Chapter 339: Nightmare

Beneath the dark forest, a train that had appeared out of nowhere lay across the trees and brush. Thousands of trees had been crushed and snapped, and the metallic screeching of various carriages echoed one after another. This massive product of modern industry had appeared here suddenly, without any warning.

Lin Xian attempted to look into the distance via drone, but beneath the black curtain, he could only make out the silhouettes of mountain ranges. Whether due to the visual distortion of the thick black fog or not, the massive mountains in the distance seemed to be writhing sluggishly. Those black shadows dissolved and reformed within the mist. The sky was a strange, deep blue, devoid of stars or moon; the terrain was unclear, and he could not distinguish the cardinal directions.

Lin Xian seemed to be the first to awaken from that state of lost consciousness. When he grabbed Chen Sixuan and checked their current situation via drone, the others finally came to their senses from the horror, or rather... woke up.

【Detected massive influx of dark fear energy.】

The alarm of the Heterogeneous Rubik's Cube rang incessantly.

Zzzzt—

Within the communicator, the internal frequency of the Infinite finally returned to normal. Kiki had already rushed to the front carriage, saw Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan, and shouted loudly:

"Are you two alright?!"

"How is everyone else?!" Seeing Kiki, Lin Xian immediately contacted the other carriages.

"We're fine!"

"We're all okay."

"The rear carriages are safe!"

For a time, personnel from all carriages of the Infinite sent back reports. The communicator was filled with panicked noise; clearly, everyone had just recovered from that lost state of fear.

"Brother Shi, how is it on your end?" After confirming the status of the Infinite, Lin Xian began to inquire about the other trains.

After intermittent signal breaks, the Longshan No. 1 finally sent a message, but the first thing to ring out in the communicator was a burst of gunfire!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

At the same time, from the other train fleets, there were constant sounds of gunfire, screaming, and roaring.

"Dark mutation!" someone shouted.

"Old Chen, no!"

"Quick, kill him!!"

"The carriage is out of control, seal it!!"

Rat-tat-tat, bang! bang! bang!

"Wake up, it's one of our own!"

In an instant, countless painful wails and shouts spread across the public frequency. Everyone at this moment understood that the dark mutation had broken out internally!

"Seal all carriages, resolve it internally!" On the Longshan No. 1 side, Shi Diyuan, leading Xiang Xiang Ningjing and her group, quickly raided the various carriages, constantly resolving internal mutations, suppressing panic, and personally shooting to death those once-familiar, beloved, and kind faces!

At the same time, he also shouted in the leader channel: "Brother Lin, the other fleets—the soul-oscillation value in this ghost place is off the charts. Quickly resolve the internal threats; there are definitely strange entities approaching!"

On the Joker fleet side, Qian Dele acted swiftly. A golden flash shuttled through the carriage, and he coldly twisted the necks of several mutated subordinates. When dealing with this situation, his speed was the fastest. Everyone else also looked on with composed expressions at the companions killed by their own boss. In the Joker fleet, everyone had long reached this consensus: mutation meant death, but if one harmed their own after mutating, that was the true disgrace.

"We have already finished resolving it. The problem now is that we seem to have derailed." Qian Dele looked coldly at the dead cook, Old Zhou, on the ground and sighed secretly.

The Queen Mo side also had frequent problems, but all of Mo Nika's subordinates were wearing power armor linked to her control system. As soon as anyone's vital signs and heart rate information showed abnormalities, an alarm would immediately trigger. Mo Nika would directly lock the power armor program, reverse-controlling it so they could not use weapons or attack friendly forces, and then they would be dealt with.

However, one of her carriages happened to have the dozen or so women taken from Old Xie. At this time, three of them had already mutated, and before being killed by Mo Nika, they had already bitten to death two others...

Mo Nika looked at the environment around the train on the holographic interface and said quickly: "The reason Boss Hu and the others got lost has been found. The Star Abyss seems to have torn us directly into another space or region."

On the Infinite, Lin Xian, Chen Sixuan, and Kiki ran all the way toward the rear carriages. Ding Junyi in Carriage 3 was also shocked by this strange power. She followed Lin Xian all the way to the rear and, seeing the world outside the gaps in the carriage window shutters, couldn't help but say: "Is the Star Abyss some kind of black hole singularity? The closest forest to the Akse No-Man's-Land is at least 4,000 kilometers away. This is truly unbelievable."

"Team Leader Lin!"

Shu Qin from the front rushed over at this time, followed by Luo Yang, Lv Chang, as well as Old Mo and Sun Yuzhen.

"Lin Dui, this is the exact situation we encountered before!!!" Old Mo, who was still recovering from his injuries, was filled with horror and shouted loudly: "We must leave here immediately, otherwise..."

Boom!

Before the words could finish, a massive tremor struck. It seemed to come from the other fleets in the rear, dragging all the carriages in front to jerk backward, almost causing Lin Xian and the others to lose their footing.

"What happened?!"

"Strange entities!!"

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A massive crashing sound arrived, and in the dark forest, all sorts of scalp-tingling, eerie noises began to ring out, as if countless unknown creatures were rapidly closing in on the United Train.

"The rear fleet has fallen into the water!"

"Fallen into the water?"

"Lin Dui, we, along with the Sail, Great Victory, Iron Fortress... are all currently stuck in a swamp. The Ocean and the Parrot in the rear have already sunk into the lake!"

Zhou Hongqu, captain of the Red Rose fleet, stood in the tilted carriage, looking at the countless strange, writhing tentacles in the swamp outside, as well as the indescribable monsters that had already climbed onto the carriages, and reported to the fleet in front, unable to endure the panic.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

At this moment, the internal threats within the hundreds of trains of the united fleet had not yet been cleared, and they were already fighting a chaotic battle outside. Alarms and shouts rang out in unison. All the heavy weapons on the Infinite, whose fire control systems had been activated—the electromagnetic railguns and the 1130—automatically began to operate. In an instant, the firepower roared violently!!

From the Red Rose fleet backward, nearly one-third of the trains were already stuck in the muddy swamp, and the Ocean and the Parrot, totaling more than thirty carriages, had even begun to take on water, crazily sinking into an unknown deep body of water.

A massive lake!

The position of the united train was exactly on the edge of this lake.

"We're flooding! Help!!"

"What do we do?!"

"Open the carriage doors, everyone swim out!" The captain of the Ocean made a prompt decision, but at this time, the entire carriage was already half-submerged and floating on the lake. Black lake water was constantly pouring in; even the nuclear-powered carriage was beginning to take on water. The train's electrical system flickered, and the automatic valve machines were all jammed.

He immediately called for ability users to come forward and manually open the doors of each carriage, but at this moment, a black, snake-like giant shadow suddenly wound its way past outside the carriage. Under the flickering train lights, one could see countless dark green scales, curling and twisting, creating wild whirlpools—it seemed to be some kind of terrifying creature beneath the black water.

Clang! A second sound came; it was as if the rearmost carriage was being entangled by some existence, beginning to be squeezed and collapsed inward. The entire train tilted back and forth, and water constantly washed toward the rear carriages inside. People were unable to even stand.

Under the massive force of the pull, the entire united train was constantly retreating backward, as if it were about to be dragged into the water by the unknown creature beneath the black lake surface.

And at the same time, in that dark forest, there were creatures with completely unrecognizable forms beginning to swarm toward the united train. The weapon systems of all fleets were roaring at this moment, and the sound of gunfire and artillery echoed through this dark, lonely forest.

"We're moving backward!!"

"Something is dragging us into the water!"

Hum, hum—the traction locomotives of each train fleet were roaring at this time, but the hard iron wheels could not generate any grip in the swamp and mud.

At this time, Shi Diyuan immediately shouted: "Sister Mo, you and my all-terrain traction train group, switch to traction drive immediately! Let's pull the fleet up first!"

"Okay!"

No sooner said than done, the only two all-terrain traction locomotives in the united train immediately switched to crawler-group travel drive and began to roar and exert force. For a time, earth and stone flew, and wood chips were crushed, but it only barely stopped the retreat. However, the ground in the forest was all muddy humus soil, soft and deep, and could not be of much use.

"It's no use, we must use rail traction!"

At this time, Lin Xian shouted in the communicator. For a train over ten kilometers long and deeply stuck in mud and swamp, relying solely on two all-terrain vehicles to drag it was simply wishful thinking. The only way was to shunt the carriages one by one onto the rails, using the train's own weight and the friction of the tracks to pull the train. If that wasn't enough, they would have to cover more tracks; only by increasing the length of the rails could more traction locomotives have their power put to use!

After Lin Xian finished speaking, he immediately discussed the strategy with Kiki and the others.

"If we manufacture tracks and put the trains on them one by one, I don't know if pulling the rear to guide and reset will work."

"But this requires manufacturing very long tracks, otherwise the traction won't be enough and it will definitely slip," Kiki said at this time.

"Right, or how about we use the car-towing hook method..." Shu Qin followed up by saying.

"No, with over five hundred carriages stuck, what kind of tow hook cable could pull tens of thousands of tons?" Luo Yang also shook his head.

At this time, it was extremely urgent. Massive attacks were coming in, and there was no time for everyone to discuss too much. The situation was in imminent danger!

Who would have thought that at this time, Old Mo suddenly said: "Lin Dui, the simplest way to re-rail a heavy train is the forced-rail method. Do you remember the traction platform of the climbing elevator? If you can manufacture a non-fixed rail ladder and then use the traction platform to pull the train onto the rail ladder, you can use the train's own power to reset autonomously. The rail ladder can be driven with simple piles in this kind of area; you don't need to consider stability, but you only need a maximum length of half a kilometer to definitely hold the train. As long as you can move forward, you can just lay simple steel rails in front!"

Lin Xian reacted immediately upon hearing this. Old Mo was worthy of being a veteran engineer of Xinghua Heavy Industry; his method immediately hit the crux of the matter!

To put it bluntly, it meant using the all-terrain traction vehicles of the Queen Mo and Longshan No. 1 as traction platforms, and then manufacturing and laying bricks/steel plates in front of the lead train to form a temporary guide slope to pull them into the pre-manufactured tracks with ground piles. Although the traction vehicles couldn't pull them, Lin Xian and Kiki could directly manufacture tracks underneath. As long as they could drag the Infinite's traction locomotives onto the tracks, the Infinite, which possessed four traction locomotives and two nuclear-powered train sets, could provide massive torque to pull the rear carriages.

Thinking of this, Lin Xian immediately stated his idea to the others, and Shi Diyuan and Mo Nika also understood his intention and immediately expressed their approval.

"Let's do it. Sister Mo, you and Xiang Xiang Ningjing are responsible for the traction vehicles. Old Qian, you and I are responsible for blocking the monsters and covering Brother Lin and the others!"

"Okay!"

"All units, move, quick!"

On Lin Xian's side, all personnel were also prepared to fully commit to the battle.

"Lei Zi, protect Team Leader Lin!" Li Yi shouted to Liang Lei at this time.

Liang Lei nodded and immediately followed Lin Xian along with the two people from the building, as well as Li Guangwen and others.

"Assault team, mobile team, suppress and cover me!"

"Chen Laoshi, your reconnaissance team, guard the train!"

"Okay!"

"Brother Huo, you know what to do!"

"The original body understands!"

Clang! Clang!

In Carriage 21, the roof opened, and a Vulcan mecha roared with firepower and jumped directly off the train. Shasha, sitting inside, also shouted: "Watch my power!"

"Fire Fist!"

Boom!

Lu Xingchen flew into the sky and unleashed a monstrous fire toward the forest where the dense creatures were twisting. A massive fireball swept through, igniting hundreds or thousands of trees. It burned fiercely, the firelight soaring into the sky.

For a time, all Infinite members wearing power armor, as well as personnel from the Longshan No. 1, Queen Mo, Joker, and other fleets, swarmed out, firing violently under the train's firepower at the creatures sweeping in from the forests on both sides.

Those twisted, humanoid, coral-shaped, insect-like, monstrous, ghostly things with unrecognizable faces emitted countless strange odors, constantly eroding the survivors' retinal nerves and brain sanity.

Deep in the forest at the front of the Longshan No. 1, some kind of translucent worm with a diameter of one meter appeared. Its body length was unknown, and within that translucent worm, a corrosive blue-green fluorescent reaction could be vaguely seen.

Far to the side of the Infinite, a black shadow larger than a fog spider swam over at an extremely fast speed and then swept away extremely quickly, silent and soundless. No one knew what its purpose was; it was like a low-frame-rate creature in a silent film. But every time it appeared, dense, spherical spiders would spray out like a tide in the forest below.

Chen Sixuan, holding the Meteorite No. 3, was guarding the roof of the Infinite with Miao Lu and other reconnaissance team members, constantly firing into the forest. When a strange, rustling sound approached, she immediately turned around and fired a shot behind her. Under the firelight of the gun, a strange giant snake covered in human hands was climbing on a tall ancient tree in the forest!

In front of the Longshan No. 1's headlights, strange humanoid creatures let out eerie, weird laughs and ran past quickly.

In the Red Rose fleet in the rear, countless strange shadows slowly crawled out from the silt and water in the swamp outside. And in the Ocean carriages that had already sunk into the water, survivors were being dragged out directly from the broken windows by strange entities. While teammates were rescuing them, through the flickering interior lights of the train, they saw terrifying creatures growing on the rotting corpses.

On the Hell Warrior team side, there was even more buzzing like bees ringing in the sky. When Brother Dadong's flamethrower ignited the forest, a large area of strange "beehives" merged with human corpses appeared in the forest.

Except for those insect-like and beast-like dark creatures, the vast majority were forms of existence that the survivors could not understand. They only knew that those "things" were active, approaching, and devouring humans...

From the head to the tail, the 15-kilometer front line was fighting a chaotic battle. A large number of deaths and strange events occurred frequently. From entering the Star Abyss until now, although only a few minutes had passed, it made people feel that time was incomparably slow.

Lin Xian and Kiki were both wearing power armor. When the automatic explosion-proof door of the Infinite train opened, they were met with an extreme chill.

That was not pure temperature, but a kind of spatial oppression that made one's scalp tingle, causing one to feel great mental confusion and consciousness shock in an instant.

Lin Xian felt his head dizzy for a moment, then without hesitation, he stepped on the black humus soil in the forest and rushed forward.

At this time, Qian Dele, Mo Nika, and the people from the Longshan No. 1 also set out one after another. The Queen Mo disconnected from the Infinite and drove forward, and the spare all-terrain locomotive of the Longshan No. 1 in front also drove back.

Clang, clang, clang~

The carriages in the rear were constantly retreating backward; the situation was extremely critical!

Uh-ah, hiss!!

More and more carriages in the rear began to sink into the deep water. Screams and calls for help rang out intermittently in the earphones, accompanied by the bizarre shouting in the surrounding dark forest and the monsters that had approached and were causing everyone's sanity to plummet. The buzzing of the G3 electromagnetic railgun rang through the night sky, and the firepower of the two 1130s was leveling all the trees in the forest on both sides!

"Starting from here, first manufacture the guide slope, then manufacture the steel rails, and use the steel structure in the middle to maintain the gauge to pull the Infinite up!!"

Old Mo and Sun Yuzhen also rushed off the train to help. Sun Yuzhen spread her wings and flew directly into the high sky. She looked into the distance and said quickly to Lin Xian: "Lay it out in the 3 o'clock direction. The terrain there is a mountain ridge impact zone; there must be hard soil. We can drive into open ground there!"

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—Kiki, while operating the Silver Blade Torrent to form a storm on one side of the forest to block those monsters whose forms could not be seen at all, also had to use a mental shield to resist, lifting the heavy Whale 03E gas turbine locomotive of the Infinite's lead train so that Lin Xian could manufacture the metal guide slope underneath.

On Lin Xian's side, countless materials flew out from his hands, and sections of steel rails and iron piles were constantly formed and dropped. Liang Lei and the building, while fighting fiercely, led the engineering team to drive the iron piles into the ground.

On both sides of the united train, there were as many as a thousand combat personnel wearing power armor. They were either holding firearms and shooting crazily at both sides, or killing their way into the monster formation under the cover of the train's firepower.

In less than 5 minutes, Li Guangwen, Luoluo, Amin, Shu Qin, Miao Lu, Lv Chang, and others all inexplicably had a feeling of having killed until their eyes were red. Lin Xian naturally also felt this strong dark invasive power constantly bombarding his sanity. Even wearing the Black Hawk power armor, he was sweating profusely at this moment, and all his materials were pouring out crazily, manufacturing tracks.

Hum, hum~

The all-terrain vehicle of the Longshan No. 1 drove over at this time. The two vehicles, together with the Queen Mo, hooked the Infinite onto the traction hook. After Lin Xian manufactured the iron rails under the first three traction vehicles of the Infinite, he handed the remaining work to the rail-laying vehicle of the Longshan No. 1. And all he had left to do was to go with Kiki to manufacture temporary guide plates under the other traction vehicles in the rear that had power output, increasing the ground grip so that the vast majority of traction locomotives could output power simultaneously. Only then would there be a chance to pull all the trains forward in one go.

Time passed second by second, and the gap between the Infinite and the Joker fleet in the rear grew larger and larger. Qian Dele and Xiaomeng's team were already fighting a chaotic battle. Dozens of white humanoid monsters quickly rushed into the fleet, taking many lives. Qian Dele shouted crazily at this time, telling everyone to disperse the formation and concentrate firepower.

"Xiaomeng, there's one hiding in the back!"

Boom, boom!

The vehicle-mounted heavy weapon Metal Storm on the train had almost leveled large areas of the forest on both sides. Thousands of trees fell. In that dark shadow, a white monster roared and ran over. A large number of bullets raised countless white spray droplets on its body, as if after being shattered, it twisted into a humanoid shape again, until it was completely shattered after being covered by massive firepower, leaving only white maggots writhing all over the ground.

Xiaomeng rushed up and directly picked up a flamethrower to burn those white maggots clean.

"Careful!"

"Activate the high-pressure curtain wall!"

"The carriage can hold, retreat!"

The rail-laying locomotive of the Longshan No. 1 was already in place. At the same time, the two all-terrain traction locomotives had already connected to the Infinite.

"Ready!"

On Lin Xian's side, traction locomotives for about ten train fleets had already been laid with tracks. Further back, it was swamp and shallows; even if he wanted to lay them, it wouldn't work at all.

"Brother Shi, Mo Nika, Chen Laoshi, prepare to start!"

"Lin Xian!" Just at this time, Kiki, who was in the middle of the united train, pointed to the swamp in the rear and the train carriage sections that were about to sink further away. There, firelight shook the sky, and many survivors who had fallen into the water on the water surface were fighting with strange entities. And on that vast body of water, a giant object like a swimming mountain range was writhing.

Boom!

Accompanied by a violent tremor, a dark green giant shadow rushed out of the lake shallows and took a bite, instantly swallowing dozens of people. At the same time, the massive body slammed into the train carriage, and several carriages were instantly deformed and twisted.

That was actually a giant monster in the lake!

Seeing this scene, Lin Xian took a deep breath and shouted in the communicator:

"All trains, start engines!"

Hum! Wooooooo!!!!!

Chen Sixuan, who had returned to the Infinite's cockpit, immediately gradually increased the operating power of the four traction locomotives. Only the sound of the electric engines roaring crazily could be heard. The entire train, along with the temporary iron rails, sank several centimeters into the ground with a bang. Then, amidst a burst of metallic screeching, it finally pulled all the trains in the rear to stop their retreat, and then began to roll forward slowly.

For a time, the two all-terrain traction locomotives, together with more than ten on-rail traction locomotives including the Infinite, exerted force simultaneously, pressing against the segmented tracks underneath and beginning to move forward. The originally twisted carriages were pulled straight, and the connections between the carriages creaked and groaned.

The united train began to move forward!

"Don't push the power to the maximum all at once, otherwise the drive wheels will slip!" Old Mo said to Chen Sixuan in the carriage at this time.

"I know."

Hum, hum, hum~

Countless traction ropes were pulled taut at this time. This united train was moving forward on tracks manufactured temporarily under the violent attacks in the darkness. The Red Rose fleet, as well as the Sail, Great Victory, Iron Fortress, and other fleets stuck in the swamp in the rear, also discovered at this time that their trains were being pulled out of the muddy swamp by a massive, violent force. Because of the strong friction of being stuck in the swamp and lake water, the metal structures at the connections between the shore carriages and the swamp carriages made crazy strange sounds, and there were even constant bursting sounds.

Kiki and Lin Xian were one in front and one behind. One went to lift several carriages with mental power, and the other went to tighten the connecting fasteners, finally beginning to accelerate the escape speed.

And in that swamp and black lake, with the collapse of the front line, countless survivors had already died.

"Lin Xian, according to this situation, even if we escape from the lake, we won't be able to speed up to leave the dark area. There is only one way!"

At this time, Ding Junyi, wearing power armor, flew into the high sky under the leadership of Sun Yuzhen to help observe the surrounding terrain, while Brother Huo flew beside them to protect the two.

Ding Junyi's voice was cold, and she said directly:

"According to the territory theory, we only have a chance to get a breather if we guard the spot and kill all the surrounding areas. Running in the Star Abyss with a mark has a very small chance of survival."

Without tracks, they couldn't run at all, and they couldn't run fast. They could only deal with it on the spot.

"But this is not the worst situation..."

Ding Junyi at this moment looked through the black fog at the silhouettes of the mountains in the distance. Those swimming mountain bodies, in that high sky, even had a broken bay!

That bay did not look complete; it was all fan-shaped waves at a certain angle. The deep sea and the shallow sea were intertwined, and the hollow place was a pitch-black hollow space. This place was like... a world of another dimension.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 340 =====