The DarkElf looked around at the other participants. He noticed a couple of intimidating individuals. There was a male Druid who rode a wind scorpion.
The wind scorpion's whole length with tail and stinger included was at fifteen feet. Its special claws enabled the wind scorpion to travel long distances as it slightly hovered above the ground. It has the ability to hover over long distances but is still classified as a ground type mount.
Next, Smoke noticed a group of six Hydro Knights mounted on andalusian horses. Smoke had read that those monsters were very elusive. Their average price was around 30,000,000 zecs, as much as a war elephant.
Finally, He spotted four Insect Warriors who rode on massive tiger beetles. They were as large as a normal tiger in the real world but were beetles with orange and black stripes.
Smoke tried to look for some more potential threats but a loud noise blasted over the speakers.
"Testing. testing..."
The announcer's voice was heard over the boisterous masses.
"My Lord Duke Burmistrz, honored guests, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present to you the 1,359 participants of this year's Mounted Race! Our steadfast racers will circumnavigate around our great city. They will start their journey to the northern village of Utara. Where they will then cross the bridge of Leiden and stop in the western village of Barat.”
After taking a deep breath, the announcer finished the known route of the great race.
“From there, they will cross the desert of Wundern and stop in the southern village of Selatan. Finally they will traverse through the thickest forest fragment of Otaczac, and they will cross the finish line in the eastern village of Timur. Now, let's hear a few words from our esteemed mayor."
"Thank you, Ansager. It's time to start our second of the three special events Coatl offers. Good luck, participants, and may the great god Tlaltezin protect you all. Oh, before I forget, I hope none of you will break the two rules of this race. Committing such a crime will be treated as a capital offense."
Duke Burmistrz stepped down from the podium and sat down. The announcer took the microphone once more.
"Thank you, Duke Burmistrz. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado..."
The announcer fell silent and gave a dramatic pause.
"LET THE MOUNTED RACE BEGIN!"
TTOOOOOOOTTTT!
All the participants scrambled and rode their mounts at full speed. They were told to give the audience a great start.
Smoke and the Lioumereans were near the frontrunners. The last group of racers were composed of twenty nine Cavalry Knights on top of their dirus wolves... and a lone acinonyx cheetah whose rider was a Stealth Knight named Sagen.
Chapter Six: Mounted Race
A vast cloud of dust exited from the northern main gates of Coatl. More than a thousand racers pushed their mounts near their top speed.
Right from the start the racers were divided into three groups. The front runners, the main pack, and the stragglers.
Mounts with speeds that reached beyond 170 were the ones who composed the front runners. While the main pack mostly comprised of dirus wolves, as 78% of the participants were Cavalry Knights. Finally, the bulk of the stragglers' mounts were made up of monsters who were built for endurance.
Their first checkpoint was the northern village of Utara. They had to travel 625 kilometers of wide plains, forest fragments, and treacherous swamps before they could reach there.
The Mounted Race was tagged as an individual event, but it was clear that members of the same guild joined in, and planned to work together.
Smoke, Gandiva, and Laernea rode carefully to be placed in the middle of the front runners. Smoke needed them to be there to start his plan.
Days before the Mounted Race, Smoke, Gandiva, and Laernea trained to speak comfortably while on top of their running steeds.
In a loud voice the DarkElf spoke to his Lioumerean companions.
"Running on these plains sure is a breeze. I wish we could travel on this kind of terrain throughout the whole race."
Gandiva answered Smoke in an equally loud voice.
"You and me both, Sir Ilad!"
When the other racers heard Ilad's name, they tilted their heads to get a visual confirmation. The moment they saw Smoke's flaming armor and flaming hell boar, they knew that it really was the estranged winner of the Swordsman to Knight Tournament.
All three of them took notice of their gained attention. Laernea joined in on their rehearsed dialog.
"I think that the most problematic part in this first leg of the race would be Parjure swamp."
"I know exactly what you mean. As a Flame Knight, my abilities are greatly reduced because of the swamp's environment. Not to mention that my hell boar will have a hard time running through the marshes."
In a booming voice, Gandiva asked.
"Do you think there's a way for us to bypass that part?"
Smoke answered as clearly as he could.
"Of course, but now is not the time or place to have this discussion..."
The intended listeners' curiosity were piqued. Some of the riders rode closer to them in hope that they would start to have another conversation.
For the next thirty minutes, Smoke and the Lioumereans kept on with their pace. However, this time they were slowly moving towards the right side, in the outer regions of the front runners.
When they had arrived at their intended location. The three of them restarted their practiced dialog. After they were done, they waited another thirty minutes to move to the last racers in the front runners group.
The three of them repeated the whole charade on the left side as well. They had just delivered their last performance when an enormous forest fragment of Otaczac came into view.
It had been two hours since the race started. The first one to reach the boundary of the forest was a Druid on top of his wind scorpion. He stopped on his tracks as there was no visible entrance into the forest fragment.
Slowly the racers started to gather in front of the forest fragment. Some of them went to the right while others to the left. All of them tried to find a gap between the trees big enough for their mounts to fit in.
It took another three minutes before Smoke, Gandiva, and Laernea reached the other racers. Straightaway, Smoke opened his map and checked for his location.
Smoke's map had been updated by Caid's gathered intelligence on Coatl's regions. It had locations on abandoned roads, safe resting places, and other useful information.
After he got himself oriented, Smoke moved two hundred meters to the left. From there he brought out his Rzeka glaive.
The DarkElf fused his energy with Igniz's to create a dark purple flaming glaive. Together with his hell boar, Smoke dashed into the impassable forest fragment.
Smoked used both his hands and stretched his glaive as far back as he could. With four multiple slashes, Smoke opened a path into the forest.
Before the dust had a chance to settle, Laernea and Gandiva quickly followed their leader into the Otaczac forest fragment. The other racers closest to the scene took advantage of Smoke's created path.
The racers inside saw remnants of an old brick road with a width of two meters, and the faded backs of their three competitors. Forthwith, the other racers gave chase.
With Smoke's created passage into the forest being the only visible path, a bottleneck had been created at the mouth of the entrance.
Other Flame Knights tried to imitate what they witnessed. However, as they hacked through the forest, they were only met with thicker and closer tree formations.
Smoke, Laernea, and Gandiva led the way. The blood pheasants, pine martens, and strigidae owls all steered clear from the racers.
The loud thunderous sound that the racers made as they galloped through the forest had intimidated them.
Gandiva and Laernea stayed behind to hunt the swarm of blood pheasants that gathered in the area while Smoke rode on ahead.
The bottleneck helped the participants from the main pack to catch up with the front runners. The racers traveled on the narrow forgotten road for another hour before they got out of the forest fragment.
Up ahead was the treacherous swamp with a different set of forest fragments on each side. However, it was clear from the map that going through the swamp was the fastest route.
Five hours had passed since the start of the race and the traveled distance had taken its toll on Ental. Smoke decided to take a short break in front of the swamp.
- Entered the swamp of Parjure
- Monsters inside this swamp are highly aggressive.
- Suggested level for entering this swamp is 100.
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As he finished his preparations with the campfire. Laernea and Gandiva arrived with fifty blood pheasants each. They dismounted and started to remove the feathers from the blood pheasants.
When the other racers caught up with them, they were puzzled to see Smoke and his companions busy cooking a meal.
The racers disregarded Smoke and the Lioumereans, and focused on the swamp instead.
The mouth of the swamp was 500 meters wide and its end could not be seen, but the map indicated that its total length was 20 kilometers. There were more forest fragments on both sides of the swamp.
Its murky dark green waters camouflaged the unknown monsters living inside the swamp. There were poison-dart frogs with the length of three feet on top of giant lily pads scattered all throughout the swamp. They had a majority of black skin with scattered pigmentation of bright yellow.
There were also permiana dragonflies flying around the swamp. These winged monsters had a body length of five feet from head to tail and a wingspan of over eight feet. These monsters would occasionally dive down and grab one of the poison-dart frogs.
The racers in front of the swamp started to swat their own bodies with their hands. A scourge of mosquitoes appeared and feasted on their warm blood.
As Laernea and Gandiva were coating their blood pheasants with spices, Smoke added some sage and rosemary into the burning fire. This served as their natural mosquito repellent.
A party that belonged to a guild called Infime, decided to push through the swamp. They were composed of ten Rangers and fourteen Insect Warriors. While the rest of the racers stood in place, and thought to watch their progress instead.
The Insect Warriors were an advance variation of the Warrior job that specialized in defense. Their heavy armors were made out of giant insect carapace, and they used long stingers for their spears. There mounts were the massive tiger beetles.
The twenty-four racers tried to go directly in a straight line, but found that it got deeper as they went towards the center of the swamp.
The members of Infime withdrew, and started to travel near the shallow shore lines on the left. There were some visible movements in the swamp, but the boggy water made it impossible to distinguish what caused it.
They proceeded with extreme caution. The Insect Warriors formed a circular barricade around the Rangers. A hundred meters into the swamp, and a giant alligator snapping turtle came out of nowhere and chomped at the nearest Insect Warrior.
The monster's surprise attacked snatched the Insect Warrior's tiger beetle. The rider managed to jump off moments before the giant alligator snapping turtle swallowed his mount whole.
The Insect Warrior may have survived, but according to the rules, he had been officially eliminated from the Mounted Race. He was forced to hitch a ride with one of his guild mates.
The members of the Infime guild pushed on. Another fifty meters further into the swamp, and a different black giant snapping turtle came out.
However, this time they were prepared. The Insect Warriors used their stingers to attack the exposed neck of the giant alligator snapping turtle.
In a synchronous movement, the ten Rangers fired their arrows and targeted the snapping turtle's head. It took them thirty seconds to kill the monster with a life of 70,000 HP.
When the giant alligator snapping turtle died, a poison-dart frog attacked one of Rangers with its tongue. It croaked loudly, and five more poison-dart frogs shortly came out to attack them.
The Insect Warriors divided themselves equally against one poison-dart frog. The Infime guild members swiftly killed the poison-dart frogs with a life of 30,000 HP, but not without their members being poisoned.
Their half submerged mounts were restless. It was clear that it was very difficult to fight with such unfavorable conditions, but it was still manageable.
