V2Ch129 New Shimmer

Durt wanted to see for himself just how "difficult" the one coin door would be. He flew by at top speed, snagging a coin from a random fairy.

The fairy blinked a few times before she realized what had happened.

Durt took a chance that the door would open fast enough as he got close. It started to open but he had to slam into it with his hand to go through. He shook his hands due to the pain of the impact.

He continued to fly through the tunnel maze as fast as possible without slamming himself into walls. Several traps were tripped but they did not react fast enough to his speed to slow him down. As he came to tight corners, he would lean more toward the opposite wall and kick-off as he got to his turn. A few wooden arms or patches of bramble blocked the path. Easy enough for him to dodge.

He found the exit with relative ease and raced toward the finish line. As he crossed, the lizard man next to him made a grunt, alerting Durt to his presence.

"Ten coin door?"

The lizard man simply looked at him and grunted again.

"I'll take that as a yes."

Durt figured the ten coin and 1 coin door took relatively the same amount of time to get through. Thus, a new plan hatched in the back of his mind.

At the same time he was building his idea, he dipped through the ring openings of the first obstacle. With only one opponent currently at his side, it was once again, an easy task. As he emerged through the third ring, his sister's image could be seen just on the edge of the track, nearly at the lava pit already.

Durt made up his mind. He was going to take the flying route in the lava pit to help catch up.

Along the way, more flying debris and objects were still flying around and landing randomly along the approach. He had to slow his pace to avoid a rather large tree trunk that landed in front of him, giving the lizard man a slight edge.

The lizard man had the same idea and went straight for the lower half of the lava pit from the start. Before he could even get close, the heat was already sweltering and uncomfortable. As he emerged into the lava pit, he was hit with a wall of heat, instantly causing him to start sweating. He had to force himself to keep moving without slowing down.

*SHOOM*

A lava ball flew by. The heat as it got close was almost painful. He watched the lizard man ahead dodge several more lava balls. He even sliced one in half with a wing.

"A resilience to heat? Bastard!"

Durt muttered to himself while dodging several more lava balls. The exit couldn't come soon enough. Eventually, it did.

As Durt exited just behind the lizard man, he breathed in the cool outside air. It felt like a godsend. Fortunately, Ruby was now even closer. The flying route really did come with its perks.

Durt's flying speed was just slightly faster than the lizard man. He managed to close the distance just enough to reach his tail. Durt grabbed on and climbed up the lizard man.

"HEY! WHAT ARE YOU...!!!"

The lizard man started a barrel roll. Durt let go and slightly pushed off of his back. It was lucky that he did. The lizard man took a swipe at him. Durt landed his feet on the lizard man's head and pushed off again, just like the last wall climb.

"AGAIN! I'M GONNA GET YOU FOR THIS!"

Durt just let out a chuckle as he got that much closer to his sister while retaking second place. He followed Ruby to the right for the flying wall climb. She seemed to slow just a little bit. Durt was confused at first. He only realized too late what she was doing.

Ruby looked down at her brother and smiled.

"Sorry, bro."

She suddenly lost altitude and landed on his shoulders before pushing off.

"RUBY! WHAT THE F.... EHHHHH!"

Durt managed to pull a dive and a hard U-turn before losing too much altitude. His own sister set him back quite a bit. Enough that the lizard man was catching up again.

"That brat..."

As Durt made it over the top, he noted that there were runners already climbing the regular wall. If they were that fast, maybe they hadn't yet reached their stride. This meant that the lizard man wasn't going to be the only competition in the long run.

Once in the forest, traps seemed to be more abundant and even harder to detect. Durt had to go through all the motions. Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive and Dodge.

"DURT!"

"Ruby?"

Her voice seemed to come out of nowhere.

"RUBY! Where are you?!"

"Down here. Hurry."

Durt spotted her. She got snagged in a rope trap. He had to dodge another trap to get to her along his descent.

"Get this off of me."

She sounded embarrassed as he started playing with the knots.

"I could just leave you here for launching off of me back there..."

She gave him an annoyed look. Durt simply continued his efforts. He had gotten enough off of her that she should be able to do the rest.

"On your own. Bye."

"What? Hey!"

Ruby played with the ropes and got free. Though, not before Durt was out of sight.

"ERRR! I'm gonna smack him when I catch up."

As she lifted off, the lizard man flew by and unbalanced her.

Lake, who was watching the giant screen, had been observing as closely as possible. While the screen changed back and forth between 5 primary WoM cameras, one screen was simply following the lead encounters. Just as the lizard man had passed Ruby, Lake saw a tiny shimmer that bothered him.

Lake looked up. He saw and heard some tiny birds playing on the branches above. He sat down and leaned against the tree.

'Fear.'

'Already on it.'

A needle-thin shadow climbed up the tree and took over one of the tiny birds, covering it in pure black. Lake took control and started his flight toward the forest to investigate the shimmer that he saw on the screen.