<div> Chapter 540: Danein Blake?
 Alex sat alone in the dark. He wasn’t studying. He was thinking.
 He held a football in his hands. It was scuffed, dirty, and old. It was a cheap training ball he had found in the back of the equipment shed.
 "Memory," Alex whispered. "It is a ghost. It haunts you."
 He spun the ball. He had won everything. The Ballon d’Or. The World Cup. The Treble.
 But lately, he had been having dreams. Not dreams of lifting trophies. Dreams of the rain. Dreams of a cold Tuesday night in Brentford. Dreams of a whistle that never blew.
 The door creaked open.
 Mark walked in. He was wearing a headlamp (like a miner) and holding a ghost detector (a calculator taped to a stick).
 "I DETECT ECTOPLASM!" Mark shouted, shining the light in Alex’s face. "ALEX! ARE YOU A GHOST? IF YOU ARE, CAN YOU WALK THROUGH WALLS? I WANT TO ROB THE CANTEEN!"
 "I am not a ghost, Mark," Alex said, shielding his eyes. "I am just thinking."
 "Thinking in the dark is dangerous," Mark warned. "That is how you get ideas like ’running is bad’ or ’pizza is unhealthy’. Come on. We have a game. The Quarter Final."
 "Against who?" Alex asked, though he knew.
 "The Butchers," Mark said. "I mean... heavy metal football. A team of giants."
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 </div> It was a generic European team, but they were known for one thing.
 Alex stood up. He put the old ball down.
 "Let’s go," Alex said. "Time to face the ghosts."
 The stadium was cold. The rain was falling in sheets. It was a torrential downpour. The pitch was turning into a swamp.
 Alex stood in the tunnel.
 The opposition captain, a defender named "The Anvil," stood next to him. He was huge. He had scars on his knees and eyes that looked like they had seen too many wars.
 "Pretty boy," The Anvil grunted. "Tonight, you break."
 "I have heard that before," Alex said.
 "Not from me," The Anvil smiled. It was a smile missing a tooth.
 Alex looked at Mark.
 Mark was shivering. He was wearing three layers of under-armor.
 "It is too cold!" Mark chattered. "My speed is freezing! I am a popsicle!"
 "Just run, Mark," Alex said. "Friction creates heat."
 "I will run until I catch fire!" Mark promised.
 The whistle blew. The game started.
 The opposition played with a violence that belonged in the 1980s. They kicked. They shoved. They left their feet in every tackle.
 In the tenth minute, Rico tried a stepover. The Anvil smashed him. Rico flew into the advertising boards.
 Yellow card.
 "He tried to kill me!" Rico yelled, checking his legs. "He is an assassin!"
 Alex controlled the game. He moved the ball quickly. Touch. Move. Touch. Move.
 He didn’t hold it. Holding it meant getting hit.
 Seventy minutes passed.
 The score was 0-0.
 The rain was heavier now. The pitch was a mud bath.
 "Alex!" Steve shouted from the sideline. "Be careful! The pitch is dangerous!"
 Alex heard him. But he couldn’t stop. He needed to win.
 Eighty ninth minute.
 Alex got the ball in the center circle. He saw the gap.
 The Anvil was out of position.
 Alex drove forward. He ran through the mud.
 He was fast. He was balanced. He was through on goal. He saw the goalkeeper. He prepared to shoot.
 But then, he heard it.
 The sound of heavy boots splashing in the mud behind him. The sound of a train coming off the tracks.
 It was The Anvil. He wasn’t trying to play the ball. He was sliding. A two-footed lunge from behind.
 "NO!" Mark screamed from the wing.
 Alex tried to jump. But his foot was stuck in the mud.
 The impact was sickening.
 Alex felt his leg twist. He felt the world spin.
 He hit the ground. His face smashed into the wet earth. The stadium noise faded. The lights went blurry.
 And then... darkness.
 The Void.
 It wasn’t the Emirates Stadium anymore. It was Griffin Park. Brentford. A cold, miserable Tuesday night years ago.
 The rain was the same. The mud was the same.
 Alex looked down at his body. He wasn’t Alex Finch. He wasn’t the Wonderkid. He wasn’t wearing the Arsenal shirt.
 He was wearing a tattered, muddy kit of a lower league team. His legs were scarred. His knees were wrapped in old bandages.
 He was Danein Blake.
 He could feel the weariness in his bones. The ache of a thousand games played for no glory.
 He remembered it all.
 At Griffin Park Stadium, under England’s cold rain, Danein Blake, a worn-out striker fighting for a single moment of glory, meets a bitter end.
 He lay in the mud. He couldn’t move his legs. The pain was gone, replaced by a cold numbness.
 A dirty tackle, a whistle that never came, and a crash into the muddy pitch... that was his final Chapter.
 He heard the crowd. They weren’t cheering. They were murmuring. "He’s done. He’s finished."
 He looked up at the sky. It was grey and hopeless.
 "Is this it?" Danein thought. "Did I waste it?"
 Then, the memories shifted.
 But fate had other plans.
 When Danein opens his eyes, he finds himself in the body of a ten-year-old boy named Leon Fischer, training at a prestigious football academy.
 The images flashed before his eyes.
 The first time he touched a ball as a kid again. The joy. The lightness.
 His memories remain, his passion still burns—but his name has been wiped clean.
 He saw the floating numbers.
 The Player Insight System has activated.
 Potential: 92, Current: 34.
 He saw himself growing up. Meeting Mark. Meeting Rico.
 From backstreet matches to elite academy trials, Danein—now Alex—must battle expectations, memories.
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 </div> He saw the Champions League final. The World Cup. The Ballon d’Or.
 He had done it. He had risen.
 "Can a man who once fell at the final whistle rise again from the kickoff?"
 Yes. He had.
 But now...
 He was back in the mud.
 He felt the cold grip of death again. The same darkness that took Danein Blake was coming for Alex Finch.
 "No," Alex whispered in the void. "Not again. I am not finished."
 He saw a light. It wasn’t a tunnel. It was a flashlight.
 And a voice.
 "ALEX! WAKE UP! DO NOT GO TO THE LIGHT! THE LIGHT DOES NOT HAVE PIZZA!"
 Alex gasped.
 Air rushed into his lungs.
 He opened his eyes.
 He was not at Griffin Park. He was at the Emirates. The floodlights were blinding.
 Mark was kneeling over him. Mark was crying. Tears were mixing with the rain on his face.
 "He is alive!" Mark screamed. "THE PROFESSOR IS REBOOTING!"
 Milo was there too. He had run onto the pitch. He was wearing a paramedic outfit.
 "CLEAR!" Milo shouted, holding a bag of frozen peas against Alex’s head. "I AM SELLING MIRACLES! ALEX! STAY WITH US! I CANNOT SELL YOUR AUTOGRAPH IF YOU ARE A GHOST!"
 Alex tried to move his leg. It hurt. It hurt a lot. But it moved.
 "It’s not broken," Alex whispered.
 "It is not broken!" Mark yelled to the crowd. "IT IS JUST BENT! HE IS RUBBER!"
 The referee was holding a red card in the air. The Anvil was walking off, looking guilty.
 Steve was on the pitch. He looked terrified.
 "Alex," Steve said, kneeling down. "Can you hear me?"
 "I can hear you, Boss," Alex gritted his teeth. "I remember."
 "You remember what?"
 "I remember everything," Alex said. "I remember the rain. I remember the end."
 He looked at Mark.
 "Help me up."
 "Are you crazy?" Steve said. " Stretcher!"
 "No stretcher," Alex said. "I walked off the pitch last time. I will walk off this time."
 Mark grabbed Alex’s arm. Rico grabbed the other.
 They pulled him up.
 Alex stood on one leg. The pain was sharp, but it was real. Pain meant life.
 He looked at the scoreboard.
 Ninetieth minute. 0-0.
 Penalty to Arsenal.
 "I take it," Alex said.
 "You can’t stand!" Rico said.
 "I don’t need to stand," Alex said. "I just need to swing."
 He limped to the penalty spot.
 The stadium was silent. Even the opposition fans were quiet. They knew they were watching something strange.
 Alex placed the ball.
 He looked at the goalkeeper.
 He didn’t see the keeper. He saw the ghost of his past self. Danein Blake, lying in the mud.
 "This is for you," Alex whispered.
 He hopped forward.
 He swung his good leg. He didn’t aim for the corner. He aimed for the soul of the net. He smashed it.
 Center of the goal.
 The keeper dived.
 The ball hit the net.
 GOAL.
 One zero.
 The final whistle blew.
 Arsenal 1. The Butchers 0.
 They carried him off the pitch. Not on a stretcher. On the shoulders of his friends.
 Mark was sobbing loudly.
 "YOU SCARED ME!" Mark yelled. "I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO THE GREAT PIZZA PLACE IN THE SKY!"
 "Not yet, Mark," Alex smiled weakly. "The menu isn’t good enough."
 They took him to the medical room.
 Maya was waiting. She looked pale.
 "Statistical probability of surviving that tackle without a fracture: 4%," Maya said, her voice shaking. "You are... resilient."
 "I have experience," Alex said softly. "In dying."
 "What?" Maya asked.
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 </div> "Nothing," Alex closed his eyes. "Just a bad dream."
 He lay on the treatment table.
 The adrenaline was fading. The pain was throbbing.
 But he was alive.
 Alex Finch was alive.
 Danein Blake was dead. He had died a long time ago. But tonight, he had saved Alex.
 The memory of the fall had given him the strength to rise.
 "Hey Professor," Mark whispered, holding Alex’s hand.
 "Yeah?"
 "If you ever scare me like that again," Mark said seriously. "I will eat your lunch. Every day. Forever."
 Alex squeezed Mark’s hand.
 "Deal."</div>
 

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Chapter 540: Danein Blake?

Chapter 540: Danein Blake? Alex sat alone in the dark. He wasn’t studying. He was thinking. He held a football in his hands. It was scuffed, dirty, and old. It was a cheap training ball he had found in the back of the equipment shed. "Memory," Alex whispered. "It is a ghost. It haunts you." He spun the ball. He had won everything. The Ballon d’Or. The World Cup. The Treble. But lately, he had been having dreams. Not dreams of lifting trophies. Dreams of the rain. Dreams of a cold Tuesday night...

Reincarnated As A Wonderkid

Chapter 540: Danein Blake?

Reincarnated As A Wonderkid - Chapter 540: Danein Blake?