As she entered the corner, King Halo activated her Corner Recovery skill, feeling a slight restoration of stamina flow through her legs.
A single skill worth 200 skill-points in-game was powerful. Even a normal-grade recovery skill was equivalent to nearly 10% stamina restoration.
King Halo wasn't familiar with front-runner style at all, so she didn't dare attempt flashy maneuvers like Seiun Sky.
Right now, King Halo was following Hayato's instructions and running purely on raw ability.
With a seven-length gap, the Uma Musume behind could still accept it. The distance was slowly shrinking, but not creating a larger deficit.
If a runner got caught, that'd be a disaster. King Halo constantly monitored the distance behind her, keeping her speed within an acceptable range.
The benefit of high wisdom was that it also reduced stamina consumption.
"I won't give up! Haaaaa!"
Shining Entry suddenly accelerated. She'd decided the all-out power actually looked pretty good. So it's time to charge to the front position and claim it for herself.
"Oooohhh! Shining Entry accelerating! Shining Entry has accelerated! She still wants to compete with King Halo for the front position. Is she confident enough to take on one-on-one with King Halo?"
But inside her, chaos was erupting. Her chest was tight, her lungs burned, and every step felt heavier than the last. Doubt clawed at her mind.
'Had I overestimated myself? Was I chasing something I could never reach?'
She drew closer to King Halo, straining with every ounce of strength… Only to realize with a sinking feeling that it was pointless. No matter how hard she pushed, she could not break through.
And then the truth became unavoidable: King Halo was accelerating too. Not straining, not wavering, just pulling away. Every desperate push from Shining Entry was met with the same result. The gap refused to shrink, standing there like a wall she simply couldn't break through.
"How is this possible?! Why could she still accelerate?"
Shining Entry reached out desperately but found King Halo getting further and further away.
No. Why? Why was this happening? Why hadn't she run out of stamina yet?
In just a moment, she realized her own speed was dropping.
"Damn it!" She tried desperately to maintain top speed, but it was useless.
"Shining Entry is starting to lose momentum! She can't match King Halo's pace anymore, she's falling back!"
Uma Musume, who'd exhausted their all stamina, dropped to the minimum average speed.
Due to her loss of speed, she quickly fell from the front and dropped all the way to the midpack. Without recovering stamina, there was no way she could catch back up.
After one Uma Musume crashed and burned on the track, the remaining competitors all became more cautious. Nobody dared challenge King Halo at the front position anymore.
"They were approaching the final corner!"
"Beautiful! King Halo's cornering technique was very successful, passing through the curve perfectly. She still maintains a seven-length gap with the pack behind her."
Entering the straightaway.
Having passed through the corner one step ahead, King Halo was already beginning to accelerate, preparing for the final spurt.
"How does she still have this kind of speed?!" Panic rippled through the uma musume on the field.
They couldn't understand how someone who'd been running away the entire race still had the energy to accelerate at this point.
For this debut race, just finishing the full distance seemed impressive enough. After passing the corner, they wanted to accelerate too, but the effect was minimal.
"I can't—I can't anymore! How is she still running?!"
An Uma Musume who seemed to still have some strength left broke out from the pack. It was Mint Drops, who'd shaken hands with King Halo earlier.
"Mint Drops is starting to accelerate! King Halo's sprint speed seems even faster than hers. Can she catch up?"
However, faced with King Halo's overwhelming abilities, she was still completely crushed.
She'd pulled away from the pack by two lengths, but was still five lengths behind King Halo.
"How can she be this strong?" Mint Drops was running so hard that tears were streaming from her eyes.
In reality, she hadn't even participated in qualifying races. So today was her first time competing. She could only blame her trainer for being overconfident. If she hadn't encountered King Halo, she might have actually won.
Up in the spectator seats, Biwa Hayahide adjusted her glasses and flipped her fluffy gray hair, her bright eyes still fixed on the scene below. "The result is already decided."
"Yeah. The gap's too large. She'll be a formidable opponent." Narita Taishin watched with keen focus, speaking seriously.
Their gazes both revealed how they viewed King Halo as a serious threat.
King Halo, who'd declared her intention to dominate the Triple Crown a few days ago, really wasn't just talking big.
"I didn't expect that...."
They'd originally come to cheer for King Halo, but unexpectedly ended up analyzing an opponent's tactics instead. If they encountered King Halo on the racetrack, they didn't have much confidence they could win either.
Facing a runaway strategy like this for the first time, maintaining composure would be really difficult.
Besides, the running style of the Great Escape is only suitable for a first-time surprise strategy. If the enemy already knows it, it's very easy to counter by intercepting the enemy early in the game.
"Same trainer as that Seiun Sky girl?" Narita Taishin remarked. "They both use this tactic. Could this running style actually be legit?"
"Hard to say. Appearing among Uma Musume from the same trainer, this probably isn't a tactic thought up on the spot."
"But it might work in debut races. Probably won't work in classics though, right?" Narita Taishin had spotted quite a few flaws in King Halo's performance throughout the race. If she'd been on the track instead, there was absolutely no way she'd let King Halo win.
Narita Taishin was confident in her speed.
After King Halo passed the corner, the speed she could gain was already quite limited. Taishin felt she was completely capable of overtaking her.
"Yeah, this running style isn't complete yet. The weaknesses are clear, but with a month to work on them, they should be able to fix those flaws." Biwa Hayahide thought so as well.
"It's wonderful, isn't it?" Narita Taishin clenched her fist. "Even without natural first-class abilities, she still insists on being a first-class Uma Musume. An opponent like that... no, she truly is first-class."
Narita Taishin's desire to stand on the racetrack stirred restlessly.
"I think so too. The more an opponent is like this, the more seriously we need to take them."
"Waaah... I'm so moved... that persistent King Halo... Waaaah..."
Glancing at Winning Ticket, who'd already cried herself into a tear-soaked mess, they chose to ignore her. She'd been crying for five minutes straight, starting from the moment they'd entered.
All around the spectator seats, people were crying and cheering for King Halo just like her. Who could tell how many of them had been carried away by the emotions she stirred?
At the very front, King Halo felt incomparably joyful. A crushing victory like this was something she wouldn't have dared even dream about before.
Everything was because she'd met that person.
Meeting Hayato made her feel incredibly fortunate. Without him, she'd still be struggling in qualifying races right now.
Even she could hardly believe that after training for just a month, she'd undergone such a massive transformation.
Were debut races really this simple?
This change was already obvious. Aside from Seiun Sky, she no longer feared anyone in her generation.
Today I'll make you all shut up. I'll show you that I, King Halo, deserve the title of first-class, that I'm truly first-class.
The path to an undefeated Triple Crown starts here.