The Sovereign's Palace.
The Sovereign stood before the Mirror of Heavenly Reflection, holding a new controller. This one was shaped like a steering wheel.
"Unit Alpha," the Sovereign grinned, adjusting his grip. "Change the genre. Turn off the turn-based logic. Engage physics engine. Set friction to 80%."
"Genre shifting," Alpha confirmed. "Loading map: 'The Magma Circuit'. Music cue: 'High-Octane Rock'."
"Excellent. Let us see who has the Need for Speed."
Floor 4: The Blazing Circuit.
The relaxing jazz of the lobby cut out instantly.
The white marble floor vanished.
The fifty survivors fell five feet, landing on hard, hot obsidian.
"What now?!" Fatty Wu squealed, clutching his wok lid.
They were standing on a massive, flat road made of black stone. The road was fifty meters wide, suspended in a void of endless red fog. Below the road, a river of magma churned, bubbling with heat that singed their eyebrows.
The road stretched forward, twisting and turning into the distance, looping upside down and spiraling through the volcanic smog.
Behind them, a massive wall of purple fire—The Amethyst Soul Fire—ignited. It stretched from the magma sea to the heavens, blocking any retreat.
[Trial: The Blazing Circuit.]
[Objective: Reach the Finish Line.]
[Rule: The Fire Wall moves at 60 MPH. If it touches you, your soul is erased.]
[Start in: 3... 2... 1...]
GO.
The Fire Wall roared and began to move.
"Run!"
Panic erupted.
Cultivators activated their movement techniques. Some turned into blurs of wind, others rode on flying swords, and some simply sprinted with Qi-infused legs.
Ye Qingyu took the lead instantly.
"Soaring Cloud Step!"
He didn't run; he glided just inches above the ground, his white robes fluttering. He looked like an immortal descending to earth. He was fast, elegant, and effortlessly ahead of the pack.
Su Mei, the girl from the Shadow Pavilion, was close behind. She didn't glide; she flickered. She treated the shadows cast by the rocks as portals, blinking forward in jagged bursts.
The Mechanics of Speed.
Lin Fan was in the middle of the pack.
"Movement techniques..." Lin Fan gritted his teeth. "My Phantom Step is only Low-Grade. I can't outrun Ye Qingyu."
He looked at the floor.
Scattered across the obsidian road were glowing green glyphs shaped like arrows.
Most cultivators avoided them, thinking they were traps.
"Idiots," Lin Fan grinned maniacally. "They don't know."
He adjusted his course and stepped directly onto a green glyph.
ZOOM.
A burst of wind essence exploded from the glyph. Lin Fan felt a massive force kick him in the back. His speed doubled instantly.
"Whoa!" Lin Fan flailed his arms, barely keeping his balance, but he shot past a group of Iron Blood disciples like a cannonball.
"What? He stepped on the trap and got faster?"
"It's a boosting formation!"
The cultivators realized the trick. But realizing it and using it were two different things.
A disciple from the Beast Taming Mountain tried to mimic Lin Fan. He jumped onto a green arrow. But he wasn't prepared for the G-force.
"Argh!"
He lost his footing, tripped, and tumbled violently across the obsidian at eighty miles per hour. He rolled off the edge of the road.
"Help me—!"
Splash.
He hit the magma below. A puff of smoke was all that remained.
The Burden.
At the back of the pack was Zhang Wei.
He was sweating. His lungs burned. The wooden box on his back weighed a hundred pounds, and every step was a battle against gravity.
The Wall of Fire was only fifty meters behind him. He could feel the heat blistering his neck.
"Hold on, Xiao Mei," Zhang Wei gasped.
He didn't have a movement technique. He only had the strength of a woodcutter who had climbed mountains every day for ten years.
He saw a green arrow ahead.
"If I step on that... the sudden acceleration might hurt my sister."
He avoided the boost.
"Fatty!" Zhang Wei shouted.
Ahead of him, Fatty Wu was rolling. Literally. He had curled into a ball inside his giant wok lid and was bowling himself down the track.
"Don't talk to me! I can't steer!" Fatty Wu screamed as he ricocheted off a guardrail.
The Fire Wall crept closer. Forty meters. Thirty meters.
The Villain's Drive-By.
Lin Fan was surging ahead. He had mastered the boost pads. He was drifting around corners, using the friction of his shoes to slide onto the next green arrow.
He was catching up to Ye Qingyu.
"Hey, Sword Prince!" Lin Fan shouted, pulling out his Desert Eagle.
Ye Qingyu glanced back, his face cold. "You again. You cannot catch me."
"I don't need to catch you," Lin Fan grinned. "I just need to slow you down."
Lin Fan didn't shoot Ye Qingyu. That would be too hard to hit at this speed.
He aimed at the road ahead of Ye Qingyu. specifically, at a section of loose rock near the edge of a turn.
BANG!
The explosive bullet shattered the edge of the track.
Ye Qingyu was mid-turn. The ground beneath his expected path crumbled.
"Despicable!"
Ye Qingyu was forced to break his momentum. He stomped heavily on the air, using a high-level technique to double-jump and avoid falling into the lava.
But the delay cost him.
ZOOM.
Lin Fan stepped on a boost pad and rocketed past him, taking first place.
"Eat my dust!" Lin Fan laughed, flipping a rude hand gesture.
But his laughter was cut short.
[System Warning: Ring of the False King Active.]
[Aggro Generated.]
[The Environment is offended by your face.]
The track rumbled.
From the lava below, massive Magma Sharks erupted. They ignored Ye Qingyu. They ignored the others.
They all looked at Lin Fan.
"Oh, come on!"
A shark the size of a bus lunged at the road, snapping its jaws right where Lin Fan was running.
Lin Fan had to dive-roll to the left, missing a boost pad.
"Damn this ring!" Lin Fan cursed, scrambling to his feet as the shark chewed through the rock he had just been standing on.
The Finish Line.
The end was in sight. A massive archway of white light.
But the track had one final obstacle.
A massive gap. Fifty meters wide. No bridge.
Just a series of floating stone platforms moving up and down.
Ye Qingyu arrived first. With his lightness skill, he hopped across the floating stones with the grace of a crane. Hop. Hop. Land.
He crossed the finish line, turning back to glare at the approaching Lin Fan.
Lin Fan arrived at the gap. The Magma Sharks were jumping all around him, trying to bite his legs.
"I can't jump that far!" Lin Fan panicked. His Phantom Step wasn't good for gliding.
He looked at the floating stones. They were moving too fast.
He looked behind him. The Fire Wall was coming.
He looked at his gun.
"Physics..." Lin Fan muttered. "Newton's Third Law. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction."
He sprinted at the edge.
"Burst Mode! Overcharge!"
He channeled all his Qi into the gun.
He jumped into the void.
At the apex of his jump, when gravity tried to pull him down into the lava, Lin Fan aimed the gun directly down and pulled the trigger.
KA-BOOM!
A massive explosion of recoil slammed into his arm, nearly dislocating his shoulder. But the force propelled him upward and forward, giving him a second jump in mid-air.
He sailed over the gap, crashing onto the finish line platform. He rolled, bruised and smoking, but alive.
"Hah... hah..." Lin Fan panted.
He looked back.
The Fire Wall was at the gap.
Most survivors made it across. But at the back...
Zhang Wei was at the edge. The gap was impossible for him. He was carrying the box. He couldn't jump.
"Die," Lin Fan whispered, watching. "Just die and save me the trouble."
The Fire Wall was ten meters away.
Zhang Wei looked at the gap. He looked at the box.
He unstrapped the box.
"No," he whispered. "I will not let go."
He took out the Sun Scepter (Flashlight).
He threw it.
He threw it with perfect aim, not at the other side, but at Fatty Wu, who had just crashed across the finish line.
BONK.
The flashlight hit Fatty Wu in the head.
"Ow! Who threw that?!" Fatty Wu looked up. He saw Zhang Wei pointing at a rope hanging from the finish line archway—a decoration banner.
"Catch!" Zhang Wei yelled, taking a running leap into the void, hugging the box.
He wasn't jumping for the other side. He was jumping for the rope.
Fatty Wu, rubbing his head, saw the falling woodcutter. He saw the fire behind him.
Fatty Wu looked at the flashlight he had just picked up. It was a nice flashlight.
"A transaction is a transaction!" Fatty Wu sighed.
Fatty Wu grabbed the end of the decorative banner rope and pulled with all his mass.
The rope swung out.
Zhang Wei caught it in mid-air, dangling over the magma.
Fatty Wu heaved, falling backward, dragging Zhang Wei up and over the ledge just as the Fire Wall consumed the other side of the gap.
Zhang Wei collapsed on the safe ground, clutching the box.
[Floor 4 Cleared.]
[Survivors: 42.]