No limits, no limits—this race didn't even have referees. The rules were painfully clear, and there was only one:
"The only one who walks into the Afterlife alive—deadline 2:00 a.m."
One of the Badlands broadcast feeds cut to David—
As the young, promising underling of Burger King, of course he had to join this event. And to be fair, he even had sponsors!
The Mackinaw was bought through Leo's connections, but the chassis and suspension were the real monsters—top-tier suspension sponsored by Thorton.
Anywhere they could swap in high-strength steel, they did. Now the car was a solid armed vehicle in its own right.
The Badlands were huge. Aside from Maine, hiding behind another rock, the two of them exchanged a glance and gave each other a thumbs-up—both smiling a little stiffly:
The best way to eliminate fear is to face fear, but facing fear is… kind of scary.
"I'm just saying…" In the passenger seat, Lucy pinched David's chin unhappily and turned his face toward her. "We only run the first leg. Don't get carried away."
This race had one perk: you could quit anytime. Given how intense it was, not many people would look down on someone for bailing halfway.
The only ones "qualified" to laugh would probably end up dead.
David nodded. "But what even counts as the start signal?"
Before the words were fully out, his hair stood on end—
In the rearview mirror, muzzle flashes bloomed, and bullets poured toward their tail like a waterfall!
"David!" Rebecca screamed from the bed.
That was the start signal!
Boom!
Hands and eyes moving as one, David started the engine, stomped the clutch, slammed the shifter, and buried the throttle. The Mackinaw lunged forward, flinging the camo tarp behind it!
Ratatatatatatata—
Boom!
Bullets closed in, and a missile—like a final punctuation mark—slammed into the exact spot where they'd been parked.
If you started slow, you just got blown apart.
"HUH!"
Two Mackinaws charged onto the road side by side. Maine grabbed the steering wheel and hammered it with his fist, his face going red—
Scared shitless. The start signal could literally kill you on the spot!
Who the hell uses drones as the starting gun?!
Boom!
A fireball rose in the desert. Everyone in both vehicles looked over—
Someone really did get blown up.
It was a beat-up little Viper—whoever brought that scrap heap out here had a death wish.
"Watch the road!!!"
Lucy smacked David's face forward. A huge rock lay across the road—his tires hit it and the car jumped!
Speedometer: 80. At that speed, if you didn't clamp the wheel, you'd drift and roll.
The steering kicked back like a beast. David locked in, and when he looked ahead—cars were merging in from both sides.
Nobody wanted to stay on the uneven shoulder—
Even if this wasn't a pure speed race, no one wanted to be the slow turtle.
Bang!
A Colby Mule little pickup surged onto the road, sliding right into David's lane!
In the bed sat a boosted-out ganger wearing an upper-body exoskeleton, strapped into a chair. He was buckled in with a safety harness, gripping a machine gun in each hand, flashing David a savage grin—
"Smile at your mom," Rebecca snarled, and pulled the trigger!
BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!
Heavy gunfire. Three heavy machine guns roared at once. David yanked the wheel sideways, hit the left lever, and ducked—
An armored plate shot up in front of the windshield, but the bullets hit it like hammers, instantly dimpling it into a cratered sheet.
The glass shattered in a single scream.
The metal streams were so dense you could see them—like a single line linking the two vehicles.
Rebecca's rounds punched through the enemy's bodywork, detonating against that guy's shoulder—
And she felt death brush her scalp.
A heavy round tore past her head, close enough to shave her.
Time seemed to slow.
Rebecca suddenly saw sparks bursting from the road in front of the lead truck.
Up ahead, a vehicle was rolling—end over end.
Hiss—
Bang!
The lead driver stared at the tumbling wreck about to slam into him, grit his teeth, and turned hard—
But the Colby Mule was a light pickup. Two heavy MGs already pushed it to its limit. That sharp turn made it tip.
The tip angle lined up perfectly with the incoming wreck.
They collided dead-on.
Two bumper chunks flew like guillotines toward them. Rebecca ducked—
CLANG!
They skimmed the roof, throwing sparks, and whipped past toward the rear.
The enemy truck's tires shrieked as it fishtailed. David shot past it, and behind him Maine cranked his wheel and rammed it clean off the highway.
The Colby, out of control, plunged headfirst into a pit.
One overtake—then another.
Ahead now: a fully equipped Emperor Ragnar, painted matte black.
The bed cover was slightly open. Inside, a group of men in matching black suits—if you didn't know better, you'd think they were cosplaying corpo hounds.
David kicked on the Sandevistan. While adjusting the vehicle, he forced his brain to answer one question:
How did they flip the car ahead of the truck?
With that thought, he saw what the enemy was doing—reloading a strange weapon.
It wasn't like swapping a magazine. It was like changing bolts on a crossbow—except they were fitting a prototype "disc" onto the muzzle.
Calling it a disc wasn't quite right. It was thick, thicker toward the center, with a black cylindrical protrusion.
That shape—
David instantly thought of something: a mine.
A vehicle-grade mine you could fire.
He straightened the car. The enemy finished the reload and aimed—
If Rebecca waited to fire, it'd be too late.
Then the unexpected happened.
In the slowed world, a stream of metal at absurd speed slammed into the Emperor Ragnar. The rounds hit armor, spat huge sparks, and stuck—
Then sparks and flame burst inward from the armor layer itself, and a terrifying blaze instantly swallowed the entire cabin.
High-explosive armor-piercing rounds.
And not just that—high rate of fire HEAP.
First second: three HEAP rounds punched into the rear compartment, and flame and shrapnel turned the men inside into mush. Their weapon went off reflexively—two mines launched, but the shots went wide.
Second second: the shooter walked rounds into the cockpit. Thick armor cracked. The driver let go of the wheel, curling up in panic. The door popped, the vehicle went out of control.
Third second: the driver jumped out as the Emperor Ragnar burned behind him—
But the rounds didn't spare him. Midair, a piercing shot hit his right thigh, and then his leg was simply gone.
Time snapped back to normal speed.
The armored car in front of David got shredded by HEAP, burning as it veered off the road—
But one mine did launch properly. It skittered along the ground, sliding toward David's side.
BOOM!
The burning car and the mine detonated at the same time—one mine burst in midair, the other exploded beside David's window, nearly knocking his Mackinaw out of control!
The door beside him caved into a deep crater. The shockwave punched his organs hard enough to make him want to vomit—he swallowed it down and fought the wheel.
If that mine had detonated under their chassis, their whole crew would've been done.
What the hell just happened?
David turned his head—
And saw something that made his blood run cold.
In a chase like this, to keep handling stable, even on a road, most people wouldn't push past 80.
But he saw a heavy armored pickup—tank-like—tearing across the uneven Badlands dunes like it was flying.
"WOOOO!"
Mixed into the thunder of its engine was some street punk's ecstatic howl.
Legend cut in diagonally and slammed onto the roadway.
Legend had entered the race.