How long had it been since Dream Weaver last unleashed the full lethality of her Divine Blade, not since her duel with Shinzan?
The answer was nine months.
In all that time, she hadn't encountered a single opponent who forced her to give everything.
And so, the blade that had once cleaved through the heavens themselves lay dormant, slumbering alongside its master for three-quarters of a year.
Dream Weaver recalled an old saying: miss one day of practice, and only you know; miss two, and your coach knows; miss three, and the whole world knows of your slackness.
She wasn't just facing a gap of a few days.
It had been nine months since she truly cut loose, and in the month leading up to the Japanese Derby, she hadn't even stepped onto a competitive track.
Could she truly still command the terrifying power of the Divine Blade?
Of course she could.
Her right hand rested at her waist.
In a daze, she felt as if she were touching a hilt that shouldn't exist in the physical world.
If the race track was a battlefield, then this blade was the only reason Dream Weaver had survived one encounter after another.
If the Divine Blade were real—if it were a girl—she would undoubtedly be the comrade Dream Weaver would trust with her life.
They were partners who needed no words, dancing through the blood of the battlefield in perfect, lethal harmony.
Nine months was a mere blink of an eye. It could never sever the bond between them.
Familiar power surged from her heart, and the hum of the blade reached a fever pitch.
Every Uma Musume on the track heard it clearly: a sharp, ringing vibration filled with joy, excitement, and a primal thirst for the kill.
Then, in the next heartbeat, a flash of red-gold light engulfed the entire field.
Time seemed to grind to a halt. For every girl out there, the crowd vanished, the track disappeared, and the world was swallowed by a brilliance that reached the very vault of heaven.
Something happened, they thought.
"Tokai Teio is slowing down?!"
Rin Akasaka's voice drifted in from the sidelines, pulling the racers back from their trance.
They instinctively looked ahead, desperate to see why the Phoenix—which only a moment ago had been burning with such intensity—had suddenly lost its fire.
Even if they already knew the answer deep down, they had to see it for themselves.
The shimmering phantom of the Zone no longer clung to Tokai Teio.
Under the edge of the full-power Divine Blade, the "Phoenix" had no chance to rise from its ashes. It had been severed in a single, clean stroke.
The wings of flame had been lopped off.
Without them, the other racers could finally see Tokai Teio for what she was.
She hadn't been flying at all; she had simply been leaning so low, shrouded in those wings and moving with such blinding speed, that everyone had been deceived.
But now, with her wings clipped and her momentum shattered, that low crouch no longer looked powerful.
Instead, she looked precarious, swaying as if she might collapse at any moment.
The other Uma Musume fell into a collective silence.
They hadn't awakened their own Zones, so they couldn't touch Tokai Teio's will through that ethereal connection.
Yet, the sight of her—like Icarus racing toward the sun—was so hauntingly beautiful they knew they would never forget it.
And they realized something else.
If Tokai Teio was Icarus, braving death to reach the sun, then the sun she was chasing—the sun that burned anyone who dared get too close—could only be her.
They watched the front of the pack with complicated expressions, staring at the streak of red light that hadn't wavered from start to finish.
She was already so strong, yet she continually tapped into even more terrifying depths of power. They began to wonder if she even had a limit.
Am I really supposed to compete for a championship against someone like that? The thought crept into their hearts.
But regardless of what they felt, the "Sun"—that crimson flash—did not wait.
Seconds after cutting down Tokai Teio, she tore across the finish line.
The massive screen by the track flickered, preparing to display the name of the Japanese Derby winner.
But no one was looking at it.
Everyone there knew who the champion was long before the machine could process it.
The entire Tokyo Racecourse erupted. No commentary was needed to stoke the fires; the crowd's emotions hit their peak the moment Dream Weaver crossed the line.
They roared her name, hoping she might look up into the sea of faces and offer them a victory smile.
But she didn't.
Instead of heading toward the stands to bask in the glory as she usually did, the champion crossed the finish line and immediately pulled a sharp U-turn, racing back onto the track.
The crowd was stunned.
An inexperienced Rin Akasaka could only turn wide-eyed to Kentaro Sugimoto, hoping her mentor could make sense of the situation.
But Kentaro Sugimoto's eyes were just as wide.
In decades of broadcasting, he had never seen anything like this.
He frantically searched his mental rulebook for a protocol on what to do when a winner runs back into the fray, but he found nothing.
Why would any Uma Musume do such a thing?
After a hard-fought victory, shouldn't she be soaking up the cheers and the prestige? Why run back?
Dream Weaver didn't care.
To her, there was something far more important than glory.
For the first time, she turned her back on the mountain of expectations from the crowd and charged back into the arena.
Tokai Teio's consciousness had long since burned to ash in the heat of her Zone.
She had only been held up by the sheer drive of her will and the momentum of her speed. Now that the Phoenix had been cut down, the strength supporting her body vanished.
Dream Weaver had barely crossed the finish line when Teio began to stagger. By the time Dream Weaver reached her, Teio was already pitching forward.
"What—?!"
Symboli Rudolf's pupils shrank.
For a second, she looked ready to smash the glass of the VIP box and leap down to the track herself.
But someone was faster. Before Tokai Teio could hit the ground, Dream Weaver caught her soft frame.
The girl's body temperature was terrifyingly high, like holding a bundle of living fire.
Dream Weaver didn't hesitate for a second.
Under the watchful eyes of everyone at Tokyo Racecourse, she gathered Teio into her arms and sprinted toward the medical center.
Seconds were lives; the sooner she got Tokai Teio to the doctors, the better her chances would be.
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T/N: I have a Patreon! Webnovel will get 2 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.