"So strong!"
Special Week hadn't expected Blue Harmony — a name she hadn't really heard of before — to be this powerful. Was this what the strength of a GI uma musume looked like? Even Seiun Sky hadn't been able to lead the entire race in her previous outing, yet Blue Harmony had the confidence to do exactly that!
Special Week didn't have Analysis Eyes capable of seeing stat values.
She had no idea that Blue Harmony's stamina was as high as 900 — even higher than Seiun Sky's current stamina. Blue Harmony was inferior to Seiun Sky in speed and power, but what Seiun Sky couldn't do, Blue Harmony could — and vice versa.
Front-running the entire race — that was Blue Harmony's tactic.
And she wasn't running a Breakaway either.
She kept the gap to the pack moderate, controlling herself so as not to push too far ahead. As a wisdom-type runner capable of winning a GI, she wasn't going to let pure impulse seize control of her brain.
Even if her entire love life was riding on this race.
Or rather — because her entire love life was riding on this race, she had to be even more careful!
King Halo's eyes glimmered with a ghostly luminescence. Unlike the previous race, today she was running from the proper rear position with the chaser style — and she discovered that her eyes could see far more information from here. Or rather, her eyes were meant to be in this position to reach maximum effectiveness. The previous race had really only been a minor warm-up.
If Special Week hadn't entered ZONE later in that race, King Halo might not have felt any pressure at all and would have just cruised to a dominant victory. But this race was different. Although she didn't know Blue Harmony or Royal Rose, both of whom were technically her schoolmates, the data her Analysis Eyes brought back was clear: their strength was real, and not to be underestimated.
The stat sheets might suggest she was crushing both of them — but in uma musume racing, beyond speed and power being mandatory, stamina only had to meet a baseline threshold to be sufficient. The remaining stats — wisdom and guts — only influenced the chance of unexpected events. So Royal Rose and Blue Harmony, with both speed and power averaging in the A-to-S range, possessed enough strength to demand King Halo bring out at least three-tenths of her seriousness. And unlike Special Week, both of them had been racing for nearly a year and had long since awakened their dedicated skills — and even mastered them through repeated use.
Race experience, skill mastery...
These were things Special Week didn't have yet.
So even though Special Week's stat panel looked extremely strong, the truth was that the old Special Week from a month ago — without entering that ZONE state — would have absolutely lost to either of these two.
But today, the opponent the two of them faced wasn't Special Week.
It was me — King Halo.
As the field crossed the 1000-meter mark, King Halo, under Royal Rose's startled gaze, swung out toward the outer lane. Beyond-Limit Sight had already shown her the racing line to victory!
This is the spot.
Lightning Charge (Flash) — activate!
Skill effect: When pursuing from the outer lane, a substantial boost to speed and a slight boost to acceleration!
Duration: five seconds. More than enough!
A footfall like rolling thunder erupted from the rear of the pack, and golden lightning crackled around King Halo. The racing line beneath her feet blazed with brilliant light. The very air around her seemed to ripple.
In a single heartbeat, King Halo blew past several racers in front of her, charging the front of the field with terrifying momentum. The Surge rolling off her body and the lightning special effect of her skill made her look like a conqueror-king setting forth on campaign — the imperial will behind her was unstoppable.
"The race has crossed the 1000-meter marker... King Halo is launching her move now! So fast — too fast! Is this the brilliance of King Halo?! It's like the heartbeat of a sovereign! Number eight in front of her, no, number ten — no! No one had time to react! In just five seconds, King Halo has rocketed up to third place! She's less than half a length behind number five in second, and less than two lengths behind Blue Harmony at the front! What an explosive burst!"
The commentator was nearly shouting in excitement.
Cheers thundered from the spectator stands.
"So this is King Halo?"
"She's incredible. After watching her debut race, I heard she ran as a chaser and didn't quite believe it — but I believe it now. Today's performance is on a completely different level from her debut!"
"As expected of the daughter of that sovereign!"
"King Halo — an uma musume in whom a sovereign reigns again?"
The audience was stunned, dazzled, full of admiration.
But did they really think that was King Halo's full strength?
Blue Harmony and the number five racer glanced back nervously at King Halo. Only when they saw the surging glow and golden lightning around her starting to fade did they let out relieved breaths.
"Terrifying. This is the new student who came to the Academy this term? She's a year below me, but if I'm not careful — I'll lose. But for the sake of my date with Rose-chan, I cannot lose! I'll bet everything on this race!"
Blue Harmony's smile fell apart. The elegant, princely composure twisted into a fierce, contorted expression. For her beloved, she would defy her trainer's warnings — she would activate a third Flash skill here, even if it meant she might never return to the racetrack for a long time after. She was a soldier of pure love, after all!
"Ohhhhhhh!"
Burn again — my body!
Flash skill — activation successful!
"Yesssss!"
The contorted expression on Blue Harmony's face twisted back into a confident grin.
She had pulled it off. The power of love really was undefeatable.
Royal Rose: ... Who can even understand this?
"Hahaha — I will win!"
After successfully activating her skill, Blue Harmony couldn't resist glancing back once more, because honestly — she was a little afraid of that underclassman. This girl was the biggest villain on her path of love!
But that single glance shook her to her soul.
A wave of pressure shaped like a blue dragon shot through King Halo's body and surged toward the finish line. She even hallucinated for a moment — the finish line transformed into a magnificent gate, and a red carpet unfurled from it, rolling out beneath King Halo's feet.
As the Dragon Meets the Clouds (Flash)The Long Road to Ideals (Flash)
Dual Flash skill activation!
King Halo's figure vanished from where it had been, and that terrifying footfall reappeared right beside Blue Harmony — like a teleport. Blue Harmony stared, eyes wide, unable to believe what she was seeing. She was the taller of the two — yet at this moment, she felt as if she were looking up at a towering figure. An undefeatable sovereign!
Oh no, I'm... going to lose.
Blue Harmony said it to herself, internally.
But losing to someone like this — should I feel disappointed, or should I feel honored? It's like being looked at by King Halo even once is the highest honor in the world. Is this... what they call the aura of a true sovereign?
She had been overtaken.
But Blue Harmony's feelings at this moment were complicated.
Because she felt she probably wasn't going to defeat King Halo. In that single instant, her heart had already conceded.
Sorry, Rose.
Blue Harmony — defeated.
King Halo, in this moment, felt that if she so chose, she could enter Flow at will — because right now she was like Mejiro McQueen during a race: she could clearly see her own victory, and all she had to do was keep moving along that path. Who her opponents were no longer mattered.
This place, in this moment, was herDomain!
The commentator's voice snapped the stunned audience back to reality. "King Halo has flipped the race! Just as the field enters the final turn, she has overtaken everyone — King Halo, fan-favorite number one in this race, now leads! And the gap between her and Blue Harmony in second is still widening. Could it be — is this —"
Watching that gap continue to widen, both the commentator and the host realized something. They were only at the final turn — there was still the entire final straight to come. And at the kind of pace King Halo was showing now, if she could maintain this state, the final margin might well be —
A crushing victory!
But was that possible?
Could King Halo really pull off something like this?
A crushing victory in a 2000-meter mid-distance GI race?
— Of course she could!
In fact, doing it should be considered the expected outcome!
King Halo's footfalls fully entered solo-run mode.
Behind her, Royal Rose finally launched her move — but it was too late. Although she could still catch Blue Harmony, the two of them were nearly evenly matched. So how was she supposed to chase down a King Halo who had effortlessly suppressed Blue Harmony?
That is —
Recalling the legend of King Halo's parents, Royal Rose ground her teeth bitterly. That is what it looks like when someone fully inherits their bloodline and brings that power into the open? She, who had inherited only the glory of her family's bloodline but none of the talent — she was nothing more than a defective product. The figure ahead of her was a sovereign reborn, the second coming of true royalty!
Damn it!
Royal Rose stared at that retreating back with envy.
It was as if she were staring at a brilliance she would never reach.
That magnificent radiance!
"King Halo is the first to enter the final straight, but her speed isn't slowing at all! This — this is incredible! That figure is the proof of a sovereign! Is there anyone who can defeat this uma musume? No! No one! King Halo continues her solo run — seven lengths, eight lengths, nine lengths..."
Ten lengths reached!
And the finish line was just 100 meters ahead!
There was no longer any way to flip this.
King Halo —
"Crushing Defeat — total domination!"
"In her first race since her debut, King Halo has captured her first GI win by Crushing Defeat. Is this the strength of the new generation? Or perhaps — is the next generation about to be the stage of a new sovereign?"
"Congratulations, King Halo, on winning the Hopeful Stakes! Let's all look forward to this racer's brilliant future!"
"Second place — Royal Rose!"
"Third place — Blue Harmony!"
The race was over.
Beneath the shower of flower petals from the salute cannons, King Halo stood like a newly ascended sovereign — using a GI victory as her starting point to signal a new era. The one opening this new age was not Special Week, the chosen one of fate, but rather King Halo, a true sovereign emerging in the world!
At this moment, the great force of destiny took an enormous blow.
And the Three Goddesses, who had been off playing in some other world, looked at the newly born parallel world they hadn't even known about. They saw the dazed look on the face of the world's will. By now, they were used to this kind of thing.
"Let's see who the kid is this time, shall we?"
"Agreed."
"Sounds good."
The wills of the Three Goddesses descended upon this world.
They saw the records in the world's information archive. They saw how the world's will had detected the birth of a "variable" and, in desperation, had been forced to risk strengthening Special Week the protagonist and altering her destiny. Then they saw the moment King Halo shattered Special Week's protagonist's luck. They watched as King Halo seized the protagonist's position and forcibly threw open the curtains of the upcoming Golden Era as a sovereign.
"To think it would actually be King Halo."
The Three Goddesses were a little surprised.
How could they not know what the talent of King Halo's original template was actually like? And even this current King Halo — her talent wasn't anything spectacular either. After all, their bodies were the same as the original templates. The only real difference was in the soul. The original template was a newly born blank soul fused with a racehorse soul. They, on the other hand, were human souls fused with racehorse souls — or perhaps more accurately, the obsessions of a human and a racehorse fused together.
"Surprising. This kid doesn't have the kind of talent Kitasan Black or Rice Shower has, but she's a bit like a successor to that Mejiro McQueen — though their racing styles are completely different."
The arrival of the Three Goddesses didn't catch anyone's attention.
They had already taken their seats — they were just waiting for the show to begin.
The world's will, like a little dumpling, was being held in the arms of the red goddess, looking pitiful — like a kid who'd called for a parent only to have the parent refuse to take their side. Fortunately, the world's will wasn't actually intelligent enough to feel that way — it was just a clump of intelligence driven by instinct. The true masters of the world were the Three Goddesses, and the system that had created this world.
The Winner's Stage performance ended.
The Three Goddesses were thoroughly satisfied. The Winner's Stage, in a sense, was meant for them — though by now hardly any of the younger uma musume were even aware of that fact.
Watching King Halo's flawless performance on stage, Special Week felt enormous pressure. She hadn't forgotten how she had just told the press she would challenge King Halo again.
It wasn't quite that she regretted it.
It was just that King Halo really was too strong.
The current Special Week felt she was nowhere near being a match for her.
In the meantime, Special Week ran two G2 races. One was the Yayoi Sho, the prep race for the Satsuki Sho. But because Silence Suzuka also entered, Special Week ended up losing that race. Even so, in that race she once again broke through into the ZONE state and put serious pressure on Silence Suzuka. And amid that intense, fiery competition, the Satsuki Sho opened on schedule. The competitors arrived at the venue.
The lineup was as follows:
King Halo — fan-favorite number one. Silence Suzuka — fan-favorite number two. Grass Wonder — fan-favorite number three.
Then came Seiun Sky, Special Week, Royal Rose, and others — the first true collision of this glorious Golden Era!
And one could foresee that more such collisions were coming. After all, the Classic Triple Crown only happened once in any uma musume's life, and the so-called strongest races — the Japan Cup and the Arima Kinen — were absolutely not events anyone could afford to skip. Only when an uma musume realized she could no longer reach that dream would she change her route. But even if her chance was one in a hundred, one in a thousand, even one in ten thousand — as long as that single sliver of hope existed, no uma musume would ever give up!
Satsuki Sho!
The race begins!
...
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