Tunbao secured a simultaneous start with Chloe Qin.
It could have been even faster.
After all, she had practically rammed the XJB-27 straight into relay point three.
The time gap between Stella Club and BSC Club now stood at twelve seconds.
Derek Su and Chloe Qin walked up to the starting grid.
Standing beside Chloe Qin was Blazing Wind, a Mecha Girl Derek Su had encountered once before. Her acceleration was impressive—he remembered it being rated at a full 89 back then. Now her Cornering sat at 65. Chloe Qin had clearly installed additional modules: Acceleration pushed to 90, Boost Charge raised to 78, Impact Resistance reduced to 68, Endurance increased to 80, while Stability and Drifting both dropped by three points, landing at 65 and 67 respectively.
"So you're the one who deliberately rammed your Mecha Girl into our club's racer?" Chloe Qin strode over with Blazing Wind at her side, stopping in front of Derek Su and Imperial Scale. She lifted her chin arrogantly. "You think tricks like that will win you the race? Keep dreaming."
"Petty tricks won't win races," Derek Su replied calmly, nodding once. "Just like how certain clubs went out of their way to make Stella change tires, wasting over a full minute—only to end up with a gap of barely a dozen seconds. That's just pathetic."
Chloe Qin's expression froze. Anger flickered in her eyes before she forced it down, a cold smile curling at the corners of her lips. "You'll soon learn that even a dozen seconds is an unbridgeable chasm for your Stella Club. Just wait and see."
With that, she led Blazing Wind away, initiating her deployment and settling into the driver's seat to prepare for the start.
Derek Su wondered where her confidence came from.
Most likely, it was because Imperial Scale's first form only had an Acceleration rating of 75. Chloe Qin clearly had absolute faith in Blazing Wind's speed. She must have looked up Imperial Scale's specs beforehand and knew it wasn't a Mecha Girl built around pure velocity.
But this was the desert…
And Imperial Scale was a large-wheeled off-road model.
On sand, ordinary racing-type Mecha Girls could only bring out about sixty to seventy percent of their acceleration at best. Imperial Scale, however, could reach eighty percent—or even higher.
In this world, any Mecha Girl could run any track.
That didn't mean terrain had no impact on vehicle performance.
Even though Mecha Girls could automatically raise their chassis, no amount of adjustment could match a true off-road model like Imperial Scale. She was born for wilderness, mountains, and deserts, yet still perfectly capable in road races and rallies.
What did "jack-of-all-trades" really mean?
This was it.
Not to mention her second form, which was optimized specifically for road racing.
Derek Su felt it would be difficult to find another Mecha Girl as perfect as Imperial Scale. She was so flawless that she almost seemed to lack defining features—or rather, her defining trait was that very perfection: an extreme, perfectly balanced hexagonal warrior.
...
The five-minute countdown to launch began.
The moment Imperial Scale deployed her first form, audible gasps rippled through the surrounding drivers and Mecha Girls. Her pitch-black body, clad in heavy armor, reflected a cold sheen beneath the pale moonlight. The chassis was massive, and those wheels—nearly twice the size of others—gave the illusion that she could crush anything in her path.
The doors slid open automatically.
Imperial Scale was already waiting in front of the driver's seat.
She tilted her head toward Derek Su. Her long hair spilled down like flowing black water, her slender waist and hips tracing a flawless S-curve. Her rose-red eyes shimmered faintly, devoid of obvious emotion, and even her voice carried the same calm neutrality.
"Master, please enter."
Why did that suddenly feel so formal?
Derek Su rubbed his nose, stepped up, and slid into the cockpit. Imperial Scale hadn't been exaggerating—it really was warm inside. The seat seemed to have built-in heating, and the cabin felt fully climate-controlled, though there were no visible vents.
"Comfortable?" Imperial Scale asked suddenly.
Derek Su paused, his hand closing around the control stick.
Even the control stick was warm…
"Comfortable," he replied.
"Stella informed me," Imperial Scale continued without turning her head. "You were set up by BSC Club. The tire change delayed you."
"Yeah," Derek Su nodded.
"What does Master intend to do?" she asked.
Derek Su glanced sideways at Chloe Qin and Blazing Wind, a cold smile tugging at his lips. "Naturally, we'll make sure they remember this."
"Understood." Imperial Scale tilted her head slightly. Beneath her bangs, her eyes gleamed with vivid light as her red lips parted. "Please control me as you wish, Master. I want to experience it properly."
Derek Su: "…"
There was something about the way she said that that felt… strange.
What he didn't know was that when Imperial Scale was still an AI Core, she had grown up watching recordings of his races with Stella. She never missed a single match.
She had witnessed every technique he'd revealed so far.
With talent far surpassing that of ordinary Mecha Girls, she continuously absorbed that knowledge, eventually forming the DL model and becoming the first Mecha Girl of the Imperial Family. Her vehicle type and every aspect of her performance were shaped, in large part, by Derek Su himself. To her, he was nothing less than a guiding figure.
...
Derek Su pulled the handbrake and floored the throttle.
VROOOOM—
A deep, heavy roar swept across the starting area. Compared to other Mecha Girls, the sound was subdued, lacking any flamboyance, yet it vibrated through eardrums and hearts alike—steady, imposing, and authoritative, like the low growl of a lion.
Inside Blazing Wind's cockpit, her face turned pale the moment she heard Imperial Scale's engine note. Her lips trembled as she stammered, "Ma… Master, I remember at the auction, this Mecha Girl's strongest attribute was Impact Resistance, right? What if she rams me later?"
Imperial Scale's sheer presence was terrifying.
Blazing Wind couldn't imagine what it would be like to take even a single hit from her.
Would she fall apart on the spot?
Sent straight back to be scrapped?
"What are you scared of?" Chloe Qin snapped impatiently. "You're definitely faster than her. Just outrun her. She won't even see your taillights—how could she possibly hit you?"
"O-oh… okay." Blazing Wind turned back toward the track, silently praying as she muttered under her breath, "Speed dominance… speed dominance… I have to dominate with speed…"
[Three, two, one! Bang!]
The starting gun fired, and both Mecha Girls launched forward in unison.
Their wheels churned up a storm of yellow sand, nearly engulfing the entire starting area.
Chloe Qin's launch technique wasn't perfect, but Blazing Wind's excellent straight-line acceleration still allowed her to pull ahead by a full car length.
"This'll work!"
Inside the cockpit, Chloe Qin's lips curled into a smug smile.
To counter combat-oriented Mecha Girls like Imperial Scale, she had specifically outfitted Blazing Wind with modules that enhanced both straight-line acceleration and cornering, ensuring superiority across the board.
Imperial Scale was powerful, but top-tier Mecha Girls like her only truly shined on specific tracks. On terrain like Maratela—complex, with plenty of straight sections—this was Blazing Wind's domain.
Yet her expression quickly darkened.
On the same straight stretch, Blazing Wind couldn't shake Imperial Scale off at all.
The massive black machine clung behind her like a black shark locked onto its prey, viciously pursuing. Those piercing headlights cut through the sandstorm like a shark's eyes glinting in the dark.
As both Mecha Girls entered the sandy course, the distance between them didn't widen.
Instead, it was slowly—but relentlessly—closing.
...
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