The audience, who had been cheering moments before, fell into a dead, petrified silence. You could have heard a pin drop on the grandstand concrete.
On the track, Mira and Roxy sat frozen in their cars, their mouths agape behind their visors, too stunned to even form a word over the comms.
But everything changed when Azael spoke, his voice cutting through the silence like a blade. "The start of a new era has begun. If you wish for no more lives to be taken, little vessel, your path is clear. You must defeat me."
As if on cue, the portal behind him vomited forth a new wave of undead. These were more monstrous, more twisted than anything the track had conjured before.
Hulking, skeletal rogues with flesh hanging in strips. Undead warlocks whose hands crackled with necrotic fire. Packs of werewolves whose eyes shone with pure, mindless killing intent, their forms warped by dark magic.
Chaos erupted.
The creatures surged toward the grandstands.
