The days following the miraculous win against Plymouth were a golden haze of calm and confidence.

Ethan's two worlds had finally found their equilibrium.

His shifts at CostMart were no longer a chore, but a pleasant, grounding part of his routine, made infinitely more interesting by the playful, tactical banter he now shared with Maya.

His home life was peaceful, his mother's recovery a source of quiet, profound joy for the whole family.

And in the virtual world, Apex United was a well-oiled machine.

They followed up the nine-man miracle with two more professional, controlled league victories, solidifying their spot at the top of the table. The training sessions were sharp, the morale was sky-high, and his young wonderkids were developing at a terrifying rate. Life was, for the first time, perfect.

But the quiet hum of the league season was about to be interrupted by the roar of the cup.

The evening before the third-round match of the EFL Trophy, Ethan logged into the pod.

The prize money for the last round—a cool £100,000—had just been deposited into the club's bank account. It was a welcome boost, but it was a pittance compared to the treasure that lay ahead.

The next round was the quarter-final. The prize for winning?

A cool quarter of a million pounds.

But more importantly, it would put them just two wins away from the ultimate prize.

He appeared in the virtual briefing room.

His players were already there, the atmosphere a stark contrast to their usual relaxed confidence. The air was thick with a nervous, electric tension.

They knew what was at stake. And they knew who they were facing.

Ethan brought the match details up on the main holographic screen.

The Apex United crest was on one side. On the other, a snarling, golden wolf's head. Wolverhampton Wanderers. A Premier League team.

A low, anxious murmur went through the room.

"Right, lads," Kenny McLean said, trying to lighten the mood. "Just another game. They put their shorts on one leg at a time, same as us."

"Yeah, but their shorts probably cost more than my car," Jonathan Rowe muttered, only half-joking.

Even David Kerrigan, the king of unshakeable arrogance, looked a little pale. "They've got, like, Portuguese international superstars. I've been trying to get them in my Ultimate Team for years."

Ethan let the nervous energy hang in the air for a moment before he spoke, his voice calm and steady, cutting through the tension.

"Let's be honest," he began, and every eye in the room snapped to him. "On paper, we should lose this game. They are a Premier League club. They have a stadium that holds 30,000 people. They have players who are famous around the world. We are a brand-new club from League One with a front three who aren't even old enough to vote."

He saw the players shift uncomfortably.

This was not the rousing speech they were expecting.

"They have everything to lose," Ethan continued, his voice starting to build. "The pressure is all on them. The expectation is all on them. The entire world expects them to win, and to win easily. And what do we have to lose? Absolutely nothing. Nobody expects us to win. Nobody gives us a chance."

He started to pace, a fire igniting in his eyes. "They see us as a warm-up match. A bye to the next round. But they don't know what we know. They haven't seen what I've seen. They weren't there when we came back from 2-0 down against Cardiff with two miracle goals. They weren't there when we beat Plymouth with nine men. They don't know about our 'Steely Resolve'. They don't know that we are a team of giant-killers."

He stopped and looked at his young players. "They see a group of kids. I see a team of warriors who have been forged in the fire of impossible comebacks. They see us as a stepping stone. I see us as a bloody roadblock."

He swiped on the screen, and the image of the Wolves crest was replaced by the holographic chart showing the club's facility upgrade costs.

The numbers glowed in the dim light.

"You all know what this is," he said, his voice dropping to an intense, passionate whisper. "This is our future. That prize money isn't just a number. It's a new training ground. It's a world-class youth academy. It's the difference between us becoming a good team and us becoming a legendary one. It's the difference between a slow, hard climb and a rocket ship to the top."

He looked from face to face, seeing the dawning understanding, the flicker of hope turning into a burning desire.

"Winning the league is our job. It's what we're supposed to do. But this? This is different. A league title goes in the history books. A victory like this... this goes in the legends. This is the story you tell your grandkids. The night a little League One club with a bunch of kids went to a Premier League stadium and shocked the world."

He took a deep breath, his voice now a low, powerful growl that seemed to vibrate through the very air of the room.

"Legends are not born from easy wins. They are forged in fire. Tonight, we walk into the fire. We walk into their stadium, we listen to their 30,000 fans, and we show them what happens when you underestimate a team with nothing to lose and everything to gain."

He let the silence hang for a final, heart-stopping moment.

"Go out there," he said, his voice barely a whisper but carrying the weight of a roar, "and be the story they'll all be telling tomorrow."

The room was absolutely silent.

Every player was just staring at him, their faces a mask of pure, unadulterated focus. The fear was gone. The nerves were gone.

All that was left was a single, collective, burning desire. They didn't just want to win. They believed they could.

The next evening, Ethan stood in the tunnel of Molineux Stadium.

The noise was a physical force, a deep, guttural roar from a massive, passionate Premier League crowd. The stadium was a sea of gold and black.

His players stood beside him, silent and focused.

They looked small against the backdrop of the huge stadium, but there was no fear in their eyes. Only fire.

The signal was given. The teams began to walk out. Ethan took his place at the back of the line, his heart pounding a steady, powerful rhythm. He was ready.

As he stepped out of the darkness of the tunnel and into the brilliant, blinding floodlights, he looked across to the home team's technical area.

He saw the Wolves manager, a tall, imposing figure in a club tracksuit, turning to shout an instruction to his bench.

And in that moment, Ethan's blood ran cold.

It wasn't the real-world manager of Wolves.

It was a face he had seen before, in the grainy screenshots on the FCG forums.

A face that was legendary in the beta-testing community. A face that belonged to the user known only as 'CatenaccioKing'—the Italian tactical genius who had just been appointed as the real-world manager of Palermo.

He wasn't just facing a Premier League team. He was facing another one of them. Another player from the secret world who had already made it to the top. And he was standing in Ethan's way.

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