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Part- 320:
The notification from the system had arrived at midnight, a sudden jolt of adrenalihat yanked James from sleep. Sihe had been impossible. Every sed of the night ent lost in thought, tangled in the web of the petition that y ahead. He had repyed potential sarios in his mind over and ain—his oppos' patterns, the likely ters they'd throw his way, the split-sed decisions he'd o make to turide of the match. Hours slipped by like minutes, and every pn he structed eventually crumbled uhe weight of doubt. What if they were stronger? Faster? What if his training hadn’t been enough? The uainty g him, but alongside it, something else burned even brighter—an insatiable hunger. Not just for victory, but for validation. For that one moment where everything aligned, and all the work, all the sacrifices, finally made sense.
He arrived at the stadium long before the others, wanting to breathe in the silence before the arena transformed into a storm of noise and chaos. There was something sacred about these empty moments, standing alone o, the arena waiting to erupt with life. He liked to think of it as the calm before battle—when the only sound was the faint hum of wind passing through the bleachers and the whisper of his movements cutting through the air. This was his space, where nothing else mattered. No spectators. No coaches barking advice. Just the purity of preparation, the feel of his own body in motion, and the quiet thrill of knowing that soon, every inch of this pce would bee a battlefield.
He dropped into a set of lunges, feeling his quads burn pleasantly, before smoothly transitioning into shadoling. His hands moved with precision, rehearsing throws and holds against invisible oppos. His mind jured images of his petitors—Ryan's sheer power, Sourov's nimbleness, and the uable Abbas, who could turn a mat its head with a single unventional move. He knew each of their strengths and weaknesses, but this wasn't just about them. It was about mastering himself. The mission wasn’t just a test of strength; it was a test of character.
What did it mean to win in judo, really? To some, it was nothing more than overp an oppo, f them into submission. But to James, it was a versatioween bodies, a subtle dance where the slightest shift could determihe oute. A match wasn’t just a csh of strength—it was an art form, where baiming, and presenind mattered just as much as physical prowess. Every throw had to be precise, every step calcuted. It was an expression of trol over chaos, and the ones who excelled weren’t always the strohey were the ones who could read their oppo like an open book and respond with surgical precision.
