The young steeds were driven toward the lower temple squares by the adult giants with soft headbutts and deep, rumbling whinnies. It provided the group with exactly the breathing room they needed while the Ward prepared itself for the spectacle. Nicola and Apollo formed a protective wall around Ren, who stood in the center with his Iron Straw Anting clenched tightly in his fist, his breath coming in ragged, adrenaline-fueled gasps.
Apollo dropped to one knee, bringing himself exactly to the boy’s eye level. He scooped up a heavy handful of gold dust from the basalt ground and let it slide slowly through his fingers, a glittering curtain of light.
“Speed is not just movement, little man,” Apollo spoke, his warm, heavy voice resonant as he ruffled Ren’s hair with a broad, confident grin. “It is light. It is the art of claiming space before the shadow can even think to land there. Look at my hand, kiddo.”
Apollo made a fluid motion, deliberately slow as honey, yet his fingers left a blistering trail of glowing afterimages burning in the purple air.
“It is not a hurried flight, Renny. It is a fluid transfer from total stillness to an all-consuming explosion. You must not run against the wind; you must become the wind itself. You can do this, little brother.”
Nicola stepped closer, his posture solid. He placed a heavy hand firmly on Ren’s shoulder, a gesture that carried both fatherly weight and deep brotherly trust, giving it a reassuring squeeze. The Ether Anting in his chest pulsed in a calm, mathematical rhythm.
“And that is where you add structure, big guy,” Nicola added, drawing sharp, glowing blueprint lines in the air with his free hand while winking down at the boy. “Your straw is not clutter; it is the raw foundation of your will. If you combine the fluidity of Apollo’s light with the architectural precision I have taught you, you will be impossible to catch. You do not just run through reality; you weave your own path right through it, champ.”
It was a striking sight on that gigantic turtle: the two great pillars of the group looking after the youngest. The way they instructed him, with a patience born only from a deep brotherly bond, made the chaotic world around them feel small and focused for a moment. They corrected the angle of his feet and tilted his chin up, prepping him like a younger sibling before a defining moment in the backyard of their youth.
Ren closed his eyes, inhaling the sharp scent of jasmine and ozone. He felt the Iron Straw Anting burning like a brand against his palm.
“Apollo’s light… Nicola’s lines…” Ren muttered to himself, his chest rising and falling as he locked into the rhythm. “I am not the weak link. I am the one who builds the road.”
Metallic straw began to grow rapidly from his pores, but this time, there were no messy, tangled shapes. Under the precise guidance of his two mentors, the straw wove itself into a technical masterpiece. He absorbed the golden warmth of Apollo, letting it flow through the hollow channels of the straw stalks, while simultaneously forcing the material into the tight, geometric patterns of Nicola.
The result was a sensational new form: an armor of braided iron straw that glowed from within with a solar burn, aerodynamically shaped along his legs and arms like the fins of a celestial being.
He opened his eyes, which now possessed a sharp, piercing golden rim. The uncertainty had been utterly burned away.
“I call it the S-A-W,” Ren said, his voice carrying the exact same unshakable calm of the men standing beside him. “Solar Arch Weave.”
At that exact moment, a shrill, razor-sharp whistling signal sliced through the valley, a sound that seemed to split the purple sky of the Ward completely in two. The younger generation of Menehurions stood there, forming a perfect, terrifying line of brute potential. Their basalt bodies glistened like polished obsidian under the artificial sky, their copper manes crackling with untamed, raw Ether energy that spat fierce blue sparks into the air. It was an image of pure kinetic tension, as if the valley itself held its breath, waiting for the explosion that would rewrite reality.
The giant turtle beneath their feet seemed to tremble with anticipation; the deep resonance of its ancient heartbeat formed the heavy bass for the symphony of destruction about to erupt.
Silarias towered high above the crowd on the back of his own colossal, tamed giant. He looked like a god of the forge, his massive figure framed by the golden mist of the Ward. With a movement that seemed to slow the very laws of time, he raised his burning fist straight to the heavens. The fire of his Gauntlet flared up into a scorching column of white-hot passion.
“LET THE GOLD MELT!” Silarias roared, his voice carrying the terrifying power of a falling star. “START!”
The world exploded in a blinding blur of violence and movement.
But beneath Ren’s feet, there was no massive crash or stifling dust cloud. The ground beneath him simply transformed into a liquid stream of pure, white-hot light. He shot forward as a weaving beam of iron and sunlight, a sensational flash that immediately overloaded the senses of everyone watching.
It was no longer a boy running for his life; it was the living embodiment of the SAW. The iron straw stalks of his armor vibrated at a frequency that made the air around him sing and distort into an audible, deafening howl. The straw was woven so tightly and geometrically that it seemed to become translucent, while the golden glow of the Sun God propelled him forward with the brute pressure of a solar flare. He did not glide over the carcass stones; he rewrote gravity with every millimeter he covered.
Behind him, the young Menehurions thundered with a violence that made the massive temple pillars stagger. Their hooves struck deep craters into the basalt with every single step, but Ren had already transformed into an intangible phantom. He flew between the glowing tendrils while the straw stalks of his SAW adapted instantly to the airflow, exactly as Nicola’s blueprints had prescribed, but executed with the fiery and arrogant flair of Apollo.
The race had not only begun; it had turned into a sensational hunt for the divine horizon. The little Nobody left a trail of molten light behind that set the entire valley ablaze in a blinding white fire. This was no longer a contest; this was the birth of a legend among the laughing giants of the Ward. While the Menehurions made the ground beneath them burst, Ren’s SAW sliced through reality like a hot knife through butter.
As the central temple approached, a colossal structure of white basalt resting like an ivory crown upon the furthest turtle, reality around Ren began to fray. The young Menehurions thundered right behind him, their hooves striking rhythmic claps of thunder that made the air tremble, but the little Nobody had already departed for a sphere where they could not follow.
With one final, decisive effort, he activated the core of his SAW. The iron straw around his body began to spin inward, creating a kinetic vortex that simply ignored gravity. The finish line, a wide band of burning, glowing tendrils, rushed toward him like a wall of solid light.
He did not crash through it; he tore the barrier apart.
The impact produced a visual shockwave of pure white fire and azure sparks that temporarily blinded the spectators on the temple balconies. A sensational bang, louder than the hammer blows of the Forge, echoed through the entire valley. But instead of slowing down after the line, the impossible happened.
The hooves of the Menehurions struck empty rock as they slammed on the anchors, but Ren kept rising.
By pressing the insane friction of his SAW against the saturated Ether air, he created an invisible platform beneath his feet. With a mental click, he manipulated the Iron Straw Anting into a state of unnatural lightness. His molecular density plummeted until he was literally lighter than a stray straw in a summer breeze, while the friction of his movement gave him the grip of a raptor.
The Nobodies and the giants looked up with mouths agape. There, in the purple twilight of the Ward, Ren ran straight through the empty air. Every step he took left a short, glowing flash of compressed heat, a fleeting path of golden ash that led him ever higher toward the stars. He wove himself through the sky, a lone beam of iron and sunlight that tossed the laws of nature aside like an old script.
He pulled a graceful circle above the central temple, his shadow dancing over the golden roofs, while the straw of his armor sang in the wind. He was no longer the smallest of the gang.
Silarias let out a roar of pure respect that made the walls of the Ward tremble: “LOOK AT OUR LITTLE BROTHER GO! SQUISH THEM LIKE BUGGIES, RENNY! YOU ARE WEAVING THE SKY!”
Apollo leaned over the temple balustrade, cupping his hands around his mouth, his laughter echoing over the roar of the crowd. “That is what I am talking about! No brakes, kid! Leave them in the dust!”
Nicola merely watched, a slow, satisfied grin spreading across his face as he crossed his arms. “Perfect geometric execution. He actually synchronized the airflow channels. The boy is a genius.”
The games were nearly over, but the legend of the SAW had just been written in burning letters into the history of the Ward.
While Ren continued to surf through the sky like a falling star and the men shouted their throats hoarse, an icy, almost serene silence fell over the western plateau of the turtle. Here, the female Menehurions had gathered. They were sleeker; their basalt armor was not rough but polished to a mirroring black sheen, and their copper manes flowed like liquid silk along their necks.
Nyx stood at the front, her gaze sharp and unmoved. Beside her, Cilla, Miki, and Lyn flanked her like an impenetrable wall of female focus.
Nyx turned her head slightly, looking down at Miki with a soft, affectionate smile, tapping the young girl playfully on the nose. “The boys have had their noisy playtime, little sis. Now, you and I are going to show this place what real control means. Ready to show them how we do it, sweetie?”
Miki beamed, her small fists clenching with excitement as her aura flared. “They think noise wins races, Nyx. Let us show them the quiet parts.”
Cilla stepped up beside them, her armor humming with a low, deep vibration. “The lines are already saturated with their excess kinetic energy. If we step in now, we can ride the residual frequency like a wave.”
Lyn adjusted her posture, her eyes scanning the complex architectural intersections ahead. “The southern support beams of the temple are vulnerable to synchronous resonance. If we hit the mark precisely at the high pulse, the entire western platform will shift in our favor.”
“Exactly,” Nyx said, her voice dropping into a colder, commanding register as she stepped up to the edge of the plateau. “We do not need to shatter the basalt to prove our point. We let their own momentum carry us.”
Unlike the brute trials of strength from Silarias and the technical race of Ren, the challenge here was one of pure balance and deadly precision. The glowing tendrils hanging between the trees formed a dense, shimmering web here. The Menehurions did not move here by breaking the ground, but by gliding over the tendrils like skaters on black ice.
Nyx felt the power of the moon swell in her veins, a cold energy that resonated perfectly with the blue glow of the Ward. She looked at Cilla and Miki and gave a short nod. No words, only pure synergy.
With a graceful leap that defied gravity, Nyx launched herself first into the web. She did not use friction to brake, but to amplify her own momentum, her body a fluid line of darkness against the glowing background.
The female Menehurions did not whinny with pleasure; they let out a harmonious, singing sound that made the air tremble with awe. They recognized their equal. This was no longer a game of tag; this was a ceremony of power.
“When we reach this temple,” Nyx whispered as she grabbed a tendril mid-somersault, her eyes flashing with cold, lunar dominance, “we do not just claim the market. We claim the very soul of the Ward.”