Speed Is King

Elliot could clearly sense the abundant natural energy that hung so densely in the air, and which gave him such a refreshing sense of freedom.

He took in a deep breath and could literally feel the energy enter his body, revitalizing his cells and bringing an indescribable sense of being alive like never before.

He was sure that all of his spells would at least be tripled in effectiveness if he used them in that environment!

[Survival race mode.]

[Reach the finish line safely.]

[All energy locks are released.]

As soon as the system finished saying that, an utterly world-shaking roar sounded!

It was the loudest and wildest roar Elliot had ever heard!

And to make things worse, a few more similar roars started to sound from everywhere!

“With such dense amounts of energy, it is no wonder that the wild beasts can grow to an extreme size. I just hope it’s not something ridiculous like a kilometer tall tiger or something.” Elliot narrowed his eyes and immediately cast out his senses.

At the sametime, he summoned Red to do a little bit of scouting for him.

“Send out your drones and report back on the situation.” Elliot ordered as he blinked out of his race car to check on his surroundings.

For as far as his eyes could see, he couldn’t see a single living being.

All around him was just a massive, probably fifty lane race track that stretched impossibly long all the way forward. However, the strange thing was the track didn’t run flat all the way.

It had little hills and at times, it even slanted a little bit to the left or right.

The race track was located at the foot of a mountain range that was also so massive that Elliot couldn’t see the ends of it.

“What a strange place.” Elliot couldn’t help but feel extremely uneasy as several possibilities appeared in his mind.

“Drones out.” Red reported lazily. “Visuals confirm no life forms within a five kilometer radius. Switching to life sensors. There… What? The screens are all red? Did all twenty drones have their life sensors broken at the same time? That’s a statistical impossibility. If not that, then the only explanation is that…”

“We are physically located on a huge life form.” Elliot said grimly as Red’s drones confirmed one of the worst possibilities that flitted through his mind.

“And if the roars come from beasts such as the one we are on, that simply means…” Elliot turned to look at Red and waited for his drones to confirm.

It didn’t take long.

“Drones have reached the end of this lifeform. It’s massive! It’s around ten kilometers long on either side! And… Holy smokes! There are more than just the one we are one! There’s one on our left and right!

There’s one more behind us!

And… they are all airborne!!”

The last statement truly caught Elliot by surprise. Airborne?

Such a massive creature that stretched for twenty kilometers from left to right… is airborne?

How?

And just what sort of energy expenditure was needed to keep them in the sky??

And what the heck? They had to race on top of such massive beasts?

“INCOMING!!! THE LEFT GIANT IS SWERVING TOWARDS US! IT’S GOING TO CR-” Red didn’t get to finish his warning.

B A A A A N N N G G G G G G G G ! ! ! !

WHAMMMMMM!!!!

RUMBLEEE!!!!

The loudest sound of collision Elliot had ever heard exploded forth from the left!

It was like a million TNT bombs exploding at the same time from somewhere nearby!!

Elliot flinched really hard.

The sound barrier he had hurriedly cast had immediately cracked. Thankfully, it was able to mitigate most of the damage his ears and brains would have received from listening to such a loud explosion.

“Brace for impact.” Elliot said to Red as he cast a powerful Darklight wind barrier around them.

As expected, the following shockwave was so strong that his wind barrier immediately cracked and disappeared too!

Unfortunately, the wind barrier failed to do much to disperse the powerful shockwaves that followed. That, as well as the sudden knee-jerk motion that the beast Elliot was on was forced to make, forced Elliot’s car to immediately flip to the right!

“We have company!” Red suddenly shouted. “Lot’s of them!”

“Come out, Darklight Summons. Deal with the incoming enemies.” Elliot ordered.

“I am afraid they won’t be enough. When I say “lot’s of them”, this time I meant thousands! No, tens of thousands!” Red shouted. “Get everybody out!”

“Tens of thousands? Damn it, is the Gaming Commission even taking this damned race seriously? With ten thousand of them, I would forced to ask my beasts to go all out just to survive! How the hell would normal racers even manage to stay alive if I am not here? Damn idiots!” Elliot cursed.

But he did as Red suggested, and got everybody out.

In fact, he did more than that.

He summoned the whole damn Dimensional Fortress!

“Prepare to repel the enemy!” He roared out loudly.

All of the four hundred survivors were armed with powerful weapons, and they would be effective in such a situation.

“Apostles, stay within range of the fortress, and make sure it’s safe.” Elliot ordered them. “Wu Kong, take command of the overall fight. Kai, take command of the defense of the fortress.”

“Aknowledged, Master.” Both bowed and immediately left to do his bidding.

“They are here.” Red announced quietly.

And so they were.

It was a sight that Elliot would never forget.

It was like the Beast Tide which he had survived very recently, but instead of being rushed by countless beasts, here he was being rushed by a similarly seemingly endless wave of… Giant Armored Bed Bugs.

“Oh hell no.” Brock moaned when he caught sight of the extremely disgusting sight of tens of thousands of Giant Armored Bed Bugs thundering down upon them!

“Fire.” Kai’s voice could be heard as he ordered the long range cannons of the Dimensional Fortress to fire.

PEW! PEW! PEW!

It was the first time that Elliot had seen the cannons in action, and damn, they looked really good!