Fweet—!
The sharp whistle had barely faded before Barcelona took total control. Within fifteen minutes, they held over seventy percent of the ball, peppering Valencia's goal with nine shots to their two. Xavi and Iniesta dismantled Parejo and Romeu's double pivot with effortless grace, pulling the midfield apart like two masters conducting a routine rehearsal.
In the 14th minute, the record climbed to ninety-nine.
Iniesta carved open the left flank with a delicate diagonal pass. Neymar latched onto it, drove hard at Barragán, and laid a crisp cutback toward the edge of the box. Lorenzo received the ball with his back to goal, sold Otamendi complete fiction with a sharp shoulder feint, and snapped a low strike past Guaita into the near corner.
1-0. Goal ninety-nine of an unbelievable campaign.
The Camp Nou erupted. Above the stands, the giant stadium screens updated instantly: 99. Just one more.
The rest of the first half was a relentless wave of Blaugrana pressure, yet a second goal refused to come. Valencia fought back with the desperate, stubborn pride of a team that refused to become the permanent answer to a future trivia question: Who did Lorenzo score his 100th goal against? Parejo and Romeu scrapped for every second ball, Otamendi threw his body in front of consecutive strikes, and Guaita pulled off a sensational diving save to deny a curling Messi free kick, earning a brief wave of respectful applause from the home crowd.
The halftime whistle arrived with the score locked at 1-0, the magic number still hanging at ninety-nine.
During the break, the stadium displays broadcast a twelve-minute compilation featuring every single goal from Lorenzo's season. Ninety-five thousand fans sat in awe as the counter climbed from one to ninety-nine, quietly taking in the staggering reality of a historic run they were witnessing in real time.
Oriol Romeu, the former La Masia graduate who had left Barcelona years ago, paused on his way down the tunnel. He glanced up at the giant 99 glowing beside Lorenzo's name, shook his head in disbelief, and disappeared inside.
When the teams returned, Barcelona came out with absolute intent, immediately pinning Valencia deep in their own half.
Jonas kicked off for Valencia and tried to drive forward, but Busquets was on him instantly, smothering his turn and forcing the ball sideways. Within seconds, Barça's midfield had pushed right over the halfway line. The message was loud and clear: the hundredth goal was an absolute inevitability, and no one was stopping it.
For seven grueling minutes, Valencia desperately clung on. Parejo and Romeu fought for every blade of grass, fully aware they were outmatched but flatly refusing to throw in the towel. Otamendi blocked another goalbound effort from Messi, while Guaita safely smothered a curling shot from Neymar at his near post. With every agonizing near-miss, the collective roar of the Camp Nou grew deafening.
Then came the 53rd minute, starting with a classic piece of anticipation from Busquets.
He cleanly intercepted Romeu's attempt to turn in midfield, outplaying the man once dubbed "Little Busquets" during their shared days in the academy. Busquets protected the ball and nudged a calm pass to Iniesta. Iniesta to Xavi, Xavi back to Iniesta, a swift one-two executed with telepathic precision. Looking up, Iniesta struck a sweeping diagonal ball with his right instep, bending it gracefully around Bernat and dropping it perfectly into the left channel.
Neymar surged onto the dropping pass. Bernat tugged at his shirt, but Neymar shrugged off the contact and accelerated toward the box. Mathieu rushed across to close him down, but Neymar hit him with a rapid shimmy, dropped his shoulder, and whipped a low, fizzing cross into the heart of the penalty area.
Lorenzo was already making his move.
He muscled past Parejo in a split-second shoulder-to-shoulder battle, sending the midfielder stumbling off balance. Taking one explosive stride into the box, he felt Victor Ruiz tracking his hip from behind. The cross came flying in from the left, curling fast and dropping at a awkward, tricky height right between his waist and chest.
Lorenzo didn't even attempt to control it.
He twisted his frame mid-run, planted his right foot firmly into the turf, and unleashed his left leg in one continuous, fluid arc. A breathtaking side-volley. The contact was pure perfection, his technique stretched and graceful, generating tremendous power through the full rotation of his torso as he drove through the strike.
He felt it instantly in his ankle, that locked precision and pure instinct to strike cleanly on the half-turn. Every single volley template he had absorbed over the course of the season seemed to converge into this one perfect, immortal moment.
The ball launched off his boot like a projectile. Guaita saw it coming, but his eyes were powerless to help his limbs; his body simply could not react in time to something traveling at that sheer velocity from so close. The ball tore through the box in a razor-straight trajectory, untamed by defenders and completely untouched by the air, burying itself into the right side of the mesh. The sound was less of a soft swish and more of a violent thud, striking the netting with enough force to make the entire goal frame shudder.
The goalkeeper's full-stretch dive was a mere formality. Guaita hit the grass long after the ball had already settled in the back of the net, lying motionless for a moment with his forehead pressed against the turf.
Fweet—!
2-0.
High above the stadium, the giant broadcast screens flickered. The number 99 slowly faded into black. In its place, rising in giant, glowing letters suspended over ninety-five thousand spectators, appeared a new figure:
100.
The sound that followed was unlike anything the Camp Nou had produced all year, even in a season defined by deafening roars. It was a physical, chest-rattling wall of noise that rolled through the stands in relentless waves, amplifying with every passing second. Outside the stadium walls, car horns blared across the surrounding streets in response. The Ramblas heard it. The harbor heard it. The entire city of Barcelona, on a crisp Thursday night in March, listened as a seventeen-year-old boy touched immortality.
"ONE HUNDRED!!" Santiago screamed into his microphone, his voice cracking so violently that the live broadcast feed briefly cut out. When his commentary restored, he was practically breathless. "LORENZO HAS SCORED HIS HUNDREDTH GOAL OF THE SEASON! A breathtaking side-volley at the Camp Nou! Nobody in the entire history of this sport has ever achieved this! A hundred goals in a single campaign! The benchmark didn't even exist before tonight because no one believed it was humanly possible!"
Inés sat beside him, completely silent for several seconds. It was by far the longest pause she had ever taken on air. When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet, almost awestruck.
"One hundred goals," she said slowly. "Fifty-seven in La Liga. Fifteen in the Copa del Rey. Five in the Supercopa. Twenty-three in the Champions League. All in a single season, at seventeen years old. Gerd Müller scored sixty-seven. Lionel Messi scored seventy-three. Those numbers were considered untouchable for generations. Lorenzo hasn't just broken those records; he has rendered the word 'record' entirely inadequate."
Down on the turf, Lorenzo stood motionless inside the penalty area, looking up at the glowing digits high above the stands. Across the main grandstand, a massive, custom banner unfurled, displaying his iconic jersey adorned with the number 100 across the chest, fluttering like a flag over a crowd that was chanting his name.
Messi reached him first. He didn't offer any clever words or grand speeches. He simply threw his arms around the teenager and held on tight, pulling him into a massive embrace. Busquets arrived a second later, wrapping them both up, closely followed by Iniesta, Xavi, and Neymar. Piqué came sprinting all the way from the halfway line, throwing his entire frame into the mix as the whole squad converged into one chaotic, ecstatic mob.
Down in the front row, Cecilia broke down completely. These weren't quiet, polite tears meant to save face, but real, streaming tears spilling over her cheeks as she pressed both hands against her mouth. Beside her, Lucia was in the exact same state. They held onto each other's hands without ever breaking their gaze from the pitch, two people bound together by a feeling far too immense for words.
Over at the edge of the technical area, Martino stood completely frozen. For the first time all season, the manager covered his entire face with both hands. When he finally lowered them, his eyes were visibly glistening under the stadium lights.
[System Note: 100 goals in a single season. Record holder: Lorenzo.]
You know the drill: Hand over those Power Stones to keep the momentum rolling!
Read Advance Chapters Here:
patreon.com/Shadownarch_