Hell yeah!

Now that he didn’t have anything to do in the Nexus anymore, John wanted to see the increased rewards for the Barriers, and with an easy enough Barrier, he would be done pretty quickly, hopefully.

He had something to do that he kinda forgot to do the last couple of days…

After Meditating for half an hour, his Mana was full enough for him to feel safe to go into a Barrier. Opening a Barrier, John looked through the various modes he could select now:

Step 2: Choose Mode of Barrier
Hunt/Wave/Defense/Transport/Race/Climb/Skirmish/Annihilation/Exploration
Non-Vehicle/Vehicle

Vehicle Barriers? Would he be transported with his bike into those? That sounded interesting!

Deciding to try out a new Barrier mode, he clicked on Race and on Vehicle, interested to see where that would take him.

Step 22: Toggle Vehicle Protection? (Y/N) (?)

Wondering what ‘Vehicle Protection’ meant John clicked on the info button.

Vehicle Protection: Protect your Vehicle against damage done inside the Barrier. Loot Drop Chance will be halved, money gained will be 50% less.

So, he could basically insure his bike? As long as he didn’t know how to fix his bike, especially with Grimbart’s warning in mind, he decided to activate Vehicle Protection, for now…

Step 23: Confirm? (Y/N)

The blackness around him flashed in the usual way, and suddenly he was standing next to his bike, the sound of falling water behind him.

As John’s eyes adjusted to the change in light, he saw that he was standing inside some kind of overgrown ruin in a square hallway that was entirely carved out of stone. Behind him was a waterfall blocking his view from whatever was beyond it.

Type: Hostile
Level: 10
Mode: Race (Vehicle)
Enemy Type: Aztec Warriors
Scenery: Aztec Ruin
Difficulty: 100%
Objective:
Reach the goal. Rewards will be dependent on your ranking.
Bonus Objectives:
Win without attacking any opponents
Reward:
+300 XP
+100$
Take out 10 Enemies
Reward:
+500 XP
+150$
+1 Upgrade Token (Weapon)

To start, move bike to the starting line.
Good Luck!

Looking at the rewards, he certainly wanted to go for the second bonus objective. An ‘Upgrade Token’ sounded like something he really would want…

There was only one problem though:

There were no enemies.

John was standing alone in this wide hallway, a glowing line a couple of steps towards the waterfall. So he was supposed to drive through the waterfall… Well, he still had to shower, so that wasn’t the worst thing.

Switching into his ‘adventuring’ gear, John pushed his bike towards the glowing line, waiting to see if he got any new prompts. The moment his butt was planted on his bike, he felt that he couldn’t get out of it again. At the same time, eight people appeared around him. They were Aztec warriors like you would see them in movies and games, clad in a lot of golden ornaments and colorful feathers, glowing in the dimmed sunlight that shined through the waterfall. They were sitting on various… vehicles. Some were sitting on stony things that vaguely resembled bikes or quads, while others were sitting on armored animals like panthers.

’Well, there are the enemies… but those are still not 10… will they respawn after I have taken them out?”

In front of John a new pop up appeared:

Ready? (Y/N)

After hitting Yes, a countdown immediately started, counting down from ten. John steadied his position on his bike, securing himself with as little connection to the ground as possible. The others around him also got into a position they could start from and brandished weapons. Most had close range weapons like axes and swords, one or two had some slings though.

And then a horn echoed through the air, signaling the start of this race. The waterfall suddenly stopped flowing, and John along with the other contestants beside him darted out of the hole.

Auditory Atmosphere Supplement Activated. Now Playing: Carpenter Brut – Turbo Killer

Outside he was greeted by a lush and blooming rainforest, spanning his entire view. Here and there were some stone structures and the area certainly wasn’t flat, but pretty much everything was covered in trees and other greenery. In some distance, there was a giant light, like a beacon.

Looking behind himself, he saw that they had jumped out of a ginormous cliff and that some mechanism had split the waterfall just enough so that the exits was free of water.

He did see something else too, though.

There were multiple exits.

Another two holes were carved into the cliff with the exact same mechanism splitting one large waterfall. And another nine opponents jumped out of each of those exits.

So there were 27 people racing here at the same time.

Right now, they all were soaring through the air, flying towards a slanted stone road leading them into the thick forest.

John could already hear the first sounds of combat behind himself, with animals roaring and metals clanging against one another. Trying to think about how he could take them out himself, he had two options when it came to it.

Close-range and distance.

If he wanted to fight them in close range, he would either need to use his spear or his new tonfas that he had no real idea how to use yet. While he could easily use his spear with one hand, it was pretty unwieldy when trying to stab at someone and drive at the same time, even if part of that was already covered by the enchantments of his bike.

On the other hand, in terms of ranged attacks, he could easily pester his enemies with Mana Daggers and Mana Spikes, though right now that would require him to mostly throw backwards, which was not that easy…

As they landed on the ground, the real race began.

And the real fight.

A couple of rocks sailed past John’s head, making him instinctively swerve to the opposite direction and directly into another rock.

-15 HP (Armor applied)

Ow! That hurt!

Well, somewhat, at least. The more important thing was that the stone made John shortly lose control over his bike and his balance. Slightly slanting to the left, the enchantments on the bike did their work and ensured that he wouldn’t fall, mostly by slowing down.

A big chunk of the Aztec warriors passed by him now, leaving him in a cloud of dust. Two warriors, however, decided that they wanted some blood as they pulled up left and right of John, pinning him in the middle while swinging their weapons. John had to bend backwards to avoid the swings of two stone weapons, passing over him right now. The only reason he could bend backwards that much without breaking his back was thanks to his Acrobatics.

In a move to protect himself from the assailants, John summoned two Mana Daggers and rammed them into whatever vehicle or leg which he could blindly stab into. One of the warriors sat on a giant black panther, which yowled in pain and stumbled as John slammed the blade in both the leg of the warrior and the side of the beast, burying its shocked rider underneath it in the ensuing fall.

210 DMG (Falling)

A second later, the ground beneath the downed pair exploded, enveloping them in an shower of rock and dust.

Rider eliminated!

John didn’t notice a lot of it though, as he was busy still holding off the second rider who was sitting on a floating stone slab. The warrior attacked again, enraged by the **** of the other rider. This time, John blocked the attack with the shield on his arm, which he had materialized a second ago. The hit clanged off the shield, but it had an effect John had totally forgotten by now.

As the hit connected, the attacker tensed up, muscles locked up from the resulting shock from the shield. John had forgotten that the shield had a chance to stun his enemy on a successful block! Taking this opportunity, he lined his spear up with the head of the warrior and quickly jabbed. It didn’t even matter how much damage he did, as the Aztec fell to the side, sliding off the slab, resulting in the same explosion as the panther rider.

Rider eliminated!

Position: 25/25

So he was actually in last place now? Fuck! This would not stand!

Accelerating his bike again, John tried to catch up to the other competitors as quickly as he could.

The broad road they had landed on soon split up into multiple paved roads winding through the thick jungle, overgrown and broken up by the local fauna. John had to dodge a lot of roots on his way to catch up.

Slightly ahead of him, he could see three riders battling with each other, each on a different feline beast. Taking advantage of the fact that they wouldn’t have noticed him yet, he threw two Mana Daggers into two of the Beasts. One fell just short of the leopard in the trio of overgrown cats, while the second one lodged itself into the hind leg of the puma. The beast toppled over, and the rider, in the surprise of his companion falling over, grabbed on to the leg of the man next to him, pulling him down with him.

John barely avoided the resulting explosion, swerving his bike to the left around the blast.

’This race could come from an action movie with the amount of explosions!

Rider eliminated!
Rider eliminated!

Position: 19/20

That number didn’t surprise John. Seeing as how the people in front of him had been bashing their heads in just a moment before, it would make sense that other people were eliminated as well on this trail.

By now, one lonely panther and the rider on top of the leopard were still left. The panther, now realizing its freedom, took a mighty leap in the direction of the last rider, throwing him off the leopard as its teeth sunk into the muscular flesh of the Aztec warrior.

It was a gruesome sight that would’ve made John’s stomach queasy if they weren’t enveloped in a dust cloud from an explosion mere moments later.

The leopard apparently had no interest in John, as it just sped up its run and disappeared into the jungle, never to be seen again.

Silently grumbling about killstealing, he sped up again to find some more opponents to take out.

He still had to get 6 more!

And then, the entire road behind John erupted in fire.