The clash stretched on for an additional eleven minutes. Those who witnessed it later debated what they had seen. Some claimed Rof was a skilled fighter masking his prowess. Others suggested Silas had intentionally thrown the match. A few even speculated that the lights in the third round had malfunctioned, altering the scene and making everything appear slower, as if the atmosphere had thickened. None, however, could accurately describe the spectacle because the terminology to do so did not yet exist.
Here's the real story:
Silas made a comeback. After a body blow and a moment of vulnerability, Silas rallied, returning stronger than ever. He didn't panic; such a response was not in his nature. Instead, he recalibrated. He ceased his chatter, stopped scanning his surroundings, and discarded the strategy that had won him thirty-one previous matches. Instead, Silas resorted to a more primitive, raw approach. He launched an attack with fierce intentions and remarkable precision, dominating the next two rounds.
Rof endured it all. Far from gracefully, his left eye was nearly swollen shut by the end of the second round. His ribs, already bruised from a previous fight, ached every time Silas targeted his body. He hit the ropes twice, the second time lingering there too long, which the spectators noticed, stirring them into a roar.
Vera, observing from ringside, remained silent, her gray eyes unblinking.
Rof pulled himself off the ropes.
The element that made Rof Leon a threat wasn't speed, though he was impressively swift. What made him truly dangerous was his indomitable spirit. It wasn't that he was simply tough; many men were tough. But toughness was just stubbornness, which could be worn down by the body's limitations.
Rof was different. He didn't have a breaking point because he had pre-determined, on a subconscious level, that defeat was not a concept he recognized. It was not arrogance or bravado, but something more profound, as if he had genuinely eliminated it from his list of possibilities.
Silas realized this in the third round. He landed a punch that, under normal circumstances, would have ended the fight. It was a clean, precise hit, aimed at the part of the jaw that knocks the legs out from under a man. Rof's head jerked, his mouthguard shifted, and his knees buckled.
But then, they straightened.
Silas watched it happen. He'd seen men take punches and survive hits they shouldn't have. But this was different. This wasn't survival. Rof's knees buckled and then straightened, not out of determination, but as a natural reaction, like a tree bending in the wind and straightening afterward.
Silas threw the same punch again, immediately, at the same spot.
Rof's head jerked again.
His knees buckled again.
And straightened.
The crowd had grown odd. Half of them were screaming, half were silent, uncertain of how to react to the spectacle before them.
Silas stepped back. He looked at Rof Leon with the first uncensored expression he had displayed since the fight began. It wasn't fear or respect. It was something more profound.
Recognition.
As if he had been searching for something his entire life and had just found it in the most unlikely place.
"What are you?" Silas asked, a genuine question, not a taunt.
Wiping blood from his lip, Rof replied, "Still standing."
Then, Rof's speed kicked in. Not summoned or forced, but rising naturally, as the tide does when conditions are just right. In this decelerated world, Silas's weight, his breathing, and his tell - the slight drop of his left shoulder before every heavy right-handed punch - were glaringly obvious.
Rof let the right hand come. He avoided it by mere inches, stepping inside Silas's guard – a risky and daring move. He landed three short, efficient punches that carried an incredible force.
Silas went down.
He collapsed completely, instantaneously, with a disturbing efficiency. He lay there, eyes open, looking up at the lights.
The referee began the count.
Silas didn't move.
Not because he was unconscious, but because he had come to a realization during his fall. A man who had spent his career looking for a limit had finally found one – it was his own.
Ten.
The arena erupted in noise.
Rof stood in the center of the ring, chest heaving, left eye nearly closed, blood on his chin, and a cross pressing against his chest beneath his shirt.
He looked down at Silas.
Silas looked up at him.
"Your ceiling," Silas murmured beneath the surrounding noise. "I still can't find it."
Rof regarded him for a moment.
"Maybe stop looking," Rof advised. "Maybe that's the problem."
He turned and walked to his corner.
Vera waited outside the ring, handing him a towel. He pressed it against his eye. They walked towards the back corridor in silence amidst the uproar of the crowd, money changing hands, and Bellows somewhere doing unpleasant calculations.
In the quiet corridor, Vera halted.
Rof did too.
She studied him, her gray eyes assessing his worth.
"Three things," she began.
"Okay."
"First, you're real. Not lucky. Not a fluke. Real," she stated matter-of-factly. "Second, Bellows will attempt to secure you in an exclusive contract tonight. Don't sign anything. Tell him you need a week."
"And third?"
Vera glanced at the towel against his eye, then at the cross under his shirt.
"In the third round, when Silas landed that right hand the second time, you should've gone down."
"I know."
"I've watched hundreds of fights. I've never seen a man take that punch twice and straighten," she said evenly. "That wasn't the speed, Rof. The speed wasn't active yet. That was something else." She paused. "What is something else?"
Rof thought about the white room, the photograph, the hand on the boy's shoulder.
"I don't know yet," he admitted.
Vera held his gaze for another moment before nodding once, filing the information, and moving forward without sentiment.
"Come on," she urged. "Before Bellows finds you."
They delved deeper into the corridor.
Behind them, in the ring, Silas had managed to sit up on his own, refusing help. He sat on the canvas, elbows on his knees, staring at the spot where Rof had stood.
He remained there for a long time.
Thinking.