Chapter 343: Where Are We?!

"Brother Lin, what... on earth is the situation?" Shi Diyuan, looking disheveled, asked at this time.

Not only him, but Mo Nika, Qian Dele, and others had also fought side by side just now. These people all knew that the strange python definitely wasn't dead. Since it wasn't dead, how could the dark marks on their bodies disappear?

Lin Xian took a deep breath and directly explained the situation where this disaster plant suddenly descended from heaven to help them change the world.

"I'm not sure about the current situation either. If we haven't been attacked for a period of time, it means those strange entities can't find us now because of our silent state... We can be considered temporarily invisible under the eyes of those monsters."

"So strange?"

"Another disaster plant..." Qian Dele became interested immediately upon hearing this: "Sounds more magical than abilities. It is said that disaster plants grow in the Star Abyss and the polar night. It makes me want to get two to study."

Mo Nika's eyes brightened at this time and she also opened her mouth: "I saw a disaster plant in a fleet before Xilan City that was very powerful. It could accelerate the cell division of organisms within a range, which greatly accelerated the recovery of injuries and the improvement of ability evolution."

"Because of this thing, this fleet was targeted by the organization of the Descent Sect and encountered a lot of trouble. Now it seems that the whole group has been received by the Phoenix Society..."

"That disaster plant was also taken away by the Phoenix Society, right?" Xiang Xiang Ningjing said.

Lin Xian frowned slightly upon hearing this and also looked at Mo Nika.

Mo Nika shrugged: "That's for sure. The Phoenix Society also attaches great importance to the research of disaster plants now. However, the Phoenix Society certainly didn't take it unconditionally. The whole group of that fleet was taken to the Phoenix City headquarters by the Night Walker. At least before the end of the world, they don't have to run around like us."

Lin Xian frankly said: "This disaster plant was sent to me by a friend's fleet before. It didn't have any effect all the way, but I didn't expect it to save my life at a critical moment."

Shi Diyuan looked at Lin Xian upon hearing this: "Brother Lin, a disaster plant that can eliminate dark marks—the official side will definitely want to take it for research if they know about this kind of thing."

Shi Diyuan's words were not covered up, and Lin Xian naturally understood his meaning, just saying: "Heh, if there are official people who can save us from here now, I would be very happy. If it can be studied like my Hell Black Chrysanthemum to find a way to solve the dark mark, that would be a benefit to all mankind."

In fact, when he was in Xilan City, he had worried about this problem. For the Phoenix Society, the research significance of the Hell Black Chrysanthemum was huge. However, because it involved the importance of the dark mark and was an old friend, Wei Kexue, Lin Xian didn't hide it.

According to Chen Sixuan, after the Xilan City battle ended, Zhao Yu, Wen Zhuo, and a group of Phoenix Society people didn't mention this matter. Lin Xian guessed that it might be from the perspective of the Phoenix Society's scientific research group, the characteristics of the Hell Black Chrysanthemum had already been discovered, and there was no need for research. If they knew that the Hell Black Chrysanthemum could also transform dark energy to help ability improvement and stimulation, perhaps Lin Xian would inevitably have some dealings with the Phoenix Society officials.

However, these were all later words. From Mo Nika's mouth, it could be seen that disaster plants with strange characteristics were not only possessed by Lin Xian. Other fleets, including the Federation and the Phoenix Society, certainly had them too.

After so long, that Silver Dragon Ten Thousand Mistakes only bloomed one flower bud, and it was unclear if there was even a chance to bloom a second one. So the true value of the Silver Dragon Ten Thousand Mistakes remained to be seen. But he was also surprised by this life-saving divine object at the critical moment. If it could be mastered by himself, combined with his Heterogeneous Rubik's Cube, it would be equivalent to possessing a gold medal for survival, which was definitely a great treasure.

"Team Leader Lin, then in our current situation, are we trapped here?"

Zhou Hongqu of the Red Rose fleet had a nervous look on her face at this time. She understood that the entire train fleet might be temporarily safe, but at the same time, so many people were trapped in this dark forest, without tracks, and it seemed there would be no dawn, so this situation would sooner or later be a dead end.

"Yes."

Lin Xian didn't hide it. He was also physically and mentally exhausted at this time. The second time he tried to use the Gravity Lens almost made his whole body fall apart. Now he could stand here and discuss with everyone, all relying on his personal willpower.

"I don't know how long this state can be maintained. No matter what, let's clean up the battlefield quickly and wait and see. Being able to breathe for a few minutes is a few minutes. That big snake must be around, and it might launch an attack on us at any time..."

Lin Xian had no confidence in the current situation. He wasn't sure how long this subtle silence could last, so his tense heart couldn't be let go.

Shi Diyuan said with a heavy face upon hearing this: "Everyone, go back to your respective fleets to rest and recuperate. We have suffered heavy casualties this time. Having a chance to breathe is better than not having one. In short... be ready to fight at any time!"

Being in the environment of this dark forest, no one had a sense of security, so the leaders of the united train fleet met simply and then immediately returned to their own trains, grabbing this excellent opportunity to start cleaning up the mess. All communication was contacted through the communicator.

As the main force began to act, Lin Xian looked around the entire train position. Figures were scattered under the carriage lights, and the air was filled with a smell of blood and burnt smell everywhere.

Many corpses of those who died in battle lay outside the camp. The most serious was on the temporary track escape route from the black lake to the position. Hundreds of faces that were incomparably fresh two hours ago had already lost their vitality. In the dark swamp, the dead slowly sank into the mud. In the forest, strange black shadows constantly dragged away the cold corpses.

No one dared to walk out of the camp to pick up the weapons and materials on their companions. Everyone concentrated in the train camp, gaining a breather from the fear just now.

On the outer circle of trains, the surviving survivors looked through the carriage windows at the pitch-black withered forest outside the camp. Vaguely, countless strange whispers could be heard. The distant mountains were still twisting and surging, and the sky was a strange deep blue.

At this time, people from each fleet were quietly cleaning up the battlefield. Fleets with medical equipment lined up to rescue the wounded. The backbone of the fleet was busy counting the number of people and ammunition. The engineering group responsible for maintenance was urgently repairing the trains. Combat personnel were quickly replenishing ammunition for various vehicle-mounted weapons. Some whispered, some were sadly silent. The fate of more than 3,000 people in the entire train camp was linked together at this moment, tightly hugging each other in this dark forest.

At the beginning, the Infinite, which possessed the Heterogeneous Rubik's Cube, was the team that received the least dark invasion and was the first to react. Lin Xian didn't understand why the Heterogeneous Rubik's Cube, which originally acted on the carriage, would expand such a large shielding range. However, with this artifact, the Infinite did not mutate. Coupled with the Infinite's automated firepower, Lin Xian's team became the only fleet that did not suffer casualties.

Lin Xian returned to the Infinite. At this time, in Carriage 2, team members were reporting the situation of each carriage. Lin Xian removed his power armor, sat in the corner of the carriage, opened the shutter to look at the pitch-black forest outside, and his expression was cold.

"We have 7 injured on our side, not serious."

"I have about a dozen here, more or less, all of them were injured. Old Li's eye was broken by that flying insect, others... are all fine."

The two assault groups of Liang Lei and the building belonged to the core personnel firepower of the Infinite. A hundred people all used the best weapons manufactured by Lin Xian, and they had power armor to protect them. In this situation, 4 sets of battle armor were actually broken, and a large number of power armors faced some fault repairs.

"The bullets of the 1130 were all fired, and even several arc pulse string vibration devices were burnt out. Fortunately, our armor is thick enough to hold up." Luo Yang, wearing power armor, said at this time: "I have already set up monitoring sensors outside. Combined with our sentry system, we will know immediately as long as there is movement."

"Can only watch. We can't fire now." Kiki operated on the keyboard quickly, checking the train's situation while saying: "Only the rail electromagnetic cannon can still be used, the others are basically empty..."

Shu Qin, who had fought fiercely all night, saw that the atmosphere was a bit depressed, so she comforted: "We are already very lucky to have held on until now. The original situation could still run away, but this time even the tracks disappeared. If it weren't for Team Leader Lin taking action, we definitely wouldn't have survived these two hours."

"Yes, think on the bright side, our current situation is equivalent to surviving in the polar night. As long as people are still there, there must be a way out!" Li Yi also responded positively at this time.

"Hey~ what are our plans next?" Kiki turned from the swivel chair to look at Lin Xian. At the same time, everyone's eyes fell on Lin Xian.

Lin Xian shook his head, took a deep breath, and said: "There is no clue yet. Mainly because we don't even know where this place is."

He said while looking at the compass spinning disorderly on his watch, and said in a deep voice: "Not only the direction, but the communication pressure is also very high. If there is no train relay, the communicator will lose contact after one kilometer, and the radio is also completely paralyzed..."

The current situation could be said to be the most unsolvable situation encountered by Lin Xian's Infinite Train plan since departing from Jiang City. This was no longer a problem of broken tracks or derailment, but the entire train inexplicably came to this deep mountain and old forest. In this situation, even if Lin Xian could manufacture tracks, he had no way to start.

At this time, all he could think of was the plan Qian Dele mentioned before. Through two all-terrain trains plus other cars, Lin Xian could swallow the train and manufacture some car vehicles, which might be able to carry more people away.

But this idea was the worst strategy in his view. Without the 1130 and electromagnetic cannons, so many people running blindly in the deep mountains and old forests was no different from seeking death.

So Lin Xian didn't have any ideas for a while.

Shu Qin frowned upon hearing Lin Xian's words: "When we were in the polar night before, we could still distinguish the orientation. But here, there are no road signs around, and no one has seen this lake or this mountain. We don't even know where we are. In this situation, are we really in the Star Abyss?."

"Wait!" Kiki suddenly turned back to Lin Xian: "Didn't we see the sunset direction just now when it was bright for a moment? At least we can distinguish east, west, south, and north."

"And then? In what direction?" Lin Xian looked at her: "If we don't know the exact orientation, how do we know which direction is away from the center of the Star Abyss?"

As soon as this was said, everyone fell silent.

Who would have thought that at this time, Chen Sixuan suddenly walked in and said seriously to Lin Xian: "It's not difficult to know where this is!"

She had just finished cleaning up the rear carriage with Miao Lu, Xiao Yuan, and others. At this time, she said directly to Kiki and Lin Xian: "Kiki, you forgot that our sentry system has surveillance footage. You can immediately call it out, first combine the sunset point and time to determine the direction, and then match it through the global terrain map of the mountain terrain features scanned by radar, wouldn't you know our position?"

Chen Sixuan's words immediately attracted everyone's attention. Lin Xian's expression shook, and he couldn't help but say: "Smart, Chen Laoshi!"

"But this terrain looks very ordinary, global comparison is not that easy, right?" Li Yi raised a question at this time.

"Not difficult!"

At this time, Ding Junyi also walked into Carriage 2 with her hands in her pockets, and said coldly: "There are many methods that can assist in positioning. For example, affected by the Coriolis force, the south bank of rivers in the Northern Hemisphere will be more severely eroded. Although the trees in this forest have withered, they can still be distinguished as red eucalyptus, Myrtaceae, Eucalyptus, large trees. There are three areas where this kind of tree is most widely distributed globally: Keta State in North America, Blue Oceania, and... the Hengduan Mountains."

"Hengduan Mountains? Luling Great Forest?!!" Luo Yang's eyes lit up upon hearing this: "We are really in the No. 5 Star Abyss!"

"Then it's simple!" Kiki immediately understood the intention of Chen Sixuan and Ding Junyi and began to backtrack the sentry system recording and the terrain map scanned by radar, and then took it to compare with the original map terrain map.

"Pay attention to the mountain range in the west." Lu Xingchen said mysteriously with his arms crossed: "The original body has already noticed that at the moment of dawn, there was nothing there."

"I saw it too." Chen Sixuan said at this time: "That is definitely not a mountain."

As soon as this was said, the atmosphere in the carriage suddenly tightened. Everyone understood what Chen Sixuan meant. Shasha quietly pushed open a gap in the shutter and looked at the silhouette of the big mountain in the west. Her small face was full of worry: "That wouldn't be some super big monster..."

Lin Xian pressed her head and said: "Wrapped."

21:00

The night curtain was like a pool of stirred liquid asphalt, pouring down from the gaps in the tree crowns, soaking the entire forest in sticky darkness. Only the firmament solidified into some kind of morbid deep blue. The bay fragments floating in the western sky were drifting in the pitch-black and deep hollow space. It looked like that area no longer seemed like the real world.

After more than an hour of continuous comparison by Kiki and others, Lin Xian's team finally determined their position at this time.

Located in the southwest corner of the Hengduan Mountains, about 800 kilometers northeast of the center of the No. 5 Star Abyss, by a swamp lake called Butuo Lake. After learning this name, Lin Xian immediately remembered that he had heard this name before. That was in an exploration column, which specifically visited this primitive forest deep-water lake known as the "Bottomless Lake".

Lin Xian didn't know how the united train appeared in a primitive forest at least 4,600 kilometers away from the Akse No-Man's-Land, but it did confirm the strange encounters of Old Mo and Hu Lushou before.

After determining the position, Chen Sixuan found a place with railway tracks closest to here through the map.

Baicheng.

A mountain city about 85 kilometers away from the united train fleet position, which had already been swallowed and covered by the Star Abyss at the beginning of the Apocalypse Day.

From there, there were tracks leading directly to Haiqu, and it was about a thousand kilometers away to Luling.

Lin Xian stood in front of the information center looking at the map, his expression a bit complicated. The good news was that 85 kilometers was not far, and it was still in the east of the Star Abyss. The middle was mainly a forest, and the terrain was not too rugged. There was a chance to drive the united train into Baicheng by building simple tracks.

Now the Ocean and Parrot fleets had been broken up, and even the captains had died in battle. Lin Xian let Shi Diyuan arrange to supplement these people into other fleets, and take away the original materials. Then Lin Xian prepared to receive these two trains for material swallowing. If they recycled while walking, the material aspect could also be solved.

But the bad news was that they couldn't get away now. Lin Xian knew the shielding mechanism of the Heterogeneous Rubik's Cube. It could block the power of dark invasion, but it couldn't resist the dark marks issued by strange entities. So they could be safe now because they were in a silent state, and the Heterogeneous Rubik's Cube isolated the dark invasion power of this area, which kept them safe temporarily.

But if they wanted to start building tracks, they must actively enter the dark forest. The movement would not be small, and the speed would not be fast. Once they were marked with a dark mark, even if it was only level 1, it would be equivalent to a death sentence in this Star Abyss.

The ring-shaped track position manufactured desperately for emergency just now took two hours to get the ten-kilometer train position done under the premise of two-way operation of the rail machine. And these tracks were very rough. The tracks in most areas had begun to sink into the uncompacted humus soil. The only role was to keep the current train from overturning.

So if Lin Xian wanted to bring the Infinite and the united train out of this forest, the difficulty could be imagined.

In Carriage 2, Lin Xian opened the communicator on the table and discussed with the backbone of other trains. Shi Diyuan said immediately upon hearing Lin Xian's words: "85 kilometers, and it's all deep mountains and old forests. It's impossible not to be attacked by strange entities. This is too difficult. We only had twenty-something kilometers in Yijin City, and that was still a city-hardened road..."

"Team Leader Lin, can't your mechanical ability change the train's iron wheels into crawlers?" Qian Dele said straightly.

"No." Lin Xian responded immediately: "This difficulty is even more difficult than building iron rails."

It wasn't that Lin Xian hadn't thought about this idea. The Queen Mo and Longshan No. 1 had all-terrain drive modules, and he had scanned the drawings long ago. But the problem was that manufacturing all-terrain drive modules was almost equivalent to him re-manufacturing the train.

Because the core of the train was the traction power carriage and the rail drive wheels. Besides that, the carriage above was nothing more than an iron box.

In other words, if Lin Xian wanted to modify the Infinite into an all-terrain train group, then except for the iron-skinned carriage and the nuclear power kit, everything else had to be replaced. The Weilong class, the Huanxing 10a, including the Whale 03E heavy gas turbine locomotive, were all equivalent to re-manufacturing.

Not to mention the manufacturing difficulty and drawings of this project, just the materials were enough for him to drink a pot.

So Lin Xian's plan was to enter Jinhai, where there was the Longguo CRRC Group and a large number of train loading lines, only then would there be a chance to satisfy Lin Xian's upgrade of the train to the Eternal-class train standard with all-terrain capabilities.

Xiang Xiang Ningjing also said at this time: "There is another problem. Baicheng was a city covered by the Star Abyss on the Apocalypse Day. So taking a step back, even if we can arrive, whether the tracks there can be used is a problem."

"Yes, no one knows the situation in this Star Abyss. It's already a miracle that we can still be alive now." Other fleet captains also said at this time.

"Are we really going to abandon the train and drive the car out?"

"We have too many people, and there are not enough cars. We can't even take away 1/3 of the people."

"Why did we appear here? Did anyone see anything?"

At this time, someone found the root of the problem.

"It should be related to that statue in the Akse No-Man's-Land." Shi Diyuan opened his mouth at this time: "Didn't it say there was a taboo object before? I estimate that it was that thing that swallowed us in."

"Can we find this thing and take us out again?"

"Don't fantasize." On the Queen Mo, Mo Nika was also exhausted at this time. She looked at the strange night curtain outside and said: "It's too late to avoid it, still want to find it?"

"Then in this way, can we only be trapped to death here?" Shi Diyuan said in a heavy voice.

On the Infinite side, the atmosphere in the carriage was also a bit silent. The backbone of the crowd was sitting or standing, and all of them couldn't think of any way.

"Everyone, don't worry."

Lin Xian picked up the communicator and said in a low voice: "We have just encountered a situation worse than the current one, so it won't be worse than it is now. So it's useless for everyone to be anxious. In the Star Abyss, being able to live one more minute is considered a profit. As long as people are not dead and bullets are not finished, there is always a way. So the top priority is for each fleet to clean up the mess, regulate ammunition and weapons. Since those monsters didn't come to provoke us, let's take a break and save physical strength. It's also a strategy."

Hearing Lin Xian's words, the urgent arguments from each fleet in the frequency slowed down. Shi Diyuan responded immediately:

"Well, Brother Lin is right. It won't be worse than just now. We have all died many times. Being able to survive in this situation is considered a white pick. Let it be."

"That's fine, let everyone brainstorm. If you have any ideas, just say them. It seems that we won't be able to get out for a while." Qian Dele was open-minded and said in a broad-minded tone.

Mo Nika said: "Then in this situation, do we need to turn off the lights and be quiet?"

Lin Xian responded: "Try your best, anyway, don't go out of the range of the train position. The train lights have been on since the beginning. If there was a problem, it would have happened long ago."

Lin Xian didn't use common sense to consider the logic of these dark world creatures at all. A flower could explode into a space bubble, and the Heterogeneous Rubik's Cube could isolate dark invasion. Compared to light and sound, the dark mark was the most direct and fatal. Now the whole fleet didn't have any marks, which was the most critical.

After speaking, he stood up. Chen Sixuan stopped him: "Lin Xian, how do we arrange?"

"Let each carriage stay on alert and wait for orders."

After arranging for each group to go back, Lin Xian came to Carriage 3. Ding Junyi knew that Lin Xian would come to find her and had already prepared all the observation changes of the Silver Dragon Ten Thousand Mistakes.

"Growth accelerated after entering the polar night, and it also accelerated after we were swallowed by the Star Abyss. But just when you were fighting, the blooming of the flower bud showed a strange growth curve. This looks like it might be affected by some kind of energy."

Ding Junyi introduced: "But the strange thing is, in Xilan City, there was no such obvious change."

Lin Xian frowned: "When I used the Gravity Lens?"

Ding Junyi looked at him: "Your guess is very constructive. Your ability can indeed be a kind of ability that induces spatial changes on some level, which has similar characteristics to the spatial bubbles that erupted from the Silver Dragon Ten Thousand Mistakes."

Lin Xian looked at the plant with purple flowing light in its roots and said with a heavy face: "Swallowed by the tide, the entire train appeared in the Star Abyss area 4,600 kilometers away, disaster plants, taboo objects, the things in this dark world really want to play us humans to death..."

He said while looking at Ding Junyi: "By the way, you have affinity sensing with the disaster plant again, have you obtained power with similar characteristics?"

Ding Junyi's face was a bit pale, and she opened her mouth: "It's unclear. This kind of telepathy is a huge burden on my body. I can't call the power of that ability now."

The small flower seedling on her head had curled up and hidden in her black hair. The last time she did this, she fainted directly. This time she could still stand, and it was unclear whether her ability had improved or because of the disaster plant.

【Non-mechanical energy converted, obtained 1000 mechanical source points.】

Just at this time, an conversion message from the Heterogeneous Rubik's Cube suddenly popped up before Lin Xian's eyes. After the great battle, the massive black fog was absorbed by the Hell Black Chrysanthemum and then converted into mechanical source points through the Heterogeneous Rubik's Cube.

Lin Xian opened the Mechanical Heart panel at this time and found that from Akse to now, his Mechanical Heart, including swallowing and construction, had improved by a large margin. It was just that after this fierce escape and great battle, he didn't have time to look at his panel situation at all.

【Current Mechanical Heart level lv. 5 (6340/20000)】

Mechanical Swallowing: 4 (1960/2000) Improve swallowing efficiency

Mechanical Manufacturing: 5 (1210/3000) Improve construction efficiency

"Mechanical swallowing is about to upgrade... manufacturing has also improved so much, it was only 510 last time..." 【343-1

"My stamina has recovered a bit. Since I'm trapped here, I might as well take this opportunity to devour those trains along with their nuclear-powered locomotives; I'll raise my materials and level first!"

In this predicament, Lin Xian forced himself to find a direction for action; after all, to upgrade the train and manufacture ammunition, he needed a massive amount of materials!

(End of chapter)