"Uhhh seriously? Calm down," Thane said awkwardly. They weren't really at an advantaged point at this moment. They didn't even know where the real body of the Skeleton King was….
"Okay, who's your contestant?" the lanky skeleton asked.
Of course, he knew it wouldn't be Enzo since his only advantage was his shadow step skill, which didn't suit what they were doing. It couldn't be Thane since he already participated.
Then it could only be… the cat.
"Sure, sure, it's not a big deal, meow," Nibbleskin said with a lazy purr.
He could tell that the lanky skeleton looked down on him. His presence always gave off such a feeling. But it would be stupid to assume he was slow.
In fact, Nibbleskin was by far the fastest person here.
It jumped off Enzo's shoulder and landed on the floor before proceeding to gaze at the wide field of sky in front of him.
"Good, now for the King's contestant," the lanky skeleton said, looking over to the left where a silhouette quickly approached through the horizon.
"Uhhhh, is that?" Thane frowned deeply as a chill went through his spine in an instant.
It was a winged beast with its wings made from bones. It was massive and swift at the same time. But that wasn't what freaked Thane out this much.
Rather, it was the symbol on its head, one massive eye and two horns shaped like antennas.
"The Sky Monitor," Thane looked apprehensive.
"Hehe, yes. The King killed this shithead a month ago," the lanky skeleton spoke with pride.
This was one of the three guardians of the canyon. The Skeleton King had killed it! This was a massive turn of events.
'Hmm, for someone just finding out about this… you seem rather calm,' Enzo thought to himself as he saw the expression on Thane's face.
Of course, he had no idea that Thane was actually really surprised. He had no idea that the three guardians had secretly launched a hidden war amongst themselves and one of them had already fallen to the other.
"So let's begin." The lanky skeleton rubbed the beak of the now-undead Sky Monitor.
"Are you sure you can win this, buddy?" Enzo squatted down and asked Nibbleskin with a look of concern.
The rules of the 'game' were that the loser dies. If Nibbleskin lost and was killed, he didn't know what he could tell Victoria.
After all, Nibbleskin was her pet.
"Ehhh, we'll see if I can win," Nibbleskin responded with a smirk. It wasn't a race, it was a test for speed. That was much more complicated. He couldn't beat that thing in the sky, but there were ways he could come out on top.
"So there are 24 moving targets like these in the chasm below. Each of them will actively try to run away from you when you get close enough. You must catch at least 12 of them before first going up to capture the last one at the top of that tree over there," the lanky skeleton explained as he held in his hand a small glowing orb.
The rules were simple: seek, capture, and repeat. The fastest to complete this would be the winner.
Of course, whatever happened in between was up to the two contestants.
"Maximum effort." Nibbleskin dug its claws into the ground and stretched, its body slowly becoming bigger and bigger and the holes in the ground expanding.
A few seconds later, he had grown to a size rivaling that of the Sky Monitor. At this point, its third eye was permanently open and it had grown a set of strange horns that coiled around its eyes like a pair of glasses.
"Hm? I've seen…" the lanky skeleton furrowed its brows and looked to the side at Thane, then the black coffin on Enzo's back.
As if realizing something, he opened his mouth then shut it in the next second.
"Get ready." He proceeded towards the edge of the cliff with a calm, steady pace.
At this point, both Nibbleskin and the Sky Monitor were prepared to move out. As they both entered racing starts with Nibbleskin's claws unsheathed and the bone wings of the Sky Monitor spread—
"Go!!" The lanky skeleton shouted the command, and a millisecond later…
They were off.
For the first hundred meters, Nibbleskin and the Sky Monitor tore through the air side by side, neither yielding an inch.
In terms of pure speed, they were surprisingly a match.
However, this wasn't a race after all, as soon they disengaged from each other and bolted for the first glowing orbs in their purview.
The chasm in front of them was vast and wide, so it was much easier for the orbs to hide in between nooks and crannies.
It demanded sharp eyes and sharper reflexes. It was a good thing Nibbleskin had both attributes in abundance.
It moved through the air and shrunk in an instant, sinking into a small hole then rushing out in the next second with an orb inside its maw before rushing forward once again.
"That's two," Enzo at the back commented on Nibbleskin's progress with a hint of worry in his tone.
It looked like he was winning, at least right now… but he couldn't quite understand what the Sky Monitor was doing. It hadn't dove down to grab a single ball since they started.
It just hovered over with its big eye glowing with a strange light.
"There's no need to be worried, kid. That thing isn't the only one with tricks up its sleeve. Nibbleskin is also a very cunning bastard," Thane responded with a sly smile.
Nibbleskin had been a scourge in its early days roaming the stars, before Victoria captured and tamed it. It used to trick human voyagers into its maw.
"Let's hope so." Enzo muttered. Victoria had placed Nibbleskin here to protect him. Who would have thought he would be the one worried about him at this moment?