Derek Su piloted Purple Lightning into [Dragon Stone Road] first.
The downhill track before them was packed with five-meter-tall stone pillars carved in the shape of coiling dragons. Looking down the slope, their sheer density was enough to make anyone's scalp tingle.
"No wonder it's considered one of the hardest tracks below the national level."
Even Derek Su, who had seen his share of brutal courses, couldn't help but marvel. [Dragon Stone Road] had earned its reputation for insane difficulty.
Every ten meters or so, two or three dragon-shaped pillars were scattered randomly across the track. In some of the worst sections, there was one every five meters.
That might sound like plenty of room for a Mecha Girl, but at their current speeds, it was anything but spacious.
A pilot's skill and reaction speed had limits. Dodging one or two pillars was easy enough. Maintaining speed while avoiding every single one was another matter entirely.
Just looking at them was enough to make your eyes blur.
"Too bad for this track, I'm driving Purple Lightning today~"
Hearing Derek Su say that, Purple Lightning flushed all the way from her cheeks to the tips of her ears and lowered her head shyly.
"I-It's because you're so good, Master..."
She murmured the words just as Derek Su flicked the controls and slipped past the first dragon-shaped pillar.
Richard Cheng, following closely behind, gritted his teeth when he saw it.
"I want to try too," he told Ghost. "If The Magician can do it, so can I. We're both human, aren't we?!"
Ghost said nothing.
Still, she had to give Richard Cheng credit for his courage.
He guided Ghost along the same line Derek Su and Purple Lightning had taken around the first pillar.
Derek Su had made it look effortless, braking for barely an instant.
For Richard Cheng, just calculating the braking point was already painfully difficult.
Fortunately, he still cleared the first pillar.
Then, following Purple Lightning's path, he managed to get past three more in succession.
"Okay, okay!" Richard Cheng let out a breath of relief, excitement spreading across his face. "Let's keep this going!"
The moment he finished speaking, the spacing between the pillars ahead suddenly changed.
Purple Lightning twisted through the gap at an almost impossible angle.
Richard Cheng stared at the dragon-shaped pillar seemingly hurtling straight toward him, his face going deathly pale.
He yelped.
By the time he thought about dodging, it was already too late.
Ghost slammed into the pillar.
The collision triggered her special skill, instantly blinking her ten meters forward.
But after the teleport, Richard Cheng had to recalculate both Ghost's speed and the positions of the surrounding pillars.
His thoughts immediately tangled into a mess.
Then he crashed again.
From that point on, Ghost began blinking repeatedly.
Yet she still couldn't shake Purple Lightning.
Inside Purple Lightning's cockpit, Derek Su smoothly threaded his way between one dragon-shaped pillar after another while keeping an eye on Ghost flickering in and out of sight ahead.
"So that's how it works."
Understanding dawned on him.
"Ghost's limitation is speed loss. She can blink multiple times, but every blink slows her down... Looks like her instantaneous speed drops by about ten percent each time. Tsk, tsk. That bleeds off even more speed than drifting through a collision."
Purple Lightning stared blankly at him.
What?
A ten-percent speed reduction?
Was that really something a person could tell just by looking?
"Master is ridiculous..." she muttered under her breath.
His eyes and brain were practically a computer.
Purple Lightning's speed barely changed.
Ghost, meanwhile, grew slower and slower.
[Dragon Stone Road] stretched for roughly two kilometers. By the time they reached the one-kilometer mark, Purple Lightning had completely left Ghost behind, and the gap between them only continued to widen.
"Seriously, buddy, can't you go around them?"
Ghost looked at the dashboard.
Her instantaneous speed had already dropped below 600.
Her entire expression darkened.
The tiny bit of respect she had started to develop for Richard Cheng vanished without a trace.
"I'm trying!" Richard Cheng wiped the sweat from his pale face, sounding close to collapse. "I'm already doing everything I can to go around them!"
The moment he finished speaking, he slammed head-on into another pillar.
Ghost blinked again.
Her speed dropped another notch.
This time, she couldn't even be bothered to complain.
Forget it.
She was done struggling.
Richard Cheng really was trying his hardest. Unfortunately, even his absolute best wasn't a tenth of what The Magician could do.
That was depressing, but there was nothing she could do about it.
By the time they left [Dragon Stone Road], Purple Lightning was still traveling at around 850 km/h.
Ghost, on the other hand, pulled over and shut down temporarily after one final blink carried her out of [Dragon Stone Road].
Near the end of the section, the dragon-shaped pillars had been spaced only three to five meters apart.
Richard Cheng had completely lost track of what was happening, and Ghost's speed had fallen to rock bottom.
As for Purple Lightning's taillights...
They had vanished long ago.
Silence settled over the cockpit.
Ghost stared at the rain-soaked track and had no desire to speak.
Richard Cheng didn't dare say anything.
They remained parked there for a full minute before a burst of static crackled through the in-car radio.
Only then did Richard Cheng finally speak.
"Um... should we remove the Module?"
"Remove it."
"We'll be a lot faster without it. We might still have a chance."
Ghost paused before replying coldly, "Let's just finish the race, buddy. Once it's over, you go your way and I'll go mine. Then we're even."
Richard Cheng: "(╥﹏╥) Okay."
...
Meanwhile, the moment Eden realized the signal had been cut off, she immediately entered her transformed state and headed for Panlong Mountain.
Even from a great distance, she could tell something was wrong with the mountain beneath the curtain of rain.
Up close, the problem was nearly impossible to see.
From farther away, however, the light around the perimeter of Panlong Mountain was visibly distorted. Even the vegetation and rocks within appeared warped, as though the entire mountain had been sealed inside a translucent dome.
"An electromagnetic shield."
Eden gritted her teeth, her expression growing even darker.
The Void vanguard really had infiltrated.
Electromagnetic shields were one of the Void Hunters' primary tools for carrying out covert attacks.
Their reason for targeting Panlong Mountain was obvious.
They intended to eliminate the reserve forces meant for the front lines.
For the Void Hunters to have infiltrated this far, something had clearly gone wrong with the near-Earth defense line.
Serpens had been responsible for guarding the near-Earth space defenses recently, and its commander came from the Techmasters' Alliance.
As Eden remembered it, the commander of Serpens was arrogant, conceited, and obsessed with taking credit.
"A bunch of useless idiots!"
She couldn't receive any information from inside Panlong Mountain.
She had no idea how bad the situation had become.
Eden was burning with anxiety.
But just as she followed the national highway toward the Panlong Mountain area, the light on the road ahead suddenly distorted.
Through the hazy rain, a humanoid figure appeared in the middle of the road.
It wore a deathly pale goat-head mask and a suit of powered armor.
The creature stood roughly three meters tall, with two azure curved blades sheathed at its waist.
As Eden charged toward it, the Void Hunter slowly raised its lowered head.
SHING—!
It drew both curved blades and spread its arms.
A harsh, rasping electromagnetic voice came from beneath its mask.
It spoke in a language only Mecha Girls and the Void could understand.
"You're not getting through."
...
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