Chapter 329: Race 2

The moment Noah spoke those words, reality seemed to bend. The air above the hangar bay began to swirl, and the temperature dropped by at least ten degrees in seconds. What started as a gentle breeze quickly escalated into something far more dramatic.

Storm materialized not as a simple creature descending from a portal, but as a living weather phenomenon. Ice crystals formed in the air around him, creating prismatic light shows as they caught the hangar’s illumination. Lightning didn’t just crackle around his form—it danced, weaving patterns that seemed almost artistic in their complexity. His wingspan had to be at least twenty feet, each wing membrane crackling with contained electrical energy while frost patterns traced along the translucent surfaces.

The Hollow Blizzard Monarch’s arrival sent a visible shockwave through the crowd. This wasn’t just big—this was mythological.

“Jesus Christ,” someone whispered from the bleachers, and Noah couldn’t blame them.

Storm’s presence was overwhelming in a way that data readings couldn’t capture. The wyvern radiated power that made the air itself feel heavy, and his eyes—brilliant blue-white orbs of contained lightning—surveyed the assembled humans with what appeared to be delighted curiosity.

”He’s excited,” Noah realized through their bond. ”He thinks this is a game.”

[System Alert: Void Striders activation recommended for optimal performance]

[Warning: Current speeds may exceed track tolerance]

[Activate Mythic Equipment Suite?]

”No holding back,” Noah decided. ”Time to see what we can really do.”

[Void Striders – ACTIVATED]

[Mach Transcendence – ENABLED]

[Phantom Step – ARMED]

The boots materialized around his feet in a swirl of void energy, their sleek black surface immediately beginning to wisp with purple energy. The crowd’s murmur grew louder as they watched the void energy dance around Noah’s feet like living shadows.

Lucas was going through his own transformation, electricity beginning to arc around his body as he prepared to shift into his soul form. “Ready when you are, Eclipse!”

Lieutenant Commander Lin raised her hand, the starting signal. “Racers to your marks!”

Noah positioned himself at the starting line, feeling the Void Striders respond to his intentions. The boots felt lighter than air, and he could sense their eagerness to unleash their full potential.

Lucas rose into the air beside him, his human form dissolving into pure electrical energy. He maintained a humanoid shape, but his body was now composed entirely of crackling lightning, beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

Storm settled onto the track with surprising grace for something his size, his massive form somehow managing to look elegant despite taking up nearly a quarter of the track’s width. Ice crystals fell like snow around him, and the metal beneath his claws was already showing frost patterns.

“On your mark!” Lin called out.

The hangar fell absolutely silent except for the hum of monitoring equipment and the soft crackling of Storm’s ambient electrical discharge.

“Set!”

Noah felt time slow as his mind kicked into overdrive. ”Three-point-seven-mile circuit. Lucas has the advantage in the technical sections—pure energy means he can take corners that would kill a physical form. Storm has raw power and wingspan, but wyverns aren’t built for tight maneuvers. My advantage is well…me and of course the Striders’ ability to work with physics instead of against them.”

“GO!”

The starting line erupted in chaos.

Lucas shot forward like a bolt of actual lightning, his energy form streaking down the first straightaway faster than most people could track. Storm launched himself skyward with a thunderclap that rattled the hangar’s superstructure, ice and lightning trailing behind him like a comet’s tail.

Noah activated the Void Striders’ full power.

The world exploded into motion. Purple void energy erupted from his boots as he accelerated, and within three steps he was moving fast enough that the starting line had become a distant memory. The sensation was indescribable—not just speed, but the feeling of reality bending around him to accommodate his velocity.

By the first turn, all three racers were moving fast enough that the track’s surface began showing stress fractures.

“Holy shit!” Kelvin’s voice crackled over the monitoring system. “Lucas just hit Mach 2.1! Noah’s at 1.9 and climbing! Storm is—” His voice cut off as he apparently struggled to process the readings.

“What’s Storm clocking?” Lyra demanded from the control station.

“The sensors can’t get a clean reading! He’s moving through his own weather system!”

In the stands, Sophie, Diana, and Lyra watched with expressions ranging from awe to concern. Sophie’s hands were pressed to her mouth as she tracked Noah’s purple energy trail around the circuit. Diana leaned forward with intense focus, her mind clearly working to process what she was seeing. Lyra was frantically taking notes while simultaneously watching the race.

“They’re not human,” one of the recruits whispered from the back. “Look at them move. That’s not… that’s not possible.”

But it was happening right in front of them.

The first technical section separated the racers dramatically. Lucas, in his energy form, took the corners like he was made of light itself, maintaining impossible speeds through turns that should have been physically impossible. Noah approached the same section with calculated precision, using the Void Striders’ gravity defiance to run up the banked turns at angles that defied physics.

Storm simply ignored the technical section entirely, using his massive wingspan to soar over the elevated portions of the track, ice and lightning creating a localized blizzard as he passed.

“Track integrity is compromised!” one of the engineers called out. “Surface temperature differential is causing micro-fractures throughout the circuit!”

The damage was visible from the stands. Where Noah’s void energy touched the track, small tears in reality created dark patches that seemed to absorb light. Lucas’s electrical passage left scorch marks and melted metal. Storm’s path was marked by a trail of ice that immediately began sublimating back into vapor, creating an ethereal fog that obscured portions of the track.

By the halfway point, it was clear that all three racers were operating on a level that transcended normal physics.

Noah was in second place, his mind keeping him competitive despite not having the raw power advantages of his competitors. ”Lucas is bleeding energy maintaining those speeds through the technical sections. Storm is playing—he’s not even trying to optimize his path. If I can maintain this pace and use the Phantom Step at the right moment…”

The final straightaway approached, and all three racers seemed to reach the same conclusion simultaneously: time to see what they could really do.

Lucas poured everything into one final acceleration, his lightning form becoming so bright it was painful to look at directly. Storm spread his wings wide and called down what appeared to be an actual localized thunderstorm, using the electrical energy to propel himself forward like a living missile.

Noah activated Phantom Step.

Purple void energy exploded around him as he left a series of afterimages in his wake, each one crackling with residual power. The Void Striders transcended their normal limitations, reality bending around Noah as he pushed toward a speed that should have been impossible for anything terrestrial.

The finish line approached in a blur of purple energy, white lightning, and a localized ice storm.

Storm crossed first, his massive form creating a sonic boom that shattered several monitoring instruments. Noah followed milliseconds later, void energy dissipating as he gradually decelerated. Lucas finished third, his energy form flickering as he struggled to maintain cohesion after the sustained high-speed effort.

The hangar erupted in cheers that took several minutes to die down.

“Times!” Lieutenant Commander Lin called out once the noise subsided.

Kelvin’s voice was barely controlled excitement. “Storm: two minutes, forty-seven seconds! Noah: two minutes, forty-nine seconds! Lucas: two minutes, fifty-two seconds!”

The crowd went absolutely wild. They’d just witnessed three racers completely demolish a time that had been set by military hardware, and the margin of victory was measured in seconds, not minutes.

But as the celebration continued, Storm began another circuit of the track.

This time, he wasn’t racing anyone. This time, he was just playing.

The wyvern moved with casual grace, ice and lightning trailing behind him like party streamers. He took corners with playful barrel rolls, created small ice sculptures along the straightaways, and generally treated the entire track like his personal playground.

When he crossed the finish line this second time, Kelvin’s voice was barely a whisper: “One minute, fifty-three seconds.”

The hangar fell completely silent as the implications sank in. Storm had just casually obliterated his own record by nearly a full minute, and he’d done it while essentially sightseeing.

Before anyone could fully process what they’d just witnessed, every comm device in the hangar began beeping in unison.

“Code Yellow,” the base-wide announcement crackled through the speakers. “All active teams to briefing stations immediately. Code Yellow. This is not a drill.”

Noah looked at his teammates, who were already moving toward the exit with the resignation of people whose weekend plans had just evaporated.

“Well,” Lucas said, his energy form flickering back to human appearance, “that was fun while it lasted.”

As they headed toward the briefing room, Noah caught Sophie’s eye in the crowd. She mouthed “You did good,” and he nodded, already shifting his mindset from weekend entertainment to whatever crisis required their immediate attention.

Behind them, Storm settled onto the track with what appeared to be satisfaction, still not quite understanding that he’d just redefined everyone’s concept of what was possible.

Their Saturday was officially over.

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