Chapter 472: Dark Energy Eruption

Lin Xian closed his eyes, exhaustion washing over him like a tide. Compared to when he first set out from Jiangcheng and relied on the Infinite to evade the zombie crisis, his mind felt heavy and clouded now.

From the Floating Sky Giant Corpse to the Sky Mushroom Tower, from the strange human mutations to the dark incursions.

To this day, humanity still does not know what kind of enemy they are facing.

The Apocalypse Day, the endless tide of corpses, the invasive mutations, the dark tides, the polar night, the strange entities, and gradually, the expansion of the Star Abyss, the S-rank consciousness, the mysterious characters on the photovoltaic wing of the South Heaven Gate—Lin Xian had originally thought that as the flight and the war progressed, humanity would gradually understand everything in the darkness.

Just like discovering the dark marks, cold dark particles, dark energy resonance, mycelium brain-machine interfaces...

Just when humanity felt like it was about to lift the veil of terror, the next dark night remained filled with despair.

What left Lin Xian feeling unsettled this time was the dimensional entity black hole of the Silver Dragon Ten Thousand Errors. After seeing the dimensional line of time with his own eyes, Lin Xian felt his worldview and motivation had been dealt a massive blow.

Because he realized that destruction was not an inevitable result; destruction itself was merely an event presentation in a higher dimension. This thought was not necessarily absolute, and perhaps it remained open to debate, but it was still hair-raising.

If time were a physical entity, did the countdown in his eyes represent that he was already on a fixed event path, and that all his current actions and efforts would ultimately lead to such a result...

Lin Xian dared not think, but just now, he had indeed changed the fate of the team's disaster.

"Should I talk to Director Ding about the Silver Dragon Ten Thousand Errors and that countdown..."

Lin Xian thought for a moment, then dismissed the idea. Better to get some sleep first; perhaps after dawn, he could try to contact Chu Yan and the Phoenix Society.

Gurgle, gurgle~

The muffled sound of water pressure in his ears made Lin Xian feel as if he were trapped in a canned tin inside a soup pot. The oxygen generator and air system kept the carriage filled with a fresh scent accompanied by the smell of steel and metal, making one think the train was speeding through a vast grassland against a breeze. But in reality, Lin Xian guessed that the Infinite must still be thousands of meters deep under the Pacific Ocean, drifting like a ghost.

Opening his eyes, his vision was filled with the dim bedroom, lit only by the faint indicator lights of the onboard instruments. Lin Xian lay flat on the bed; there was no clanking sound of wheels on tracks. The train was as steady as if it were in the clouds. If not for the sound of the water pressure deep underwater, Lin Xian would have had the illusion of waking up in the middle of the night in his own bedroom at home.

Quiet, cool, comfortable—as long as he didn't think about the ten-thousand-fathom abyss beneath the carriage, it was actually quite pleasant.

Beep, beep.

The watch's alert sounded. Lin Xian frowned immediately upon hearing it and raised his hand to look at the watch.

8:00

He had slept for nearly 9 hours!

"Damn it..."

Overslept!

Lin Xian immediately prepared to flip up, but upon sitting up, he discovered someone was lying on him. He raised his hand to point, and the lights came on, revealing that it was Shizhi lying on him. The little girl seemed exhausted; she wasn't wearing her power armor, just lying on Lin Xian's stomach, with one hand still pointing at Lin Xian's chest, maintaining the posture of channeling her ability.

"This girl, don't tell me she released her ability all night." Lin Xian's gaze flickered. He gently lifted Shizhi's forehead and found the little girl was fast asleep, her cheeks slightly warm, her hair pressing sleep lines into her face.

Seeing this, Lin Xian sighed softly: "No wonder I slept for so long."

Shizhi's ability had miraculous effects on mental healing. In the 5th Star Abyss, facing the violent power of dark incursion, she had been able to help everyone purify and heal. It was a very rare ability system. Being cared for by her all night, Lin Xian felt his whole body now—not only was the fatigue gone, but he felt clear-headed, and his concentration had even sharpened significantly.

"Thank you."

Lin Xian whispered, then got up to carry the little girl to a sofa chair nearby and covered her with a blanket.

After finishing everything, he walked out the door, preparing to head to the cockpit. But when he opened the bedroom door, he found the lights in the carriage were all turned off, leaving only the faint aisle lights to keep the outlines of the carriage and corridor visible.

Lin Xian frowned, got up, and walked into the cockpit, only to find Chen Sixuan also leaning against the pilot's seat, asleep. Only Viola stood proudly with her hands behind her back in front of the console, holding her post.

"Why is everyone asleep?" Lin Xian's expression was unreadable: "Also, have we left the ocean current? Why wasn't I notified?"

【Please rest assured, I was executing the plan you provided; the current situation is completely normal.】

Viola turned to look at Lin Xian, her tone calm: 【Our navigation group entered the runoff diffusion area south of the Qilian Islands at approximately 5 hours and 32 minutes. The average water depth here is 3300 meters. After analysis and exploration, Ms. Chen Sixuan approved my plan to maintain low-speed silent movement toward the Republic Islands. For safety considerations, I set the cruise speed of the navigation group at 15 knots and maintained a depth of 1500 meters. This depth is sufficient to deploy unmanned deep-sea submersibles for observation-mode protection.】

Lin Xian heard this and said: "And we've been cruising toward the Republic Islands for 5 hours?"

【Yes. After exiting the danger zone, the team members in the train began to rest gradually. Perhaps because the escape from the island consumed too much energy, most of the current crew have entered a state of deep sleep. I believe this is a good way to protect and evolve, so I adjusted the lighting of the entire train to allow everyone to rest quietly until dawn arrives.】

"It's not that too much energy was consumed; it's that the Hell Black Chrysanthemum released too much pure dark energy!"

Lin Xian turned back to look at the opaque green energy that almost filled the carriage, frowning slightly, and muttered: "So much, what's going on."

He didn't understand why, clearly without having killed any strange entities, the Hell Black Chrysanthemum had absorbed so much dark energy. Lin Xian walked toward the rear carriage, and the further he went, the more he found the dark energy power becoming denser. A thought immediately surfaced in his mind.

Absorbing too much dark energy—he wondered if there would be any side effects. With so many people falling into deep sleep, it felt somewhat wrong.

But just as Lin Xian walked back to Carriage No. 1, a light screen suddenly popped up before his eyes.

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

"Sure enough, the Heterogeneous Rubik's Cube converted mechanical source points for me again..."

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

Taking another step, the light screen continued to pop up.

Lin Xian stopped in his tracks, discovering that the light screen of the Mechanical Heart was now like a delayed probe window message, popping up one after another, directly making Lin Xian unable to move.

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

3000...

4000...

As the light screens kept popping up, Lin Xian watched with his own eyes as the experience level of his Mechanical Heart kept changing numbers, and the light screen seemed like it wouldn't stop, popping up endlessly.

5000...

7000...

10000...

【Non-mechanical energy converted, obtained 400 mechanical source points.】

Until the last mechanical source point popped up, Lin Xian was shocked to find that his Mechanical Heart level had soared directly from the 22220 after devouring the battle-damaged Dreadnought-class to 39800!

17580 points!

"What the hell? Did the Hell Black Chrysanthemum take the wrong medicine?"