Chapter 348: Human

Although he had prepared himself, the scene of the dark anomaly still made Shi Diyuan's expression sink. He looked in the direction where Lin Xian and the others had departed, their figures quickly disappearing into the darkness.

At first, they had mistaken the twisting darkness for black fog, but now everyone understood that it was visual blurring caused by the short-range expansion of space-time.

Being in such a place, one could perceive the immense distortion of space-time with the naked eye for several kilometers around, giving people a sense of oppression that made the entire world feel extremely unreal.

"Firepower, prepare!"

On the Infinite's side, Luo Yang, Shu Qin, and the others all stood on the roof of the train. The G3 electromagnetic railguns and the 1130s were all raised. Shasha, piloting the fully loaded Sally, also took a position at the front of the train line. Everyone stood ready for battle.

In the surrounding dark forest, earthquakes were constant and the anomaly tide surged, but looking out, their line of sight was obscured by the twisting black fog, making people feel anxious. The only thing they could see was the massive ridgeline in the distance.

"Look!"

At this moment, someone shouted, "That mountain!!"

Instantly, everyone's gaze turned toward the eerie, massive mountain range to the west, discovering that the 'mountain' had twisted into a solid entity, its sharp edges completely peeling away from the surrounding mountain contours.

At this point, it was clearly visible that the 'mountain' was not a mountain at all, especially after seeing several massive, spine-like spikes twisting and rising into the air.

Everyone realized that it was a colossal, unknown dark creature.

In an instant, the train line fell silent. Everyone seemed to hold their breath at this moment. Shi Diyuan transformed into his tiger form; his tiger-eye pupils slowly constricted, and an immense sense of oppression bore down on everyone!

More and more spikes began to appear. Subsequently, the massive 'mountain range' silhouette gradually rose, revealing a giant insect-like form with thousands of long legs, beginning to move slowly in a certain direction.

"Damn it, this bug is bigger than a mountain!"

For a moment, someone in the joint fleet exclaimed.

"Did it discover us?"

"It... it is not moving in our direction."

"Is that direction the center of the Star Abyss??"

"My god, it's too terrifying!"

Beep, beep, beep.

Shu Qin's power armor radar scanned a circle, then she quickly said on the channel, "Everyone, stay calm. No creatures have been detected approaching for now!"

"Do not open fire!"

Gao Ta and Liang Lei, leading the two assault teams, also suppressed the anxious and uneasy atmosphere among the crowd.

Under such extreme pressure, if someone were to panic and open fire first, it might ruin everything.

For a time, panic spread rapidly through the camps of the various fleets in the train line.

Shi Diyuan's voice sounded on the public channel: "Everyone, keep your cool. Our line is safe. Do not act impulsively; wait patiently!"

The captains of the dozen or so fleets regained their composure and began to control the panic.

"Don't be afraid! Stay steady!"

"We are safe right now!!"

"Deep breaths, deep breaths!"

After ten minutes, the panic across the entire line was finally suppressed. After the train line remained unattacked for a sustained period, Shi Diyuan and the other core leaders of the fleets finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"The fleet is safe for now. Brother Lin, how is your situation?"

Shi Diyuan immediately contacted Lin Xian. After a slight delay, Lin Xian's voice sounded on the captain's channel.

"Currently... smooth."

On the other side, the exploration team was flying rapidly over the dark forest under Kiki's psychic power. The spatial distortion caused by time dilation felt as if it were sucking the viscous world into their nasal cavities, tearing at their heads with pain. In the power armor's vital signs data, everyone's heart rate had already gone off the charts.

Without the protection of the Heterostructure Cube, the powerful environmental pressure and dark invasion left the few of them struggling to breathe.

Furthermore, in the desolate forest and terrain below, dark shadows surged constantly. Abai, surrounded in the middle, kept transmitting rapid breaths over the channel: "13 o'clock direction, 9 o'clock direction, 16 o'clock direction..."

"Many, many!"

"Have we been marked?"

"No..."

"Speed up!"

Kiki pushed her telekinesis to the limit, carrying the group in rapid flight. Xiang Xiang Ningjing and the others held their breath. A distance of 85 kilometers was not far for flight, but the faster they went, the more intense the discomfort became.

Except for Grace.

【The current environment will continue to pose a lethal threat to the human body. The outer armor cannot defend against it. It is not recommended to linger for too many tasks.】

Being in the darkness, Lin Xian also noticed this problem. The horrific feeling from being swept into the dark tide from Akse constantly pressed against his entire nervous system. He knew the others must feel the same.

Hearing Grace's reminder, Lin Xian calculated rapidly in his mind.

The most important part of the current plan was the superconducting magnetic anchor array device of Silent City and the connection design of the Baicheng orbital line. Once these two points were settled, the joint train line could be activated immediately.

Therefore, Lin Xian wanted to head straight for the Baicheng orbital station, scouting the terrain while also checking for clues about Hu Lushou's group. Solving the connection plan for the Baicheng orbital station would mean 1/3 of the success.

As for that eerie colossus, Lin Xian intended to avoid it. If necessary, he would arrange for a non-living entity like Grace to investigate.

The elite team was already among the highest in psychic peak indices out of these thousands of people, but even so, Mo Nika, Qian Dele, along with Xiang Xiang Ningjing and the others, all had solemn expressions. Clearly, the severe load on their bodies was putting them under pressure.

"Grace has scanned this path; no dark creatures were captured. And we are in a silent state. As long as we don't run into them head-on, we should..."

Lin Xian spoke on the channel, trying to lighten the gloomy atmosphere.

Xiang Xiang Ningjing responded: "Abai is monitoring our situation at all times. If a mark appears, we must stop immediately and deal with the anomaly to avoid a snowball effect."

"Makes sense. Like the thousands of people triggering the monster tide before, we wouldn't even have a place to run," Qian Dele said.

Buzz, buzz, buzz. Twenty-five Lei Sun 2000 drones rotated in a ring behind Lin Xian. Under the black night sky, they looked like a circle of red arc light. Lin Xian wore the Black Hawk armor, and the holographic interface before his eyes displayed various parameters.

"We are almost there. We now have a delay of over 40 seconds with the train position."

While flying, Lin Xian manufactured relay signal devices and drones for transport and deployment, used to connect the route between Baicheng and Silent City, and also for emergencies.

Kiki held up a telekinetic shield, grabbing the group as they flew rapidly. Among everyone, her mental power could be said to be the strongest, yet her small face was pale. She carried the group over several mountain ridges. At this moment, the surroundings began to become flat, and mountain roads and sporadic buildings appeared. In the radar field of view of everyone's power armor, a small city with numerous building complexes sat in the valley in the distance ahead.

"Baicheng has arrived."

"Wait!" At this moment, Xiang Xiang Ningjing suddenly called out to Kiki.

"Abai feels something ahead."

"Let's stop first," Lin Xian said.

Ahead, black fog filled the air, obscuring the view. Dilapidated, abandoned houses appeared before them. Hearing this, Kiki immediately controlled the group to decelerate and then land slowly.

The black asphalt road was not as messy as the dilapidated cities they had experienced before. On the contrary, the ground was relatively cleaner than other apocalyptic cities, except for the dust and the mist that seemed to seep from the ground, there was nothing.

Abandoned vehicles, scattered suitcases, dead bodies—none existed.

The entire city seemed to have been frozen at the moment the Star Abyss appeared. All green plants and trees had withered and rotted. Lin Xian stood on the ground, and instantly a cold feeling rose from the ground. He looked at the dark street ahead and also vaguely felt that something existed.

"What was discovered, and in what direction?" Lin Xian asked.

Abai pointed to the sky: "It disappeared just now, right in the sky."

【My observation system did not detect abnormal creatures. Do you need me to go and scout?】 Grace spoke at this moment.

Lin Xian shook his head. If scouting were needed, Grace would have already scouted it when they arrived. Although Grace had extremely high computing power, it did not mean she could capture anomalies and dark aura.

"Be careful. We are not robots. Those ghost things can see us," Mo Nika said seriously at this moment.

Chen Sixuan picked up the Meteor No. 3 to observe the high ground of the street, then shook her head: "I didn't see anything, but if we go in directly like this, it will be a bit risky."

"But if we don't go in, staying here is useless," Kiki said, arms crossed: "Do we have any other choice now?"

Xiaoqing, who usually didn't speak much, stood out at this moment and said:

"Listen... to Abai."

Hearing this, everyone looked at Abai, who was wearing power armor.

Lin Xian's gaze sharpened. He nodded and walked toward Abai, saying: "Good. From now on, all of us will use Abai as our perspective. Unless the radar can capture it directly, we will treat it as if we don't see it."

Abai's role as a humanoid dark aura detector was even greater than the Hell Black Chrysanthemum. The Hell Black Chrysanthemum only sensed the mark already placed on the body, while Abai could observe the situation in a certain area in advance.

The fact that the thousand-plus people of Longshan No. 1 could have such a high survival rate was largely due to Abai.

Therefore, Lin Xian chose to act with Abai as the center.

Abai nodded: "Some weird things suddenly appear and disappear. It's not like they are active, but rather..." He thought for a moment and found an adjective: "Flickering."

Lin Xian gave an order to Grace: "Grace, you lead the way."

【Okay.】

"We will follow behind. As long as we aren't marked, don't worry about it. Let's reach the Baicheng orbital station first."

"Okay."

"Understood!"

Everyone understood. After Grace started, she stood on tiptoe and began to walk into the darkness ahead. The group surrounded Abai in the middle and followed Grace, beginning to enter the streets of Baicheng.

Lin Xian controlled the 25 Lei Sun drones to follow and stand by on the periphery of the team. As their footsteps sounded, echoes appeared constantly in the empty streets in the darkness, quiet as if the whole world were left with only them.

The light swept over, and many shops on the street were still in an open state, but all the signs had rotted, the paint had peeled off, and the contents could not be seen. The things inside the shops, including clothes, had rapidly rotted into some kind of gray filaments.

"This situation is extremely unusual. Even if the time flow inside here exceeds 10 years, textiles shouldn't rot like this."

Xiang Xiang Ningjing swept a flashlight over a clothing store. Rows of women's clothing inside were almost all left with only gray-brown cloth pieces hanging. This gave her an illusion that even if she shone a flashlight, this world had no color at all.

So, she immediately looked at herself and found that her judgment was wrong.

"Using common sense to understand things in here is definitely not going to work," Qian Dele said in the communicator: "No matter what we see next, we must look at it with eyes that break cognition."

Lu Xingchen, on the side, followed Lin Xian and Kiki with a cold expression. He looked at the surrounding darkness vigilantly and felt the Infinite Ring on his wrist. For some reason, after wearing this thing, he could inexplicably hear many strange sounds.

Like viscous blood flowing, like a rotten esophagus breathing—everything made him restless.

"Brother Lin."

Lu Xingchen just wanted to tell Lin Xian about the anomaly he felt, but at this moment, Abai suddenly stopped, and the group stopped their footsteps as well.

"What's wrong, Abai?" Lin Xian asked.

Abai stood in place, looking left and right in a panic, then said nervously:

"Careful, there's a monster!"

"Where?"

As they spoke, everyone had already begun to close their formation, their gazes turning toward the surrounding streets.

But no matter how they looked, the surroundings were just empty, dark streets. There was nothing.

Not even the sound of wind. Everything was as if time had stood still.

Lin Xian stood in place, wondering why he had such a thought. Then he looked at the timing system on the holographic panel of the Black Shadow armor.

10:34.

He didn't know if his eyes were playing tricks on him, but Lin Xian inexplicably felt that the 59th second after 34 minutes seemed to have lasted a long time.

He stared at the 59 that wouldn't move, his pupils constricted slightly, and an extremely horrific and grotesque feeling rushed over him.

In an instant, Lin Xian took a sharp breath. The voices of others were still sounding in the communicator in his ear, but these voices seemed to be elongated at this second.

59.

59.

00.

Suddenly, the numbers finally jumped, and the time reached 10:35.

"Ha..."

Lin Xian let out a sharp breath, but at this moment, everyone, including him, instantly felt their hair stand on end, and a strong sense of fear struck.

Because at this moment, on the empty, dark street where they were originally located, suddenly—

It was full of people!

Lin Xian, Kiki, Fire Brother, Chen Sixuan, Xiang Xiang Ningjing, Xiaoqing, Abai, Mo Nika, Qian Dele—everyone's pupils constricted immediately. Countless figures appeared eerily around them at this very moment.

In front, beside, behind, in the middle, all around—they were all people.

It was as if all the people who died in the Star Abyss in Baicheng had appeared on the street. These figures were withered, as if all their plasma had been sucked dry, their eyes were black holes, their mouths wide open and extremely torn, standing beside them with an incredibly horrific and terrifying face!

And a woman with a rotten face stood directly in front of Lin Xian. Through the mask of the Black Shadow power armor, he could even see the dried blood and flesh tissue in the woman's hollow eyes.

The team members were all horrified by this scene and held their breath at the same time.

For a time, the originally empty street was suddenly crowded with 'people'. The clothes on their bodies had almost completely faded. These 'people' just stood there quietly, motionless.

They did not attack Lin Xian and the others, nor did they make any sound.

At this moment, Lin Xian looked down and found that at some point, many black blood-vessel-like networks had appeared on the ground, connecting every corpse. At the same time, many brown-red tissues like meat tumors appeared in the streets on all sides. This immediately reminded him of the things he had seen in the No. 9 Underground City, and he immediately thought, "Not good."

"Abai," Lin Xian asked Abai: "Have we been marked?"

"No!" Abai responded immediately, his tone trembling, carrying a bit of fear.

Kiki whispered: "What now? These things don't seem to attack us?"

"Should we burn them?" Fire Brother asked.

Lin Xian remembered something at this moment: "Grace!"

【I am here.】

"Plan a new route. We'll bypass this street."

Clearly, the current situation was a new condition triggered only after Lin Xian and the others arrived. This must be related to them being living people. At this moment, Lin Xian's first concern was the dark mark.

【150 meters ahead, turn right.】

"Move!"

At Lin Xian's order, the group immediately began to rush out of this eerie crowd of 'people' under the route information Grace synchronized to the power armor's holographic panel.

And at this moment, as they left, those 'people' standing in place all turned their directions in unison, facing the direction the group was leaving.

"It must be some anomaly controlling these corpses. This might be the territory of a high-level anomaly!"

Lin Xian rushed directly onto a building, then ran at high speed on the roof with a group of people. At the same time, he observed the situation on the streets below and stated his judgment.

"That scared the hell out of me just now. These things appeared suddenly, just like it was dark," Qian Dele said with some lingering fear.

Hearing this, Xiang Xiang Ningjing responded immediately: "Dark tide, but it's always been night in here?"

"Could it be that the dark tide and the night are not the same thing?" Kiki, flying in the air, also said nervously.

"Possible!" Mo Nika gave a conjecture at this moment: "I guess, perhaps combining the current expansion range of the No. 5 Star Abyss and the time of the tide, could some correlation be calculated?"

Lin Xian shook his head: "We don't know the situation outside now, but this can also be considered an explanation."

Swoosh!

The propulsion device of the Black Hawk armor exerted force frequently, carrying Lin Xian all the way to a high building. He looked at the street below. Those dense black corpses were all looking up, 'watching' their movement with those black-hole-like eyes.

Lin Xian felt his scalp tingle. There was no way back now; he could only speed up and escape.

At this moment, Lu Xingchen, who was flying in the air, hovered in front and pointed to a street in another direction, saying to Lin Xian:

"Brother Lin, I noticed that something seems to be watching us. I don't know if it's my illusion."

Lin Xian and the group stopped on a roof, looking in the direction Lu Xingchen pointed.

They discovered that it was a highway tunnel. In a mountain city like Baicheng, such tunnels were not rare.

But hearing Fire Brother's words, Lin Xian also became vigilant immediately.

"Abai?"

Who knew that at this moment, Abai shook his head: "I... I feel danger, but there is no dark aura."

Everyone looked at the pitch-black, hollow dark tunnel, which seemed like a semicircular abyss.

Lin Xian's expression sank. He immediately picked up the flashlight, increased the power, and shone it over. It was still just darkness.

He moved the flashlight away and said: "This place is too weird, we should still..."

"Lin Xian!" At this moment, Kiki suddenly called out, interrupting Lin Xian's words.

Then her flashlight also shone over.

In an instant, a huge white humanoid creature appeared in the tunnel. Its entire body almost filled the tunnel, and its terrifying face was twisting like the night.

Click, click, click~

As if it had made some horrific laughter, the humanoid creature quickly retreated into the tunnel.

This scene instantly made everyone feel a chill!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 349 =====