"If it's a game."

"So who is the number one in your mind?"

Richard looked at Martha affectionately.

Outside

In the already dark sky

The orange glow of that mysterious rune illuminated the town.

The strange energy of the dreamlike turned into circular waves of light, constantly reverberating in the horse racing town.

Noisy crowds, lively taverns, shouting merchants

Time in the town seems to stand still at this moment, and everyone maintains the movements they once made at the last second, like real sculptures.

They waited in silence

Fate has come.

Inside the house

Everyone waited silently for Martha to say who she wanted.

The same goes for Richard.

Under the nervous gaze of everyone.

Martha said the name with a blank face:

"First place is"

The name was ordinary, and it was indeed something that a farmer could have come up with.

But it was clear that it was not the name of the boy in front of him.

"Bang dang!"

There was a sound, as if a hammer had been struck, and Richard seemed to have received an invisible blow.

He stumbled backwards and hit the ground, his face flushed by the confession turned as white as paper in an instant, as if he had lost all life.

It all happened so suddenly, so shockingly, it was almost unacceptable for him.

At this time, outside the room, the runes suspended in the sky were still steadily emitting beams of energy fluctuations.

The force of fate almost filled the entire racetrack.

The orange glow wasn't dazzling, but it was almost impossible to look at.

This energy fills the entire space, as if to tear the boundaries of reality.

"That's right."

Richard leaned on the edge of the table, slowly got up, and said with a miserable laugh.

As he spoke, the corners of his mouth began to slowly flow bright red liquid.

In the face of such upheaval

Although Tina and the others in the room were anxious, they couldn't make any moves.

Silently, they had been imprisoned in place by some unknown force, unable to move.

"!!Uhh

Suddenly, a beastly roar rang out in the stone house.

Tina looked anxiously at the blonde boy who had been propping up his body, suddenly clutched his chest and screamed in pain, and bent down again.

"Ron? Ron! What exactly are you waiting for? ”

Out of the corner of her eye, Tina looked at the iridescent dragon in the sky waving its wings and still moving freely.

She kept chanting the other person's name in her heart, hoping that Ron would help the poor boy.

Yet Ron just shook his head and sighed:

"How can something that has already happened, how can it change?"

He turned and watched the strange rays of light emanating from Richard's body, and the growing power of fate in the air

"You guy. Be quick, or else. I'm going to have to get rid of you early. ”

Ron muttered in his mind.

Then, the thin layer of emerald green light that had spread over him to fight against the power of fate thickened a little again.

And in those pairs of nine-colored dragon pupils, a rune that was extremely similar to the one in the sky slowly began to emerge.

"Rub-"

As an emerald green light burst out of Ron's eyes, a dragon of light completely transformed from the power of guardianship instantly formed in the air.

Whether it was Tina and Instant inside the house, or the Earth Dragon Car, Bill and the others outside the house, they were all wrapped in the emerald green dragon light at this moment, flying outside the rune barrier in Horse Racing Town.

That's the power of the [Guardian Rune]!

Inside the stone house

"Obviously, I'm ready for everything."

Richard lowered his head, gritted his teeth against his chest, large beads of sweat oozing from his forehead.

"Damn, why, my heart still hurts."

At this time, only Richard and Ron were left in the silent stone house. and Martha, who has been expressionless since just now.

Richard squatted in place for a moment, and finally felt the pain in his heart lessen a little.

He barely raised his head, looked at the girl in front of him, and tried his best to make a smiling expression:

"Answer, I see, sorry."

Martha shook her head and didn't speak.

Richard gritted his teeth, and said again, as if he was not giving up:

"But by the way, what am I in?"

He looked at Martha with an almost pleading gaze.

But the other party's answer is predestined.

Martha formulaically lowered her head, formulaic "shy", formulaic whispered:

"I'm sorry, I've always treated you like a brother."

Ignorant!

As the girl's voice fell.

In an instant, the room became unusually silent.

The sound of the wind, the chirping of insects, and even the sound of energy grinding in the air that had been humming disappeared without a trace.

This silence seemed to be a merciless mockery of Richard's heart, making him feel endless loneliness and despair.

"Click! Click! ”

The blonde boy lowered his head, but countless spatial cracks appeared around his body.

Despair has the power of despair, just as hope has the impotence of hope.

Martha's words seemed to be a merciless rift, instantly tearing apart the last glimmer of hope in Richard's heart.

"Finally, are you coming?"

"Just let me see how powerful the so-called power of fate is."

Ron looked at the energy phantom slowly emerging from Richard's back, and narrowed his eyes slightly.

At the same time, the protective power and colorful magic power in his body had been maximized, and countless amplification magic had been superimposed on Ron's extremely powerful body.

"Boom!"

Suddenly, the runes in the sky were no longer calmly levitating, but vibrating violently.

It let out a low roar, as if it was about to tear the entire universe apart.

Orange light erupted from the runes, gathering into a huge vortex of energy like a volcanic eruption.

Suddenly!

The rune of destiny that had originally stood above the sky exploded in an instant, frantically surging towards the blonde boy below.

In a flash

The wind and clouds suddenly changed, and the sky and the earth lost color.

Richard's skin was like a broken porcelain doll, and black cracks began to stretch like cobwebs on his face.

Wisps of reddish-orange, magma-like light erupted from his body, forming a looming humanoid aura outside of him.

This aura emitted a strange wave of energy, which was intimidating.

Weirdly.

Even when this happened, Martha, who was standing across from Richard, still didn't react.

Like a puppet, she stood there, letting the torrent of the power of fate wash by, turning her body into a streamer of light and drifting away with the wind.

Ron silently watched as the girl's illusory soul slowly dissipated.

But he didn't say much.

He understood that sometimes the soul is not real.

This fact was discovered by Ron on the first day after arriving in the town, which did not exist in Karen.

Everything about the architecture here is very different from the buildings that currently exist in Karon.

On top of that, all the characters here are recorded in a major event in the Dragon's Legacy.

Although it is unclear why the events of history are repeated here

But Ron was clear about one thing.

That is, Richard, like himself, has mastered one of the twelve rune powers belonging to Io!

moreover

Ron's eyes narrowed slightly, as he recalled the distress message buried in the bowl of tofu in the tavern.

"A being that is stepping on the rune of fate? It's really a dragon looking forward to it."

He muttered in his heart, and at the same time, a feeling of touching the truth that he had never felt before.

"Click-"

"Kala-"

With the continued riot of the forces of fate.

Richard's face, hands, body. Tiny pieces of skin are constantly falling off by the energy.

And his whole person slowly turned into an energy humanoid body composed entirely of the power of red-orange fate.

"What's wrong with me?"

Richard raised his hand suspiciously, looked at the unfamiliar limb, and was at a loss in his heart.

The orange rune of fate slowly swirled around "it", emitting energy fluctuations that were completely different from those of the guardian rune.

Suddenly, a large number of memories spurted out of the center of the fate rune and poured into Richard's mind.

Escape, Father, Town, Gambling, Awakening, Captivity, Death.

Scenes of abrupt and familiar images continued to bloom in Richard's mind, and then quickly withered.

When the dusty memories began to loosen, the truth hidden under the prophecy was finally fully revealed again.

And "it"

Finally, once again, I understood everything.

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

Under the riot of the forces of fate

Like a volcanic eruption, countless pillars of molten light erupted from the ground, instantly turning the entire town into a sea of fire.

It was as if the whole world had been set on fire

Except for the lonely figure standing in the middle of the fire.

The boy looked at his palm in a daze:

"It turns out that I didn't have to run the whole time."

"Not even qualified to play" (end of chapter)