Chapter 32: Unexpected Appearance
The Tour de Inferno raged on. The jagged terrain of the Outer Ring grew increasingly treacherous, littering the track with lethal obstacles. Lighter's motorcycle shrieked. Tires bit into the dirt, screaming in protest as he banked at an extreme, gravity-defying angle. The heavy chassis hovered mere inches above the ground, sliding past the rotting trunk of a fallen giant tree with millimeter precision. A massive plume of dust kicked up behind his rear wheel, trailing him like a storm cloud.
Just behind him, Lucy narrowed her eyes. Her gaze tracked the chaotic environment with hawkish intensity. Her fingers danced over the throttle and brakes, executing a flawless sequence of micro-adjustments. Spotting an inconspicuous, jagged side slope, she gunned the engine. Her bike launched into the air like an arrow loosed from a heavy bow. She soared gracefully over a deadly patch of jagged Aether crystal clusters, her suspension absorbing the impact upon landing with nothing more than a light puff of dirt.
Meanwhile, Caesar held the absolute lead. She had zero interest in finesse. The King of the Sons of Calydon perfectly demonstrated the philosophy of overwhelming brute force. Faced with a barricade of unavoidable debris, she did not even twitch toward the brakes. Instead, she slammed the throttle all the way down. The furious engine roared a deafening battle cry. Her heavy motorcycle vibrated violently, transforming into a fearless, high-speed battering ram. Like an enraged iron boar, she plowed a brutal path straight through the wreckage, shattering obstacles with unstoppable momentum.
Back in the safety of the proxy network, the atmosphere reached a boiling point. The crew watched the chaotic broadcast shared through Eous's visual feed, routed directly into Wise's HDD system.
"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! How did they even do that?!" Paimon pumped her tiny fists in the air. Her small face flushed bright red with adrenaline, leaning so far forward she looked ready to fly straight into the monitor.
"Cool... so incredibly cool." Stelle leaned in, her golden eyes gleaming with absolute starstruck wonder. She rubbed her hands together, practically vibrating with the urge to summon her imaginary Galaxy Transcender No. 1 and crash the race herself.
"That is so amazing! But it looks way too dangerous! I think my heart is about to jump right out of my chest!" March 7th slapped both hands over her mouth. She bounced on her heels, torn between sheer terror and absolute admiration, refusing to blink lest she miss a single second of the carnage.
Lumine kept her gaze locked entirely on Caesar's wild, dominating figure. "Raw courage backed by flawless mechanical control. She knows exactly what that machine can handle. It is definitely a technique worth studying."
Dan Heng stood near the back, his arms crossed. His analytical gaze swept over the environmental hazards rather than the flashy driving. "Anticipation of the shifting terrain and instant muscular reflexes are the true keys here. That level of spatial awareness can only be forged through years of brutal, practical experience."
Zhongli stood calmly beside them, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. The chaotic, fiery explosions on the monitor reflected in his calm amber eyes, carrying a distinct glint of quiet appreciation. "Beneath such wild abandon lies an absolute, unshakable trust in her own strength, as well as the unwavering reliance on her companions. That specific mindset... it carries the distinct flavor of a fearless cavalry charge upon the ancient battlefields."
Belle nervously clenched her fists. Her palms grew slick with cold sweat as she leaned over the console, her eyes darting across the telemetry data tracking Caesar's vitals.
Wise maintained a sharp frown. His fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard in a blur of motion, constantly retrieving real-time topographical data from the Hollow to feed Caesar precise, split-second navigation coordinates.
The track suddenly pitched upward, forming a massive, jagged incline.
Caesar did not hesitate for a fraction of a second. She twisted the throttle, pushing the engine into the redline!
The heavy motorcycle launched off the lip of the cliff, cutting a powerful, metallic arc against the blinding desert sun. She soared high over the yawning gap, aiming for the dimly lit, narrow valley passage waiting below.
The rock walls on either side of the gorge towered into the sky, curving inward like the clasped hands of a dying giant. Thick, oppressive shadows swallowed the track. The ambient light vanished the moment she entered the canyon, leaving only the piercing yellow beams of her motorcycle's headlights tearing through the gloom.
Then, the air pressure dropped.
Boom! Boom! Boom!!!
A chain of deafening explosions erupted from the cliff tops on both sides of the canyon without a single warning. The concussive shockwave was so violent it instantly drowned out the screaming engines of the racers.
Right in front of Caesar's front tire, the seemingly solid bedrock violently buckled. The earth collapsed inward, tearing open a massive, bottomless sinkhole right in the middle of the track.
"No!" Wise leaned forward, his pupils contracting to pinpricks.
The trap sprang too fast. Carried by the immense, unstoppable inertia of her top speed, Caesar, her heavy bike, and the accompanying Eous had absolutely zero time to brake. It looked as though an invisible, subterranean beast had unhinged its jaws. The King of Calydon vanished instantly, swallowed whole by the rolling clouds of pulverized rock and the suffocating darkness of the pit.
Static hissed through the proxy network. The main monitor in front of Wise violently flickered, glitching into a mess of dead pixels before cutting to black.
"Signal lost! Caesar and Eous just went down into that sinkhole!" Wise shoved his chair back and stood up. His face drained of color, his usually calm voice cracking with an unmatched, heavy urgency.
He slammed his hands back onto the control panel, typing frantically. Fine beads of cold sweat gathered at his temples. He bypassed standard protocols, desperately trying to force a reconnection while simultaneously scraping the fragmented telemetry and environmental data Eous had managed to transmit in the final microsecond before the blackout.
Belle grabbed the edge of the desk, her knuckles turning white. "Wise! What is happening? Can you ping them? Are Caesar and Eous okay?!"
Without waiting for an answer, she spun toward her own terminal, immediately booting up Fairy to run emergency trajectory calculations on the sinkhole's estimated depth and landing zone.
"Oh my gosh! Another accident?!" March 7th gasped, gripping her skirt.
Dan Heng narrowed his eyes, his mind already dissecting the footage. "That was no accident. I clearly heard sequential detonations the moment Caesar crossed the valley threshold. Those were shaped charges. She was ambushed."
Stelle scowled, hefting an imaginary weapon over her shoulder. "Why can nobody in this place just race fairly? It is always dirty tricks and hidden bombs. We seriously need to find whoever set this up and introduce their face to the pavement."
Paimon scratched her head, floating in a nervous circle. "Wait, is it those Triumphants again? The guys from last time? But Pompey didn't really seem like the type of guy who needs to play dirty tricks to win."
Lumine crossed her arms, her golden eyes sharp. "If Pompey is not the one pulling the strings, then the problem likely lies with the other two competitors who entered the canyon alongside her."
"Highly probable," Dan Heng agreed. He leaned over Belle's shoulder, pulling up the race participant dossiers the proxies had compiled earlier. His voice remained cool and analytical. "Aggressive tactics, complete disregard for collateral damage. If we factor in Mors's involvement in the previous eavesdropping incident, and the local rumors painting Lucius as a reckless second-in-command desperate to prove his dominance... this looks like a violent escalation of an internal power struggle. Lucius is currently our prime suspect."
Stelle groaned, loudly interrupting the tactical breakdown. "I absolutely hate people who rig the game! What is the point of standing around guessing?" With a flash of digitized light, she summoned her baseball bat, gripping the handle tightly. A dangerous, eager gleam flashed in her eyes. "The race is busted, and our friends are currently missing in a giant hole! Are we seriously just going to sit in this room and wait for a loading screen? The most direct solution is usually the best one—we go to the scene! We jump down that big pit! If we punch enough things, we will eventually find a clue!"
She spun on her heel, fully prepared to kick the door open and sprint into the desert.
"Stelle! Stop right there! Do not do anything crazy!" March 7th lunged forward, grabbing the back of Stelle's coat and dragging her to a halt before she could cause a diplomatic incident. "Wise is working on it! Maybe the connection will pop back up any second now, just give them a minute to breathe!"
Just as Stelle and March 7th devolved into a comical tug-of-war, the dead monitor in front of Wise violently flickered. A burst of static cleared, and the visual feed snapped back to Eous's perspective!
The lens was cracked and coated in a thick layer of gray dust. Caesar was coughing, waving the debris away from her face, but she was alive. Wise quickly scanned the chemical residue lingering in the air through the Bangboo's sensors. His expression darkened. The blast pattern and residual energy signatures confirmed it was the product of military-grade, high-concentration Aether explosives. Logically, contraband of that lethal caliber should never have bypassed security to flow into the Outer Ring.
This was no random gang dispute. This was a highly funded, carefully calculated assassination plot.
After a rapid, tense exchange of information, Wise and Caesar agreed on an immediate protocol. They needed to contact Burnice back at the official viewing site and force an emergency halt to the entire tournament.
However, the moment the encrypted comms linked up, Burnice's voice filtered through the speakers, sounding entirely relaxed and utterly confused. "Oh, hey Wise! It's you guys. What's with the sudden emergency ping? Things are going super smoothly in the Hollow today. We haven't even run into a single combat situation yet."
Caesar blinked, wiping a streak of soot from her cheek. "Burnice, what are you talking about? Half the canyon just blew up and swallowed me whole! How did you not see that on the broadcast?"
A massive, devastating explosion had literally torn the race track apart, yet the official viewing site remained completely oblivious. The crowd was still cheering for a phantom race.
[Master,] Fairy's synthetic voice chimed smoothly through the proxy network, [I have detected a severe anomaly. The live broadcast feed currently playing at the viewing site has been hijacked and replaced with pre-recorded, tampered footage.]
Wise's eyes widened. To orchestrate such a massive, coordinated display—hijacking the feed, planting military explosives, and risking total exposure from the ruling factions—meant the stakes were astronomically high. The mastermind's true goal was never the petty title of Overlord. They were aiming for the very lifeblood of the region.
The Blazestone Fire Lake!
Wise quickly relayed his terrifying deduction through the earpiece, laying out the true scale of the conspiracy to Caesar.
Caesar's expression hardened. The dust on her face only highlighted the furious, burning intensity in her eyes. "The Blazestone Fire Lake cannot fall. Half the population of the Outer Ring relies on that energy source just to survive the winter. Wise, Belle... can I trouble you two to guide me out of this pit?"
Wise and Belle exchanged a brief, determined glance across the proxy room. They nodded in perfect synchronization.
"No problem, Caesar," Wise replied, his fingers already flying across the keyboard to map a subterranean exit route. "Hold tight. We are going to handle you out of there and link you up with Lucy and Lighter. Right now, there is safety in numbers."
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