Two days later.
The sky above the Ashen Expanse was choked with swirling gray clouds and drifting embers—until, in a blur of speed, Raven sliced through the air like a teor dipped in fire.
He was a blur. A thunderous boom followed every flap of compressed force around his form.
Wind howled in his wake. Light fractured. And far below, the twisted forest blurred by in streaks of ashen green.
Then—
BOOM!
Raven landed.
Crater. Dust. A clean circle of devastation was blasted into the earth, with Raven standing dead center like a protagonist posing on a magazine cover.
Wind tousled his dark coat. One hand was casually in his pocket. Not a single hair out of place.
He looked around.
"Huh... green trees."
Towering, twisted foliage stood around him. Corrupted, sure—but this place was different. The bark of the trees was sickly pale but held a sheen of strange life.
The air, although corrupted, was breathable. Slightly warr. Quieter.
It was as if they’d crossed an invisible threshold from a desolate wasteland to a ghostly forest.
He muttered, "Wait. Did we... reach the forest section already?"
But then again, despite the Ashen Expanse being as vast as a kingdom, there was no way they couldn’t travel from one end to another in more than five hours.
Yes, they had been flying—or more like, racing—for around five hours.
Then ca a WHOOOOM in the distance—
BOOM!
Rufus crash-landed with impressive finesse about fifty ters away, kicking up dirt and smirking like he’d just bested the god of speed.
"Second!" He declared proudly, arms raised.
Raven gave him a sideways glance. "You were... 7 seconds behind . That is when I wasn’t even trying my best."
Rufus muttered, "Details."
Then—
CRASH!!
A hundred ters further, sothing exploded into a plu of smoke and dirt. A huge piece of cracked boulder cartwheeled through the air, followed by the echoing shout of "I’M ALIIIIIVE!!"
Graye peeled herself out of the crater, sword raised high and grinning like she just finished a rollercoaster of death. "THIRD PLACE, BABY! Who said you can’t fly with explosions?!"
The forest groaned.
Raven blinked. "She flew by... detonating herself."
Rufus nodded solemnly. "Repeatedly."
Well, she wasn’t exploding herself, but the ground, but she wasn’t far off from exploding herself.
She had used her destructive fire-based sword attack to cause a huge enough explosion to send her hurtling through the air.
Of course, those explosions couldn’t send her flying through the kingdom. She crashed multiple tis but stood up without a scratch every ti and repeated the sa thing.
In a way, she was doing what Raven was doing, but her path included crashing multiple tis and killing so poor, corrupted beasts that were unlucky enough to be standing where she crashed.
Their thoughts were interrupted by a shiiing sound of tal grinding across a magnetic field.
Jessy rode in like a skater girl from a sci-fi fever dream—arms out, hair streaming, standing on her tal surfboard with a cocky smirk.
"Fourth," she said. "And no internal bleeding."
BZZZ!
Clara popped into the air and gently floated down using vibrating air pockets like stepping stones.
She landed gracefully, twirling a lock of hair as if nothing happened. "Fifth. Not bad for soone who rides the air like a violin string."
Right behind her ca a whip-crack of shadows—
Jake appeared mid-step, teleporting from a tree shadow and stumbling slightly.
"Sixth," he muttered, brushing off his cloak.
"Well, looks like the fastest person isn’t the fastest anymore," Rufus coughed.
Then ca a WHOOOOOOOOSH, and a monstrous, shadowy wingbeat overhead.
Selena’s devourer beast flapped its massive wings, soaring in with her sitting gracefully near its neck.
Behind her, Lia and Siris clung to each other on the backseat, Lia squealing every ti the beast dipped.
The ride had been anything but pleasant for either of them, as Siris was continuously trying to poke the beast with her blade.
Worse yet, she also wanted to see if the beast could still fly if its insides were frozen.
She was completely disregarding that they would be falling to the ground from the height of over a hundred ters without anything to latch on to if the beast were to die.
"I hate flying," Siris muttered, tightening her grip.
Lia clutched her plant, which was now in a pot, like a lifeline. "Planty’s leaves aren’t made for this!"
They touched down gently, the shadow beast growling as if it enjoyed the trip, unaware that it had almost died so many tis.
Selena rolled her eyes. "Seventh place. I would’ve been faster if I weren’t carrying the dead weight of two princesses."
Siris glared. "I will shank you."
Lia pouted. "I’m emotional support!"
Then—BOOM! THUD!
Alex landed face-first into a corrupted mushroom patch, rolling several tis before his lava symbiote peeled him out like burnt toast from a toaster.
"Eighth," he mumbled. "Would’ve been first... if lava pants weren’t still a sore topic."
Steam hissed from his shoulders. The mushroom patch hissed back.
He had been jumping in the air like Hulk, covering a large distance with every leap, and of course, he had to make so modifications to his symbiote body to be able to make high jumps.
The first thing he did was gather more mass of symbiote in his legs and shape them like springs that worked as shock absorbers and jump boosters.
Of course, that idea didn’t co out of his dumb brain. It was Blargh who had gone all genius mode and made that suggestion.
Alex hadn’t understood any of what it had said, but he had given the symbiote full control of his body.
Therefore, in a way, it wasn’t Alex who ca eighth, but Blargh did.
However, they were all, except Raven, tired, as they had expended almost every bit of their mana in this ride.
So, as everyone caught their breath, a silence fell in the surroundings.
They recalled why they even started this race—it was because they were bored.
For the past two days, they had done nothing but hunt corrupt beasts, but the problem was that the strongest beast they could find was a level eight beast—even they beca scarce after so ti.
Like Argon had told them before, they felt it as well—the strange movent of the corrupt beasts.
The reason they couldn’t find strong corrupt beasts was that they were hiding—not sothing corrupt beasts do.
Soone, or more than one beast, was controlling them.
They tried searching for them to no avail. But they had expected that, because, like demons, once the corrupt beasts hide, it is almost impossible to find them.
In the end, with nothing else left to do, they decided to race, and that was how they got here.
Raven stood in the middle of the clearing, dusting off his coat as the trees whispered and twisted overhead.
Vines slithered slightly when no one looked, and flickers of corrupted life pulsed through the canopy.
Clara looked around. "We’re... near Hector territory, aren’t we?"
Lia blinked. "I’ve never been here... but I think you are right. After all, the forest part of the Ashen Expanse is the main reason for my kingdom’s situation."
Everyone turned toward Lia, who looked sad, recalling her kingdom’s situation as it was barely surviving.
A large part of her kingdom’s land was covered in forest, and those forests were attached to this corrupted woodland, which gave the corrupt beast a chance to terrorize more than just the corrupted woodland.
With a large part of their kingdom taken over by the corrupt beasts, the Hector Kingdom couldn’t provide food for all of its citizens for long.
It was still sustaining, but everyone knew that it wouldn’t be long before the Hector Kingdom would be begging other nations for food.
Even now, the Hector Kingdom, trying its best to feed its citizens, couldn’t expend money on its army, hence being called the weakest kingdom in the kingdom alliance.
Lia, noticing their gaze, quickly smiled. "What’s up? Why are you all looking at like that?"
Everyone could tell her smile wasn’t real, but since she didn’t want them to discuss this topic, they decided to honor her wish.
They all turned back to the forest before them.
Clara frowned. "So... we accidentally raced halfway across the Expanse."
Siris gave Raven a pointed look. "You do realize you could’ve stopped the race anyti?"
Raven shrugged. "I was waiting for you all to catch up."
Clara muttered, "He’s built differently, so it’s no use talking to him about stopping."
Rufus sighed. "The way he used mana until the ti he landed, not once lowering the output. I would say that statistically, he could’ve flown around the planet three more tis before needing a sip of water."
Graye groaned from her crater. "He’s a monster. A sexy, terrifying monster."
Jessy just sighed. "How is he still not sweaty?"
Before they could continue their chat—
Thud-Thud-Thud... THUMP!
A shadow lood from the edge of the forest.
The panther-beast erged, ash-covered and panting. On its back rode Nibbles, holding a tiny sign that read, "WE MADE IT. Cluckles has feelings."
Beside him, Cluckles stood tall in his scarf, one wing on his hip, the other clutching a makeshift twig staff like a wizard who’d lost his map and his patience.
"Cluckles declares this place... adequate." He sniffed. "Slls of moss, regret, and probably divine leftovers."
"Welco to the finish line," Raven called over. "Last place."
Cluckles glared. "Cluckles does not participate in pedestrian competitions. Cluckles is a philosopher."
Jessy tilted her head. "Did the beast carry them the whole way?"
Rufus nodded. "The way it’s panting makes wonder how it’s still alive."
Graye went forward and petted the beast’s head. "You are well, beasty. Rest now."
As soon as it heard those words, the beast closed its eyes, falling to the side, snoring.
It appears that it had run at the fastest speed it could and tried to catch up with others, and sohow, it reached the finish point without dying.
For that, the beast deserved an award.
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