MIGHT AS WELL BE OP

Chapter 707: Thrill

Engines hummed and roared like colossal beasts awakening from their slumber, their growls reverberating through the track as all twenty racers revved simultaneously. The ground itself seemed to tremble from the collective thunder of horsepower. Hands tightened firmly around steering wheels, knuckles whitening under the strain. Eyes, sharp, calculating, and hungry, locked steady on the row of luminous lights ahead.

The countdown began.

The signal lights flickered, red, to orange, and then finally to a blinding green.

The instant it turned, as though an invisible whip had lashed across the air, every gear shifted in unison. Accelerators were slammed with brutal force, engines screamed at their limit, and twenty cars surged forward like unleashed predators, tearing into the track with devastating momentum.

Anthony reacted without the slightest hesitation. His eyes locked straight ahead, determination carved into his face, his focus razor-sharp. His dashboard lit up in a frenzy of color as the speedometer needle climbed ferociously, the pointer arching upward while his foot pressed deeper into the accelerator.

Wind howled violently against the car’s body, cutting apart with every passing second. Around him, competitors mirrored his ferocity, their vehicles side by side, shoulder to shoulder, each refusing to give way. The race instantly accelerated into madness: from zero to six hundred kilometers per hour in mere seconds. Tires screamed across the asphalt, traction barely holding against such reckless velocity.

Without warning, a heavy jolt slammed into Anthony’s car from behind. Another racer rammed into him, attempting to shove him aside and clear a path forward. Anthony’s jaw clenched. Rather than resisting the intimidation, he pressed harder on the throttle.

His speed climbed, the car roaring defiantly, refusing to yield. Around him, the brutal chaos continued, cars scraped, slammed, and wrestled for position, metal shrieking against metal. With everyone starting at the same point, the track felt like a battlefield rather than a race.

The world outside his windows blurred into abstract streaks of color, indistinguishable from speed. The deafening roar of engines layered over the sharp hiss of tires gripping and releasing the asphalt, a symphony of raw power and danger.

Anthony’s heart pounded violently in his chest, but not from fear. A wide grin stretched across his face as adrenaline coursed through every vein like liquid fire.

’No wonder people love this,’ he thought. ’This is what they’ve been addicted to all along.’

He muttered aloud, ”So this is the thrill of true racing.”

His speed climbed further, and he weaved past other competitors, his position climbing steadily until he secured fourth. Ahead of him, Ernest, Dave, and Alicia dominated the front lines, their cars slicing forward without hesitation, their tires never once braking for even a breath.

Anthony narrowed his eyes. His right hand slid to the gearshift with practiced precision, shifting seamlessly with breathtaking smoothness. His car responded instantly, roaring to life once more, its acceleration jolting forward like a beast finding a second wind.

But just as the race settled into its furious rhythm, everything changed.

The landscape ahead shifted violently. A towering high-rise in the cityscape suddenly groaned, cracked, and collapsed. Glass shattered like rain, concrete crumbled in waves, and the building plummeted toward the racecourse with terrifying inevitability.

Anthony’s eyes darted sharply to his right window, catching the falling debris, bricks, steel beams, entire floors crashing downward, threatening to annihilate the path before them.

’The first obstacle of the Obstacle Racing Course,’ Anthony thought calmly.

Without a shred of hesitation, he swerved. His left foot stabbed the clutch, his right foot tapping the brake just enough, his hands spinning the steering wheel with surgical ease. His car slid sideways, tires screeching as he dove into a side alley, narrowly avoiding the crushing downfall.

He knew that relying on the AI’s default path would have been suicide. The collapsing skyscraper would have buried him alive. Though his car’s body-shielded barrier could absorb damage, it had a fixed limit, using it this early was reckless, almost idiotic.

Other racers made the same decision, swerving wildly into alternate routes. Engines wailed as they scattered in every direction like startled birds.

”Recalibrating route,” Anthony’s car AI intoned coolly.

A brief pause, then: ”Route found.”

Anthony slammed the throttle once more, the car exploding forward with renewed momentum. But the obstacle wasn’t finished. Behind him, massive slabs of concrete and steel continued to collapse, crashing into the road with thunderous force, sending shockwaves that threatened to topple any racer too slow to escape.

Anthony never dared glance backward. His grip tightened on the wheel. The car blurred with every passing meter, his senses tuned only to survival and speed.

Cutting sharply left, his vehicle burst back onto the main road. Tires screamed as he drifted elegantly, the back end skidding with calculated precision before aligning perfectly with the straightaway. The air filled with the screech of rubber tearing into asphalt.

A feral grin spread across Anthony’s face. His hand released the handbrake, shifting back to the gear lever. With a fluid flick, he shifted once more, the engine howling with fury. The car shot forward like a bullet, the road beneath him surrendering to his dominance.

He was now in third. Dave had fallen behind, overtaken by Anthony’s sheer momentum. Only Ernest and Alicia remained ahead, both of them locked in their own merciless duel, neither giving the other an inch.

Anthony pressed harder, drawing closer until the three cars clashed side by side. Their vehicles rammed against one another in brutal defiance, sparks erupting from metal grinding against metal. Tires burned, pushing forward despite the strain.

Then suddenly, every AI screamed at once:

”Warning! Incoming missile from behind.”

The announcement was chilling.

Anthony, Ernest, and Alicia immediately swerved apart, scattering from their tight formation. Their tires screamed as they tore across the asphalt, dodging in perfect synchronization.

Anthony’s mind raced. ’Already? Dave’s launching a missile this early?’

The projectile streaked forward, no homing capability, no heat-seeking tech. A dumb-fire missile, but deadly nonetheless. It slammed into the tarmac where the trio had been seconds earlier.

The explosion was immediate and forceful. Asphalt ripped apart, fire and dust surged outward in a violent shockwave. The blast slammed into their cars with bone-rattling force.

Anthony’s vehicle lifted violently into the air, weightless for a terrifying second. Alicia and Ernest were launched too, all three tossed helplessly before crashing back down onto the track.

Anthony’s body, however, hardly reacted. His physique was too tempered, too resilient for mere inertia to faze him. Still, his car had spun in the chaos, tail now facing forward, nose backward, completely reversed.

Most racers would have panicked. Anthony did not.

His hand shot to the gearshift, transitioning seamlessly from drive to reverse. Without pause, he slammed the accelerator, propelling his car backward at full force. His eyes fixed calmly on the rear-view mirror, using it as his compass as he sped forward in reverse, perfectly aligned.

Ahead, the shimmering distortion of a portal appeared, the next checkpoint. Anthony’s eyes gleamed.

With ruthless control, his hand yanked the handbrake once more. Tires screeched, smoke rose, and his car spun cleanly, rotating as though the track itself bent to his will. In a single motion, he switched gears back into drive, the car aligning with perfect poise.

Alicia was the first to dive through the glowing gateway, her car dissolving into the portal’s light. Anthony followed instantly, slipping through in second place. Behind him, Dave roared in after third, while Ernest was pushed back to fourth. Clara, silent and cunning, slipped through in fifth, her car a ghost on the track.