Chapter 42: Rules? They're Made to Be Broken!
Stelle's brazen provocation was like a spark dropped into a powder keg. The competitive spirit among the frontrunners instantly ignited.
Lumine leaned low over her pure white motorcycle, her golden eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. A brilliant burst of azure Anemo energy erupted from her core, swirling around the chassis of her bike.
"Wind! Hear me!" she commanded, her voice cutting through the roar of the engines.
A localized hurricane manifested around her. The powerful gale didn't just dramatically boost her acceleration—launching her forward like a loosed arrow—it acted as a perfect aerodynamic shield. The violent crosswinds precisely blasted away the splashing debris and shattered crystal obstacles in her path, carving out a pristine racing lane. For a fleeting second, the front wheel of her white bike crept up right beside Stelle's rear tire.
"Hey! No fair!" March 7th huffed, her competitive streak flaring up.
Refusing to eat their dust, she took one hand off the handlebars and gripped the empty air. Frost condensed in her palm, rapidly crystallizing into a single-edged sword. The blade was a striking crimson, radiating a bone-chilling frost that left a trail of mist in the air.
It was the very same prized blade she had manifested while studying swordsmanship under her two exasperatingly talented masters, Yanqing and Yunli. She certainly hadn't expected those grueling training sessions to pay off in a multiversal motorcycle race.
"Take this!" she shouted, swinging the icy blade in wide arcs.
Several crescent-shaped waves of sharp sword qi tore through the air, precisely slicing the larger, dangerous boulders hurtling toward her into harmless chunks! The smaller, unavoidable fragments simply bounced off a hastily conjured ice shield, barely grazing her momentum.
While her method wasn't quite as elegant or aerodynamically flawless as Lumine's Anemo slipstream, she managed to maintain her position in the chaotic pack.
'Thank goodness I actually paid attention to those sword forms,'March thought, letting out a breath of relief.'Otherwise, I'd just be a glorified cheerleader right now!'
Dan Heng, meanwhile, remained completely silent. He hadn't uttered a single word since the starting line. He merely leaned forward, pressing his chest almost flat against the fuel tank of his indigo motorcycle. His sharp, calculating gaze tracked the chaotic environment with the precision of a hawk.
Faced with the literal storm of shrapnel kicked up by Stelle's violent trailblazing, the archivist displayed a terrifyingly exquisite mastery of his vehicle. His motorcycle weaved, dipped, and banked through the dense rain of jagged crystals like a butterfly dancing through a briar patch. Every twitch of the handlebars was perfectly timed, precise down to the millimeter. It was as if he could see the exact trajectory of every flying rock before it even moved.
Upon closer inspection, however, his flawless driving wasn't purely mechanical. Dan Heng was subtly manipulating his own Wind element, creating micro-currents of air that gently nudged the incoming fragments just inches away from his visor.
And so, the four vanguards locked into a stunning, high-speed dogfight.
Stelle's brute-force trailblazing, Lumine's wind-riding velocity, March 7th's frantic sword-swinging obstacle clearance, and Dan Heng's ghostly, frictionless evasions. Engines screamed, and elemental light trails—gold, azure, pink, and indigo—painted the dark expanse of the Hollow, weaving a dazzling display of light across the cavernous ruins!
In stark contrast to the adrenaline-fueled warzone up front, the rear of the pack looked more like an elderly sightseeing tour.
Zhongli sat perfectly upright on his motorcycle, cruising at a leisurely, law-abiding pace. His posture was so relaxed he might as well have been sipping tea. Paimon floated carefully beside him, her tiny hands gripping the handlebars of her proportionately tiny, muscular-stand-pedaled bike.
Wise and Belle rode side-by-side just a short distance ahead of the Geo Archon. They were taking the absolute safest, most structurally sound route mapped out by the chat group's navigation system.
All around them lay the devastating aftermath of Stelle's trailblazing. Shattered crystal pillars, lingering clouds of dispersed Aether, and pulverized barricades littered the path.
Wise slowed his bike slightly, his analytical eyes scanning the sheared-off base of a massive crystal formation. "Truly... unbelievable," he murmured. "Normally, clearing out Hollow structures of this density would require heavy engineering machinery."
"Yeah, Stelle and the others are just ridiculously strong..." Belle agreed, her eyes sparkling with undisguised awe as she looked at the fading elemental trails in the distance. "I wonder if we'll be able to hit that hard once we actually start cultivating?"
"Opportunities will present themselves in due time," Zhongli's rich, steady voice drifted over the hum of their engines, carrying a grounding, reassuring weight. "The foundation of all cultivation lies in patience and perseverance. Rushing the process only invites instability."
Paimon nodded vigorously, her little paper crown flapping in the wind. "Mhm! Paimon is gonna work super hard too! I'm definitely getting a good ranking in the next race!" she declared proudly—completely ignoring the fact that she was currently dead last.
The four of them chatted and laughed, enjoying the violently terraformed scenery of the Hollow in absolute tranquility.
Miles ahead, the vanguard remained locked in their fierce, dead-even struggle.
The intense dogfight continued unabated until the track suddenly opened up into the final, massive intersection before the finish line. The holographic map projected on their visors showed a clear fork in the road.
The left passage was a gentle, sweeping curve—safe, but adding a significant distance to the final stretch.
The right passage, however, was an absolute nightmare. It consisted of eight continuous, razor-sharp 180-degree hairpin turns! Worse still, the entire sequence of turns was built into a terrifyingly steep downhill slope. Just looking at the sheer vertical drop on the minimap was enough to make a sane person's scalp tingle.
Stelle, currently holding the lead by a bumper, faced this technical hellscape without a single ounce of hesitation.
"Hahaha! Turns? What turns?!" she laughed maniacally. Yanking the handlebars hard, she sent her motorcycle roaring straight toward the right-hand path of death!
For someone like Stelle, who possessed absolutely zero drifting technique and treated the throttle like an on/off switch, entering that section was tantamount to vehicular suicide.
But what happened next defied all logic. As she approached the very first hairpin turn, instead of hitting the brakes to drift, Stelle actually cranked the throttle to the maximum.
"Stelle!" March 7th screamed, her voice cracking in panic as she reached the intersection. "Careful!"
The gray-haired Trailblazer's motorcycle howled like a beast. Carrying an unstoppable, suicidal momentum, she hit the apex of the first hairpin turn—and violently smashed right through the fragile guardrail!
Glass shattered. Metal groaned. Both rider and motorcycle launched directly off the edge of the cliff, plummeting into the dark abyss below!
For a fraction of a second, Lumine and Dan Heng froze in shock. But as their eyes tracked her falling form, their gazes sharpened into daggers.
In that brief window before gravity took her, both of them caught a glimpse of a faint green light flashing in Stelle's hand. More, they saw her face. There was no panic. No despair. Only the smug, shit-eating grin of someone whose chaotic plan had worked perfectly.
In a flash, the Traveler and the archivist understood. That raccoon had a backup plan!
Without missing a beat, their engines roared to a deafening pitch. Lumine and Dan Heng didn't even touch their brakes. Following Stelle's exact trajectory, they gunned their engines, launching their own motorcycles off the shattered cliffside and plunging into the open air!
"Are you guys completely insane?!" March 7th slammed on her brakes, her tires squealing as she skidded to a halt mere inches from the broken guardrail. She absolutely refused to play whatever suicidal game this was.
Stunned, she leaned over the edge, watching the three maniacs free-falling into the dark void. She killed her engine, crossed her arms over the guardrail, and waited. She just had to see how these lunatics planned to survive this.
Mid-air, the rushing wind tore at Stelle's clothes. The sickening sensation of weightlessness gripped her stomach, yet her victorious smirk only grew wider.
Taking one hand off her falling bike, she reached into the void. A flash of light materialized into a brand-new, emerald-green bamboo-copter!
"Hehe! Rules..." she yelled over the rushing wind. Triumphantly, she slapped the toy-like contraption onto the top of her head. Instantly, the little green propeller whirred to life, spinning at an impossible, physics-defying speed!
Her rapid descent jerked to a sudden, comical halt. Suspended by the tiny rotor, she grabbed her motorcycle with one hand and casually steered herself through the air, gliding directly toward the finish line—the Blazestone Fire Lake, which glowed with a menacing, orange-red heat in the cavernous depths below.
Feeling incredibly smug, she even took the time to twist around, fully expecting to see the horrified, defeated faces of her rivals left in the dust.
"...are made to be broken!" she finished her catchphrase at the top of her lungs.
However, the sight that greeted her caused her triumphant grin to instantly freeze.
Lumine was not falling to her death. Instead, the Traveler was enveloped in a brilliant, blinding azure glow. Massive torrents of Anemo energy gathered beneath her tires, spiraling outward to form a colossal, upward-drafting wind field!
The concentrated cyclone acted like an invisible parachute. It effortlessly arrested her freefall, allowing her to elegantly surf the air currents. Seated calmly on her white motorcycle, Lumine glided through the air with the grace of a descending goddess, her trajectory locked dead onto the finish line.
And Dan Heng? His method was even more infuriatingly stylish.
Letting go of his handlebars entirely, he formed a single, precise hand seal. His cold voice cut through the howling wind. "Azure Dragon, Cleansing the World!"
ROAR—!
A deep, ancient dragon's roar reverberated through the Hollow, shaking the very air. A majestic, serpentine phantom of an Azure Dragon, forged entirely from crystalline, glowing water, violently condensed beneath him!
The massive water dragon coiled its body, catching both the indigo motorcycle and its rider perfectly on its broad back. The rushing currents of the dragon's form absorbed all the kinetic shock of the fall. Then, with a flick of its watery tail, the beast propelled him forward. Dan Heng stood atop his bike, riding the roaring water dragon through the sky like an immortal descending from the heavens, shooting swiftly toward the Blazestone Fire Lake.
"!!!" Stelle's eyes practically bugged out of her skull.
She hadn't expected these two to pull out their own blatant cheat codes! Worse yet—their cheats looked way cooler than her goofy little propeller hat!
Finally, under Stelle's utterly dumbfounded gaze, the three airborne racers closed in on the finish line platform.
With the obnoxious buzzing of the bamboo-copter, Stelle's tires slammed onto the obsidian rock first, bouncing slightly on impact. A fraction of a second later, Lumine touched down with absolute grace, the roaring Anemo wind field dissipating into a gentle, refreshing breeze around her. Simultaneously, Dan Heng's motorcycle hit the ground with a heavy thud, the majestic water dragon beneath him shattering into a million sparkling, luminescent droplets that rained down around him like a theatrical spotlight.
They had landed almost exactly at the same time.
[Inorin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me and keeps these daily updates flowing!
Want to read 50 chapters ahead or just want to help keep a shameless translator alive? (My livelihood actually depends on this, haha 😭). You can support me directly here:
(P.S. Just remove the brackets and replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters): patreon[.]com/InorinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/InorinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]