Midas, without saying a word, merely played one move.
{25. Re8+}
"How'd you say it again? Check!! And all that stuff about taking my pawn and my life. Yeah, Umm… Actually, No."
Even as Midas said that he could tell that the man next to him kept blinking, looking left and right on the board, trying to find any and all possible measures to save himself.
But there was nothing there.
This was not a normal check. It was a checkmate threat and the only way to deal with it was by exchanging the queen for the Rook.
Midas had set this up too perfectly by playing the benign looking queen move in the previous move. Actually, he had done way more than that. He had baited the Shadow.
In the same way the Shadow was digging up Midas' past and using it to find Midas' motivations in the first game, and using the effect of exposing those things to make Midas play some terrible moves, Midas had done something similar.
