Down on the track, in the real world, still moving at normal speed, less than a second had passed since King Halo's transformation began.
But in that frozen moment, everyone on the track felt it simultaneously.
The world itself seemed to scream.
A massive pressure wave crashed over them like a physical force. Gravity itself multiplying tenfold, crushing down on their shoulders, pressing them into the ground. The cold was overwhelming and absolutely terrifying in its intensity. Not cold like ice, but cold like the absence of warmth, like the death of all heat, like standing at the edge of a void that wanted to swallow everything.
Not like Winning Ticket's gentle pressure that encouraged growth, that felt like warm sunlight urging flowers to bloom.
This felt like standing before a predator that had already decided you were prey. Had already made the kill in its mind, already tasted your blood, already felt your bones crack between its jaws.
The air itself tasted wrong. Metallic and bitter, like copper and ash and something rotten underneath.
The BNW trio, locked in their three-way battle at the front, shoulder to shoulder, all felt it at once.
Fear...
Not the competitive anxiety of a close race, but primal terror. The kind that made prey animals freeze before predators. The kind that bypassed rational thought and went straight to the most ancient part of the brain that knew only run or die.
Their zones flickered and dimmed simultaneously, as if something was actively draining them, feeding on their light. Red-blue flames, silver-purple mist, golden amber light, all guttering like candles in a hurricane.
Cold sweat erupted across their skin instantly, drenching them despite the heat of exertion. Their breath came in gasps that tasted like fear.
Especially Biwa Hayahide.
The aura emanating from King Halo now reminded her viscerally of Narita Brian. Like her little sister's overwhelming dominance and stripped away everything, leaving only the crushing weight of absolute power.
Narita Brian's presence alone made you want to surrender, even just standing on the same field as her.
Biwa Hayahide's silver-purple mist contracted around her body like it was trying to hide, trying not to be noticed.
How could it change so drastically? What happened behind us that made the entire atmosphere shift like this?!
Her legs wanted to stop. Every instinct screamed at her to pull up, to let it pass, to get out of its way before it noticed her.
Winning Ticket's red-blue presence flickered violently, the visualization guttering like candles in a hurricane. The colors were fading, turning gray at the edges, being drained of vitality.
"Wh... what... what is this...?"
Winning Ticket's voice came out broken and stuttering. The earlier joy in her tone had completely evaporated, replaced by something close to existential dread, like staring into an abyss.
Her chest felt tight, not from exertion but from fear. From her body trying to make her stop running, stop competing, stop drawing the attention of the thing behind her.
Narita Taishin's golden amber light shuddered, pulsing erratically like a heartbeat going into arrhythmia.
"Halo... that's not... you're not... that can't be..."
She couldn't finish, couldn't articulate the wrongness, the fundamental violation of what should be possible.
All three of them felt it the presence behind them was apex, the thing that ate other predators.
And they were in its hunting ground.
At this time, King Halo spoke.
"Are you all just pretending I don't exist?"
The words carried weight that made the air ripple, made reality shudder. Each syllable dripped with condescension, with the kind of amusement a cat has while playing with dying prey.
"So cute~"
The affectionate diminutive sounded wrong coming from that voice, twisted into something mocking and predatory. Like she was genuinely amused by their pathetic attempts to ignore her, to pretend the monster wasn't there.
"But I'm your real opponent in this race! Did you forget about me?"
Not a question but a reminder, a threat wrapped in playful words that made the temperature drop ten degrees. The shadows on the track deepened, grew longer, reached toward the BNW trio like grasping hands.
This version of King Halo genuinely terrified Winning Ticket, made her zone flicker not from pressure but from her own will wavering, from doubt creeping in like poison, from fear eating at the foundation of her determination.
"H... Halo-chan is... that's not... that's not Halo-chan anymore..."
The words came out choked and barely audible, her voice trembling and cracking on the last syllable.
At this time, King Halo moved.
BANG!
The sound was violent and aggressive, like an explosion rather than a footfall. Her hoof obliterated the track surface, and the turf didn't scatter but exploded outward like a bomb had detonated beneath her feet. Chunks of earth and grass flew up like shrapnel, some pieces traveling ten, fifteen meters before crashing down.
The crater she left was deep enough to trip an uma musume, wide enough to be visible from the stands.
The shockwave rippled through the ground like an earthquake, making the entire track shudder, making uma musume stumble even positions behind her.
The sound cut through fifty thousand screaming voices and silenced them. For one frozen heartbeat, the entire stadium went quiet, shocked into silence by the sheer violence of that single step.
Her acceleration wasn't comprehensible, wasn't physical. It violated every law of motion and momentum and conservation of energy.
Each stride covered impossible distance. The air screamed as she tore through it, leaving distortions in her wake that shimmered like heat waves.
In the zone that uma musume could perceive, dark emerald energy shot through with tarnished gold trailed behind each step, the visualization burning itself into existence with malevolent intensity.
The darkness didn't just follow her but radiated from her in waves, pulsing outward with each heartbeat, each stride, growing stronger, more oppressive, more absolute.
She exploded from sixth position like a missile, like death itself given form and purpose and direction.
Galeon, struggling in fifth position, saw the blur approaching from behind in her peripheral vision. Her heart lurched. She tried to glance back but the movement was happening too fast.
For one terrible moment, their eyes met.
Galeon saw something in those eyes that made her blood turn to ice: Pure, undiluted hunger. She was an obstacle, an annoyance, something in the way of the throne that needed to be removed.
"What... what the hell?!"
The word barely escaped before King Halo was there, right there. The passage was so violent, so sudden, that Galeon felt herself being yanked sideways by the displaced air. Her hooves left the ground for a terrifying instant. She windmilled desperately, arms flailing, barely catching her balance as her feet slammed back down.
Her heart hammered against her ribs like it wanted to escape. Sweat poured down her face, not from exertion but from fear.
King Halo didn't even glance back, didn't acknowledge Galeon's existence beyond the half-second it took to pass her. She was already forgotten, already irrelevant, already erased from consideration.
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