Chapter 338: Consumption

"Don't look—run!"

Lin Xian's words exploded in Shi Di and Ningjing's earpieces like a bell tolling, and every crew member in the Longshan No. 1 cab felt the cabin's temperature drop ten degrees in an instant; once they reacted, Shi Di's face slicked with cold sweat as he immediately slammed the window-close button, sealing all cabin portholes.

"Accelerate—rely on the drones and onboard nav. Don't look over there!"

The moment he saw the statue, Lin Xian recognized it: the Lionfish of Jincheng, swallowed by Star Abyss No. 5 on the Day of Revelation—so it could not possibly appear in the Wurenqu of Xidi Desert, let alone in such a grotesque manner.

The floating colossus, twisted light, the lion's eyes weeping blood—when the human brain tried to comprehend this scene at once, billions of chaotic data points slammed into its neurons, shaking the very sense of one's own existence, as if the mind itself was being corroded by sight.

This sensation was utterly unlike the moment Lin Xian had seen the silver bullet—it truly felt like an object from another dimension.

BOOM!

In an instant, a thunderclap erupted over the vast Wurenqu, source unknown—sky or earth—sending every member of the Lianhechedui 's heart racing to their throats.

【System detecting driver vitals】

【Vitals stable: heart rate… body temperature…】

【Shared System activated】

A flickering holographic screen appeared as the system rebooted, progress bar loading—subsystems for motion, defense, radar, situational awareness, and life support each materialized on the display.

ZZZT—Lin Xian instantly shut all sunshades on the train, heart pounding, when the colossus seemed to turn its gaze toward the Lianhelieche, infinitely receding yet infinitely expanding—as if all surrounding space was collapsing toward it!

Lin Xian snapped to action, sprinting toward Car 2 while slamming the comm:

"Everyone—don't look to the left side of the train!"

Hearing Lin Xian, every team leader in the Lianhechedui froze, immediately relaying the warning to their crews.

"No way~"

On the Fulu Shou RV, Hu Lushou, who had been on edge, turned deathly pale, yanking down the window curtain—but then remembered this was the right side, yanked it back up, and when he glanced south across the Wurenqu, he sucked in a sharp breath.

"Lin Xian—look!"

In Car 2's info center, Kiki stared wide-eyed at the screen, the image before her leaving her mouth agape, speechless with shock.

Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan burst in, one behind the other, to see a horrifying scene on the monitor.

To the train's left: the vast, rust-red desert under the setting sun; to the right, the southern horizon had collapsed without warning—moments ago, the desert's endless plain glowed in blinding gold, now replaced by a thousand-mile tide of darkness, like an overturned ink pool, thick blackness surging upward from below the horizon, a liquid asphalt wall over a kilometer high, advancing across the desert at speeds defying physics!

The darkness wasn't pure black—deep within the tide, iridescent hues shimmered like oil spills; the air turned viscous as glue; all light along the horizon was stained sickly emerald-green, Fengkuang sweeping across sky and earth.

"What… what is that?" Chen Sixuan covered her mouth, voice trembling with disbelief.

"That's Star Abyss No. 5!!!"

Lin Xian's mind exploded—he didn't think, he instantly fired up the Mechanical Heart, pushing the Whale 03e heavy gas turbine locomotive, the Weilong-class, and the Huanxing 10a's four traction units to maximum power; in an instant, all engines of Wuxianhao roared in unison, immense torque tearing orange sparks from every drive wheel, a colossal force shoving Longshan No. 1 forward, dragging the rest of the train into violent acceleration!

"Full throttle—run!"

KONG KONG KONG!

The front cars of Longshan No. 1 shuddered violently with metallic groans; every crew member now saw the southern black tide—comm channels filled with gasps, curses, screams; every train's power surged to maximum, ignoring whether the northern track was poorly maintained or damaged—they ran at full capacity.

250km, 300km, 350km, 400km!!

Wind screamed past as this iron dragon across the desert accelerated furiously, desert sands churning, the 15-kilometer Lianhelieche unleashing the Jixian power of an industrial leviathan, hurtling forward at top speed!

Meanwhile, the Fulu Shou convoy, Dawn convoy, and Aksei Brotherhood car teams erupted in constant shouting and curses.

"Go! Go!!"

"Accelerate!"

"Dump the dead weight—push forward!"

"We're done… done…"

"Shut the hell up—drive, watch the road!!"

At the front, Lu Zhao barked over the comm: "Hold formation—don't panic—stay behind the lead vehicle!"

The desert looked flat but was littered with jagged rocks; only the compacted road beside the track was smooth, and with the obstacle-clearing vehicle leading, this allowed the hundred-vehicle convoy to maintain top speed—if they broke formation now, chaos and death would follow.

Lu Zhao's words instantly quelled any urge to overtake; everyone watched the train speed ahead, holding their breath as they followed the track.

On the train side, all twenty-two teams were on edge; power maxed out, the track's concrete sleepers trembled, and the southern darkness—once a thin black line—now widened, rose higher, like a tidal wave.

The once-clear sky was swallowed too, becoming a colossal black wall stretching across heaven and earth, relentlessly advancing toward the train.

On Longshan No. 1, Shi Di, rarely seen sweating, stared at the monitor's dark sky and the radar, fists clenched.

"So this is what Star Abyss looks like when it comes?" Ningjing's face was grim; everyone aboard Longshan No. 1 now felt the crushing danger.

"Damn, it's still over an hour till nightfall." Shi Di frowned.

"Don't calculate it that way—we're already close to Star Abyss No. 5. We barely escaped Yijin City along the edge of the polar night." Ningjing said.

"Then how is this abyss moving faster than the polar night? That's not…" Shi Di started to say something strange.

But what was still normal for them now?

At that moment, Qian Dele's voice came over the comm: "That darkness is moving fast—we'll be in 'night' in under an hour."

"Do they even call it 'night' inside the abyss?" Mo Nika's voice was icy: "Forget illusions—we won't reach Quancheng before nightfall. We haven't even seen the tide's edge."

In Wuxianhao's Car 2, Kiki and Luo Yang from Car 12 were calculating; the computer screen displayed optical images of the horizon's dark sky.

"How's it look?!" Lin Xian demanded.

"Still calculating!" Kiki's fingers flew, while Luo Yang's voice came through:

"Optical expansion speed is around 220 km/h—it'll reach us in half an hour, but the edges are too blurry…"

Lin Xian remembered Chu Yan's report: the Wei River incident was an irregular expansion of Star Abyss No. 5—not the entire abyss advancing, but a patch. So though the tide looked like an endless wall, it wasn't; if it advanced in a roughly circular pattern, the tide wouldn't be a vertical wall—if they escaped along its tangent, and could determine the wall's speed and edge, they might calculate an escape.

PAPAPA—Kiki cut in urgently: "At our speed and direction, we can only evade if the abyss's lateral expansion is under 1000 km in diameter and its depth under 350 km."

Lin Xian's face darkened; he synced the data to everyone, but even this sounded overly optimistic.

"Mo Nika's right—abandon illusions. Worst case: we're swallowed in half an hour. We fight as we run, like we did in the sandstorm this morning."

"Half an hour? That's almost good news—at least we have time to prepare." Qian Dele said.

"Also, compared to what Old Mo and Boss Hu faced, running on the track is a plus," Mo Nika added: "At least we won't get lost."

"What about Boss Hu's group? Did they catch up?"

"Comms still have signal—they're not far."

As if on cue, Hu Lushou's fragmented voice crackled through: "Bosses—if we can't break through, slow down a bit and wait—we'll concentrate fire together, won't get separated."

"Who knows what's out there? More distance might mean escape—why slow down?!" Shi Di snapped: "Just keep driving—you'll still be right behind us in half an hour at this speed!"

Hu Lushou's face fell; he slapped his thigh, ready to curse.

"We're gonna be cannon fodder…"

Beside him, Sun Chang spoke calmly: "They won't slow for us—but they're right. We can only follow the track. If we don't get lost, we escaped once—we'll escape again."

Hearing Sun Chang, Hu Lushou's despairing face flickered with a sliver of hope; he stared at the monstrous black wall beyond the window, gritting his teeth:

"Damn it—if I was driving a Dragon-class transport ship, one afterburner and we'd be out—why suffer this crap?"

Sun Chang shot him a cold glance.

"You forgot how your transport ship crashed?"

Hu Lushou shuddered, swallowed his words, and sat there, muttering prayers.

On Wuxianhao, everyone who could don powered armor had done so; Shu Qin and Daliang, with PX-05 robots, hauled boxes of ammo to every car; Lu Xingchen, clad in powered armor, stood at the car's edge, watching the approaching darkness, fire burning in his eyes.

"Kiki."

In Car 2, Lin Xian ordered Kiki to don powered armor: "Anything could happen inside the abyss—your mental shield won't block everything."

Kiki nodded, obediently slipping into a Lone Wolf S powered armor, cheerfully saying: "I've always wanted to wear this—just found it annoying sometimes."

"You won't need the mobility unit, but radar and armor still help you," Lin Xian said.

"True."

Chen Sixuan walked over: "Raise weapons and activate fire-control radar now—system response is faster than human."

"Got it." Kiki activated—every electromagnetic cannon, 1130, anti-air gun, and auto-Gatling turret rose from the roof; arc pulse stringers and rail-edge armor on both sides of the train deployed; Wuxianhao entered full combat mode.

"All cars, report status," Lin Xian said into the comm, staring at the dark wall blotting out the sky.

"Car 21, Liang Lei, Da Zhou—we're ready, Lin Team, rest easy." Liang Lei gripped his weapon, skin metallic with readiness.

"Car 17—everyone accounted for." Li Yi's voice came through.

"Car 15—we're all set." Li Guangwen, in powered armor, took a deep breath.

"Car 14—Lolo and Amin are here!"

"Car 12—Luo Yang and Xiao Bai are good—weapons and fire-control radar online!"

"Car 9—Shu Qin, Miao Lu, Lu Chang standing by!"

"Car 6—Me and Huo Ge are here, Brother Lin, don't worry."

"Car 3—I'm Xiao Yuan, with Director Ding!"

"Car 20—Sally's ready." In Car 20, Sha Sha sat inside the fully armed Sally, six-axis mechanical arms mounted on the mech, ready to deploy outside.

In Car 2, Lin Xian, Chen Sixuan, and Kiki, all clad in armor, exchanged a silent glance.

"We're going to the cab."

"Yeah!"

Lin Xian called Chen Sixuan; the two teamed up again, heading for Wuxianhao's cab.

"Fifty kilometers left!"

Shi Di's voice crackled over the comm—everyone tensed!

17: 9. Across the vast desert's southern horizon, a black wall spanning the earth rolled forward, a storm of devouring darkness. At this distance, grotesque distortions within were visible—not pure black, but an annihilation tide from another celestial body, swallowing all space. The speeding Lianhelieche: left, the orange-red sunset; right, a cosmic beast of black tide—the viscous, Fengkuang storm twisted, silently swallowing dunes, rusted signal towers, wind-eroded rocks.

"Twenty kilometers!"

DONG DONG DONG DONG!

The ground, sand, track—all trembled; the sky darkened; ahead of Longshan No. 1, the desert vanished—only a black tidal wall, kilometers high, like a world's edge, loomed.

"Ten kilometers!"

Wild winds howled; the train's iron wheels rolled forward, slamming out countless sparks, as heaven and earth darkened.

When the dark wall stood only three kilometers from the train, all frantic sounds vanished instantly. The gravel beside the tracks lost every shadow the moment touched by darkness, as if stripped of their 3D coordinates, flattened into paper-cut shadows. The temperature gauge inside the carriage plummeted like a cliff's edge; frost bloomed across the stainless steel forks in the dining car—the temperature dropped violently!

Click-click-click-click

At this moment, all train communication channels erupted with bizarre static. The voices of Lin Xian, Shi Di, Mo Nika, Qian Dele, and others were now hopelessly muddled, indistinguishable—as if billions of people were screaming and wailing in the darkness. Simultaneously, every electronic device on all trains—including power armor systems—began flickering with erratic surges, their signals unstable and jittering.

Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan stood in the cockpit, watching the terrifying black curtain devour the viewport outside—their pupils froze.

"Star Abyss..."

"It's here!"

As the black sky, like a world's fault line, swallowed the entire earth, everything became silent. Everyone instantly sensed their senses had gone offline—sight, hearing, touch... all were shattered by a churning force, as if their very selves were disintegrating, nothing remaining.

Lin Xian tried to open his eyes, yet he felt he had no eyelids, no eyes at all.

He wanted to shout, but could not feel his mouth.

He reached out for Chen Sixuan, yet forgot where his hands were.

So Lin Xian attempted to activate his Mechanical Heart.

Hum~

A mechanical roar gradually rose, deafening in the void—he heard it. This was the first time he'd ever heard his Mechanical Heart roar.

Is this real?

Vision slowly formed. Lin Xian felt his field of view expand impossibly wide—as if his eyes had burst from his face, becoming fisheye lenses, rendering perception grotesquely distorted.

He still stood in the Infinite's cockpit. Darkness had climbed the windows; beyond the glass lay not the desert, but a boiling void. He tried to gaze into it, yet discovered the Longshan No. 1 ahead had vanished. The carriage was now entering the center of a giant eye's iris—the pupil a wormhole collapsing and expanding endlessly. The iris's texture was composed of countless inverted Babylonian Towers, their spires piercing war relics from different eras: medieval ironclads, atomic mushroom clouds, cybernetic limb fragments... The train continued hurtling forward by inertia, like a photon drawn into a black hole, carrying the last stubborn pride of steel civilization toward the end of an unknown dimension.

Huh~

Huh~

The second sound he heard was his own breathing—the rapid, desperate gasps inside his power armor's helmet, like an astronaut drifting into the infinite cosmic abyss, filled with despair and solitude. Yet he saw neither his body nor any power armor readouts.

For the first time, Lin Xian's mind experienced this bizarre detachment. He remembered Chu Yan's words: If you see it, don't look. If you try to understand it, it defies common sense—don't describe it, don't name it...

A chill ran through him. He shut his eyes tightly, focusing on his senses, refusing to sink into the abyss of cosmic disorientation.

Then, at last, he felt strength returning to his limbs and body. Simultaneously, a cacophony of sounds seemed to draw nearer from the depths of darkness.

Beep, beep~

【Hypothermia alert, hypothermia alert...】

Wooo~

In an instant, the watch's alert, the power armor's alarms, and the thunderous roar of the Whale 03e heavy gas turbine locomotive pulled Lin Xian back to reality.

Boom-boom-boom!

The next instant, his brain surged with intense weightlessness—then impact.

Thud!

A massive crash. Lin Xian felt the train had fully derailed, as if plummeting into some unknown place. But that made no sense—the vast Gobi Desert was flat, endless. How could there be weightlessness?

Reality left no room for doubt. When his senses returned, Lin Xian saw the Infinite's cockpit had tilted. The metal junction ahead of Longshan No. 1 groaned with sharp, twisting fractures. Inside the carriage, the noise resembled an air disaster.

As the Whale 03e's headlights flickered, Lin Xian saw the front carriage of Longshan No. 1 tilted skyward. His headphones erupted with deafening screams and shouts.

"Aaaah!!!"

"What's happening?!"

"The carriage is splitting open!"

"Aaah!..."

Snap. Suddenly, someone grabbed him from behind. He turned—Chen Sixuan, clinging to the handrail, shouted: "Lin Xian!"

Lin Xian grabbed her back and immediately activated his Mechanical Heart to ignite the train's engines. A roar of electric motors erupted—but then he realized: all drive wheels were spinning uselessly. The train was not on the tracks at all.

Empty-empty-empty!!

Metallic roars echoed from the rear carriages. Lin Xian pressed his palm against the viewport and instantly deployed a small drone, launching it skyward. As the drone's camera rose, Lin Xian saw a horrifying sight.

The entire united train had fully derailed. The front Longshan No. 1, the Infinite, and the rear Mo Queen, Joker Chedui 's carriages now lay crookedly across a black earth. No train had overturned—but many carriages were twisted, deformed. Interior lights flickered erratically. Every train, like the Infinite, suffered electrical surges.

Strangely, the entire united train was surrounded by dense, pitch-black forests. Many trees had been crushed and torn; broken branches jutted through the windows, writhing grotesquely against the thick, dark night.

Lin Xian drew a sharp breath and commanded the drone to ascend vertically. But as the camera rose, its image grew dim and murky. He saw only the rear carriages lying crookedly amid an endless black forest, lights flickering, stretching for kilometers into the darkness.

Watching the drone's feed, Lin Xian's expression hardened. He said:

"This... isn't the Western Gobi!"

Within the forest beneath the black curtain, strange sounds stirred beyond the trees—ear-splitting roars echoed through the dark. Terror approached. The bizarre had descended!

(End of Chapter)