Chapter 50: The Grand Race for Sakaar

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"In this world, wherever there is light, there are also shadows. As long as the concept of winners exists, there must also be losers. The selfish desire of wanting to maintain peace causes wars and hatred is born to protect love." 

- Madara Uchiha, Naruto Shippuden 

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<(Omniscient POV)> 

"Ladies and gentlemen, the race you have all been waiting for is finally starting. Eleven contestants will be racing for the crown of Sakaar with the winner taking all. The race will consist of just one lap around the city and the one to first cross the great statue of the Grandmaster will be the undisputed champion. Are you all ready to see the greatest race of your lifetime, the race of the century?" A red-skinned Sakaarian female announcer declared, trying to build up the hype and excitement of the audience. 

"YEAAAHHHHH" A huge wave of cheers pierced from all directions as the audience went crazy with excitement. 

Even most of the contestants were somewhat excited as well. Despite most of them not even wanting to be there to take part in the race in the first place, they were still affected by encouraged by the cheers and stepped on their accelerators, making as intense engine sounds as possible from their racing vehicles.

"GET YOUR ENGINES READY. The race starts in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1 GO *Bang*" All the cars raced forward at their full speeds after the countdown ended, each pod accelerating faster than any car had ever operated on the planet of Earth.

Atem's mini racing pod quickly utilized its superior speed and lightness, immediately passing by most of his opponents in a flash with its thrusters on fire. He might not have ever driven a racing vehicle before, but his mind's highly fast processing speeds helped him quickly master the art. 

Grandmaster's 'cart' which was shaped like a Formula One racecar was no doubt the fastest car among all of Atem's competitors. It was also the only car that was able to match the speed of Atem's own pod and compete with it on equal grounds. But that was only for a limited amount of time after which Atem slowly began to overtake him as well. 

"Use the flamethrowers. Burn them to the ground." Atem heard Topaz, the woman loyal to the Grandmaster yelling from behind at which the Grandmaster nodded with a small grin, seemingly agreeing to her suggestion, and pressed a small button in his car.

Dozens of hidden flamethrowers immediately rose from the ground and set their targets on Atem, fixing a red dot at him. Now, as soon as they began to throw fire at him, he could have easily moved his car away and avoided the fire in time but he didn't. He did not need to. The runes engraved on the car easily resisted the fire without even increasing a single degree in temperature. The racing pod was completely fine without a single scratch on its surface. 

But, that was not the end. This was just an opportunity for Atem, one that he did not want to let go of. He silently and subtly manipulated the fire from the flame throwers using his 'Ryujin Jakka' ability to make them go haywire before forcing them to attack the car of a nameless lackey of the Grandmaster. The guy's car wasn't able to bear the heat of the fire and immediately exploded, killing its driver before he could even understand what was happening.

"Oh, my. Such a beautiful and magnificently grand explosion. I knew I was right when I told them to use bigger gas tanks." The Grandmaster said with what seemed to be genuine delight in his voice, not even trying to seem sad about the death of one of his own racers. "Now, try surviving this one." He showed an evil smirk as he pressed another button on his car. 

This time, scores of razor-sharp giant circular power saws rose out of the ground out of nowhere, meant to cut apart their 'carts' as well as shred the people driving them. Grandmaster and Topaz avoided them so easily that it almost looked like they somehow miraculously knew the location of each and every power saw on the road. Atem himself relied on the danger sense trait of his cosmic awareness to sense the locations of the hidden saws and drove completely based on his instincts like how Spider-man sometimes does, which served him quite well. 

The rest however were not so lucky as another minion of the Grandmaster headed straight into the blades and was reduced to a chunk of metal and mincemeat following a huge explosion. But this time, someone from Atem's team was affected as well. Susan who was the most inexperienced driver among them also could not effectively evade the blades and headed straight into one of them.

Atem was ready to protect her using his telekinesis and magic, even if it meant completely destroying the race course but Susan was able to protect herself by forming a barrier right at the last moment, just before her body was going to touch the blade. Even though her vehicle got destroyed, the forcefield she generated was strong enough to protect her from the giant saw without any hiccups helping her to gracefully land on her legs beside the trail.

'It seems that the Grandmaster just took his shameless cheating to the next level.' Atem hatefully chuckled in his mind as he increased the speed of his pod. His pace had decreased a lot, so much so that even the Grandmaster's 'cart' was able to overtake him since Atem had to drive while making sure not to get hit by any of the saws' blades while the elder of the Universe and his trusted minions probably already knew where each and every trap was before even the race started. 

While the remaining eight cars reached a bridge near the Devil's anus, the Grandmaster activated another trap where massive pillars began to rise out of the ground of the bridge, blocking their paths. Quite surprisingly, Reed lost control of his vehicle at the junction here and crashed into one of these pillars that had appeared in front of his racing pod out of nowhere. However, his elastic body protected him from any critical injury that might have resulted from the wreck as he latched onto one of the pillars like a piece of chewing gum. 

The bridge itself wasn't like any other normal bridge. It was like one of those Hot Wheels bridges with a vertical ring where you do an entire 360-degree flip with your car while defying gravity by using your car's speed and momentum. 

Johnny looked the most comfortable doing that stunt, in fact, he even looked excited like he was in his element. The others on the other hand, not so much. Atem lacked experience in doing stuff like this since this was his first-ever race. Thus, he just used his telekinesis to make sure that his vehicle did not lose balance. The others like the Grandmaster and his subordinates also used similar methods of cheating like a pair of giant spider legs that suddenly appeared out of nowhere from the base of the cars or magnetic whips that made sure that their cars wouldn't fall victim to gravity.

Ben, aka, the Thing had also tried to complete the jump with the help of the tremendous speed his racing pod was currently traveling at but unfortunately for him, he had forgotten to factor in his new weight to his calculations, leading to him not even being able to make it through one-fourth of the giant ring on the bridge and resulting in him falling. It was only because of his newly gained rock-hard body that he was unphased and unhurt by his fall although his racing pod went down in a grand explosion.

"He survived that as well. Well, no problem, let's see you survive this." Grandmaster laughed out like a maniac as he activated his next series of traps by clicking on one of the switches located inside his car. 

*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* Multiple explosions began to ring out from all around the course as hidden landmines began to detonate every time a racing pod even came close to their range.

This time the New God's danger sense wasn't that useful since even though he knew where the landmines were, the others didn't and thus they triggered them quite often which led to a chain of explosions that affected me as well. Of course, that didn't mean he lost since all he had to do to protect himself and his car from damage was just strengthen the barrier rune on the vehicle by channeling his magic into it, and voila, no more getting affected by the shockwaves of the blasts. 

"Oh shit." A yell suddenly reached Atem's ears as he noticed the third goon of the Grandmaster losing control of his vehicle due to a blast that took out one of his wheels and directly smashed against Johnny's racing pod which immediately broke the vehicle in half due to the strength of the impact, sending the young stuntman/actor flying. 

Atem almost subconsciously used his magic and transmuted a major portion of the road where Johnny was going to land into a giant sponge to break his fall, but it turns out that the boy didn't need it because of the fear of imminent death and panic had enabled him to finally access his locked power and turn himself into what he was always meant to become, a burning Human Torch. 

"Oh Shit, I am burning. Help, I am burning. Somebody help, HELP. I am on fire, and it's burn...ing me? Wait, why is not hurting? I don't even feel the fire affecting my flesh and skin. In fact, this actually feels... good. Oh, holy mother of Tom Cruise, my power is fire. I can burn and glow with the help of the great POWER OF FIRE. HAHAHAHAHAHA. I am awesome. Hey, is anybody recording this?" Anybody seeing Johnny at this time would be able to tell that he was more than happy right now as he floated a few feet above the spongy ground with his fiercely burning body. He was elated and relieved that he had a cool power that he could show off which wouldn't turn him into some kind of monster. 

"Oh, well... good for him, I guess," Atem commented before pressing on the accelerator with full force. He was almost there, and in the lead too. Just one more tunnel to pass through, and he will reach the finish line. He couldn't afford to wait or slow down to congratulate someone right now. As long as his teammates' lives weren't threatened, winning was his top priority.

"How did he even survive that? The explosions should have blown him away. Did he have a level-five kinetic forcefield installed in his cart too?" The Grandmaster grumbled to himself as he deactivated the forcefield around his vehicle with Topaz and the Red King doing the same.

"I think it's finally time to use them, my king, otherwise, he will win." The clear voice of Topaz sounded through the communication channel inside the Grandmaster's racing pod, urging him to use his last trump card while the woman herself flicked a couple of switches in her vehicle and transformed her racing cart into a heavily weaponized armor tank. 

"You are right. I didn't want to use my dear babies for this, but he left me no other choice... It is time to release the champions."

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