Chapter 513

The stone platform adjoins the river mouth; here the terrain is flat and open, the water lush with reeds, and the silt-laden river water flows into the ocean, creating a scene of yellow and blue intermingling.

Hum—

The dense, flourishing reed beds blazed fiercely; the blazing firelight pierced through the train's glass, illuminating Li Cheng's figure.

It had been exactly three minutes since the train's arrival.

At this moment, he sat in the ninth car, having switched to his three-meter-tall Insect Form, his right arm embedded with a steel flag-lance like a sleeve sword, a backup hidden energy source installed beneath his armor, its remaining charge displayed at 10%.

His Insect Armor was damaged in multiple places, the Ape-Man Regression Gun's bullets were spent, and the White Fox spirit, Frog God, and Six-Armed Snake Demon summoned from the Heat Death Corridor had all died once over; their corpses lay in the damp sand beneath the platform, slowly dissolving and returning to the Heat Death Corridor.

Besides him, the car held other Transcendents.

Bai Ma Mubei had exhausted its strength, Lei Yesi's tattoos had dried to inkless skin, Claudia had regressed into bat form, Wan Li Fengdao had changed into new clothes, and he tenderly stroked his Dragon-Slaying Sword, now chipped in several places.

At the other end of the car, the Fungus King had ruined one of his cleavers and shrunken to the size of a Cowardly Mushroom from Plants vs. Zombies; the aquarium's Centipede Octopus had drained its spiritual energy and floated listlessly on the water's surface, exhausted.

Tu Youxia Mianyue's quiver was empty; the Griffin beside her had inexplicably lost many feathers—her eagle feathers had all been plucked by Mianyue, used as disposable short arrows.

This also counts as a newly discovered Immortality Field mechanism: body parts voluntarily separated by passengers are not restored by the field.

The reason is simple: if a passenger wants to trim their nails, fine—but what if a passenger needs to defecate, and their intestinal contents are classified as part of the body?

The image is too beautiful to behold.

In total, the two groups of Transcendents, along with the astronaut serving as the mission item 【Annihilation Device】, occupied the front and rear rows of the car, flanking the Skeleton Knight who had been seated in the ninth car all along.

Or rather, they had deliberately retreated into the Skeleton Knight's "territory."

Three minutes earlier, players from two main universe worlds had guarded the front and rear of the train, attempting—as before—to stall for time until the train restarted.

But the Alpha Python was no disgraceful AI like Grey Rain's undereducated mechanical entity; it rapidly grasped the Immortality Field's operating mechanism and exploitation methods.

Whenever a Transcendent unleashed their last-resort technique to damage it, the Alpha would draw its body close to the train and instantly restore its injuries—even if players tried to trade damage, they could not.

As for outlasting it in endurance, it was like a eunuch visiting a brothel—nonsense.

The Alpha came equipped with a fusion engine, its energy nearly infinite; even the electric meter would spin backward if connected.

Five players in a cybercafe, growing increasingly silent as they fought.

When the time reached two and a half minutes, the two sides of players—each having died dozens of times, kept alive solely by the Immortality Field—simultaneously retreated into the ninth car where the Skeleton Knight sat.

And this indeed worked.

Dozens of mechanical arms sealed both ends of the car, each tip branching into honeycomb-shaped hexagonal nozzles, ready to fire ultra-high-temperature plasma streams at any moment.

The Skeleton Knight remained silent, then suddenly stood up; all players in the car rose simultaneously.

The mechanical arms from the front were forcibly pushed aside, and the beverage cart rolled smoothly forward.

The Skeleton Knight took from the cart a cup of purple, fluid, grape-colored gas, returned to his seat, and quietly sipped it.

No one knew what physiological structure lay beneath the black armor, but as the purple gas poured into his open throat, it emitted a crisp sound of popping bubbles.

His stamina had also depleted considerably; Li Cheng reached toward the beverage cart. Before he could touch it, the cart voluntarily offered him a cup of tree sap mixed with high-concentration cream and honey.

Uh… since I'm an insect now, you're giving me tree sap? Then if I were a robot, would you give me enriched uranium?

Hey, uranium, amonium stuff, radiated to the max.

Li Cheng silently accepted the sap drink and sipped it.

At this moment, the front and rear doors of the train slowly closed; the Alpha Python retracted all its mechanical arms, watching as the green-painted train restarted and jumped away from this location.

This was not the end—nor even the beginning of the end. Ten minutes after the train jumped to a wasteland, the two bright searchlight-like eyes reappeared far behind.

"Hehehehe."

Wan Li Fengdao suddenly laughed with relief: enormous size, infinite energy, continuous lasers, ultra-long-range teleportation, unfathomable health. Even a game designer wouldn't dare put this thing into a game.

What's left to say? Just surrender already.

All other players turned ashen; the Centipede Octopus used its last remaining mental force to manipulate water into a triangular symbol in the air—this, in their world, meant the middle finger.

Plop.

The Skeleton Knight set down the antique-looking enamel teacup, rose, and walked toward the door, preempting Li Cheng: "My friend's friend is not my friend; therefore, I will not help you eliminate that mechanical lifeform just because you know the Reindeer."

I haven't even said anything yet.

Li Cheng scratched his head; his nails scraped against the chitinous armor, sparking. He ventured: "How about we offer some compensation?"

He immediately activated his 3D warehouse and pulled out a pile of unopened items: children's calcium-boosting bone powder, a medical X-ray machine, horse feed, and two large boxes of blue-and-yellow WD-40 multi-purpose lubricant.

"I can understand the X-ray machine—it's for mass-producing bone photos."

Wan Li Fengdao slowly grasped Li Cheng's logic and whispered: "And what's this lubricant for?"

"You don't get it? This stuff is America's answer to Indian Oil—originally produced by RCC Rocket Chemical Company to clean and de-rust missiles, but they discovered its effects were too broad: water-resistant, lubricating, moisture-removing, rust-proofing, cleaning, noise-reducing."

Its uses include but are not limited to: firearm and rocket maintenance, furniture and appliance repair, car upkeep, pet grooming, crime scene cleanup. An essential remedy for home, travel, murder, and cover-up."

Li Cheng spoke in a live-stream sales pitch tone: "The old folks in my neighborhood all suffer from osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, frozen shoulder—they stopped dancing in the square. I sprayed them with WD-40 Miracle Oil, and instantly they improved; now they're dancing in the square before dawn."

Wan Li Fengdao instinctively replied: "Are your neighborhood elders Cybertronians? No—what's really worth complaining about is why you're supporting square dancing noise pollution—it's immoral! Copy the Noise Pollution Prevention Law a hundred times! A hundred times!"

The Griffin and others didn't know what the Noise Pollution Prevention Law was; they silently thought: "This Skeleton's aura is unfathomable, his sword movements mysterious and profound—he's reached the Wangxiang realm! How could he possibly be bribed by such mundane things—wait, he actually took them!"

The Skeleton Knight paused, accepted the bone powder, X-ray machine, and horse feed from Li Cheng, flipped his palm, and stored them in his pocket dimension, then said coldly: "I will disembark at this station and delay the mechanical lifeform for five minutes for you."

Two hundred kilometers east of this platform lies a killing ground safe zone, similar to your human slums.

But only native species of the killing ground qualify to activate it."

"Uh, not native killing ground species—but what about a bachelor's degree?"

Li Cheng pulled from his warehouse a freshly issued foreign bachelor's degree talent recruitment visa: "I can negotiate. I can love the killing ground."

"."

The Skeleton Knight remained silent; his hollow eye sockets clearly conveyed a look of "another Earthling begging at the killing ground."

"Then never mind."

Li Cheng sheepishly tucked away the visa, remembering the Entropy-Devouring Cloud preserved in the Heat Death Corridor—surely that was 100% a native killing ground species… right?

The train slowed and stopped; the doors opened, accompanied by the clanking of armor, and the Skeleton Knight stepped out, slicing through space to sever a heat ray that had blasted from an extreme distance.

Like Moses parting the sea, the blazing beam of light split in two, sinking into the earth on either side of the train and scorching out panes of colored glass.

Thick smoke billowed as the Skeleton Knight stood leaning on his sword. Without looking back, he said, "You have four minutes and fifty-seven seconds left. While you still can—run."