Marvel x Genshin: Mavuika, The Sun Goddess Rules Asgard — Chapter 76

Chapter 76: The Gap Widens

As Mavuika accelerated out of a turn, she twisted the throttle to its absolute limit. The rear wheel slipped for a fraction of a second under the immense torque, a subtle drift that she corrected with an almost imperceptible adjustment of her weight.

What truly dumbfounded Tony was Mavuika’s preternatural sense of the road ahead; it was as if she could ‘see’ every detail of the asphalt before she ever reached it.

She knew where the pavement was uneven, where loose gravel dusted the shoulder, where the blind spots hid potential dangers. Her riding line was always the optimal solution, a perfect, flowing ribbon of motion without a single wasted movement.

After only a few turns, Tony had already been left behind, the gap between them growing into a chasm.

He pushed the sports car, trying desperately to catch up. On the brief straightaways, the sheer horsepower of his engine could gain a little ground, but the moment they hit another curve, the gap would widen once more, mocking his efforts.

‘Is this woman a monster?’ Tony muttered to himself, his eyes locked on the rapidly shrinking speck of the motorcycle’s taillight.

He was driving on the ragged edge, his gear shifts precise to the millisecond, his cornering lines as improved as humanly possible, but it wasn’t enough. He still couldn’t catch her.

What shocked him most was Mavuika’s sheer, unadulterated boldness. On turns with dangerously poor visibility, she would blast through at full speed, as if she could predict with absolute certainty that no oncoming vehicles lurked just beyond the curve.

This kind of riding could no longer be described as merely ‘good technique’; it was something else entirely.

‘She’s got a death wish!’ Tony shook his head, his foot subconsciously easing off the accelerator.

A sharp pang of regret hit him. He suddenly wished he’d never agreed to this race.

With the way Mavuika was riding, if a single thing went wrong—a patch of oil, a deer in the road, a miscalculation of a single degree—the consequences would be unimaginable.

Meanwhile, Mavuika was lost in a state of unmatched exhilaration.

The wind howled past her, a physical force pressing against her leather-clad form. The scenery outside her helmet’s visor became a streaking green-and-grey blur. She could feel every vibration of the motorcycle thrumming through her bones, hear every breath and roar of the engine, and perceive every subtle change in the grip between the tires and the road.

This feeling… it reminded her of Natlan. It brought back the long-lost days spent chasing the sunset across the fiery plains on the back of a Flamestrider.

The long, solemn years of her priesthood, the heavy duties of Asgard… none of it had managed to erode her innate, primal love for speed.

Ahead, the road coiled into a hairpin turn. The angle was wickedly sharp, the pavement canted at a slight incline.

Mavuika didn’t slow down. Just before entering the turn, she shifted her body’s center of gravity to the absolute limit, leaning the motorcycle into the curve until her knee was nearly scraping the ground. The tires hissed in protest but held firm, glued to the asphalt.

As she exited the turn, she snapped the throttle open. The rear wheel spun freely in the air for a stunning moment before the tire bit into the road, launching the bike forward like a cannonball.

That instantaneous, violent surge of acceleration made her laugh out loud, a sound of pure joy that only she could hear, muffled inside her helmet.

She had completely let go.

In comparison, Tony could only rely on his mortal eyes and his limited track experience.

The gap, just like that, continued to widen.

…

Howard stood at the entrance of the villa, watching the two distant figures disappear at the end of his field of vision. He sighed, a heavy, helpless sound.

The roar of the engines gradually faded, eventually swallowed by the wind, leaving only the peaceful chirping of birds in the forest and the rustling of leaves in the breeze.

‘Tony is one thing…’ Howard shook his head and turned to walk back into the house. ‘He’s been like this since he was a child. Always loves a thrill, always needs a challenge.’

But he never expected that Mavuika, of all people, would have such a wildly playful side.

In their normal interactions, Mavuika gave the impression of being gentle, wise, and impossibly steady. While she occasionally revealed a dry sense of humor, she generally carried herself with the solemnity one would expect from a deity who had lived for millennia.

But now… watching how utterly alive she looked while racing Tony, seeing the aggressive, predatory posture of the motorcycle as she carved through the corners…

Howard suddenly realized that his understanding of this sun goddess was still deeply limited.

‘But, since Mavuika said so…’ Howard muttered to himself, pushing open the heavy wooden door of the villa.

‘She guaranteed she would ensure their safety, so that should… be fine, right?’

Even as he thought it, he couldn’t stop the knot of worry tightening in his stomach.

After all, that was his son out there. After all, that was a public road. And after all…

‘After all, she is the legendary sun goddess,’ Howard smiled bitterly and shook his head again. ‘A little street racing shouldn’t cause any problems for her, right? Probably…’

He walked into the living room, where Maria was calmly arranging a bouquet of fresh flowers. Seeing him return alone, she looked up, a little puzzled. “Where are Tony and Ms. Mavuika?”

“They went out… for a ride,” Howard said, choosing a much milder turn of phrase.

Maria simply nodded, not pressing the matter further.

Howard sank onto the sofa and picked up a magazine from the coffee table, but his gaze kept drifting toward the window, his ears straining for the sound of returning engines.

…

On the now-empty road, Mavuika had left Tony so far behind he was no longer even a memory in her rearview mirrors.

This was hardly surprising. The performance of the motorcycle, which Howard had commissioned from Stark Industries’ special projects division, was truly impeccable. Three hundred horsepower was already at the apex of motorcycle engineering, and when combined with the ultralight frame and a precision-tuned suspension system, it performed flawlessly in both straight-line acceleration and cornering control.

But the real key was Mavuika herself. Her reaction time and her ability to control the machine far exceeded the limits of any mortal.

As a deity, her neural processing speed was incomparable to that of a human; she had what felt like an eternity to observe, judge, and react to any situation. Her control over her own body was absolute; every muscle contraction, every minute shift of her center of gravity, was executed with impossible precision.

In her hands, the motorcycle wasn’t a vehicle. It was an extension of her own limbs, a direct manifestation of her will.

Tony, for all his genius and skill, was still only human.

His reactions had limits. His body was subject to inertia. His judgment was constrained by his line of sight and his past experiences.

In this fundamentally unfair race, he never stood a chance.

Tony himself was beginning to understand this with chilling clarity.

At this moment, he was staring intently at the empty road ahead, his expression grim. Mavuika’s taillight had vanished behind a turn five minutes ago, and he hadn’t seen so much as a flicker of it since.

The speedometer on his dashboard read 180 km/h. It was the absolute limit he could safely maintain on this road; any faster and he risked losing control entirely.

And Mavuika…

That ridiculously beautiful woman was a certified madman! No, ‘madman’ wasn’t a strong enough word.

That riding style, that impossible speed, that complete and utter disregard for danger…

Tony considered his own driving skills to be top-tier. He’d driven cars far more recklessly than this. But he would never, ever dare to ride a motorcycle the way Mavuika did.

And that was the point—it was a motorcycle. If you lost control, there was almost no possibility of survival. A car, at least, had the protection of a chassis, airbags, and a dozen other passive safety systems.

What did a motorcycle have? It was flesh wrapped in iron. A fall at that speed meant catastrophic injury or instant death.

Tony’s earlier regret now curdled into genuine fear.

It wasn’t about his wounded pride—he hated to lose, but he wasn’t a sore loser. He regretted it because he was worried. He was terrified that something would happen to her.

At that speed, if she crashed, his father would probably strangle him with his bare hands.

No, his father wouldn’t even have to. Tony would never be able to forgive himself.

After all, he was the one who had opened his big mouth and proposed the race in the first place.

He wanted to call it off, to tell her to stop, but there was a problem…

He couldn’t catch up to her. And in his haste, he’d forgotten to get her contact information. He had no way to even call her and beg her to slow down.