And with a rush of blood, a flick of the wrist and the pock of a pointed dart in the double-eight bed, it was all over. One dream made and one dream dashed, one destiny fulfilled and one destiny deferred. Luke Humphries, the world No 1, is the new champion of the world, and he did it not simply by defeating the genius of Luke Littler, but by pushing back the tides of fate: standing in the seemingly irresistible path of a great sporting fairytale and meeting it with his own singular brilliance.
It was one of the great Ally Pally finals, one of the greatest and most dramatic tussles this famous stage has ever seen, under some of the greatest pressure ever known, in what will almost certainly be the biggest global audience this sport has ever enjoyed.
The overwhelming weight of emotion and narrative, as well as the noise of the assembled audience, was pointed in a single direction: behind the 16-year-old from Warrington, attempting to pull off a feat unprecedented in darts, and perhaps in the history of British sport.
Humphries, by contrast, was living on nothing but his wits, his own skinny metronomic action, and his own unshakeable belief. At one point he trailed by four sets to two, the hand quivering a little, the brow soaked in sweat, the cheeks flushed and puffing. In the teeth of the storm, he produced the greatest darts of his career, reeling off five consecutive sets for a 7-4 win and a triumph that will change his life forever.
Perhaps it was no surprise, then, that at the moment of victory he simply crumpled to the ground, his legs giving way from beneath him, the tear ducts springing open, his father Mark clasping his head in disbelief.
This has been a triumph of skill and perseverance, a triumph of hard work and resilience, but a triumph above all of belief: that in an era studded with all-time greats, where the overall standard of the game is as high as it has ever been, he would eventually claim the prize his raw talent deserved.
