Chapter 337: Run!

2069, September 6, Apocalypse Day, D-100

100 days after the Apocalypse Day, the United Train led by Longshan No. 1 and the Infinite entered the vast no-man's-land from Akesai to the east.

10:02 AM, the sun was like a white-hot melting furnace, piercing straight into the exposed spine of the Gobi Desert. The United Train rushed at high speed, crushing the rust-brown gravel plain. The saline-alkali land on both sides of the tracks steamed with mirage, distorting the wind-eroded rock pillars in the distance into shaking candle tears.

The train team that had just been refitted in Akesai was scarred by battle at this time. Many carriages were billowing with thick smoke, and there were monster remains and fragments everywhere. The steel corroded by black blood emitted thick smoke, showing a ferocious state after the battle. Fortunately, the battle time was short, and the armor thickness of each motorcade was relatively high. The erosion degree of those monster insect egg juices was not enough to melt through the armor and carriages. However, the carriages hit by the giant body's black light beam were another scene.

Behind the United Train, several carriages of one motorcade were torn into an open state. The sides and roof of the carriages appeared huge collapsing fragmentation. Almost 2/3 of the protection of the entire carriage disappeared. Basically, only the carriage frame at the bottom was pressed on the tracks, and one carriage even lost half of its track wheels, dragging the train behind, rubbing sparks and driving at high speed. The battle situation could be called tragic!

And the Dawn motorcade, the Akesai Brotherhood, and other motorcades like Windwalker and Fulu Shou suffered even more losses, with more than a dozen large vehicles and hundreds of people lost.

The sad atmosphere had no time to spread, and the entire motorcade dared not have any slack, still galloping at high speed!

Because there were less than 9 hours left until dark!

They had to rush into Quancheng before dark, but there were still more than 2,000 kilometers of no-man's-land. Under this sense of oppression, no one had time to stop and reorganize, no time to cry and mourn, and no one was willing to be left behind!

*Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh*, the sound of wheels hitting the steel tracks was as dull as a funeral bell. The quartz sand grains between the sleepers were shaken into powder and rolled into golden dust mist by the heat wave.

"I have refitted the hanging vehicle hook, you guys hurry up and move!"

At the damaged carriage section of the motorcade behind, Lin Xian and Kiki led the team to rush over. His purpose was not just to help these motorcades deal with the damaged carriages, but these carriages would bring safety hazards to the entire train if they weren't cleared away.

The motorcade in front of him was the Red Rose motorcade. Most of the people on the vehicle were women. Just now, one of the living carriages was almost torn into two sections under the black light, and only three of the dozen people living inside survived.

At this time, the few women, with the help of a group of teammates, didn't even have time to treat their wounds and urgently moved the remaining supplies in this damaged carriage. Kiki was responsible for unhooking the carriage and moving it away, letting Lin Xian solve it, and then the carriages behind accelerated and joined together.

This operation was not a difficult task for Lin Xian and Kiki.

"Thank you, Team Leader Lin."

"Everyone hurry up and move."

"Don't worry about whether it's good or bad, just take it all away."

The steel bones of the carriage were like fish bones gnawed by a giant beast, sticking out. Under the dilapidated carriage, the team members of the Red Rose motorcade hurriedly picked up the remaining usable supplies. Some even took off the thick-soled military boots from the half-corpse of their teammates without hesitation and hung them around their necks. It could be seen how carefully they lived.

Lin Xian had no bad feelings about this motorcade, but rather admired them. In this end-of-the-world situation, using one's own body to exchange for survival was not an unspeakable thing. When encountering danger, every one of these women could take up weapons and resist. At this time, seeing them holding slightly simple equipment and desperately picking up those scattered usable supplies, even taking off the military boots from the half-corpse, he could see how carefully they lived.

"Team Leader Lin..." After finally finishing picking up, Zhou Hongqu, the captain of the Red Rose motorcade wearing power armor, had no time to wipe the blood stains on her power armor and said to Lin Xian with a grateful face: "Sorry to trouble you."

Lin Xian nodded, and then let everyone exit this carriage. He decomposed and devoured the steel components at the connection, and then Kiki used telekinesis to move the entire carriage away. After the carriages behind accelerated and leaned over, Lin Xian manufactured carriage connection components at high speed and combined the two carriages together.

By the way, he also manufactured full-range armor at the connection, which was considered a favor.

And the damaged carriage was taken by Lin Xian to be devoured and converted into materials. After finishing, the two continued to deal with the other few carriages.

"That giant body just now, even if it's not a special-grade, it's at least A-grade. Damn it, it's the first time I've met such an unkillable one."

In the leader communication band, Shi Diyuan, who had just finished dealing with the train's post-battle loss report, scolded: "If it weren't for Brother Lin's quick reminder, I estimate several carriages wouldn't have been saved."

"Team Leader Lin!"

Hu Lushou's voice came at this time: "Do we still need to speed up? Our motorcade is almost unable to keep up."

After rushing out of the sandstorm, the vision was clear, and the drivers could finally breathe a sigh of relief, but the train started to speed up again, making these motorcades really unable to keep up.

Although it was also a hard road surface, the Gobi Desert definitely couldn't compare to a highway. Even if their motorcade vehicles were refitted and possessed high-horsepower motors, they couldn't compare with trains running on tracks.

"Stop talking nonsense, you just run along the tracks, this is the closest route to Quancheng." After dealing with the situation of the train motorcade, Lin Xian started to repair the damage to the Infinite, and at the same time took out the materials from the decomposition space to manufacture a large amount of ammunition.

"All motorcades have been marked with Dark Marks. As long as it's night, there will definitely be a lot of trouble." Qian Dele said at this time: "So we can't slow down, we can only speed up. It's still the same, you guys line up, let the big vehicles walk in front to reduce wind resistance."

"That's the only way!" Lu Zhao didn't talk nonsense. He and the Fulu Shou motorcade had the most large vehicles and the best configuration, so he took the lead and adjusted the motorcade formation, maintaining a long snake-like formation and accelerating to rush.

On Queen Mo, Mo Nika inspected the combat situation of all carriages all the way, walking and saying in the walkie-talkie: "I suggest that in addition to the track detector, it is best to arrange drones to patrol at high altitude in turns to scout the road conditions in front, otherwise at such a fast speed, if it derails, it will be troublesome."

"Don't worry, our drones will always be scouting above the train." Xiang Ningjing said.

The high temperature was scorching, and the horizon was full of heat waves and mirages. *Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang*, a crisp sound of track vibration gradually rang out. The yellow sand all around vibrated, and a black-green heavy armored train locomotive full of monster insect corpses rushed over with violent momentum. Behind it was a steel dragon winding to the end of the earth.

On the Infinite, the Giant Whale 03E heavy gas turbine locomotive and the Weilong-class electric locomotive engines were roaring wildly. The entire train was rushing at extreme speed, and the more than a hundred people on the train were panicked.

In terms of configuration, the firepower of the Infinite was already very powerful. Even when facing the large A-class parasite encountered in Rain Town before, it could be annihilated with frontal firepower. However, as it got closer to the Star Abyss, the strange creatures encountered were more troublesome than the last, unpredictable. The few dozen minutes just now gave the whole group huge survival pressure.

"It has dropped to a level 2 mark, but we have no way to eliminate it now." Weapon station of Carriage 12, Luo Yang and Xiaobai's information center side, the core members of the Infinite gathered here.

Shu Qin held a burlap cloth and wiped the blood stains on the power armor panel, saying: "If we enter the night like this, the risk is very high."

"Other motorcades should be about the same as us..." Chen Sixuan also said at this time: "This is the no-man's-land, and we can't return to the sandstorm to clear the marks."

"Now we can only do more preparations."

Lin Xian didn't stop for a moment, because he needed to speed up the manufacturing of a G3-electromagnetic railgun here, so everyone gathered here. At the same time, this was also the center of the train, and the personnel were easier to dispatch. The adjacent Carriage 13 was the armory. At this time, several PX05 robots were operating the fully automatic bullet press, and batches of bullets emitting residual heat were manufactured.

He said with a sinking face: "Actually, the most troublesome thing is those bugs that drill into everything. Otherwise, that giant body, as long as the firepower frequency is enough, it would be solved very quickly."

Kiki hugged her chest and nodded: "It's mainly because we were all a bit panicked when those things appeared together, plus it was a sandstorm, otherwise our firepower wouldn't be so strenuous to deal with."

"But we've been running for so long, unless it's an S-rank or a big monster with a clear territory, many times we face monster tides." Luo Yang sighed: "I can only say that those sand ants are too disgusting."

"Exactly, it's a waste to use cannons and guns, we can only hide, it's simply unsolvable." Lv Chang said with resentment.

Lu Xingchen sat in the distance, his expression plain: "How is it unsolvable? If it weren't for considering the protection of other trains, we could have lit a big fire outside the whole carriage, and the sand ant disaster would be resolved in an instant."

Kiki glanced at him, speechless: "And then bake the inside of the carriage evenly, and the big fire will collect the juice?"

"Wouldn't that mean the sand ants haven't come in yet, and we've been roasted first?" Shasha smacked her lips.

"Fortunately, we have arc pulse string vibrators. This thing clears them up much faster." The big guy Liang Lei stood with Dalou. The two were like two iron towers. The battle just now was the most suffocating for them. They couldn't touch the big monsters, and they couldn't touch the small monsters without power armor to protect themselves. It was simply sitting in jail.

"The frequency of this thing is too slow, and it was originally used to deal with anomalous bodies climbing the train." Lin Xian, who was manufacturing with concentration, also said helplessly at this time: "I have thought about many plans, but none of them are very feasible."

Whether it was the arc pulse string vibrator, the electric blade outer armor, or the ultra-high temperature plasma beam cutting array that Lin Xian hadn't manufactured yet, these were all for carrying large-area monster tides, but sand ants, including that kind of small beetle, were really headache-inducing.

Kiki said at this time: "I actually know a kind of technology on starships in the Star Army. It doesn't possess physical isolation ability, mainly used to resist charged particle streams or high-energy heavy ions and secondary radiation. Perhaps..."

"Oh, I know this, electrostatic field generator." Luo Yang's eyes also lit up.

Lin Xian smiled helplessly upon hearing this: "By the time we all drive starships, I'll still worry about sand ants?"

"Uh..." Kiki shrugged: "Better safe than sorry, but after we rush out of the no-man's-land, perhaps there won't be sand ants."

"Quancheng is in the desert, how could there be none, unless we leave Luling." Li Yi also opened her mouth to say at this time.

"Alright, it's fortunate that we didn't have any casualties. Now what we can do is to hurry up and rush on the road. There might be a fierce battle tonight." Lin Xian sighed in relief and looked at Shu Qin and Dalou: "Shu Qin, Dalou, you arrange ammunition production, mainly prepare 12.7 and 30, at least prepare 5 bases, and support the excess to other motorcades. Also, those Starfire 26 fully automatic rifles and rifle ammunition we had before, we don't need them anymore, give them all to those small motorcades."

Lin Xian arranged it this way not because there were too many materials and weapons to give away, but mainly because the United Train was on the same boat now, and they had to solve problems together. Once the weak motorcades were eaten, it would directly lead to the collapse of the continuity of the front and the doubling of pressure. Now these thousands of people were basically evolved humans with combat capabilities. The value of human lives and teammates was much higher than weapons. With one more person with guns and ammunition, their pressure would be one point less.

Hearing Lin Xian's arrangement, Shu Qin and Dalou nodded and responded.

"Okay, we'll go arrange it immediately."

"Longshan No. 1 also has bullet loaders, they have many people and lack weapons too." Lin Xian pressed the walkie-talkie at this time and told Shi Diyuan and Xiang Ningjing his thoughts.

"Brother Shi, those people saved from the sand bandits should also be able to form combat power. If you can't arrange them there, disperse and supplement them to other motorcades. Let's get through the immediate difficulties first, and as for the arrangements afterwards, let them decide for themselves."

"Hey, I was just about to say this." Shi Diyuan said with a headache after hearing Lin Xian's words: "More than a hundred people, it's not that easy to digest. I'll keep some, and other motorcades will help accommodate some. By the way, didn't Mo sister want those dozen women."

"No problem, I've already prepared the carriage." Mo Nika's voice came.

"Arrange 10 people for me too, it doesn't matter if they have combat power or not, just don't be pretentious~" Qian Dele also said in a leisurely tone.

"We are driving at high speed now, how to distribute them, let the flight ability users take them?"

Lin Xian glanced at Kiki, and Kiki sighed helplessly: "Fine, fine, fine, it's me again~"

After saying that, Kiki set off.

"Liang Lei, patrol and inspect the train's working condition." Lin Xian then arranged.

"Okay!"

"Shasha." Lin Xian looked at Shasha at this time: "Your Sally will be dispatched tonight. I don't have time to help you test your new weapon, but remember to test it in advance."

Shasha nodded and said seriously: "Don't worry, Lin Brother, Luo Yang and the others will help me."

"Miao Lu, help me see how Old Mo and the others are doing, and Teacher Chen, did you receive any radio signals?"

Chen Sixuan shook her head: "None in any band. This situation is indeed very abnormal. I'm worried if it's related to the situation you mentioned."

Luo Yang also frowned and said: "It stands to reason that this open area should be able to receive the Phoenix Society's global radio station, but we haven't received it for a long time since we left Yijin City, except when we were close to Akesai before, we received Hu Boss's civilian band information."

"Team Leader Lin!"

Just when Lin Xian heard Luo Yang's words and was in doubt, Hu Lushou's voice rang out in the channel: "Something's wrong, all radio bands are static. This, this, this, this is the same as the situation we encountered in Weihe before!"

"What situation, be specific?"

At this time, all motorcade leaders paid attention to Hu Lushou's words.

"It's just..."

On the RV, Hu Lushou sat in the passenger seat and scratched his head with a complex face: "Anyway, I can't receive signals from any band. Mine is also an upgraded version of the dark radio, installed with level 2 blood essence, and the result is all static. Several motorcades noticed this problem at that time. Now that I think about it, could it be related to the instability of the No. 5 Star Abyss??"

Lin Xian felt his heart sink upon hearing this: "Besides that, are there any other special signs?"

"Signs...?" Hu Lushou said: "No signs, it's just that it got dark, and then we got lost."

Hu Lushou's tone suddenly changed in the walkie-talkie: "Oh right, I seem to remember that the nightfall time was five minutes early that day. I don't know if this counts as a situation?"

"Five minutes early? 18:40?"

"Yes, I remember I was complaining at that time, saying how the dark tide was early today..."

"Why didn't you say this situation earlier?" Qian Dele scolded him directly: "So it's possible that our nightfall time tonight is earlier than expected?"

"This, I, I..." Hu Lushou explained: "I didn't know at that time either. This kind of situation is also the first time I've encountered it, and one weird thing about that night's darkness is that it wasn't black, it was dark blue. Mom, I feel a chill just thinking about it."

Shi Diyuan said in a deep voice: "It seems that we were right to set off early. Perhaps it's the same as Brother Lin said, this matter is really related to that taboo item. This no-man's-land is not peaceful. Now no one can let their guard down until night!"

*Zzz, zzz, zzz~*

At this time, on Lin Xian's side, Hu Lushou sent a message to Lin Xian from a personal channel: "Team Leader Lin, do you think this matter could be related to the silver bullet I gave you?"

Lin Xian heard the words in the walkie-talkie, his thoughts turned rapidly, and he said directly: "If it were related, it would be impossible for your radio in Akesai to send out messages."

"That's true." Hu Lushou reacted immediately upon hearing this.

However, Lin Xian also continued to say: "But taboo items are not certain. Now we can only take one step at a time. You just said that the sky was dark blue, was it like that all night?"

On the Blue Star, looking at the night sky through the atmosphere, it is normally dark blue. Only in extreme cases will it be very black. But Lin Xian felt something was wrong when he heard Hu Lushou say this.

"I don't remember the second half of the night. Anyway, I still had some impression before encountering the anomalous body. The dark blue I said wasn't the transparent kind, it felt like it was pure color, projected onto the retina, tsk tsk, I don't know how to describe it either, anyway it was weird..." Hu Lushou's tone was a bit confused, but when it reached Lin Xian's ears, it immediately made him think of what Chu Yan had told him.

"Don't understand taboo items with human eyes. If you see it, then don't look. If you try to understand it, it must be counter-intuitive. Don't describe it, don't describe it!"

"And don't spy on the sky!!"

"Don't spy on the sky..."

In Carriage 12, only Lin Xian was sitting here manufacturing the electromagnetic railgun at this time, constantly recalling these two sentences, and he felt a chill down his spine.

Since the Apocalypse Day, the sky had become synonymous with danger.

Whether it was the sky danger ban issued by the Federation and the Phoenix Society, the floating giant corpse in Jiang City, the atmospheric mica of Daluo Mountain, or the Black Thorn in the Clouds of Xilan City and the creature that had never appeared, including the scene Lin Xian saw when he was testing the mechanical energy cannon after winning the insect swarm with the Big Eagle and Chasing Sun motorcade after just leaving Hengshan Pass, all made people feel a chill.

Before all of humanity could react, the arrival of the Apocalypse Day polar night completely cut off the connection between humanity and the Blue Star's near-Earth orbit. The United Space Station went missing, global satellites went offline. Lin Xian knew that both the Phoenix Society and the Federation must be carrying out starship projects, including the current Sky City. But so far, he had never heard of a successful case or news. So in the eyes of the vast majority of people, what covered the sky was a danger even more desperate than the ground.

The survival of human civilization so far, whether it was the Phoenix Society or the Federation, could not find a truly feasible plan.

The Federation was guarding the city, frantically building underground cities. The Phoenix Society was saving people while fleeing, trying to find the final answer before the global polar night. But these galloping people, no one knew what kind of ending this escape would eventually lead to. It was just that from Lin Xian's current point of view, human power was too small. Even in just 100 days, they had evolved to the strength of the violent level, but facing the darkness, it was still far from enough.

*Ceng, ceng, ceng. *

Lin Xian's Mechanical Heart was operating at full power at this time. His left hand manufactured the electromagnetic railgun, and his right hand constantly took out the materials converted by the preparation center for the supply of the military industry carriage. All other team members were tense and busy at this moment.

4:40 PM, less than two hours left until dark.

The third G3-electromagnetic railgun of the Infinite was finally successfully manufactured. This was the first time Lin Xian had manufactured two heavy weapons in one day. Because Carriage 12 was the center position of the train, this weapon station was also the only carriage that possessed both long and short-range firepower at present. The purpose was naturally to protect the military industry carriage, supply carriage, and the nearby living carriages.

At this time, the materials in Lin Xian's decomposition center only had about 30% left. In addition to continuing to manufacture ammunition, he manufactured Thunder Falcon 2000 drones while walking to enhance his combat capability. This thing had good power and moved rapidly. Dozens of them fired together, and even medium-sized anomalous bodies couldn't withstand it, so Lin Xian prepared to manufacture a few more.

However, the precision of this thing was on par with the PX-05 robot, and the manufacturing speed couldn't be fast. Fortunately, the volume was small, so he didn't have to sit in place, but came to Carriage 3 to find Ding Junyi.

"Director Ding, is there any situation?"

As soon as Lin Xian walked in, he saw the Hell Black Chrysanthemum emitting a faint red light, so he asked.

Ding Junyi put down the mobile terminal in her hand and looked at him.

"A few pieces of news. One is that from effective monitoring, the physical toughness of everyone has improved a lot from Xilan City to now. It's just that we haven't obtained the latest testing instrument of the Phoenix Society, but our violent-level ones on the vehicle must have increased, perhaps destruction-level has already appeared."

"Second is that my ability has also improved a lot. I am currently learning application methods that can help the team. Another one is the Silver Dragon Ten Thousand Mistakes." Ding Junyi pointed to another cultivation cabin.

"It grew its first inflorescence."

Hearing this, Lin Xian walked over

"Objectively speaking, after blooming, perhaps this disaster plant will reveal its characteristics," Ding Junyi said.

Lin Xian nodded. At this time, he saw a pile of black substances placed in a container on Ding Junyi's experimental table, which looked like the corpse tissue on the huge black body before.

"Why are you studying this?"

"This is human tissue," Ding Junyi put on gloves, picked up a piece from it, and then twisted it into powder at her fingertips, saying with a solemn expression: "It looks like it has undergone some special processing, losing moisture, but it is easy to analyze the cell and protein tissue inside, and even DNA can be extracted. This no longer belongs to the 'parasitic' situation."

Ding Junyi looked at Lin Xian and said with a deep expression: "They use human corpses to form their own bodies. From this point, it is not difficult to see that the human shape is just a mimicry of their biological population."

Lin Xian's eyes narrowed, and just as he was about to say something, a burst of noise suddenly sounded in the communicator.

It seemed to be the same as the one in the radio frequency. I don't know if it was an illusion, but Lin Xian inexplicably felt that the noise in that frequency was more like countless sharp cries mixed together, very much like the sound after they solved the monster and approached the black smoke drilling into the ground.

"Static~ everyone, there is a situation."

In the communicator, the speaker was Shi Diyuan.

At this time, in the head driver's cabin of Longshan No. 1, Shi Diyuan held an electronic telescope and looked in a direction with a strange expression. Standing beside him were Ning Jing and a group of engineering department personnel.

The alarm information came through the drone, and when Shi Diyuan found that direction, his whole person's expression also changed.

"What is that?"

Ning Jing, who was on the side, also had a stunned look as she watched the scene in the electronic telescope.

I saw that in the Gobi Desert in the northeast direction of the train track, a strange white stone sculpture was quietly floating in the wilderness. The stone sculpture was huge and majestic, with a merlion face, very much like a human creation.

But the strange thing was that under the scorching sun, the light on the stone sculpture was significantly different from the light in the surrounding environment, not only dimmer, but also very abrupt.

It looked like someone had used poor photo-editing technology to paste it onto the Gobi Desert.

But no one could ignore the huge size of the stone sculpture and the strong sense of strangeness of it quietly floating in the wilderness. Even Shi Diyuan, who was used to seeing big scenes, felt a chilling and grotesque sense of strangeness when seeing this scene at this moment, and his brain spontaneously began to produce strong negative emotions, making people forget to exhale or inhale air even in their chest and lungs.

And on the Infinite, Lin Xian opened the blackout board of the carriage. The visual system of the power armor just looked in that direction, and in an instant, the entire power armor system crashed and went dark, and then restarted in an emergency.

【Black Hawk-Silent Hunter Armor 01 started, performing program self-check】

Lin Xian's heart jumped immediately, and a sense of great terror struck.

He hurriedly pressed the communicator and shouted:

"Don't look, run!"

(End of chapter)