The race had barely started — and already, a train derailment had killed over ten racers.
The scene was carnage.
The survivors behind were shaken to the core.
Those who narrowly escaped being flattened by the falling freight cars stared at the wreckage in their mirrors, terrified and disoriented.
"What the hell kind of race is this…?"
Their courage evaporated.
To even think of winning now felt impossible.
And those few who had made it past the crossing — they weren't necessarily the fastest.
They were simply lucky enough to be in the front when everything went to hell.
And the man behind it —
was Leon.
Originally, Leon had only intended to use a gravity pulse to collapse the crossing gate — clearing the way for his Diomas Nilo.
He hadn't expected the effect to be so strong that it warped the steel rails themselves.
But Leon didn't feel the slightest guilt.
"Those people weren't innocent. They chose this game."
He muttered coldly, eyes like tempered glass.
No one had any proof it was him.
No witnesses, no data trace — nothing.
To him, they were foreign challengers, pawns in a system that never respected his homeland.
"They want to take from us? Then they die trying."
Leon's conscience didn't even flicker.
"Whoever dares compete with me for first place — dies with it."
He slammed the throttle.
The Diomas Nilo roared like a thunder god, its plasma engine running at full capacity.
Power surged through every system, hurling the car down the road like a launched missile.
Beside him, Tobey Marshall's SSC Tuátara answered the challenge — its own engine detonating with thunderous defiance.
Two hypercars, side by side, tearing through the aftermath of a disaster —
their duel the only thing louder than the destruction behind them.
The racers who survived the derailment stared wide-eyed at the chaos in their mirrors.
If they'd been half a second slower, they'd be corpses under steel and fire.
Cold sweat soaked their backs.
Among them, An Qiaoqiao the Chinese racer with the Hongqi S9 had narrowly escaped disaster.
She'd started gently, avoiding reckless acceleration — and it had saved her life.
Now, as she faced the blocked road ahead, the twisted wreckage of the train sealed the main path completely.
There was no way through.
But giving up wasn't an option.
Her mind raced — scanning the GPS, the environment, the terrain.
Then she clenched her jaw, turned the wheel sharply, and floored it.
The Hongqi S9 screamed to life — its red body glowing under the streetlights.
Spectators gasped.
"What's that car?!"
"Looks like a Hongqi — the Chinese supercar! Didn't that appear at the French Expo last month?"
"Wait, is she— she's aiming for the railway ramp?!"
All cameras turned toward her.
She hit the slope — and launched.
The Hongqi S9 soared over the twisted tracks, moonlight glinting off its frame.
For a moment, it hung in the air — elegant, fearless, free.
She disappeared into the darkness of the open plains beyond the city.
But that was dangerous — GPS signals dropped there, and without navigation, she could easily lose her way.
Some even whispered she might veer off course entirely, maybe as far as the Great Lakes region.
Still, she didn't hesitate.
The road was dead behind her.
The only path — was through the unknown.
"What a bold girl from Huaxia," someone whispered.
Watching her vanish, Dino driver of the Koenigsegg One:1 grit his teeth.
His pride burned.
"She's stealing my spotlight…"
He refused to sit still.
He slammed the handbrake, spinning the car 90 degrees in a perfect drift — the tires screaming, smoke billowing.
Then, roaring like a bull, he charged straight toward the nearest row of houses beside the road.
"Wait— he's gonna crash!"
The spectators screamed.
BOOM!
The Koenigsegg smashed through a courtyard wall — bricks exploding outward like shrapnel.
Glass shattered.
The house's windows burst.
"That's my house!!" a local man shrieked in horror from the crowd.
Now it made sense why no one had answered when the train crashed earlier — the whole neighborhood had been watching the race live!
Dino didn't care.
He kept plowing forward, smashing through a second wall — debris flying everywhere.
A stone the size of a fist blasted through a nearby window, shattering a TV inside.
The Koenigsegg One:1 tore through two courtyards, using their open gaps as a makeshift escape route.
He shifted gears, dropped the clutch, and roared out —
bursting through a wooden fence and back onto the open highway!
"He made it out!!"
The crowd roared again.
The other racers followed, using the same newly carved path through the shattered homes.
Within seconds, the two houses were utterly destroyed — fences flattened, gardens shredded, debris scattered.
The homeowners stood trembling, faces pale with fury.
"He's paying for this! I'm suing him!"
Dino didn't know that trouble was already waiting for him.
Though he had rejoined the highway, he'd lost too much time — at least a full minute.
And against monsters like Leon's Diomas Nilo or Tobey's SSC, that gap might as well be ten kilometers.
But Dino's rage boiled over.
"You forced this, Leon. You humiliated me… now you die."
He grabbed his encrypted comm device and dialed a code.
The voice on the other end was cold and lazy —
"Braga speaking."
"Move," Dino said simply.
He hung up.
No further words were needed.
Braga understood.
The order was clear:
Kill Leon.
Dino smirked, a glint of bloodlust in his eyes.
"Don't blame me when you're dead."
The racers were oblivious.
None of them realized that the U.S. President himself was watching the race broadcast live — and what he saw next made him furious.
"Wait… are those tanks? Military aircraft?!"
If heavy military units were moving without his authorization… it meant someone had hijacked military command.
Someone like Eteon.
The President's jaw clenched.
"Who the hell gave that order?"
He slammed the desk.
The real show —
was only about to begin.
~~----------------------
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