If she could have had it her way, the chairwoman of Kasamatsu Tracen would very much have liked to bargain a little with Symboli Rudolf. The local circuit had finally, finally, produced a monster of a talent who was only just about to start shining, and yet the Central circuit had already come sniffing the moment word got out?
Was this really the kind of efficiency the JRA could have—the same JRA that printed everything on paper and could make you wait the better part of a month just for a reply?
The chairwoman had absolutely no temper left to lose. In the end, all the countless thoughts in her heart condensed into a single sentence:
Seriously, why the hell?!
Of course, she did not dare say it out loud. She could only mutter it to herself in her mind.
Still, forget the chairwoman—even Xingyun Liuge's fans felt she ought to be standing on a far grander stage. She should not be wasting her years on regional dirt tracks. She should be riding the wind and soaring high into the heavens!
Perhaps because a peerless powerhouse had finally appeared on the local scene, the people of Kasamatsu—no, the whole Tokai region—had started to feel that the Twinkle Series was not particularly interesting anymore. Watching Xingyun Liuge's one-woman show right on their doorstep was far more satisfying.
And so, the chairwoman's back bent just a little more.
That meant Central and Regional had more or less reached the same conclusion regarding Xingyun Liuge's future destination. All that remained was to discuss it properly with Xingyun Liuge herself—and with her trainer.
But Symboli Rudolf found Xingyun Liuge's teaching methods rather fascinating, and wanted to watch a little longer.
More importantly, every race Xingyun Liuge had run so far had been on dirt.
Rudolf wanted to know how well Xingyun Liuge adapted to turf.
With the Chukyo Cup just ahead, how could she possibly let an opportunity like that slip by?
Watching the jeep-driving Xingyun Liuge from afar, Symboli Rudolf thought to herself:
A first away race. A first time on turf. For an ordinary horse girl, it would be very hard to produce good results under those circumstances.
So how would someone like Xingyun Liuge—someone who seemed almost innately to grasp the mysteries of "domain"—perform?
Rudolf found herself deeply looking forward to it.
She did not even hand over the materials she had personally prepared for Xingyun Liuge. Instead, she decided to wait until after the Chukyo Cup before making formal contact.
One week later, at Chukyo Racecourse in Toyoake, Aichi Prefecture—
"Today, Chukyo Racecourse will be hosting the Chukyo Cup, along with Central races…" Kitahara Jones was giving a serious explanation, but Oguri Cap had absolutely no interest in listening to this kind of "long-winded speech."
All she wanted was to face Xingyun Liuge and settle things on the track today!
Even though Xingyun Liuge had taught them all sorts of things and had, in practice, already become something like a teacher to them, Oguri Cap's feelings did not change when facing the goal she wanted to surpass.
She only wanted to give it everything she had.
She wanted to know how much she had grown, and how much all the effort and sweat she had poured in up to now had closed the distance between them.
Maybe she could not win this time.
But what about next time?
Or the time after that?
Or in the Tokai Derby?
Someday, in the future, she would absolutely defeat Xingyun Liuge.
So for now, all she had to do was go all out.
Seeing how focused Oguri Cap looked, neither Kitahara Jones nor Belno Light could bring themselves to say anything more. They helped her with her final pre-race preparations, then watched her head into the venue.
Both of them hoped Oguri Cap could make her wish come true today—to defeat Xingyun Liuge in the Chukyo Cup.
For this day, that girl had even started training like a battle manga protagonist, using over-the-top "power-up training," and working herself to complete exhaustion every single day. She was nothing like the girl she had been at the beginning.
The horse girls entered the gates.
Xingyun Liuge felt a prying gaze on her, and followed her instincts—only to find Symboli Rudolf peering around with a pair of binoculars.
"…?"
She seriously suspected that this so-called Emperor might have some kind of weird hobby. Otherwise, why was the horse girl beside her not carrying binoculars too?
Besides, horse girls were supposed to have vision far beyond that of ordinary people, right? Xingyun Liuge could already make out every last distinct strand of Symboli Rudolf's hair from here, so there was no reason at all the seven-crown queen could not do the same.
Xingyun Liuge had a very bad feeling about this.
Not because she had accidentally rolled a bizarre champion before the race and was now in an emotionally unstable state, of course. Absolutely not~
Janna, the Storm's Fury:The embodiment of the wind stands ready at your command.
Tailwind: Any wind direction becomes your ally. Gain a 6% movement speed increase.
Zephyr (Passive): Gain a 12% movement speed increase and enter a special protected state that ignores physical rules.
Zephyr (Active): Once per race, target one to three opponents and slow them by 40% for 2 seconds.
Eye of the Storm (Passive): After reducing an opponent's movement speed, restore one-tenth of your stamina gradually over the next 4 seconds.
Monsoon(once per month):
May be activated the day before a race. Choose the track condition (Firm, Slightly Heavy, Heavy, Bad). Regardless of whether the track condition is actually changed, all opponents suffer stamina loss. Also restores one-third of your own stamina, and you may choose the moment at which that stamina is recovered.
Select an area and forcibly alter the weather conditions within it.
(Tips: When using Monsoon, you may only choose one of the two effects. They share the same cooldown. — "A butterfly flapping its wings in South America may cause a tornado in Texas.")
Xingyun Liuge felt as though the darkened icon for Howling Gale was shining brightly, almost as if it were saying:
You want to change the weather? Then I'm the one you need!
What kind of god-tier champion had she rolled this time?
Now it really was my wind suppresses the whole field.
Maybe next time she could roll Volibear too and complete a whole team built around "calling the winds, summoning storms, wielding thunder and lightning."
It was clearly an absurdly strong champion.
And yet Xingyun Liuge felt a fresh wave of unease.
Her earlier backup plan had been to head to America and run the American Triple Crown. But if she now had a weather-controlling champion, then wouldn't that mean…
…she could manually adjust the scheduling itself?
The calendar in early May and early June was a complete mess, with races packed so tightly together that the British Triple Crown and the American Triple Crown clashed head-on. But now…
…that problem no longer seemed to exist for her.
This once-a-month cooldown lined up almost perfectly.
Xingyun Liuge could not help muttering,
"At this point, whether I run Japan's Classic Triple Crown or not kind of doesn't matter anymore."
Before the words had even fully left her lips, the gates flew open with a thunderous crash!
[1200m Chukyo Cup, Turf, Sunny, Firm Track]
The announcer shouted excitedly:
"The race has begun! The horse girls are almost perfectly level off the line—but! Xingyun Liuge! Xingyun Liuge has started slowly! Is it because she's not suited to turf?"
"Could it be that Kasamatsu's dirt-track Demon King is about to suffer the first defeat of her career on grass?!"
High in the grandstand, Symboli Rudolf lightly touched her pale chin.
"A first-rate horse girl can become anxious when faced with unexpected developments, and that can lead to all sorts of mistakes. Could it be… my staring just now…"
Xingyun Liuge had immediately looked back at her and locked onto her position, and that made Rudolf instinctively wonder.
Xingyun Liuge sighed.
She had originally intended to use Mordekaiser for this race. But the moment the gates opened, the race had officially begun, which meant that even if she had not consciously chosen Storm's Fury before, she was now force-locked into it.
"So this is what they call being driven into a dead end, huh? …Kidding."
Xingyun Liuge took one light step forward.
And in that instant, everyone could clearly feel it:
the wind had changed.
"I am the storm!"
What, exactly, was wind?
Explaining it properly was complicated, but put in the simplest possible terms: wind was the horizontal movement of air, flowing from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure.
But now, everything was different.
The air itself gathered into invisible violence.
It wrapped itself around Xingyun Liuge, skimming across the turf and producing a sharp, continuous scream, as though invisible blades were cutting through the air and forcing it to cry out in pain.
Or rather—
it was as if Xingyun Liuge's running had torn the air apart by force, splitting it into two utterly different flows. One surged upward, becoming a torrent of air that could be heard but not seen.
The other plunged downward—
and in an instant, ripped the turf to shreds.
Symboli Rudolf and Maruzensky shot to their feet at the same time.
They looked at each other involuntarily, and each saw the same shock reflected in the other's eyes.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 172)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 116)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter105)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter100)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter69)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter119)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 60
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 40
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 66
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 50
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 52
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 55
The Way the Umamusume Look at 42
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 40
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 36
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 30
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 26
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 26
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