All participating racers were veterans. The ninth-tier challenges felt routine to them – only Latham trailed by nearly 100 kilometers here.

  The tenth-tier entry stretch ranked among the circuit's most brutal sections. Latham's entire focus narrowed on the crimson Carey. If that machine maintained 500+ km/h here, he might as well wave a white flag.

  "Slow down... slow down..." he hissed through clenched teeth, willing the scarlet racer's downfall. Miraculously, the Carey's speedometer dipped – 400 km/h. Hope flared in Latham's eyes.

  As the obsidian Galaxy entered the serpentine section, its velocity settled at 398 km/h. The underdog's path grew clearer – even the frontrunners couldn't sustain 500 km/h here. Subsequent racers fared worse, their speeds dwindling further.

  When the T-20 finally breached tenth-tier asphalt, Latham's throat went dry. This nightmare stretch – all hairpins and zero straights – demanded perfection. Yet the soul-driver entity executed flawlessly: left turn, right flick, momentary straight, another left... The speedometer's needle remained welded at 500 km/h.

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  Cold sweat dripped down Latham's neck. Though not physically piloting, the mental strain of processing sensor data through eighth-tier mental energy left him drained. Other drivers – including a ninth-tier mentalist – fought for survival, their consciousnesses overwhelmed by calculus: traction vectors, G-force compensation, predictive braking.

  Meanwhile, Latham's unique arrangement granted eerie clarity. The soul-driver entity operated without adrenaline or doubt, its decisions surgically precise. While rivals gnashed teeth and white-knuckled controls, Latham even ran victory probability calculations mid-corner.

  The T-20's factory limitations became irrelevant. Through every diabolical switchback, it carved paths no biological mind could conceive – apexes shaved to atomic tolerances, acceleration pulses timed to nanosecond perfection. The rental sedan shouldn't have survived tenth-tier physics... yet here it danced, rewriting reality through borrowed genius.