Chapter 56: Mach 1
"Talaria?" Alicia chuckled. "Like the winged sandals of Hermes? That doesn’t exactly look like a pair of sandals to me." Then she reached out, taking one of the boots from his hands. As she inspected it, her eyes suddenly flashed with a brilliant, digital blue light. After a few seconds, the light dimmed and she hummed, her amusement replaced by genuine intrigue. "Interesting."
"What’s wrong?" Scar asked.
"My algorithm tells me this boot can amplify a speedster’s velocity by a hundred percent," Alicia said, looking up at him. "And it seems to possess an active skill too. Though I can’t tell what skill it is."
Scar was deeply stunned. She had deciphered the exact statistical mechanics of a legendary-tier System item just by looking at it. It was the same terrifying intuition she had shown two days ago in his bedroom.
"How did you know all that just by looking at it?" Scar demanded.
Alicia smiled mysteriously. "My ability, of course."
Scar raised a brow. "And how exactly does your ability work?"
Alicia chuckled. "I already told you, Roy. I don’t know," she said. "I’m still trying to figure that out myself."
"Don’t give me that bull story," Scar snapped, his patience fraying. "You’ve had the ability for over seven years. There is no way you don’t know how it works by now."
"I’m being completely honest," Alicia insisted, handing the boot back to him. "Even after using Inner Machine for years, I am constantly discovering new functions. And I haven’t even figured out the mechanics of its algorithm yet. Believe it or not, but, that’s the truth. My ability is just that complex."
Scar raised a brow. Functions? Algorithm? "Why do you keep making your ability sound like a computer system?" he asked.
Alicia smirked. "That’s because it is. Why do you think it’s called Inner Machine? My ability isn’t like the traditional, elemental abilities out there. It’s infinitely more complex and hard to explain. The capacity to control biological and computer systems is just a surface-level function. It can do so much more than that. But, like I said before..."
"You’re still figuring it out," Scar cut her off, finishing the sentence. "Yeah, I got that part."
"Good," Alicia grinned. "So you should stop obsessing over my ability and get running. You wanted to test the amplifying effect of the boot, didn’t you?"
Scar nodded, deciding to drop the interrogation for now. He sat on the track, kicking off his running shoes and sliding his feet into the Talaria-X. The moment the boots laced themselves shut, a cascade of system notifications erupted.
[Talaria-X (S-Rank) Equipped]
[Temporary Stat Boost in Effect: +50 Agility, +20 Stamina, 100% Increase to Top Speed]
[Agility: 39 >> 89]
[Stamina: 156 >> 176]
[Alert! Host’s maximum velocity has been modified by an equipped item. Top Speed has been temporarily doubled!]
[Top Speed: 780 km/h >> 1,560 km/h]
Scar stood upright. He didn’t just feel faster; he felt utterly weightless. His entire body thrummed with raw, volatile kinetic energy. His maximum velocity had just been scaled beyond comprehension.
Alicia wanted to say something, but before she could even open her mouth to speak... he vanished.
There was no warning or build-up of motion. Just a concussive boom that cracked the asphalt beneath his heels.
All Alicia felt was a gush of wind that nearly knocked her off her feet. She looked up at the track in disbelief. A searing streak of kinetic light was already tearing around the curve, accelerating rapidly.
She frantically tapped her wristband, pulling up the diagnostics screen.
Her jaw dropped.
He’s already at 850 km/h, she breathed, her eyes wide in awe.
His starting acceleration was even faster than his previous top speed.
Inside the sprint, Scar was experiencing absolute euphoria. The wind whipped past his face like a hurricane. His body blurred into a continuous, circular motion around the massive track, moving so fast that he appeared to be in multiple places at once.
His internal speedometer ticked upward mercilessly.
900 km/h... 950 km/h... 1,000 km/h... 1,100 km/h.
Alicia watched the terrifying numbers climb, her heart hammering against her ribs. She pressed the comm in her ear. "Roy! You’re almost at Mach 1! Keep up the pace!"
Scar smirked into the howling wind. "I intend to." he said, pushing even harder.
But as he tore past his fortieth lap, his stamina bar began to rapidly plummet. The devastating physical effects of running beyond his natural biological threshold began to set in. The velocity he was outputting was an artificial amplification from the boots; his body hadn’t organically adapted to handle it yet. The extra 20 stamina points from the boots were burning away like paper in a furnace.
But Scar had zero intention of stopping. He was going to reach Mach 1, even if it killed him. The air resistance turned into a physical, blistering wall of friction. He gritted his teeth, his muscles screaming in agony, and pushed his acceleration even higher.
[Speed Rate: 1,200 km/h...]
And then, he hit it.
The sound barrier shattered with an earth-shaking, concussive boom that blew out the stadium’s upper glass panels.
[Speed Rate: 1,235 km/h]
[Alert! You have reached Mach 1 (Amplified Effect)!]
[Hidden Quest Complete: Sonic Achiever
*Condition: Run as fast as the speed of sound (Complete)
*Reward: New Skill Unlocked - Dash]
Scar’s smirk widened into a feral grin. He had done it. He had achieved sonic speed.
But didn’t slow down. He pushed the throttle higher, tearing past 1,300 km/h.
On the sidelines, Alicia’s console suddenly erupted in flashing red warnings. The biometric schematic of Scar’s body turned a terrifying shade of crimson. His leg muscles, his lungs, and his heart were completely redlined.
Panic instantly seized Alicia. She immediately spoke through the comm.
"Roy, you have to stop!" she screamed. "Stop immediately! Your muscles and your heart can’t take more of your kinetic output! If you push any further, you’re going to cause irreversible damage!"
"No," Scar’s voice crackled back, completely detached and breathless. "I feel fine. I can go faster. I haven’t hit the top speed yet."
"Are you out of your mind?!" Alicia yelled, her voice echoing in the empty stadium. "Your heart is about to explode and you’re talking about top speed?! Please, Roy, stop! Your lungs are collapsing! And at this rate, the friction will cause you to ignite!"
Scar didn’t reply. He couldn’t. He was locked in a euphoric daze, detached from reality, chasing the edge of the horizon. He was completely lost in the trance of the speed.
Alicia cursed viciously. She looked up at the track, taking a desperate step forward, but the sheer, violent pressure of the sonic wind-wake physically forced her back. She gritted her teeth, her mind racing.
She couldn’t use Inner Machine to shut his body down; he was moving too fast for her algorithms to lock on. She looked up at the track in absolute horror. If Scar didn’t stop soon, his entire body could detonate.
But that was only the beginning of their problems.
As Scar crossed the 1,400 km/h threshold, the extreme atmospheric friction finally overwhelmed his durability.
Fire erupted across his body.
His clothes tore to shreds instantly, and bright, roaring plasma engulfed him from head to toe.
"Fuck! Dammit, Roy! Snap out of it!" Alicia screamed. She already
knew this would happen.
But Scar still wasn’t answering. He still didn’t stop. He couldn’t.
Inside the flames, the oxygen was instantly sucked from his lungs. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he passed out completely.
But somehow... his body didn’t stop.
Probably fueled by the kinetic sub-routines of his boots and sheer, unstoppable momentum, Scar’s unconscious body continued to run at 1,400 km/h. His flaming limbs pumped mechanically, carrying him around the track like a burning meteor.
Alicia’s blood ran cold. If he continued to run while unconscious and burning, his heart would detonate, or he would eventually crash and die. She had to stop him. But she couldn’t place a physical wall in his path—at Mach 1, hitting a solid object would cause an accident so severe his entire body could vaporize.
Alicia’s brain instantly went into overdrive. She couldn’t let him die. Not like this.
As she glanced around the stadium thinking of what to do, her eyes locked on the metallic rails lining the track.
An idea sparked instantly.
Alicia didn’t waste a single second. She stretched her hands forward, focusing on the metallic tracks. Her eyes flared with an intense blue light as her ferrokinesis locked onto the stadium’s massive subterranean steel skeleton.
Then with an earth-shattering groan, the track in front of her literally began folding upward. Thousands of tons of concrete, earth, and reinforced steel rebar erupted into the morning sky. The track violently pitched up, rising hundreds of feet into the air, warping into a towering, sheer cliff of metal.
Scar didn’t stop. His unconscious body hit the incline and kept running.
He was a blazing meteor charging straight up the side of a steel monolith. But Alicia quickly manipulated the metal, bending the track slightly backward into a massive, parabolic curve so he wouldn’t run completely vertically and fall backward.
Scar’s unconscious body kept running along the upward track. He was now fighting the one force in the universe that never loses: Gravity.
Every meter he climbed violently stole his kinetic energy. The sheer vertical slope forced his body to carry the full, crushing weight of its own momentum. And then, his speed began to decline.
1,400 km/h dropped to 900. Then 400. Then 100.
As his velocity bled away into the impossible climb, the friction died. The upward motion snuffed out the flames, leaving him smoking and charred.
Alicia strained at the base of the structure. Sweat trickled down her face, her hands shaking from the sheer mental toll of holding a mountain of steel in the sky. But she held on, gritting her teeth and pushing herself to the limit.
And then, just as Scar reached the summit of the track, gravity finally won.
His momentum hit zero, and legs stopped churning. His unconscious body peeled off the vertical track, and he fell.
Alicia was already prepared. With a sweeping motion of her arms, she used her ferrokinesis to dynamically curve the upward track, folding it inward beneath his falling body. The metal reshaped seamlessly into a massive, cascading slide of smooth steel.
Scar slid down the enormous slope, his descent perfectly controlled and angled by the shifting track. The metal guided him safely all the way down, gently depositing his smoking, ragged body onto the soft grass directly at her feet.
The stadium fell utterly silent as Alicia let the massive structure settle safely back into the earth.
She sprinted the last few steps, dropping to her knees beside Scar’s charred, shredded form. Her hands trembled violently as she pressed two fingers against his neck.
Thump... thump... thump.
There was a pulse. Strong and steady.
He was alive.
Alicia closed her eyes, letting out a long, shuddering breath of profound relief, collapsing back onto the grass beside him.
"Idiot," she mused, staring at his unconscious face.