"Ladies and gentlemen, oh my God! Stella! Stella has activated her special skill again!
That makes six times already! Unbelievable!"
Kool Kenny's howl could be heard throughout the stands and even inside the operations departments of every club.
Some people nearly blacked out, like Chloe Qin.
Some stared in astonishment, while others, like Absolute Shadow, wore faint smiles.
Mecha Girls were just like humans. Unless they pushed themselves, they would never know how far they could go.
Unlike ordinary cars, Mecha Girls were living beings.
And living beings couldn't be summed up by rigid mechanical data. In a crisis, humans could sometimes unleash strength far beyond their normal limits. Likewise, when a Mecha Girl's emotions surged, she could tap into a burst of hidden potential that lowered the chance of something going wrong.
It wasn't Overclocking. At most, it was an emotional state just short of Overclocking.
In that state, Stella could squeeze out even more speed.
Which meant overtaking Eternity within the five kilometers of Longmen Pass shouldn't be a problem at all.
But Derek Su and Stella had no idea.
They still thought they were a full thirty seconds behind Eternity!
Even at 800 km/h, covering five kilometers only took about twenty-two seconds.
"Something's not right!" Derek Su stared at Path of Glory stretching toward the finish line through his field-of-view display. The light was gradually fading. Stella and Eternity had started four minutes apart, so Eternity should have crossed the finish line long ago.
Could they really still be thirty seconds behind?
That made absolutely no sense!
What, could Eternity somehow be traveling faster than the speed of sound?!
He didn't believe it.
He might not know anything else, but Stella was already going over 800 km/h!
"Master, I want to beat Eternity!"
Derek Su heard the stubborn determination in Stella's voice.
He had a bad feeling she was about to activate Sovereign Engine · Rage.
They were surrounded by cliffs. If her engine blew here, it would be incredibly dangerous.
"Don't! Think this through!" Derek Su hurriedly tried to calm her down. "Stella, it's only thirty seconds. Maybe we're only a dozen seconds behind by now. Purple Lightning and I can make up the rest on the second section."
"That's different." Stella pouted.
This was her contest with Eternity-01.
What kind of victory would it be if she had to count Purple Lightning too?
Still, she genuinely wasn't confident she could activate the second version of her special skill.
She could feel that if she used it, her speed would reach its absolute limit, but there was a very good chance she would break down before reaching the finish line.
She couldn't use it.
But she didn't want to lose either.
What was she supposed to do?
The finish line drew closer and closer.
Stella suddenly turned her head, her large eyes sparkling.
"Master, kiss me!"
"What?" Derek Su froze.
"Kiss me! Hurry!!"
"Oh. Okay!" Derek Su had no idea what Stella was planning, but Longmen Pass was completely straight. There was practically nothing for him to control. This stretch tested nothing but the Mecha Girl's raw performance, so even taking his hands off the control stick wouldn't matter.
He got up, bent forward, and leaned over until he was practically sprawled across Stella's back.
That finally brought him close enough to reach her little face.
"Smack."
He kissed Stella on the cheek.
BOOM—!!
The engine suddenly erupted with a deafening roar.
The abrupt surge in speed hurled Derek Su back into the driver's seat and pinned him there.
The seat belt and every other safety restraint shot out and wrapped around him, securing him from head to toe.
Up front, Stella stared at the track with shining eyes.
A kiss!
A kiss from Master!
Derek Su had taken the initiative to kiss her only a handful of times. This was just the second or third time ever.
She didn't care what Eternity-01 had used to achieve Overclocking.
Whenever Stella overclocked, it was all because of her love for Derek Su!
"Eternity!!!"
Stella raised her head and stared straight ahead as though she could see Eternity somewhere within that ribbon of light. The starlight in her eyes grew brighter and brighter.
"Now I'll show you just how passionate and unbeatable the bond between Master and me is!"
"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!"
Wings of light unfurled one after another from both sides of Stella's chassis.
The moment they fully spread would be the moment Stella entered Overclocking.
And even before that happened, her speed was still climbing!
...
In the Stella Club Operations Department, Absolute Shadow stared wide-eyed at Stella's rapidly rising speed, her red lips parting slightly.
"Good freaking grief..."
All she had wanted was to push Derek Su and Stella into one final sprint so Eternity and Lucy Luo wouldn't overtake them again.
But now...
Maybe she had pushed a little too hard.
At the summit of Panlong Mountain, Lucy Luo and Eternity-01 had already crossed the finish line three minutes earlier.
After a healing Mecha Girl gave Eternity a full-body repair, she was fine aside from some lingering exhaustion.
Their final time was 1 hour, 37 minutes, 17 seconds.
When Eternity saw the result, she relaxed slightly.
She remembered that Tania's time on the first section of Panlong Mountain had been 1 hour, 42 minutes, 9 seconds.
She and Lucy Luo had already beaten Tania's time.
In that case, beating The Magician and Stella shouldn't be a problem either...
"Lucy Luo."
Eternity called her name, but there was no response.
She looked up and found Lucy Luo staring at her with reddened eyes.
The moment their gazes met, Lucy Luo threw her arms around Eternity. Or rather, she buried herself headfirst in Eternity's arms.
Eternity froze for a moment, then her expression softened. She wrapped her arms around the crying girl and gently patted her back.
"I'm sorry. I won't take risks like that again."
She knew Lucy Luo had been worried about her.
Fortunately, Eternity's Stability and Impact Resistance weren't particularly poor, and with Overclocking on top of that, she had just barely managed to endure it.
The spectators at the finish line looked warmly at the pilot and Mecha Girl embracing each other.
Even Kool Kenny found himself getting a little emotional.
"Perhaps this is the embrace of vict..."
He had been about to call it the embrace of victory.
But the instant the words began leaving his mouth, his professional instincts made him glance at the screen.
The rest died in his throat.
He stared blankly at the display, his narrow eyes gradually widening.
"Holy shit!"
At the top of the leaderboard on the screen was not Lucy Luo and Eternity.
It was another pair of competitors.
And beside their names was a speed that made everyone's scalp tingle.
"O-Over a thousand?" Kool Kenny stammered under his breath.
What kind of speed was that?!
There wasn't even time to process it.
A piercing engine howl was already carrying toward them on the wind.
In the stands, Tunbao looked up at the sky in bewilderment.
"What's that sound? Is there a plane?"
The sun blazed overhead beneath a perfectly clear sky.
What plane?
Beside him, Lingwind tugged at Tunbao's hand and pointed toward the screen and nearby speakers. His lips trembled as he spoke.
"Bao Bao, that's not a plane... it's Stella!"
"What?!"
Tunbao froze and instinctively turned toward the giant screen.
By then, Kool Kenny had already switched the feed to the cockpit of the front-runner.
From inside came a battle cry Tunbao knew all too well.
"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!"
"I'm passing you, passing you, passing you, passing you, passing you...
I PASSED YOU! AAAAAAAAAAH!!"
...
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