Urban System in America-Chapter 119 - 118: Brutal Michelangelo

On it, a single word written in old ink:

"Observe."

He stood alone again.

He felt the world expanding around him. Every shape, every shadow, every movement whispered something deeper — subtle, beautiful, infinite.

He was just beginning to process it, to feel it settle in—

When the void split open again.

The floor rumbled. The air hissed. The walls of space-time groaned like a Renaissance fresco being insulted.

Rex barely had time to mutter "Oh no" before—

BOOM.

This time, there was no soft shimmer.

No delicate light.

No breath of awe.

There was only impact.

The sound of footsteps, thundering like hammer blows on marble — hard, rhythmic, purposeful.

No shadow.

No softness.

Just weight.

Rex turned toward the sound — and instinctively straightened his posture.

And then he saw him.

Not emerging. Not appearing.

Stomping.

Step by brutal step — as though the very space bowed beneath his presence.

A figure carved from the void itself, not painted or sketched, but chiseled. Stone shoulders. a broad figure in rough-hewn garments that seemed too impatient for embroidery. A cloak that looked more like it had been torn than sewn.

There was no ethereal glow. Just muscle, callused hands, and eyes that looked like they’d once wrestled divinity into stone and won.

His voice landed before he did — loud, sharp, biting:

"If you’re done gazing at shadows, it’s time to build what they hide."

Michelangelo Buonarroti.

There was no introduction. No greeting. No smile.

Just pressure — a living force pressing down on Rex like gravity turned personal.

The system didn’t even have time to finish its whisper before the master was already circling him:

[FOURTH DESCENT INITIATED]

Instructor: Michelangelo Buonarroti — The Sculptor of Form

Master of Gesture, Anatomy, and the Drama of Flesh

His gaze landed on Rex like a chisel.

Then, flatly:

"You’re soft."

Rex blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Soft. In the wrist, in the back, in the line. You draw like you’re afraid the page will bite you."

He squinted at Rex like someone handed him a soggy sandwich and said, "This is art."

"You look like a scribble that forgot what it was trying to be."

Rex opened his mouth to reply—

"No talking. Talking’s for poets. We’re here to work."

A slab of marble dropped next to Rex with the gentleness of an asteroid. Twice his height. Cold. Untouched.

Michelangelo pointed at it with a finger like a chisel.

"Draw? No. You don’t draw yet. You guess. You stroke lines like decoration. But the body is architecture. And you will learn to carve."

"Want to learn form? Then forget the outside, because Skin lies but muscles don’t."

He didn’t wait.

He snapped his fingers and a massive piece of charcoal dropped into Rex’s hands — thick, blunt, and heavy like a weapon, like someone had bullied into a drawing tool.

"Draw a figure."

"Which one?" Rex asked, caught off guard.

"Yours."

Confused, Rex looked at the marble — then at his own body.

Michelangelo scoffed. "You carry it, don’t you? Then know it."

"Now, draw your spine."

"I can’t see my own spine—"

"Then use your brain! That lump in your head! Figure it out! What, you think David posed for me? No, I made him from tension, muscle, and hate!"

The drills began immediately and from there, it became a montage of Rex’s suffering.

Hours? Days? Rex lost count.

He was forbidden to draw the face.

"Faces are easy. Lies. You’ll draw the back. The spine. The twist of tension in the scapula. The hamstring flexed under strain. Draw the body like it’s fighting gravity."

He made him pose, contort, bend, stretch. Then sketch those positions from memory.

Again. Again. Again.

When Rex collapsed, Michelangelo dragged him up.

"Again."

He threw anatomical diagrams at him — not serene or academic, but like blueprints of war.

"This is muscle. This is tendon. This is what holds man together. You will not draw until you feel it breaking."

There was no kindness. No pause.

Then pose again, this time holding a broom like a sword. ("Because your limbs have all the grace of a malfunctioning marionette.")

He crumpled Rex’s work mid-sketch, growled, and shouted, "This has the emotional depth of an baguette!"

At one point, he pointed at a poorly drawn leg and said, "This? This is not a leg. This is a crime against anatomy."

Between gritted teeth and actual tears, Rex began to notice something...

His sketches were changing.

They stopped sitting on the surface.

They began to pull — stretch, tense, drive down to an invisible skeleton beneath.

He didn’t just draw form anymore — he drew weight, torque, strain. Every stroke started feeling like it had a purpose — like the figure on the page wanted to move.

He understood what Michelangelo meant when he said:

"The body is never still. Even in rest, it remembers motion."

Michelangelo watched. Occasionally grunted like a gorilla judging modern architecture.

When Rex finally sketched a figure mid-motion, its back arched, legs flexed, fingers curled — Michelangelo stared.

Then said:

"...Huh."

Rex blinked. "Was that approval?"

"No. That was me processing disappointment at a slightly higher level."

By the end, Rex’s hand ached as if he’d been sculpting with fists instead of chalk.

He stood before a page — one single figure drawn mid-motion, not just with anatomy, but with emotion. A back arched in rebellion. A leg driving forward. Arms caught mid-twist.

Tension. Direction. Life.

Michelangelo walked up beside him, looked once — then grunted.

"Still ugly. but better."

And then, for the first time, he reached out.

With one knuckle, he tapped Rex’s chest.

Not gently. freēwēbηovel.c૦m

"Remember this. Form is not skin. Form is the voice of tension. It’s what holds the scream inside."

And in that instant — the glyph burned into him—slow, deliberate, and carved rather than inked.

Not quiet like before.

Not hidden beneath the skin.

It etched across his bones — like the very marrow was being inscribed.

Circles overlapped with muscle fibers. A spine coiled into a spiral. The arc of a shoulder, the bend of a knee, frozen in layered geometry.

Rex clenched his jaw — but didn’t pull away.

The system spoke — loud, final, undeniable:

[SESSION COMPLETE]

[CORE PRINCIPLE IMPRINTED: The Drama Within the Form]

[INTERNALIZED: Gesture, Motion, and Structural Truth]

Michelangelo turned, cloak snapping.

"I’m done. Save the hug for next one."

And with a grunt and a mutter about "kids these days drawing anime hips," he was gone.

Rex collapsed onto the ground, hands trembling, eyes wide.

Then, flat on his back, he whispered:

"What kind of Renaissance boot camp is this..."

But despite everything — the shouting, the bruises, the charcoal smudges in his teeth — he smiled.

Because for the first time...

His lines moved.

And they carried weight.

(End of Chapter)