Chapter 1658: No. 273: Intermission – Two-Breath Walk II

No. 273: Intermission – Two-Breath Walk II

When the person you dislike shows a calm, composed demeanor, revealing a higher viewpoint and more information, and you cannot deny it—even replying feels like you're just helping them—silence is also a decent response.

But you must understand, facts do not shift because of silence.

When the classic Triple Crown in charge of the start and the Dream Cup as the finish both raise past records, creating new glory on the reformed Saichang, the year 614 of the Star Alliance will surely become at least a small section in the history book of the Horse Girl School.

A fresh page.

Written together by the start and finish, it is a door worthy of being called the gateway to a new era.

Yes.

Although the Saichang still presents a chaotic scene, enough to make even the newly hired commentator with unusually sharp professional instincts slow their pace to avoid following in the predecessors' footsteps.

But that is only because the commentators and hosts are limited by habit and by profession, forced to survey the whole situation and take every competitor into account.

In fact, the vast multitude of silent spectators are for the same reason.

Precisely because they cannot control their eyes wandering to other competitors, they tug at each other within that already lacking-confidence judgment.

Over the years, everyone's understanding of horse racing has solidified into a formulaic understanding; you can indeed apply the "formula" from certain practitioners' books to the Saichang, and after it suddenly becomes clear, you can even pose as an expert before friends online, earning rounds of applause and admiring looks.

Based on the extreme interactivity of being on the same track, that "formula" often requires you to combine all competitors' running conditions to understand, observe, and speculate, making you instinctively want to combine everyone's situation to comprehend this Saichang, leading to the conclusion: "What the hell are they all running?! I can't make sense of it at all!!"

If one is a bit rash and impulsive, they will even judge early:

"It's trash; not even as good as the Jidong Derby."

"Yeah, the Jidong Derby at least has five people sober; can we have even one sober here?"

"How can even the Golden Master and the Noble Lady be causing trouble together…"

Compared to the on‑site audience that falls silent for a moment then erupts in unison, noisy and restless, making individual speech hard to hear, those who bought the on‑site simulation tickets, relying on VR devices for synchronized live‑streaming, and all who watch the live broadcast directly are the most numerous and vocal.

In the chat channels where the bullet‑screen refreshes extremely fast, almost requiring plug‑in filtering to barely sustain conversation, even conspiracy theories with considerable support have appeared.

"Or is it the same as last time, claiming that those 13 horse‑girl‑trainer pairs were all targeted?"

"Again? That's too omnipotent—these are world‑class star horse girls!"

"There's also talk that Aomo Lindun and his horse girls are the most suspicious."

"Don't slander! Besides, this time Aomo the trainer and his horse girls were hit too!!"

"Honestly, there's hardly any question of being hit or not…"

Aomo raised his finger and crossed out that information column excerpt.

Among the various domains the demon needs to monitor, this kind of online vitriol is the least worth looking at.

Only that demon‑type Digimon can amuse itself to a stomach‑ache and then specially drag it over for him to see.

Then, after he crossed it out, they crept closer to the screen and asked, "Are you angry?"

Sounding like some blond‑haired midget, after Aomo replied with 【No】 they seemed even more so.

But this sort of person, who expects nothing but fighting and wouldn't appreciate the race anyway, isn't worth mentioning now; however, an offhand remark—"Do these guys even matter? Sirius right now hasn't even cleared half the final‑gate threshold"—happened to hit the mark.

In fact, if your devotion as a single‑fan is pure enough, you will care more about the horse girl in your eyes than other competitors, know her past and present on the track, and you won't become confused like those people above.

The more focused you are, the more you'll find that in this race there is not a single truly exciting presence that loses its rhythm.

As for that, just watching the screen's back‑and‑forth, any random pattern, you indeed cannot tell. You only see something casual and utterly unprofessional, as if everyone were just starting on the campus track, running however they please—early acceleration, early aggressive pursuit, early high‑speed cornering—essentially abandoning collective rhythm and just running their own way.

A horse girl's run always needs a reference point—this has long been industry consensus. Especially for those who have never tried the escape‑running method, once they lead they easily lose judgment, then start to panic and anxiety, and must return to the comfort zone of chasing or being chased to know what they are actually running.

Even those with escape experience, or who persist in the escape‑run style, will likewise try to avoid reckless grand escapes, because they still need to watch the other horse girls, note which turn they've reached, and note which landmark they've passed.

Thus, in the spectators' eyes, collective rhythm is a very important concept.

Especially when the competitors' strength differences are not large.

Deviating from the basic rhythm of "early acceleration, middle maintenance, final sprint" often amounts to stepping onto the path of disorder and failure; if most of the field in a race abandons that rhythm, the race tends to be labeled "completely ruined."

Even though this year's Jidong Derby produced several record‑breakers, it is precisely for this reason that it has fallen into an ongoing public‑opinion turmoil that once gave the Light‑Chasers Club plenty of material for public‑discourse articles. But seeing the club's current "win‑or‑die" posture, how much its old business earned still depends on whether there's an opportunity to spend it.

—

"Chief! Chief! With their tactics we simply can't get past!"

To facilitate data maintenance for special races that can directly enter the data world via Digimon, super agents, etc., and directly interfere with data, many electronic data constructions now consider ecological packaging.

The result of this packaging is that those solemn‑looking mountains, forests, seas, and islands now reveal a state of devastation.

Mountains split apart, rumbling without cease.

Above those surging waves, a sky‑covering silver‑red dragon extends a claw from the dark clouds, and from the fractured island it draws a massive medieval‑style iron spear.

Ambrosius, one of the original prototypes of the Merlin legend, as the massive gun held by Examon, can load various special ammunition, thus enabling a wide variety of attacks.

From internally detonating the enemy's killing move "Gate of Avalon" by constructing magical seals, to firing the high‑output laser "Dragon Emperor Radiance," both are mounted on that subtly shaped gun; at this moment, the Dragon Emperor—tens of miles tall, bearing crimson four wings forged from temporal digizoid—launches its first strike with a violent wingbeat, soaring into the clouds within seconds, shaking the cloud layer, becoming a visible distant speck, making one think it had departed just moments ago—

Boom!!

Its expansion speed is far greater than its contraction speed.

Wrapped in a scalding crimson airflow, the Examon swoops down from the atmosphere, spear in claw, bringing everyone the lance‑use form of its third killing technique.

"Dragon Rush Impact"

One strike blankets everything for hundreds of miles; the blazing light erupting from the totally ruptured ground fissure annihilates all invaders on the ground and within a hundred meters above.

It also renders the ecological packaging of the data stream untenable, gradually exposing the pure mass of data made of zeros and ones.

But even so, you also know.

The framework of the program is not that fragile.

Standing atop all dragon‑type Digimon, called the Dragon Emperor, Examon possesses an extraordinary data volume; its name merely derives from the unit exabyte—Exabyte (EB), 1 EB = 1024 PB = TB = GB.

Thus converted, a data size that would make any transmigrator balk is, when placed in the Holy Terra Federation's software, hardly a notable bracket.

In fact, just those deep‑immersion games that can accommodate the spirit contain internal history‑mountain code exceeding 20 EB, and the federal internet‑built digital world is extraordinarily resistant, allowing Examon to run rampant.

And the reason it can issue a statement taking responsibility for this race's program is that the entire race‑system foundation of the Fuchu Racecourse is immensely large and stable.

Otherwise, normally speaking, if it acted in the program world it would easily crash the program world first, quickly falling into a "What have you even protected?!" questioning circle.

Or perhaps, ruthlessly compress one's own data volume.

It begins as an ultra-compact compressed package form only a few dozen meters long, even just ten or so meters, but because a large amount of data being decompressed is blocked and cannot be activated, it becomes the most embarrassing laughingstock among the Royal Knights.

Because it has had such an experience, it is motivated to enthusiastically exert itself on any battlefield where it can fully exert its power, even the present situation remains so.

But its huge AOE that leaves other digital monsters, net police, and super agents hardly any chance, with no friendly protection at all, so after each use it enters a cooldown of at least two minutes.

Go face those possibly endless protests and complaints.

Admittedly embarrassing, but it is precisely this moment that all surviving invaders have been waiting for.

"Are you still alive!"

"It seems Team 3 has fallen behind."

"Never mind! This loss was within the Minister's expectations; have you detected the control zone?"

"There are fluctuations; it should be within a ten-kilometer radius here."

"Find out! What's the situation outside! Who are the top five now!"

"Fusion, Wanshan Siji, Meiguo Fa Lao, Ludaofu Xiangzheng, and... Sirius Symbol!"