, to run into space. Being pinned deep, forced into physical duels and precise, pressured passes, was her nightmare. In one drill, she received a pass from Kenji, was immediately closed down by two bot pressers, and in a panic, passed the ball straight to a third, who scored into an empty net.
The whistle blew. Silas didn't yell. He simply froze the simulation.
"Yumi," he said, his voice calm but firm. "What is the first rule when pressed?"
She stared at the ground, humiliation rolling off her in waves. "Find the safe pass."
"And was that a safe pass?"
"No, Coach."
"The Dragoons will not be as forgiving as these bots. They will punish that mistake and celebrate your despair. Again."
The drill reset. The pressure came again. And again, the structure broke down. Passes were misplaced. Clearances were rushed and ineffective. The
Kairo, watching from a midfield role, felt a profound powerlessness. His
It was after another failed drill, with the team's morale hitting a visible low, that Silas called a halt. He gathered them in the center circle.
"You are trying to play the same music with a broken violin," he stated, not unkindly. "It will not work. We cannot simply replace Jiro. Therefore, we must change the composition."
He brought up a new tactical layout on his holoboard. It was a radical shift from their 4-2-3-1.
"We are going to a 3-5-2," Silas announced. A murmur of surprise rippled through the team. "We will not try to play out from the back against their press. We will bypass it."
The formation showed three central defenders—Daichi as the central sweeper, flanked by two other more defensively-minded squad players. The wing-backs, Taro and Sora, were pushed incredibly high, almost as outright wingers.
"Our build-up will be direct," Silas explained. "Kenji, you will not roll the ball out. You will launch it. Aim for the wings, for Taro and Sora. Your objective is not to retain possession, but to break their press before it can start. We surrender possession in our own half to gain it in theirs."
He then turned to Kairo and Ren. "You two up top. Your job is to win the second balls. Fight. Hold up play. Bring the wing-backs and midfielders into the game. We are not going to out-pass the Dragoons. We are going to out-fight them in the middle third of the pitch."
It was a pragmatic, almost cynical approach. It was the antithesis of the "Total Football" beauty they had displayed in the Gauntlet final. It was a strategy of survival.
The first training session with the new system was ugly. It was a game of long balls, headed clearances, and frantic battles in midfield. It lacked finesse. But something else began to emerge: clarity. The instructions were simple. The roles were defined. There was no more confusion about playing out from the back. The message was clear: win the first header, win the second ball, and attack.
Later that evening, Kairo found himself alone in the team's virtual film room, reviewing the Dragoons' matches. Ryu's message echoed in his mind: "The Vermilion Dragoons will exploit this."
As he watched, his
He needed to find a wrinkle. A way to not just survive, but to strike.
He focused on the Dragoons' central defenders. They were aggressive in their pressing but were often left in two-on-two situations if the press was broken. In their current 3-5-2, he and Ren would be those two. But against their physical defenders, winning a straight duel was a low-percentage game.
An idea, fragile and nascent, began to form. It was a risk. It would require perfect timing and an immense leap of faith from Ren.
He was about to call it a night when a new, unexpected message popped into his interface. It wasn't from Ryu or Kaito. The sender was listed as 'Echo'.
The message contained no text. Only a single, three-second video clip. It was from a scouting camera, showing a player from a lower-tier Iron League team. The player, a central defender, executed a perfectly timed sliding tackle, springing up instantly to launch a counter-attack with a stunning, 60-yard diagonal pass that landed directly on his winger's foot. The pass was not just accurate; it was visionary. It was a play that screamed of a latent, untapped "Maestro" instinct.
Beneath the clip was a simple, geotagged location: the coordinates of a low-level practice field in a remote sector of the game world.
Kairo's breath caught. This was no random message. This was a tip. A clue. The name 'Echo' could not be a coincidence. Was this the Guide from the Path of Legends, intervening directly? Or was it another player, a scout working in the shadows?
He looked from the message back to the frozen frame of the Dragoons' defensive line. He had a desperate, short-term problem to solve. And now, he also had a tantalizing, long-term possibility.
The path forward was splitting. One road led to a grim, pragmatic battle in the Dragon's den. The other led to a hidden prospect who could change the very composition of his team. But he had to choose which to pursue first. The kingdom was wounded, and its next battle was only days away.