The temperature inside the arena dropped to absolute zero.
Every Kansas fan who had come ready to laugh at Fresno State suddenly shut their mouths.
They finally understood.
The giant built like a Greek statue and hitting harder than a Sicilian hitman had not been put in to surrender.
He had been put in to blow the war horn for Fresno’s counterattack.
… Under every eye in the building, Rex stepped to the free-throw line.
Free throws were not his strength.
The body he had fused belonged to Atsushi Murasakibara.
In the anime the monster ruled the paint, but anything requiring soft touch from mid-range or the stripe sat at pure Shaq levels.
Add those massive hands and, without a skill to help, a gentle stroke was basically impossible.
Clang!
The ball left his hand on a stiff arc, smashed the front of the rim, and bounced high.
Miss didn’t matter.
BOOM!!
A black shadow exploded into the paint the instant the ball left the iron, moving at near-teleport speed.
“What the—?!” Thompson never even reacted before a thousand-pound weight settled on his shoulder.
The second the free throw left Rex’s hand he had already triggered a second explosion off the floor.
Absolute aerial dominance.
He plucked the ball above Thompson’s head like picking fruit and came down like a mountain collapsing onto the rim.
Self-rebound.
Putback slam.
KRA-BOOM——!!
Another earth-shaking dunk.
The rim shook violently.
Tristan Thompson once again became a flying prop under Rex’s massive frame.
43–47.
The deficit was suddenly only four points.
… “OH MY GOD!!!” “THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!!” In the ESPN booth Mark Jackson was screaming himself hoarse.
“What did I just see?!
Misses the free throw, sprints in, and throws down a putback dunk over the other team’s starting center?!
Lord have mercy, what kind of possession is that?
He just turned a free-throw-and-one into a free-throw-and-two!” Mike Breen had both hands on his head, face pure disbelief.
“Tristan Thompson is First-Team All-Big 12 defense!
Against this kid he couldn’t even claim the rebound for a single second!
I guarantee Tristan’s draft stock is crashing harder than the Nasdaq right now!” … Tweet————!!
Kansas’s head coach had seen enough.
Face iron-gray, he called the first timeout of the second half, terrified his big man was about to mentally check out.
“Coach… who the fuck is that guy?” “I’ve played three years in the NCAA.
I’ve gone against every big in the Big 12.
I’ve never even heard this name!
His body isn’t human.
It’s like they built him out of titanium alloy!” Thompson looked genuinely wronged.
The Kansas coach’s expression was just as heavy.
He could feel his blood pressure climbing.
“It’s not just you, Tristan.
I’ve never heard of him either.
I guarantee that before tonight not a single scouting service in America even knew this kid existed.
But we have to deal with reality.
That thing is a monster.
His strength and athleticism are already at NBA superstar level.
From this point on everyone collapses inside.
The second he steps into the paint, three bodies on him.
We force him out of the restricted area!” … On the other sideline the Fresno bench had turned into pure chaos.
“Rex!
What the hell did you just do?
You turned Tristan into a background poster!” “Coach, you see this?!
This is what Rex brings!” “One man just saved the entire team!” “Look at Tristan’s soft-ass face!” Towels waved like mad.
Teammates swarmed Rex, throwing every American street greeting they knew.
“I told you,” Coach Cleveland said quietly, voice full of certainty.
“Rex is our atomic bomb.” He already understood.
Rex’s ceiling was far beyond March Madness.
He was not just Fresno State’s nuclear option.
He was a future NBA-level weapon of mass destruction waiting to land on the league.
… Timeout over.
Both teams returned to the floor.
Kansas ball.
“Give me the rock!” Avery Bradley’s face was pure snarl.
He demanded the ball at the top, hit a lightning crossover between the legs, and blew past Paul George in a blink, attacking the paint.
Bradley rarely created off the dribble in the NBA—he was a pure 3-and-D wing—but in college he was still a legitimate perimeter offensive engine.
“Not happening!” Paul George scrambled after him from behind.
Bradley’s eyes were bloodshot.
He saw Rex still settling into position and decided to rise at the edge of the restricted area.
He wanted a vicious one-handed tomahawk to wake the silent home crowd.
The moment his feet left the floor, Rex moved.
[Zeus’s Shield] erupted.
From two full steps away Rex slid laterally like a sliding wall.
“I’ll take that.” Two sky-blotting hands locked onto the ball with perfect precision.
Another two-handed rejection.
“Oh my goodness!!” Mike Breen’s voice cracked with pure adrenaline.
“It’s Rex!
Again Rex!
Still Rex!
That’s his second two-handed block of the night.
I’m starting to believe the two-handed swat is just his signature move!” The shock was not finished.
The instant Rex landed he flipped the ball to Paul George on the wing and took off like a wild animal toward the Kansas end.
Everyone expected a big-man team like Fresno to slow it down and grind.
The next second rewrote that assumption completely.
BOOM!!
Rex pushed the ball himself in long, powerful strides.
Two hundred sixty-five pounds of heavy-duty frame somehow exploded into pure guard-level speed on the break.
“The fuck?!” Avery Bradley, sprinting full speed in recovery, felt the massive shadow roar past him and his face went blank with disbelief.
Rex’s acceleration had just cooked one of the fastest perimeter defenders in the country.
A legitimate national-level speed guard had just lost a foot race to a heavy center.
Ahead, Paul George faced a two-on-one.
He chose the high glass lob.
Off-the-glass assist.
BOOM——!!
Rex was already rising one step inside the Kansas free-throw line.
That massive body glided through the air, raw power coiled and ready.
He caught the ball off the glass, brought it behind his head with both hands, and detonated every ounce of core strength.
KRA-BOOM——!!
Off-the-glass alley-oop slam.
“OHHHHHHH!” In the booth both Mark Jackson and Mike Breen were spraying spit and speaking at warp speed.
“What am I looking at?!
Ladies and gentlemen, what am I looking at?!
A 7’1″, 265-pound big man just outran one of the fastest guards in America on the break and finished with an off-the-glass power dunk?!
I’m telling you right now—this is not a human being.
This is… Attack on Titan!!”