Naruto did not hesitate for a second. He yanked the reins hard, and Kurama let out an ear-splitting shriek. With a massive burst of strength from its hind legs, the Squig executed a limit-breaking drift, veering into a distorted, blurry region on the left side of the track.
Sasuke followed closely behind, Chidori's silhouette resembling a streak of purple lightning as it instantly plunged into that space. The pursuing Bad Moon racers also dove headfirst into the area.
As soon as they entered, something bizarre happened. The bolter shells, which had been moving too fast for the naked eye to track, suddenly seemed to hit thick sludge. Their trajectories dropped instantly, their speed plummeted, and they all slammed heavily into the ground, detonating in deep craters without so much as grazing the Twin Stars' clothes.
This was one of the exclusive "Death Sectors" of Elf-Gork: the Gravity Overload Segment. The gravity in this entire region was exactly five times that of the outside world. It was also a major shortcut, reducing the travel distance by more than two-thirds.
The heavy-armored Squigs of the Bad Moon Clan had charged in as well, but the moment they entered the segment, they looked as if they had been drained of all strength. The previously sprinting Squigs collapsed; their thick armor plates became impossibly heavy under the fivefold gravity. The skeletons of the mounts emitted agonizing creaks under the unbearable burden. Their speed dropped to a snail's pace, making even lifting a foot an arduous task.
The Bad Moon Orks lashed their Squigs frantically, shouting the most vicious curses, but they could only watch helplessly as the figures of the Hokage Twin Stars pulled further and further away.
Fivefold gravity was a lethal burden capable of crushing the body of an ordinary Squig. But for the specialized Squigs custom-tailored by Lena, it was manageable. The entire skeletal structures of Kurama and Chidori had been reinforced to the limit with Tyranid genes. Their bone density was more than ten times that of a normal Squig. Even under the suppression of fivefold gravity, their speed only dropped by half, maintaining a gallop far exceeding that of other contestants.
"Niceeeee~!" Naruto laughed loudly over the comms channel, looking back to give the middle finger to the stranded Bad Moon racers. "Dem gits wiv nuffin' but teef in dere heads fink dey can stop me?"
"Don't get careless," Sasuke's voice remained cold, his peripheral vision scanning the rear. "They won't give up that easily. Other clans are already catching up."
Sure enough, halfway through the Gravity Overload Segment, two figures managed to force their way up from behind. Only two clans could keep up in a fivefold gravity zone.
One was the Evil Sunz Clan, who had speed etched into their very bones. These Orks, who worshipped "Speed Above All," didn't care about gravity. They had equipped each of their contestants with fifty spare red Boom Squigs. These Squigs had been pumped with stimulants and gene-modded by Mekboyz for extreme explosive power. They could burst with speed far beyond the limit for short durations, at the cost of collapsing after less than ten kilometers.
The Evil Sunz Boyz didn't care about the cost. They rode their Squigs in a frenzied sprint. The moment a mount started foaming at the mouth and slowing down, they would leap without hesitation onto the back of the next Squig waiting at a pre-arranged supply point. By never slowing down and simply burning through a mountain of Squigs, they managed to bite the Twin Stars' tails even in the high-gravity zone.
However, these Evil Sunz racers, in their pursuit of ultimate speed and weight reduction, carried almost no heavy weaponry. Aside from occasionally tossing a few self-detonating Squigs for an ambush, they posed no major threat. Naruto didn't even turn his head; he simply unslung the "Big Shoota" from his back and blew the incoming Boom Squigs out of the air, turning them into spheres of red fireworks.
The real trouble came from the Deathskull Clan following closely behind. These Mekboyz, masters of "I-fink-so" technology, were entirely unaffected by the gravity. Their Squigs were fitted with specialized anti-gravity levitation devices that easily neutralized the fivefold pressure.
More troublingly, their vehicles were equipped with a strange device that even Raynor hadn't anticipated: a Pressure Ray Emitter.
A pale blue ray shot out from the emitter's muzzle, grazing Kurama's hind leg. Naruto instantly felt his mount sink, as if it had suddenly shouldered a mountain. Kurama let out a pained shriek, its legs buckling as it nearly knelt on the ground, its speed plummeting.
"Wot da hell is dat?!" Naruto yanked the reins hard, unable to figure out what had happened. "Is it a special item?!"
"No, there are no slowing items in this segment," Sasuke replied. He realized the opponent had developed a weapon specifically for this track. He needed to understand the effect before he could find a countermeasure.
Sasuke nimbly dodged the blue rays while observing the objects being hit. He noticed that stationary objects like plants or rocks showed no change when struck. Does it only affect living things? Sasuke wondered.
But he quickly dismissed the thought. He saw a fruiting plant get hit; the fruit was instantly crushed into the ground.
Sasuke had an idea. He picked up several stones along the way and actively threw them into the path of the rays. As expected, once hit, the stones did not follow a parabolic arc; they slammed straight into the ground in an instant.
Seeing this, Sasuke's pupils dilated. He tested a few more stones and found his hypothesis correct. He flashed a confident smirk.
"Hmph. So that's how it is." "Naruto, those rays make the target endure ten times their body weight for a short duration."
By then, Naruto had recovered his normal speed. "Da duration is..." Naruto checked his wrist-unit, "One minute!"
One minute. In a rally where every second counted, a minute was enough to decide life or death. Because of this, Naruto was about to be overtaken.
Seeing the significant effect, the Deathskull racers let out triumphant, crazed laughter. More pale blue rays swept toward the Twin Stars like a net, sealing off all their evasion routes. They calculated that in this narrow gravity segment, the two Hokage racers had nowhere to hide.
Just as the rays were about to hit them, Sasuke suddenly performed a maneuver no one expected. He abruptly loosened the reins, intentionally slowing down and exposing his entire flank to the range of the rays.
"Sasuke?! Are ya crazy?!" Naruto roared, his eyes nearly popping out of his head.
In the next second, a pale blue Pressure Ray accurately struck both Sasuke and his Chidori. Ten times their body weight was instantly layered on top of the already fivefold gravity. A terrifying total of fifty times gravity slammed down like a falling mountain. Chidori let out a harrowing shriek.
The Deathskull Orks erupted in world-shaking cheers, and the audience in the stands exploded into a frenzy. Everyone thought the two primary racers of the Hokage Clan were finished. Even Raynor, watching from the control platform, grew tense.
But at that moment, a confident curve appeared on Sasuke's lips. At the critical split second, his finger pressed a switch on a metal device at his waist.
It was a segment-exclusive special item he had picked up earlier: the "Gravity Inverter." This special item, birthed from the power of "I-fink-so," had only one effect: to completely invert the gravity acting upon the user.
The moment the switch was pressed, the fiftyfold gravity pressing down on Sasuke underwent a world-flipping inversion. The crushing weight vanished instantly. The final force acting on him and Chidori was an extreme weightlessness—one-fiftieth of their original body weight!
Chidori's previously buckling legs instantly exploded with unprecedented power. It was like a fully drawn recurve bow suddenly snapping forward!
Sasuke felt the scenery before him turn into blurry afterimages. The howling wind cut across his face like knives, and Chidori let out a roar of pure ecstasy. Its feet nearly left the ground entirely, its speed exploding more than tenfold in a single instant!
In just three seconds, he shot out of the Gravity Overload Segment and reached the very front of the race, becoming the undisputed leader of the entire field!
The arena fell dead silent for a single second. Then came a frenzy of cheers loud enough to shake the heavens.
The Orks in the stands went wild, slamming their fists against everything around them and roaring Sasuke's name. The Greenskins watching the broadcasts hugged their TVs and jumped frantically. Even Naruto couldn't help but let out a sharp whistle, giving a thumbs-up to Sasuke's receding back.
Because of this earth-shattering maneuver, the Waaagh! field in the air surged to an unprecedented intensity. On the control platform, Raynor watched the black silhouette trailing dust in the distance and finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Naruto, having scouted the area beforehand, also knew the hidden location of a Gravity Inverter. After obtaining the item, he had intended to emulate Sasuke and bait the Deathskull Clan into a trap. However, the Deathskulls reacted quickly; fearing that Naruto would leave them in the dust just as Sasuke had, they abandoned their Pressure Rays entirely.
Having broken out of the high-gravity zone ahead of the pack, Sasuke and his Chidori maintained a full-speed gallop, leaving all other contestants hundreds of meters behind. At this point, the race had just passed the 90-kilometer mark, and everything was proceeding according to the predetermined plan.
Sasuke had perfectly utilized the advantage of the gravity segment to pull ahead. Though Naruto had encountered an unexpected delay, he had stabilized his rhythm. As long as they reached the first scheduled supply point ahead of them to complete the Squig swap, they would solidify their lead. After all, the upcoming special segments would be extremely taxing on a Squig's stamina, and the second specialized Squig Lena had prepared for them was custom-built for that specific terrain.
"How's the situation at the supply point?" Raynor asked into his communicator, tilting his head.
"All clear, Boss. The swap Squigs are in position, and the Boyz are on standby. Just waitin' for da two racers to get 'ere," a logistics manager's boisterous voice crackled over the comms, the restless shrieks of Squigs audible in the background.
Raynor nodded and returned his focus to the holographic map. The supply point was situated at a concealed bend in the track, shielded by rocks. Sentry posts and alarms had been set up; unless a contestant entered directly from the track, it was virtually impossible to approach.
At the bend ahead, Sasuke gently tugged the reins, and Chidori's speed began to taper off. After ninety kilometers of limit-breaking sprinting, even a gene-modified Squig's breathing had grown heavy. Sasuke's finger traced the holographic map on his wrist, confirming that the supply point was just a hundred meters away behind the rocks.
According to the plan, there should have been logistics personnel holding Hokage Clan banners to receive him. But at the end of the bend, there was only dead silence.
Sasuke's eyes instantly turned cold. His right hand instinctively gripped the bolter at his waist. With a light squeeze of his legs against the Squig's flanks, Chidori slowed its pace, warily moving behind the rocks.
The moment his vision cleared the stone edge, even the habitually stoic Sasuke was taken aback. The entire supply point had been turned into a bloody slaughterhouse.
Over a dozen swap Squigs, fully geared and ready to go, lay in pools of blood—the heads of every single one had been blown apart. Warm blood flowed across the ground, still steaming. Dozens of Hokage Boyz responsible for logistics were strewn about, their bodies riddled with large-caliber bullet wounds. Supply crates were overturned, weapons and parts were scattered everywhere, and the surveillance cameras had been precisely destroyed.
Not a single survivor.
In the midst of Sasuke's shock, his peripheral vision caught a glint of white light. As a top-tier racer, his reaction speed and combat instincts were exceptionally high. He jerked his head aside to dodge a sniper round while simultaneously drawing his revolver-hand-cannon, firing a return shot that detonated the distant sniper's head.
He immediately patched into the clan's communication channel.
"Boss, we have a problem. Supply Point One has been hit. No survivors!"
"What?" Raynor stood up abruptly. Upon confirming that the supply point's signal was completely lost, a surge of fury hit him. He had spoken to them just a minute ago. In those sixty short seconds, his logistics team and backup Squigs had been slaughtered.
"Investigate! Find out what happened immediately!" Raynor's voice was thick with rage. "All supply points are to enter maximum alert! Deploy all nearby Hokage Guards! Lock down every station! Don't let so much as a fly get in!"
The orders were dispatched instantly. The Hokage Clan guards scattered around the track moved at once, racing toward the various supply points. But Raynor knew the loss at Supply Point One was irreversible. The racers had lost their most crucial first swap opportunity, and a situation that was once a guaranteed victory had suddenly taken a sharp downturn. He had to find out who dared to move against the Hokage Clan during the race.
"Da monitors were all smashed. These hitters are pros—dey took out da cams first," a Mekboy reported, wiping sweat from his brow as he adjusted the equipment. He shook his head at Raynor. "We can't find any footage from da scene."
However, Raynor had already learned what happened through Lena. One of Lena's Greenskins had witnessed the entire process. At the time, the Boyz at the supply point were busy organizing gear. Suddenly, the faint sound of rocket engines came from the sky. Before they could react, a dozen stun grenades dropped from above, engulfing the station in blinding white light and deafening blasts.
All the Greenskins were momentarily blinded and deafened, unable to even grip their weapons. Then, the sniper fire began. The Hokage Boyz fell one by one. The shooting angles were incredibly precise, aiming for heads and hearts—one shot, one kill. The entire massacre took less than twenty seconds. After confirming there were no survivors, the attackers didn't linger; they ignited their jump packs and vanished into the sky, leaving no trace.
"Blood Axes."
Sasuke, having finished inspecting the camouflaged corpse of the sniper, spoke the name aloud.
Raynor's expression darkened. He had guessed as much. In all of Karl-2, only one clan was skilled enough to pull off such professional assassination, infiltration, and the use of camouflage, jump packs, and precision sniping.
The Blood Axe Clan.
They were the outliers of the Orkoid race. They weren't obsessed with wealth like the Bad Moons, nor did they crave speed like the Evil Sunz. They were masters of guile, experts in assassination and infiltration, and were even known to cooperate with human forces. They learned human tactics and equipment, and for the right price, they would backstab any of their own kind without hesitation.
They were a pack of mercenary hunters.