Chapter 1351: with translation of chapter title

NO. 255: Midgame II, the Game of Disorder

In the horse racing world, the Saichang is usually divided into the opening, middle, and final/end stages.

The opening accounts for the first 1/6 of the race length, the middle for half, the final for the last 1/3, and, considering the running pace of the horse girls, the final also has a division into 'first half' and 'second half'.

The moment when source energy technique and remaining strength are fully unleashed is often the moment of crossing those two stages, when the step called 'final foot' is pushed to the limit of speed.

And at this moment, in the middle half of the Saichang.

In the middle stage, the speeds of the horse girls are often extremely close, contrasting with the otherwise gradual phase.

The escape horse slows down, while other horse girls accelerate, yet they are limited by each other's perceived target speed and group rhythm, thus often forming a situation where they are not far apart, and the middle group becomes even more crowded, a 'cluster pattern'.

Especially tense, also especially nerve-wracking.

This process should originally be short, but under the new 7400m regulation, it has gained a visibly noticeable extension.

「Entering the fifth turn! The Holy Knight and White Spell begin to decelerate! Meanwhile, the Golden Master and the Noble Lady continue to maintain high-speed competition! They've overtaken the White Spell! What's the reason! Are they going to start exerting force here! 」

The different mid-length from before naturally presents a different running posture from before.

「Don't do that, don't do that, I bought a horse ticket for White's Spell! At least it's like a song I once liked……」

Clearly, Bi Ze was initially restless, but ultimately betrayed the paper person he liked, rushing toward the horse girl's name that could recall the past.

Then it drew a surprised glance from the brother beside him.

「Eh? You're buying her? This time you're not asking Aomo? 」 Although not very enthusiastic about horse racing, he couldn't resist the fact that several people nearby were into it, and David, who was roped into taking a small drag, also cautiously consulted the 'experts'.

Without a doubt, in David's eyes no one is more professional than Aomo; the brother who guided him to this understanding is Bi Ze, but at this moment he hears the other muttering a horse girl's name not present in Aomo's answer.

「Everyone bought it, 」 though somewhat mature and somewhat ugly a topic, it made Bi Ze unconsciously lower his voice, 「but I also have a bit of a preference! 」

「It doesn't matter, it can also be considered a kind of support. 」

Declaring that lowering his voice was useless, it was the interjection of Xinqian Xi, a pure-blooded human in physical quality, along with that ill-intentioned gaze.

「I just don't know how the person involved feels about it. 」

That gaze went from Bi Ze to Suzi, and because there was no familiar person on the field, Xi freely let her vision wander, which also let Suzi, hearing the voice, look over and say: 「If it were me, I'd certainly be indifferent, but if it were Shumajun, he'd definitely lecture you. 」

In between words, she glanced again at the black-haired silhouette: 「Would Chazuo be like that too? 」

「「……」」

The silhouette glanced at her once, without speaking or answering, his gaze simply turned back toward the western spectator seats, not forgetting to look at the perpetually vacant seat of Biquetus.

「What's she doing? 」 Bi Ze, who felt no offense, simply followed her gaze to both sides, with no clue.

「Whenever it involves the guinea pig, it's always like this~」 Suzi, who was also looking both ways, said lightly; beneath a pair of light grids, in the dark red, there seemed a faint gold disturbance.

Burning fiercely hot, like lava, seemingly able to scorch a person.

「A heart not only is not on the Saichang, it isn't even in the present. 」

After making such a summary, she slightly swayed her right hand, which held her arms at her sides, with a card pinched between her fingers, a gesture that resembled the usual demeanor of a certain demon.

Without a doubt, the power summoned through the card as a medium is both broadening her horizons and resonating with her inner self.

From this perspective, monster cards can also be considered a fairly intuitive psychological test.

As long as you have from the start the awareness that it will reflect the inner self, you can use it to mirror that aspect of yourself that was once hard to ascertain.

Straightforward and clear, it can even show advantages in different directions across categories.

For example, compared to the monster card Gatanjeer, the monster card Camilla has far greater acuity in finding people, especially those of specific status.

This acuity directly affects the user's subconscious, allowing Ailisuzhi, even without clarifying the specific principle, to repeatedly focus her gaze, to focus on that point at the two o'clock direction, at a 70-degree angle high up, amidst the sea of spectators at the horse racing field.

Clearly seeing nothing, yet she could be certain the other was there.

And this was even an unconscious action.

It is only after she thinks about why she wants to look there, drawing from a retroactive sense of familiarity, that she realizes what she is staring at, giving her a rather absurd feeling that 'the eyes have their own mind'.

If it were an ordinary person, they would likely find this hard to accept, even feel frightened, feeling that the self holding the card is nothing like themselves, as if they were being controlled by the card.

But Ailisuzhi is a researcher who speaks of science and logic, tracing back to the source.

Having learned sufficient information about monster cards from the guinea pig and from Xi since the start, and relying on her own 'effort' to apply for this card, she has naturally not spared any checks, experiments, and records on it.

Not to mention the gains from the researcher's perspective, whether they can match the harvest of the activity roommate from the source energy angle.

Merely in terms of grasping the current environment, Miss Suzi has already firmly held the exceptional vision of the enchanting warrior, and in her heart she naturally possesses a slight superiority based on information mastery.

Nearly ten million on-site spectators, the special seats floating in spatial wrinkles, the distant alternate-space battlefield, together with the running details of every contestant on the Saichang—it's practically as if the organ sketches casually drawn in the Showa Omega reference book had received ample funding for display.

In fact, the enchanting warrior Camilla, as the leader of the dark giants, though her species is classified among dark giants rather than Ultramen, her existence is undoubtedly able to match the Ultraman family in various abilities, and can almost be regarded as a darkened Ultraman warrior.

It is precisely because of this individual strength that she, together with Chazuo, was entrusted by Aomo to sit here as a guardian, paying far closer attention to the surroundings than Bobang and Aizhi do, merely because her mood is elated from surveying the present, she would hardly expect that the focus of this midgame lies not here, but in the Luzas headquarters that her dark giant's eye cannot see.

——

「Can I go over? I'm going over, I'm going over now! Wuhu!! 」

The thousand thorns and myriad spikes monster, Burnaddon/Buna Dun, resembling the deep-sea monster Reirros from the Ultraman Diga set, has an extremely high crown and a massive head located at the center of its body.

It has no arms, replaced instead by an iron tail that can maintain balance just as well.

Like most electronic monsters of the Gulit lineage, it walks a metal monster style full of technological feel and exceptionally flashy colors, yet it corresponds to an extreme emotion of the human heart, its name being——Burnout/Exhaustion Syndrome.

It was once said in the Gulit universe that this is a social illness, stemming from long-term pressure that exhausts one's abilities and enthusiasm entirely, resulting in a lack of vitality.

Inheriting this emotion, Buna Dun's main ability is explosion!

Like a butterfly scattering pollen, it sprinkles a sheet of crystalline light points along the path it travels, then detonates via the head-top organ resembling a red antenna, creating a chained miniature sun-like explosion scene akin to the grand battles of a mecha series.

This is the destructive scene it is currently creating.

It runs, following the controller's instructions spoken aloud, letting those countless miniature suns closely trail behind during the run, yet not interfering with the mechanical monster advancing head-on alongside it.

The reason it doesn't interfere is not because Gui She's manual monster operation has advanced to micro-control territory, but because that mechanical monster is a sudden descent monster.

Sudden descent monster Shalbandes/Sharbendis.

Like a walking mechanical tortoise, it is likewise an old face under Gui She's control, its ability stemming from the Charpentier effect/Shapendil illusion.

This emotion is also called the size-weight illusion.

Many people, when comparing two objects of similar shape and equal weight but different volume by hand, often feel that the smaller-volume object feels heavier than the larger-volume object—this is the Sandpantiel illusion.

This widespread illusion refers to all visual misplacements, becoming nourishment for the growth of Schalbandis, and also granting it the ability to manipulate surrounding gravity, allowing objects to shift abruptly.

Thanks to this ability, the Sudden Plunge Monster can not only 'freeze' nearby light points manipulated by gravity, but also use its object ability to send them from close up to far away.

As for that mouth that sprays light beams… it's hard to say how it relates to that emotion; perhaps it's the result of data corruption flowing in from the fire-spitting big turtle next door.

Let's not talk about that.

Regardless of how this ability came about, just based on this setup, Gui She's two monsters at hand are undoubtedly an excellent match.

The Sudden Plunge Monster can avoid being hit by the Thorny Bramble Monster's AOE, and to some extent increases the latter's AOE spread control flexibility; that mouth's sole long-range attack can also be unleashed alongside the ring-shaped explosion, using directed long-range to make up for the fixed ring-shaped AOE's shortage, strengthening this line's destructive posture.

It's just that the resulting scene is quite subtle.

One with two thick legs and a tail to keep balance, walking with a clumsy, wobbling gait.

One with similarly two thick legs and a large tail, a Dark Iron Turtle.

Their running posture side by side is even more Down syndrome–like than Godzilla and Kong running in some hellish scene, straight out of a goofy cartoon.

And at this moment, when the Thorny Bramble Monster with the most Down syndrome–like running posture opens its big mouth full of sharp teeth slightly, a red-haired head pokes out, continually cheering.

This sense of stupidity can go up another level, reaching an unprecedented height, leaving the officials gathered before Luzas's conference table plunged into silence.

Compared to fury, that striking sense of stupidity is undoubtedly shocking, bringing a full three seconds of silence to the scene.

That is an especially important silence.

During these three seconds of silence, Gui She had not yet rushed to the transfer zone, but the transfer zone's gate had already entered the range of the Sudden Plunge Monster's ability.

After these three seconds of silence, even with teleportation, the fastest space person could only see him amidst a series of Boom— flames, extending an extraordinarily long flame straight toward the direction of the base's movement area.

Like an extraordinarily long middle finger, it embellishes that wanton little person's rather sharp laugh.