Chi Tong's body, still suspended in midair, suddenly turned in defiance of gravity, the motion impossibly fluid and eerily unnatural.
He moved as lightly as a feather, yet with irresistible force, slipping around Masashi Kawata's side in an instant and cleanly avoiding the block that had seemed certain to stop him.
Then, riding the momentum of his turn, Chi Tong swung his arm, his hand gripping the basketball tightly as he hammered it down toward Sannoh Industrial High School's hoop.
A deafening crash exploded through the gym as he slammed the ball home. The rim groaned under the strain, the net shook violently, and the basketball plunged through.
Ryonan 84, Sannoh Industrial High School 100!
The impact of that basket went far beyond the score.
In an instant, an eerie silence fell over Basketball Gym No. 1. The arena, packed with more than twenty thousand people, was so quiet that the lingering vibration of the rim could be heard.
Everyone froze, staring blankly at the crimson figure who had just completed that earth-shattering dunk. Their minds went empty; they could not even gasp.
At that moment, every gaze in Basketball Gym No. 1 converged on the crimson figure who had just delivered that astonishing dunk.
The spotlight followed him, illuminating his outline with extraordinary clarity, as though he were the only figure left in the world.
Everything that had just happened replayed endlessly in their minds, like a film being fast-forwarded and rewound over and over.
That crimson, lightning-fast charge down the entire court, the helplessness of the player clad in gold, the sight of Nobe Masahiro and Matsumoto dropping to their knees without warning, Masashi Kawata's despair as Chi Tong slipped past him with ease, and finally that brutal dunk that shook the entire arena-every moment was absurdly exaggerated,