Episode 51. The Flames That Pretended to Live
# Episode 51. The Flames That Pretended to Live
The moment they cleared the wreckage zone's last bend, the air itself changed.
At first Sion thought it was just heat.
But from the second breath, it was not.
Hot air was not striking his face—it was distorting the very sense of distance before his eyes. Things far away looked close; things close were suddenly pushed away. The heat-layer ember zone was not simply a hot place. It was a stretch that slowly twisted the act of seeing itself.
Vitrified ground gleamed dark blue from a distance, and thin red lights blinked across it in scattered places. Some clung to the ground. Some appeared to float just above the air. Some looked ready to die at any moment, then suddenly pretended to come alive the next.
Seeing it, Sion understood in his body why this zone was placed last.
Here, the hand that was not fooled mattered more than the hand that arrived fast.
Jiwoo killed speed first too. The skiff that had endured to the end through the wreckage zone already had its right hover plate response one more degree slower, and the engine tremor was rougher than before. But even that craft could not be pushed carelessly at the heat layer's entrance. The ground looked solid but was actually floating in micro-shifts, and patches of cooled vitrified surface were mixed with metal shards still holding heat.
"Now call it for real."
Jiwoo said low.
"The moment you see it."
Sion looked ahead instead of answering.
There were too many lights.
Until now, he had only needed to choose a path. But now it was not the path—the lights themselves were calling people. And half of those calls came from things pretending to be alive.
Far to the right, one light placed on the vitrified ground caught his eye first. More vivid than the others. Its red was sharp, and it looked easy enough to fall into your hand if you just got closer.
Sion was caught by exactly that.
Things that are too visible usually have a reason. So do things that pretend to be alive too easily.
"Not that right one."
He said at once.
"It shows too soon."
Jiwoo immediately angled the skiff's nose slightly outward.
A team following just behind broke toward that light almost by reflex. Not last year's champions. A team that had miraculously survived the wreckage zone—fast, but whose instincts had not yet settled.
As that team's craft drew closer to the light, the red reaction grew brighter instead.
Someone in the stands cheered first.
Because it looked easy.
The moment a rider leaned and seized that light, it spread too easily in his hand.
And died immediately.
Sion saw it even from far away.
Not a living ember holding on, but a bait-like extinction—burned out the instant it was touched.
That team's craft hesitated for a beat, and that beat was enough. Another skiff entering from the side grazed their line, the balance broke, and both craft slid wide across the vitrified ground.
Jiwoo said low.
"Good."
Not because it was cruel. It was confirmation that Sion had been right.
Sion grew quieter at that single word.
In this zone, his eyes alone were not mere route-reading support—they were the line between who was fooled and who was not.
A little ahead on the north side, Kael and Sern were also entering the heat-layer zone.
Their glider was blunt but stable. It did not immediately sway in the shimmering hot air, and Sern, while killing more speed, sent his gaze farther. His face showed he was reading not the lights themselves but the air and ground reactions around them first.
"Discard everything flashy."
He said low.
"Watch only what remains."
Kael asked shortly.
"How do you tell what remains."
Sern spoke without looking away.
"The side that doesn't pretend to die."
That sentence sounded strangely like something Aka might have said.
In that moment, Kael sensed faintly that what Sern was reading was not pure calculation alone. Eyes that had seen too many records, structures, repeating patterns—and because of that, had become familiar with this kind of lie. What Aka saw by instinct, Sern was tracking by a different method.
In the middle of the heat-layer zone, the lights multiplied.
Some burned at the tips of metal fragments driven into the ground. Some were trapped beneath cracked glass layers. Some looked like they swayed in the wind but were actually fixed in place.
Real and false, residue and bait—all of it was scattered together.
Sion stopped trying to see everything by force.
Instead, he searched first for what a surviving reaction looked like.
A light that did not flare easily. A light that did not give away its entire existence before being touched. A light whose shape did not collapse in a rush even through the heat-layer distortion.
Then, down to the left, at the boundary where metal fragments met vitrified ground, a single very low red dot caught his eye.
At first it looked less like a light and more like a wound. Too small, too dull, remaining as though deliberately trying not to be seen.
Yet strangely, once his gaze caught on it, it would not let go.
While every surrounding light pretended to be alive and flickered at least once, that one simply held.
"Down left."
Sion said low.
"The small one."
Jiwoo did not ask immediately.
Instead, he pressed the skiff slowly toward it. Piloting that knew rushing in could cause the glass layer beneath to slide—in this final zone, his hands were far more careful than at the opening glide strip.
Right then, from the outer right, the dark-red glider cut back in on a revived line.
Last year's champions.
Even after their flow broke once in the wreckage zone, they had not fully died. They had climbed back to the leading positions by the time they reached here. That team too was beginning to filter out the flashy lights, and was narrowing its line in a direction similar to theirs.
Sion did not like that.
That team was not simply fast. Having survived this far meant they had instinct too.
"They're closing."
Sion said low.
Jiwoo asked shortly.
"Seeing the same thing?"
Sion looked between the dark-red glider's heading and the red dot his eyes were caught on.
"Probably."
Jiwoo tightened the steering bar very briefly.
"Then we just confirm first."
The moment those words landed, Sion understood exactly how Jiwoo was enduring this zone. On the glide strip, she had used others' shattering as corridors. In the wreckage zone, she had read the direction of collapse. Here, she slowed her greed by half a beat. Instead of reaching to grab first, she stayed alive to the distance where she could confirm whether it was real.
On the north line, Kael and Sern seemed to have read the same flow. Sern's eyes grazed the lower left for just an instant, and Kael, seeing only that glance, adjusted the craft by the smallest degree.
Luhai, from the far end of the railing, spoke as though swallowing a scream.
"Are all three of them looking at the same spot?"
Ater answered very low.
"Then the real thing starts now."
Seorin still said nothing.
Whose hand saw the real thing first. That was no longer just a matter of points within the race. From here, it could shake the board between people.
Aka did not move.
Sion could not tell exactly what Aka was watching. But at least he could see that the flashy lights were not shaking her.
That stillness made Sion's heart beat louder.
Yes. That one.
But in that exact moment, the air beneath the heat layer warped violently.
The distortion that had only shimmered near the ground until now suddenly surged upward, and three low-sitting lights swelled and pretended to come alive all at once. Too blatant a change. Less a natural shimmer than something that had twisted the entire board's breathing in one stroke.
Jiwoo cursed shortly.
"Incoming."
Sion looked only straight ahead.
The small red dot at the lower left was still not large. If anything, even as the air warped just now, it had not shaken any bigger.
That made it more certain.
The real thing did not pretend to be alive. It simply held.
"Stay on it."
Sion said.
"Don't look at the big ones. The small one underneath."
Jiwoo lowered the skiff further instead of answering.
The dark-red glider drove inward at almost the same moment. From the north, the glider carrying Kael and Sern was approaching on a line one beat slower but far more stable.
Three surviving teams were about to collide before nearly the same ember candidate at last.
And Sion knew.
From here, the rules of this race alone might not be enough to end it.