Location: FIA Headquarters, Geneva
Time: 72 Hours Post-Riyadh Sprint Victory
Championship: FIA Formula Grand Circuit Wildcard Series
*Round 5 Incoming – Nürburg Skytrack (Germany)
On the 91st floor of the FIA Tower, the servers never slept.
Neither did the man inside the sealed monitoring room.
Victor Kross leaned over the archived memory stream labeled:
E_Tanaka_FINAL_CORE_3 – STATUS: CORRUPTED
He hit play.
Static. Then fire. Then… a flash of something deeper. A young voice. Familiar.
Rai's.
Victor exhaled through clenched teeth.
"The line is waking. But not for us."
Behind him, a shadow in a black racing suit watched without blinking.
"Then we pull the old one back."
—
Ghost Line HQ – Germany
Nürburg Skytrack. A mountain-circuit hybrid.
Dangerous altitude dips. Near-zero grip sectors. Fog banks mid-sector.
Rai was already walking the track alone when Luka caught up.
"Bro, this is suicide. The Skytrack eats rookies."
"Good thing I'm not one anymore."
"You're tied for first in the standings. FIA's circling like hawks. And you're treating this like a playground."
"Because it is. For me."
Luka blinked.
Then grinned.
"Now that's the Tanaka ego I missed."
—
Inside the garage
Kiera was uploading software patches when Sierra entered the trailer.
She wore black jeans, combat boots, and an oversized Seraph jacket half-zipped.
"He around?"
Kiera didn't even look up.
"He's on track, pretending he's not being hunted."
Sierra held up a tablet.
"I cracked one of the Veilfire loops. And this one… isn't from Rai."
Imani raised an eyebrow. "Then who?"
Sierra hesitated.
Then showed them the name.
Noah Vale.
Kiera froze.
"That's… not possible. He died with Elias."
—
Meanwhile – Nürburg Paddock
Rai was staring at a silver car in the prep bay.
Unmarked.
Aggressive stance.
Triple-axis active suspension.
And a helmet on the seat with a scarred logo: A/S.
A familiar voice rang out behind him.
"Didn't think I'd see your face again, Tanaka."
Rai turned.
Stopped cold.
Tall. European. Silver eyes. Scar on his jaw.
Adrik Solace.
Ex-prodigy.
Once Elias's rival.
Then… gone.
"You're supposed to be dead."
Adrik smirked.
"So were you. Guess we're both terrible at following orders."
—
Back at Ghost Line
Sierra's hands were shaking as she flipped through Noah Vale's final ghost lap.
His data showed a different system path. Not Burn Sequence.
But something else entirely.
A parallel project.
Codename: ASHLINE.
"He wasn't synced to Burn. He was part of something else. A fail-safe."
Imani leaned forward.
"Wait — like a second path? A rival system?"
"Not just a rival. A weaponized fallback."
Kiera frowned.
"If Burn is the match… then Ash is the explosion."
—
Pre-Quali – Nürburg
The rain came hard.
And so did the whispers.
Drivers and engineers stared as Adrik Solace walked into the grid.
No one spoke.
But everyone felt it.
A ghost had returned.
And the FIA made no announcement.
No entry.
No clearance.
Just let him in.
Because they wanted him to burn Rai down from the inside.
—
Rai climbed into his cockpit.
His comms lit up.
"Hey."
Sierra.
"Adrik's not just another rival. He's the last one who saw Elias alive."
"Then I'll ask him myself."
"Be careful."
Pause.
"I deleted the file, by the way. The FIA one. I chose you."
Rai closed his eyes.
Softly.
"Thank you."
—
[BURN SEQUENCE UPDATE]
Ghost Trait "Echo Line" Now Compatible With Veilfire Loop II
System Rival Trait Detected Nearby: "Ash Sync (Locked)"
Warning: Trait Interference May Occur
Rai opened his eyes.
Rain poured.
Engine roared.
And the past pulled closer than ever.
Location: Nürburg Skytrack – Qualifying Day
Conditions: Wet Track, Fog Rolling, Temp Drop – 8.6°C
Track Length: 6.1 km
Key Features: Altitude Fluctuation, Double Apex Turns, Sector 3 Blind Descent
The moment the track went green, a monster rolled out of the Ghost Line paddock.
Rai's machine — the GL-P1X — was built not just to race.
It was built to defy limits.
A matte graphite chassis with a spectral white underglow, the P1X's adaptive traction diffusers glowed faintly along the inner wings. Its new Veilfire Loop II mapping system integrated live telemetry with Rai's neurological sync.
As the engine screamed down pit exit, you could feel the split between man and machine narrowing.
This wasn't driving. This was possession.
—
In the opposing lane, a car of pure silence rolled out.
Adrik Solace's ASX-22 Valkyrie.
Unmarked. Illegal. Beautiful.
A forbidden prototype that never passed FIA regulation — until now.
It had no sponsor decals.
No team tags.
Just raw, silver armor plated in graphene-coated titanium.
And unlike Rai's machine — it wasn't connected to its driver.
It commanded him.
Its power unit ran on an unstable variant of hybrid overburn — short bursts of near-illegal torque output at the risk of engine rupture.
The car hissed more than it roared. As if suppressing the violence under its shell.
Kiera stared at it on the screen.
"What the hell is that thing?"
Luka exhaled.
"The ghost of the next generation."
—
Sector 1 – High Elevation Entry
Rai was first out.
The P1X carved the uphill corkscrew with supernatural precision, its Veilfire-enabled response system adjusting traction in real-time.
Rain droplets broke against the aero-shell like glass.
He downshifted early, brake-balance set at 57R/43F — aggressive even for dry conditions.
System update pinged in his HUD:
Wind Vector: +2.1 kph cross-stream
Suggested Adjustment: Feather DRS, Delay Exit Throttle by 0.3s
He ignored it.
"No ghost tells me when to breathe."
He floored it.
—
Adrik's ASX-22 didn't follow the racing line.
It cut its own.
Every apex approached like a predator. The car's Ash Sync trait — Volatile Drift Lock — allowed it to slip mid-corner with surgical violence, then snap back on a perfect vector.
To anyone watching, it looked like the car was about to crash—
Then clawed back from death.
The wet track turned into its plaything.
—
Sector 2 – Blind Left Ridge
Rai activated the Echo Line trait.
The circuit lit with phantom traces — not just Elias's ghost line, but a dozen predictive variants layered over each other.
He chose one with 0.12s sector gain and went full throttle.
Midway through the descent, his rear axle shivered — a micro-slip.
He grinned.
"Come on. Try to kill me."
The car answered with torque.
—
At the paddock, Sierra stood silently beside the live telemetry.
Her eyes fixed not on the speed, but on the growing instability between the two syncs.
"They're not just racing. They're… bleeding into each other."
Imani leaned in. "That silver car's system isn't Veilfire. It's something else entirely."
"It's Ashline."
Pause.
"And if it merges with Rai's system… it'll burn everything."
—
Final Sector – Sector 3: Cloudfall Descent
Both cars dropped in.
Rai took the high line, anticipating the mist pocket.
Adrik took the inside — pure madness in this weather.
Rai felt his HUD flash warnings.
But he saw the path anyway.
One lap.
One chance.
The P1X shrieked past the final corner—
And beat the Valkyrie by 0.008 seconds.
Silence.
Then chaos.
—
Qualifying Results:
P1 – Rai Tanaka (GL-P1X) – 1:31.188
P2 – Adrik Solace (ASX-22) – 1:31.196
P3 – Noor Veleno (Avaris Team)
P4 – Leo Yuen (Vortex Motorsport)
—
After the session – Ghost Line Garage
Rai ripped off his gloves.
Sierra was waiting.
"You okay?"
He looked at her.
Eyes wild. Exhausted.
"He's not just fast. He's part of the system."
"You mean like you?"
Rai shook his head.
"No. He feeds it."
—
Later that night, Sierra opened an old encrypted file from Elias's archive.
Inside was a video.
Elias. Blood on his face. Desperate.
"If you find this… Ashline can't be controlled. Not by Adrik. Not by anyone. It wasn't supposed to activate after I died."
"Tell Rai… he's not just my legacy. He's the firewall."
Sierra sat in the dark.
And whispered,
"I hope he's strong enough."