Chapter 535: Plan No. 3

Wuuuuu!!!!!!

Countless air raid sirens rose and fell across the crimson mist, filling the entire hundred-li train formation with screams of shock and despair; even the Iron Guard soldiers operating their mechs on the front lines looked up in bewilderment, and in an instant, terror descended like a flood from heaven!

In the command center, Luo Shao Kai’s clenched fist trembled slightly, blood seeping from the corners of his eyes; the dozens of Iron Guard officers on the command channel all held their breath, speechless.

“Commander, aerial detection shows the enemy less than one hundred kilometers behind the 13th Iron Guard’s rear line!”

“Detected ultra-high dark energy radiation surge! All frequency bands reporting maximum amplification of dark energy resonance frequency!!”

“Report: T34-T41, T65, T72-T90… T122, T198… over thirty marching zones have undergone anomalies; multiple sectors have opened fire autonomously!”

“Fuck! This damn thing still isn’t dead!!” Zeng Weiguo roared first over the channel: “How the hell did it appear here?!”

“Is it because we stopped moving for a day today?”

“We move less than a hundred kilometers a day—how could it keep up so closely?!”

“It’s too close! What do we do now?!”

“Stay calm!” Luo Lao’s voice was steady and composed, like an anchor: “All defensive lines, immediately form defensive formations! Firestone, Dragon Whale, and Thunderbolt fleets, prepare for immediate takeoff! Ready all nuclear weapon launch units for orders!”

“Understood!” General Li Sheng, commander of the 13th Iron Guard, immediately responded: “Mech units, deploy at once! With this thing appearing, the crimson tide will follow—every combat unit must establish multi-layered defensive formations immediately!”

“All convoy commanders,” Luo Lao called out to the leaders of the train and vehicle convoys now on the channel, his voice stern:

“Prepare for total combat. We have no support from Dawn Center firepower—prepare for the possibility of our line being breached and cut off. If the formation breaks, execute our Plan No. 3 immediately!”

Plan No. 3 was a war contingency plan devised by Luo Shao Kai and the leaders of all teams, designed for total line collapse: the entire train formation was conditionally divided into over twenty-five ultra-large train groups, each capable of independent breakout, using existing all-terrain vehicles and Iron Guard heavy base cars as units. If the defensive line fell and the train formation shattered, these twenty-five all-terrain or flight-capable locomotive groups would abandon their tracks and drag the rear carriages in dispersed breakout maneuvers.

This plan was not only brutal, but also the most desperate option: once detached from the rails, even the most powerful all-terrain trains could not pull hundreds of carriages—stretching for kilometers or even tens of kilometers—across the wasteland for long; broken terrain would fracture the rear carriages in moments, forcing survivors to abandon vast numbers of carriages in a desperate bid to escape. Though the plan had been prepared in advance—with most personnel relocated to the front of the towing carriages, and coupling points and rail wheels modified accordingly—actual mass evacuation amid the crimson haze was virtually a death sentence.

“Understood!”

“Received!”

“Got it.”

“T208 Black Stone Forest sector—already hearing movement!”

“T185 sector—Windstorm Convoy detected massive tremors from the northwest!”

“No good!! T96 sector—Hunter bodies appearing in the 7th Heavy Battalion’s position… we’re… boom boom boom…”

Artillery fire began erupting across several sectors, the sounds flooding the communication channels.

General Luo now called out to Xiao En and Jian Xuwēi: “How’s the factory? How far can you move?”

Hssss…

Inside the steel refining factory, Xiao En immediately replied: “Not optimistic. We’ve deployed every production unit and used all available war resources—we’ve only managed to lay less than 180 kilometers of prefabricated track, plus the 40 kilometers already built ahead of Silver Star—just that much.”

Amid the roaring, busy steel factory, Xiao En stared at the mountain of drone-stacked steel rails and added: “Also, due to terrain and geology, high-speed laying is extremely risky—speed won’t exceed forty kilometers per hour.”

“Enough!”

Jian Xuwēi walked up from behind, her voice joining Xiao En’s channel: “Once the train gets moving, it’ll buy us several hours of buffer time. And once we reach the Loki Mountains, it’s all flatland—ground is mostly hardened granite and sedimentary rock. If we execute Plan No. 3 there, survival rates might be higher!”

“And we can use this time to transfer large numbers of people from the rear to the fleets and Skytrain,” Chen Sixuan’s urgent voice echoed from the Skytrain: “So even if the steel factory’s plan succeeds only halfway, it’s bought us precious time!”

Whoosh!

General Li Sheng growled urgently: “Bad luck—if only we’d had another day or two…”

In just over a day, the fully operational steel factory had produced nearly two hundred kilometers of prefabricated track—efficiency at least doubled from before. Everyone had assumed that after slaying the S-class threat, they’d gained precious time to escape; once the train connected to the eastern rail line, the main force could surge out of North America into Mexico within a day.

But fate is always cruel: before the crimson tide even arrived, the terrifying giant eye in the sky had already triggered mass human mutations through its super dark energy waves—countless lives vanished rapidly; comrades who had been chatting warmly moments before turned into mutated corpses; pain and despair spread relentlessly, and wails and screams echoed across every train line.

“Shu Qin, Luo Yang—we’re taking off to assist the rear in rescue and breakout!”

On the Skytrain, Chen Sixuan immediately mobilized her team for action.

“Wait!”

At that moment, Mo Nika’s voice came through. She stood on the Skytrain’s skybridge, her eyes shimmering with psychic ripples; countless sound waves flowed into her ears like a symphony. She surveyed the distant crimson mist, her delicate face icy, and spoke slowly:

“The insect swarms, the strange entities, the zombies—they’ve all stopped.”

“Stopped?” Qian Dele asked quickly: “What do you mean?”

“The monsters—they’re not moving anymore.”

In the cockpit of Dragon Mountain No. 1, Shi Di stared at the radar screen; behind him, Bai Bai panted heavily, gazing out the window and pointing in one direction, whispering: “Right there—dense life signatures, but they’ve all stopped…”

Ningjing’s face was grim: “Stopped… could they be under some kind of command?”