Chapter 71: Just woke up, what bicycle do you want? (With two bonus chapters)

A few minutes ago.

The card case had long stopped trembling; Aomo's gaze fell on the instant of the pitch-black, unchanging fragments that flew up together with the shattered rock.

That premonition had already become clear.

Chengtian Bai Ren's burst skill 【ShadowBreak】 can, when overtaking on the final curve, increase speed with monstrous force and even explode dramatically, while the instant burst of darkness is also shattered by her footsteps——

——For Aomo, who knows most of the written data on Umamusume, this is common sense.

Especially, the era when Chengtian Bai Ren was active on the Saichang was exactly when he first began to ponder horse racing.

Of course, at that time Aomo's horse‑racing success rate was still worrisome; predictions based on incomplete basic data were doomed to be unreliable.

Although Aomo didn't want to make a judgment so quickly, the schedule didn't slow down for his pace of gathering data.

When it's time to judge, one must judge, even if the grasp is insufficient.

So he also sent a lot.

And betting on Chengtian Bai Ren was his main source of win rate at that time.

It's a pity, but this is nothing to be proud of.

Because Chengtian Bai Ren's outstanding performance is a public fact, her odds can only be described as tragic——betting on her to win yields only pocket change, while many people hope she loses,

Aomo, however, did not join that crowd, for he had only just begun to touch horse racing then, and he still retained sufficient respect for the athletes from his earlier admiration of the Umamusume's figures.

Adding his usual caution and relative conservatism, he felt that earning a little pocket change bit by bit was more stable than the surprise of a sudden windfall.

One should step step by step; those few days in Heaven's Gate City were his first big stride in life.

Although he ripped the seam of his pants, making it temporarily inconvenient to meet people, at least he didn't hurt his balls.

That said, even though Chengtian Bai Ren displayed a strength worthy of being called stable, Aomo still gathered a lot of data on her to boost his confidence.

He even didn't let pass some fleeting rumors.

Those things are hard to tell true from false; even now, few can be proven from the various information of the past years.

But only regarding that 'shadow,' Aomo can tentatively distill from it a cognition that can be called certainty.

【An aggregate of energy formed from negative emotions, lacking intelligence, yet due to its composition it exhibits a stress response akin to instinct】

After all, it is originally composed of emotions, so it naturally follows those emotions' actions; the reason it first clung to Chengtian Bai Ren is unclear, but her own emotions and those of the people she has contacted undoubtedly fueled its existence, and the emotional makeup it encompasses has become indistinguishable.

Very familiar, Aomo extremely familiar, familiar to the point of feeling like he had returned to the exam hall.

Also familiar to the point of feeling like he had merged into the body of that giant beast.

Complex and diverse, intertwined black emotions, a mass of black emotions suppressed by will.

Chengtian Bai Ren... perhaps, like him, possesses the potential to wield monstrous power, of course, the prerequisite is that she be recognized by the Beta System.

Otherwise, settling for second best, the potential to be a venom host might also exist (crossed out).

As for why the burst moment can trigger his own palpitation and even the trembling of the card case...

Aomo's finger, placed in his trouser pocket, rubbed the card case, as if feeling its cold metallic texture, and as if soothing the silent card.

Or is it like that?

He asked in his heart.

A king of the water, an Ultraman slayer, how fierce is your darkness and frenzy, why bother with the roar of a tiny beast?

Having no will, only instinct remains—that's this trouble, like ancient machinery lacking adaptability.

Good thing it's only an instant... I ought to pay extra attention to this negative‑energy product... Aomo thought, his gaze also falling on the conversation of those two Umamusume in the distance.

Noticing that Chengtian Bai Ren seemed somewhat uneasy as she turned her head toward this side, Aomo greeted Bi Ze and Dawei beside him.

"Don't look, it's over there; we'll go the other way."

To avoid suspicion face‑to‑face, he even deliberately waited until after Chengtian Bai Ren turned her head before pulling his hat brim and stepping forward first.

And Bi Ze, still in place, exclaimed indignantly:

"How do you know!?"

"I think they'll still fight; the Umamusume's stamina isn't that feeble!"

Many passersby nearby also instantly cast approving glances, but their approval meant nothing; once Pipa Chen Guang stepped forward, everyone could see the duel had ended.

Meanwhile, the reporters in the crowd had already begun to clench their fists, ready to seize the first opportunity.

Bi Ze, walking down the road without really wanting to look back, turned his head and saw Dawei and Aomo already far ahead, so he had to hurry to catch up.

Having caught up, he began trying to persuade them to turn back:

"I said Dawei following you with his head down is fine, but aren't you going to seize the chance to strike up a conversation? You did receive an invitation from Telesen, didn't you? I've heard Chengtian Bai Ren rarely appears at Telesen Academy, always coming and going mysteriously."

"Is that really necessary? Especially in such a terrible environment."

Aomo's gaze full of astonishment and pity: "If you want to get into the gossip papers about me, I can cheer you on and give you a boost."

"Well then, forget it," Bi Ze shrank his head, "but what do you want us to look at?"

"Look at this."

Aomo said, swiping his finger in the air to bring up a menu, then his fingers tapped repeatedly, and a flying dagger with a flow of light appeared in mid‑air, which he pinched in his hand, spinning smoothly, and with a smooth swing turned into a silver flash.

It flew straight into the center of the target fifteen meters away.

"......" x2

This move directly left Bi Ze and Dawei silent together.

But the latter, after less than three seconds, exclaimed in amazement: "Awesome! You still have this move?!"

In the midst of speaking, the distant target had already slid along the ground's track toward the three of them, almost instantaneously arriving.

A mature target will walk to the user after being launched, allowing the user to observe the result.

At this distance, the three could clearly see that the blade of the flying dagger had completely sunk into the straw target.

"This power..." Dawei raised his hand to pull out the flying dagger, observing its three‑inch clean blade, then discovered the dagger was collapsing and dissipating, before him appearing a warning screen reading "No Permission".

This is a bit embarrassing, but when he looked at Aomo's calm expression, Dawei cheerfully patted his back, saying, "No wonder you said you'd come to be a mercenary—turns out you're that strong."

Recent events.

Aomo smiled, couldn't help but admit that dragging his brothers over to show off was cliché, yet it did give him considerable satisfaction; he just hadn't planned to continue, and after glancing at the distant crowd, he kept walking, further increasing the distance.

In this training ground divided into several terrains, there were still a few focused trainees, and Aomo was also approaching them.

He glanced sideways at Bi Ze, who had been wanting to speak but hesitated: "You can ask them one by one."

"The very first move?" Bi Ze seemed to have been waiting for him to say that, and he spoke quickly.

"It's a preset gesture, like the pattern lock on a phone; this is to bring up the menu." Aomo answered.

"What about that balance flying dagger just now?" "The balance flying dagger is passable; I almost didn't understand."

Thanks to the "Non-existent Memory" exerting its effect, Aomo barely managed to understand the other party's term specific to a certain game, and Bi Ze himself also belatedly came to a clearer understanding that the "transmigration gift" Aomo had mentioned in the chat software had indeed arrived.

"I used to have this precision before, but I could only accurately hit within eight meters; now look what you see?"

"This has improved too much, right?" Bi Ze stared at Aomo with the look one reserves for extraterrestrial beings, a gaze that in the past usually appeared when Aomo stared at Bi Ze.

"That's why..." Having said that, Aomo's voice took on a dull, reverberant-like glitch quality.

Bi Ze instinctively stepped back two paces, while David, the moment he stopped, was about to trigger the crystal-element acceleration special effect that felt like a lumbar nerve pain, staring at the tall figure enveloped by the magic light points that had not yet fully dissipated, and he also heard the latter half of the sentence, gradually stretched by his perception:

"——I need to let you guys see this."

"……"

It seems not out of control; did I overreact?

David hurriedly suppressed the crystal that accelerated nerve transmission and, in effect, slowed time, looking at the tall, ferocious figure intertwined with silver and black, and tried asking, "Aomo?"

That was a towering demon that, even without counting the horns and tail, stood over 2.5 meters tall.

Having a rather metallic luster, the silver keratinous scale armor covered the upper body, and even the naturally folded wings hung down; the whole resembled the hem of a silver windbreaker, drawn in around the body.

But the lower body seemed soaked in ink, from the waist down to the heels, all occupied by black.

Only the shin's gap behind the bone-spur-like extension flashed with six symmetrical silver lights, like breathing, just as the irregular fissure in the chest, jagged like a black crescent, did; the condensed white blossoms resonated in the same rhythm.

A steady alternating bright-dark flicker, as if housing the nozzle of an engine that contained flame.

That was the trail of magic.

The demonic power throughout the body would converge at the heart, its trail forming a special pattern on the chest, and this peculiarity likewise appeared on the wings, the spiky tail behind, and the tips of the pallid claws.

David and Bi Ze didn't understand these structural details; to them, Aomo was just walking and talking with them when suddenly his whole body grew several sizes larger, became much taller, and his face turned completely nonhuman.

That face seemed covered with a layer of demonic-style silver faceplate; a pair of horns spiraling outward from the sides of the head and extending upward ended in a hollow, within which burned black flames, their outline resembling candlelight, yet together with the silver horns themselves forming a perfect pointed contour.

And the blood-red eye sockets flowed with black flames matching the horn tips, and together with the indentations at the edges of the sockets they constructed a "scrutiny"-like visual impression.

"... Does your family ancestry possibly include someone named Sparta?"

After staring for a while, Bi Ze couldn't help blurting out that sentence.

Even more uncanny is that Aomo also understood it; in fact, while admiring his own demonic form, he had once had that very thought.

Moreover, this lacks any human likeness; even the face is closer to a demon's than a human's head shape, entirely matching the type of Dante and Virgil in their true devil form from the fifth generation, unlike Nero, who still had refined features broadly consistent with humans.

But one must admit, even Virgil's gas-stove brain couldn't make this double-horn candlestick operation any weirder, especially since the flame it emits is black as well.

"I'm not sure; my family expelled and disowned my father long ago, and they don't acknowledge this impure bloodline of mine..." He wanted to say "mongrel", but meant it in a non-insulting, biological sense, though thinking that bringing it up in front of these two might earn him consolation, he decided against it.

The tail behind, thin and sharp like a bone spur, lifted slightly then fell—this was probably the only trait of the demon avatar Aomo had crafted in the online world that truly matched his own features.

But what he had given himself was a pure color, not this black spreading from the waist halfway, then turning into a faintly pulsing glow, a dense, dizzying silver moon pattern.

His train of thought went off track again...

Aomo returned to the family topic, thought a bit, and added another sentence:

"Moreover, my foster father said my father's line of demonic form indeed matches this style."

Unlike the crude, run-of-the-mill traditional demons, this looks like an elite monster, even on the level of the Four Heavenly Kings, but its quality is uneven.

As a vampire who had once fought Aomo's relatives, the foster father's assessment carries the weight of someone directly involved.

"So what about this condition?"

After listening for a while, his gaze shifted from initial uncertainty to careful observation, and then David, eyes shining, felt that Aomo's demonic form was very much in line with his aesthetic for nonhuman monsters.

And after sizing up the form, it was natural to ask about abilities; David also understood that Aomo had come to demonstrate this to them, and he was naturally eager.

Then he saw the other party manifest a flying dagger in hand; apparently to save effort, it resembled the model previously generated by the system, and he threw it straight without flourish, instantly piercing a target thirty meters away.

Then, while the two stared at the distance and power displayed on the light screen beside the target, Aomo slid his claws and tapped his fingertips in succession.

A condensed blade of light formed a longsword that he gripped and thrust out fiercely, piercing another large target at the same distance with greater ferocity, and the pop-up light screen directly displayed its speed and force.

This action was too swift; neither of them had time to react, still feeling the strong wind buffet their cheeks and hair, while Aomo's hand was gathering light again, as if about to perform some magic.

After all, he couldn't keep throwing things around—it was like showing off upgrades: level 10 taking on a lobster, level 20 taking on an armored lobster, level 30 taking on a color-changed winged lobster.

But when the magic circle was just beginning to outline, he suddenly shattered it, instead extending his arms—fortunately lacking any bone spurs—to embrace the two.

At that instant, the wings unfurled, and from the gaps in the scales behind him erupted scorching silver radiance, warping the air while delivering a powerful thrust.

Before a crowd of reporters could surround them, the demon shot up into the air with the two, one crying out in fear, the other in excitement, flinging several frantic flashbulbs behind.

Aomo had once evaluated this, regretting that his demonic form only increased the blue bar limit and granted no special abilities.

Indeed so, but the enhancement this form gives to strength, speed, and reaction is beastly excessive.

Just as his earlier near‑complaint evaluation went:

Very much a Showa-era cyborg.