Frosttusk, Zhen Liu and the rest were steadily gaining on the Wolfe team and their puppet cart, but it wasn't enough. The could've probably overtaken the cart if they had a bit more land to traverse, but they didn't. At the pace they were going, the Wolfe team would have already crossed the finishing line with the Ifrit Fire Heart Crystal in tow and the Zhen-Corrada alliance wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
"Shit!," Zhen Hai cursed, "They're too far ahead of us, can't this thing go any faster?!" Out of frustration, Zhen Hai began to look over and poke at Frosttusk for a button or a switch, something to make him go faster. Zhen Liu just stared at him for a moment before stopping him.
"Stop poking Fro-the puppet. We're already going as fast as we can with our current load and-," Zhen Liu paused for a moment before looking over to the injured people on the sled behind them. Right now the Corrada team was selflessly providing medical care to the injured, but the heavily injured members weren't looking too well. He was certain that one heavy shock would probably kill them. "Yeah, not gonna let that haunt my conscience."
"Dammit! If they were closer, I could use one of my ranged arts, but at this distance the shot would just go wide," Zhen Yue complained. "Wait, don't you have two puppets? Can't you use that red one to go and run interference?"
"Can't! It's taking most of my power to keep the big guy out," Zhen Liu partially lied. He had actually tried to summon Nepherage earlier, but the seal on his hand told him,
Basically, he got sassed.
"Gah! If only we had something we could throw at them!," Zhen Hai yelled in frustration. A light bulb went off in Zhen Liu's head when he heard Zhen Hai's complaint.
[Hey Frosttusk....can you make ice balls?]
[Ice...balls?]
[Follow my instructions...,] Zhen Liu communicated while forming a set of images in his mind.
_________________________________________________
'Almost there, just a little further...,' Donovan thought to himself as he steadied himself and the crystal ore in the back of the bull puppet's cart.
The path between the ruins and the finish line was unfortunately a bit unsteady for the aether puppet he and his teammates had employed. On the plus side, it gave them a sizeable lead over their rivals, making it so that they had little chance of stealing his rightfully earned prize.
But just as he and his teammates were just a stone's throw away from the finish line, a strange whistling sound soon caught their attention.
"Huh? What's that sound?"
"Jeremiah, look out!"
"Huh? HOLY SHI-!"
Jeremiah pulled the reins and jerked the cart to the left, narrowly avoiding a cannonball sized ball of ice. Unexpectedly, the ice ball didn't explode when it impacted the ground. It just laid there in the resulting crater, slowly melting into a small pool under the warm sun.
"Damn that thing was dense! Good thing I got those sick-"
"Here comes another one!"
"Shit!"
A second ice ball came flying out of nowhere and attempted to hit the cart again, but missed just like the first thanks to Jeremiah's handling. Unlike the first however, this one ice ball exploded into a flurry of snow and ice shards that peppered the Wolfe team with shrapnel. It didn't hurt or kill them, but it surprise Jeremiah enough that he accidentally turned the cart so hard that they were now heading in the wrong direction.
Donovan was about to chew out his teammate for making such a blunder, but stopped when his brain registered that there was now a volley of ice balls heading their direction. When he saw the source of the ice balls, his face turned nasty as his blood grew cold.
"Those fucking piss swimmers!"
_________________________________________________
Back at the Zhen team's position, they were discovering the joys "ice ball".
[Gonna need three heavy balls.]
[Three...heavy...balls]
As Frosttusk continued to gallop onwards, he waved his trunk into the air as a low rumbling sound came out of it.
*Crick, crick, crick*
Three solid balls of ice formed as a result of his action, hovering in the air for a moment before falling into the hands of the Zhen Clan heirs.
Ice balls in hand, the heirs got ready to throw them at the Wolfe team's cart. Evidently, Frosttusk's back made for a surprisingly stable platform to throw things from.
"READY!," Zhen Liu called out while preparing to throw his ice ball like an American football, his throwing arm cocked back while his other arm was used for aiming.
"AIM!"
"Try not to miss this time," Zhen Hai chuckled while circulating aether in his arms. His arms began to bulge in an obvious manner as power filled ever muscle fiber and vein.
"Fuck you," Zhen Yue snapped back in a friendly tone while circulating her own aether into the palm of her hands. The ball in her hand began to spin in a mysterious manner as she kept her aether focus in her palms.
"FIRE!"
*Fwoosh!*
*Boom!*
*Foom!*
One after the other, the Zhen Clan heirs fired off their ice ball payloads, each a bit different from the last, at the Wolfe cart's broadside.
Zhen Yue's ball was the first to get in range of the Wolfe cart, due to her throwing her ice ball with an enhanced spin. The ice ball moved in a weird curving manner that caused it to momentarily fly over the Wolfe cart, get in front of it and then suddenly fly straight backwards towards Jeremiah.
"Yes!"
Unfortunately, Donovan was a bit faster than the ball and had managaed to shatter it with his claws before it could make contact.
"Damnit!"
Next was Zhen Hai's ball which was flying straight towards the cart like an actual cannon ball. Once it made contact, it would've annihilated the cart like it was nothing.
"SMASH THEM TO PIECES!"
[Crushing Nail!]
*BOOM!*
Unfortunately, Richter had enough time to swing his hammer and smash the ice ball into ice chunks. Apparently in a power contest, guy with heavy hammer wins.
"Fuck!"
As for Zhen Liu's ba- "Wait a minute...where did Zhen Liu go?," Zhen Yue asked the moment she finally noticed that he wasn't next to them anymore.
Zhen Yue and Zhen Hai looked about the cart before looking back at the Wolfe Cart, their eyes going wide once they did because they figured out where Zhen Liu went.
"WHAT THE F-"
_________________________________________________
"Good job Richter!"
"Ain't no thing, boss!"
The Wolfe team had managed to fend off the Zhen team's unexpected assault by virtue of their armaments.
The Zhen team's missile may have been powerful, but they were still made of ice. A good solid chunk of iron was enough to break them.
'Now where's that third missile?,' Donovan thought as he readied his claws.
Due to his team's current position, he had a clear view of the Zhen team preparing ice balls to throw at them. He had managed to fend off Zhen Yue's, Richter broke Zhen Hai's assault, now all they had to do was deal with Zhen Liu's.
"Now where is that-" *BOOM!*
"WHAT THE FUCK?!"
The Wolfe team was suddenly airborne as their cart exploded due to an ice ball coming directly downwards from above their heads. As they were flung about, they saw that the source of this ice ball was none other than Zhen Liu who had the most insane smile on his face.
'Where the hell did he come from?!,' they collectively thought as it just registered in their heads that Zhen Liu had somehow gotten close enough to slam dunk an ice ball on top of them.
How did he do that, you ponder?
Well...