Year 2069, September 6th. Apocalypse Day. D-100.

On the 100th day after Apocalypse Day, the United Convoy led by Dragon Mountain No. 1 and the Infinite Train advanced eastward from Akesai into the vast uninhabited zone.

At 10:02 a.m., the sun pierced the Gobi’s bare spine like a white-hot forge rod, casting a burning glare. The convoy sped across rust-brown gravel plains, its wheels grinding over iron rails. On both sides, saline-alkaline land steamed with mirage heat, distorting distant wind-carved rock pillars into flickering candle tears.

Despite undergoing maintenance back in Akesai, the convoy now bore heavy battle damage. Thick smoke billowed from many cars, monster limbs and gore strewn everywhere. Steel corroded by black blood smoked ominously, reflecting the gruesome aftermath. Luckily, the fighting hadn’t lasted long, and most cars had heavy armor. The corrosive acid from the monster eggs hadn't managed to eat through the compartments—except for those hit by the massive creature's black beam. That was a whole different story.

Toward the rear of the convoy, several cars had been torn open. Collapsed roofs and shredded sides revealed that two-thirds of their armor had been obliterated. One car had even lost half its wheels but still clung to the rails, dragging behind the others with a spray of sparks—grinding forward at high speed. It was carnage.

The Breaking Dawn Convoy, Akesai Brotherhood, Windrunners, Fu Lu Shou Convoy, and other motor units had lost over a dozen vehicles and more than a hundred people.

But there was no time to mourn. The entire convoy pressed on at full speed.

Less than nine hours remained until nightfall.

They had to reach Quancheng before dark. But the uninhabited zone still stretched over 2,000 kilometers. In this atmosphere of relentless pressure, no one had time to reorganize, cry, or fall behind.

CLACK-CLACK-CLACK. The wheels hitting the rails sounded like a funeral bell. Quartz grains between the ties ground into dust, kicked up into golden heat haze.

“I’ve rebuilt the coupling hooks—get moving, now!”

Near the damaged rear cars, Lin Xian and KIKI led a team. Their mission wasn’t just to manage the damage—it was to prevent these ruined cars from endangering the entire convoy.

The car in question belonged to the Rose Convoy, mostly composed of women. One of their living quarters had nearly been cut in half by that black beam. Of the dozen inside, only three had survived.

The survivors, with help from teammates, didn’t even have time to treat their wounds. They rushed to salvage what little remained. KIKI detached the car using telekinesis while Lin Xian prepped it for disposal. Then the next car could be brought forward and coupled at high speed.

For Lin Xian and KIKI, this was routine work.

“Thanks, Captain Lin.”

“Everyone, move fast.”

“Take everything—doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad.”

The car’s steel beams looked like giant beasts had gnawed through them—scorched metal curled like scales. Rose Convoy members scrambled to grab every usable item, including fragments of fallen comrades. The convoy had few men. Their leader was also a woman. Most of them had survived the apocalypse through the sex trade. Every woman carried a weapon—some makeshift, some barely functional. Recently, they'd acquired a dozen exosuits and supplies from Yijin City—barely a combat upgrade.

Lin Xian didn’t hold any disdain for them. In fact, he respected them. Trading their bodies to survive wasn’t shameful in this world. What mattered was they fought when faced with danger. Now, he saw them, with their crude gear, meticulously retrieving every scrap—including a thick-soled combat boot still on a corpse fragment, slung around someone's neck. They lived with desperate caution.

“Captain Lin…”

Still wearing her exosuit, covered in blood, Rose Convoy leader Zhou Hong looked at Lin Xian and thanked him sincerely.

Shu Qin nodded and had everyone clear the car. Lin Xian disassembled and consumed the steel components at the coupling point. KIKI then moved the car using telekinesis. Before the next car arrived, Qian Gong crafted a new coupling at low speed to connect the two cars seamlessly.

Lin Xian also reinforced the coupling point with full-coverage armor—a little extra help.

The ruined car was repurposed by Shu Qin as material using her ability. Then they moved on to other damaged units.

“That big thing earlier—at best, it was only A-Class, right? D**n it, first time I’ve seen something like that and still couldn’t take it down.”

In the command channel, Hu Lushou cursed after finishing the combat damage report. “If Lin hadn’t warned us in time, we probably would’ve lost the whole front military section.”

“Captain Lin!”

Qian Dele’s voice came in: “Still accelerating? Our motor convoys can’t keep up!”

They’d cleared the sandstorm and had better visibility, so the drivers were finally able to relax—but then the train sped up again. The road was still solid, but compared to the train on rails, even upgraded vehicles with high-powered motors couldn't keep pace.

“Stop whining. Just stick to the rails. This is the closest route to Quancheng.”

After finishing with the car repairs, Lin Xian resumed fixing Infinite Train’s damages and mass-produced ammo using materials from his disassembly space.

“All our convoys are marked with the Dark Mark. If we’re still out here after dark, we’re in serious trouble,” said Qian Dele. “So no slowing down. Speed up if anything. Same as always—form a line, put the big rigs upfront to cut wind resistance.”

“No choice then!”

Lu Zhao, from the Fu Lu Shou Convoy, had the most and best-equipped rigs. He quickly reorganized his formation into a tight, fast-moving column.

Aboard the Monica Queen, Monica inspected combat readiness across all cars, reporting via comms:

“I recommend drone patrols in addition to track sensors. At this speed, derailing would be catastrophic.”

“Don’t worry. Our drones are maintaining constant surveillance overhead,” Ning Jing replied.

Under blistering heat, the horizon shimmered. CLANG CLANG CLANG— crisp metal rang out as a massive black-green armored locomotive thundered through, caked in monster remains. Behind it, an endless steel serpent raced across the desert.

On the Infinite Train, both the Whale 03E Gas Turbine Locomotive and the Weilong-Class Electric Locomotive roared at full power. Over a hundred people aboard were on edge.

The train’s firepower was formidable—more than enough to annihilate even large A-Class parasites like those they’d seen at Rain Town. But the closer they got to the Abyss, the stranger and more dangerous the creatures became.

“Marked down to Level-2. But we still can’t scrub it.”

Inside Car No. 12’s Weapon Station, Luo Yang, A Bai, and other Infinite Train core members were gathered.

Wiping blood off her armor, Shu Qin muttered, “Entering the night in this state is risky.”

“Other convoys are probably in the same boat,” said Chen Sixuan. “This is the uninhabited zone. No way we’re going back into the sandstorm to clean the mark.”

“All we can do now is prepare.”

Lin Xian was hard at work building a G3 Electromagnetic Railgun. The team had chosen this central car for logistics and personnel coordination. Next door, in Car No. 13—the armory—multiple PX-05 Robots ran automated bullet-stamping machines. Fresh rounds poured out, still warm.

“The worst part’s those damn insects. If it weren’t for them, we could focus our firepower on the big one and be done with it.”

KIKI crossed her arms and nodded. “We were completely thrown off by the swarm—and the sandstorm didn’t help. Otherwise, our combined firepower would’ve handled it.”

“We’ve been running nonstop. Aside from S-Class or territorial behemoths, most threats are monster tides,” Luo Yang sighed. “Those sand ants are just disgusting.”

“Right? Can’t even shoot them—it’s a waste. Gotta dodge. Totally busted,” Lü Chang complained.

From the corner, Lu Xingchen said coolly, “It’s not unsolvable. If we didn’t have to worry about protecting other cars, we could’ve torched the entire outer shell. The ants would be gone in seconds.”

KIKI rolled her eyes. “Right, and roast ourselves medium-rare in the process?”

“Yeah, before the ants get us, we’d be well done!” Shasha snorted.

“Good thing we have the Arc Pulse Resonators. They’re way more effective.”

Liang Lei, towering beside Daluo, both built like tanks, had been frustrated the entire fight. They couldn’t touch the big ones, and the small ones couldn’t be touched without armor—prisoners of war, basically.

“These are too slow. They’re for weird things that cling to the cars.”

Still building the railgun, Lin Xian frowned. “I’ve brainstormed a ton of solutions, but nothing seems to work well.”

Arc Pulse Resonators, Electric Blade Armor, or even the high-temp plasma cutter array he hadn’t built yet—they were all designed for large-scale threats. But for sand ants and tiny beetles? Headache-inducing.

“I remember a Starfleet tech,” KIKI said. “Not physical shielding. It’s for deflecting charged particle streams, high-energy ions, and secondary radiation. Maybe…”

“Oh yeah! Electrostatic Field Generator,” Luo Yang lit up.

Lin Xian gave a wry smile. “If we’re piloting starships, sure. Why would I worry about ants then?”

“Hey…” KIKI shrugged. “Better safe than sorry. Once we’re out of the zone, maybe the ants will stop.”

“Quancheng’s still in the desert. No way they stop—unless we make it past Luling,” Li Yi added.

“Anyway, the fact that no one died is already a blessing. Let’s focus on the road ahead. Tonight might get rough.”

Lin Xian exhaled deeply and looked to Shu Qin and Daluo. “You two—ammo production. Focus on 12.7 and 30 calibers. At least five base sets. Share extras with other convoys. Also, all our Xinghuo-26 Tactical Rifles and ammo—we don’t need ’em. Give them to the smaller groups.”

He wasn’t giving away weapons because they had too many. The key was that everyone on the train was in this together. If the weaker convoys got wiped out, the line would break—and pressure would double. Right now, nearly everyone on board was a combat-capable Evolver. Human lives were far more valuable than bullets.

“Got it—we’re on it.” Shu Qin and Daluo nodded immediately.

“Dragon Mountain No. 1 has bullet loaders too. They’ve got the manpower but not the gear,” Lin Xian added, relaying his thoughts via comms to Shi Diyuan and Ning Jing.

“Brother Shi—those sand raiders we rescued might be usable. If you can’t manage them, distribute them to other convoys. We just need to get through this mess. What happens after—up to them.”

“Man, I was just gonna say that.”

Shi Diyuan replied with a groan. “Over a hundred people—it’s not easy to handle. I’ll keep some, and the rest can go to other convoys. Oh, and didn’t Monica need a dozen or so women?”

“No problem. I’ve already prepped a car for them,” Monica’s voice chimed in.

“Assign me ten people too. I don’t care if they can fight or not—just make sure they’re not squeamish,” Qian Dele said with his usual laid-back tone.

“We’re moving at high speed. How do we assign them? Should we have someone with flight ability carry them?” someone asked.

Lin Xian glanced over at KIKI. KIKI let out a helpless sigh. “Ugh, fine, it’s me again~”

With that, she took off.

“Liang Lei, go patrol and inspect the train systems,” Lin Xian continued with his orders.

“On it!”

“Sasha,” Lin Xian looked toward her, “your Sally is going out tonight. I didn’t get time to help test your new weapon, so make sure you do it ahead of time.”

Sasha nodded seriously. “Got it, Brother Lin. Luo Yang and the others will help me.”

“Miao Lu, check in on Old Mo’s team for me. And Ms. Chen, did we receive any radio signals?”

Chen Sixuan shook her head. “Nothing across any frequencies. That’s definitely abnormal. I’m worried it has something to do with what you mentioned earlier.”

Luo Yang also frowned. “In theory, we should’ve been able to pick up Phoenix Global Radio in a place this open. But since we left Yijin City, we haven’t heard anything—except for that one time near Akesai when we got a civilian transmission from Boss Hu.”

“Captain Lin!” Just as Lin Xian was digesting Luo Yang’s comment, Hu Lushou’s voice came through the channel. “Something’s wrong. All radio frequencies are static! This is just like what happened to us at Wei River!”

“What exactly happened? Be specific.”

At that, every convoy leader tuned in.

“Well...” Hu Lushou scratched his head in the RV’s passenger seat, looking conflicted. “Basically, no matter the frequency, we couldn’t get anything. And I was using an upgraded Dark Radio, powered by Level-2 Eerie Blood Crystal. But all we got was static. A bunch of convoys noticed it too. Looking back now—could this be tied to the instability in Abyss Zone No. 5?”

Lin Xian’s heart sank. “Anything else strange? Any warning signs?”

“Signs...?” Hu Lushou thought for a second. “Not really. It just got dark, and then we got lost.”

Then, his tone suddenly changed. “Oh wait, yeah—nightfall came five minutes earlier than usual. Don’t know if that counts?”

“Five minutes early? At 18:40?”

“Right. I remember complaining about it, like, ‘Why the hell is the Dark Tide arriving early today?’”

“Why didn’t you say that earlier?!” Qian Dele scolded. “So the sun might set even earlier tonight?”

“I—uh, I didn’t know! It was the first time I’d seen something like that! And the weirdest part is, the darkness wasn’t black. It was dark blue. Damn, just thinking about it gives me the creeps.”

Shi Diyuan said gravely, “Looks like leaving early was the right call. Maybe Brother Lin was right. This really might have to do with that forbidden item. This no-man’s land isn’t normal. No one can afford to relax once night falls!”

Zzzzzzz...

Just then, Hu Lushou sent Lin Xian a private message through the comms. “Captain Lin, do you think this has anything to do with that silver bullet I gave you?”

Lin Xian’s mind raced. “If it did, you wouldn’t have been able to broadcast from the Akesai station.”

“True, huh?” Hu Lushou replied, catching on quickly.

But Lin Xian added, “Still, with forbidden items, you never know. We’ll take it step by step. You said the sky turned dark blue—was it like that the whole night?”

On Blue Planet, night skies are normally dark blue due to the atmosphere. Only under extreme conditions do they go pitch black. But what Hu Lushou described sounded... off.

“I don’t remember the second half of the night. But before we ran into the Eerie Entities, I still recall that color. It wasn’t a translucent blue, more like a solid color projected right onto your eyes. Damn, I don’t even know how to describe it. It was just weird...” Hu Lushou trailed off, confused.

But Lin Xian’s mind flashed to what Chu Yan had once warned him:

“Don’t try to understand forbidden items with a human perspective. If you see it—don’t look. If you try to comprehend it, it’ll go against all logic. Don’t describe it. Don’t analyze it.”

“And above all—don’t look into the sky!!”

“Don’t look into the sky...”

In Carriage 12, Lin Xian sat alone, building the electromagnetic railgun while those words echoed in his head. A chill crept up his spine.

Since Apocalypse Day, the sky had become synonymous with danger.

Whether it was the federal or Phoenix-issued sky hazard alerts, the Floating Corpse above Jiang City, the Atmospheric Mica at Mount Daluo, or the Black Thorn in the Clouds above Xilan City—even the unidentified entities that hadn’t appeared yet—all painted the sky as humanity’s final threat. And then there was that Eye in the Stars he thought he saw while testing the kinetic cannon after battling swarms with the Big Eagle and Chasing Sun Convoys outside Hengshan Pass.

When the Polar Night descended on Apocalypse Day, it severed all human contact with near-Earth orbit. The United Space Station vanished, all global satellites went offline. Lin Xian was certain both Phoenix Society and the Federation were scrambling to build starships—even the current Sky Cities were part of that—but not a single successful report had ever been shared.

To most, the sky represented something even more hopeless than the ground.

So far, no one—Federation or Phoenix—had found a viable way forward for humanity.

The Federation dug in, building underground cities to survive. Phoenix kept running, trying to rescue as many as possible while seeking answers before the global Polar Night sealed their fate.

But no one knew where this desperate flight would end. From Lin Xian’s perspective, humanity was too fragile. Even after evolving to Rampage-level in just a hundred days, they were still hopelessly outmatched by the darkness.

Clang clang clang.

Lin Xian’s Mechanical Heart ran at full power. His left hand continued building the railgun, while his right hand pulled materials from the Manufacturing Center to supply the Military Production Carriage. The rest of the crew was busy and on edge.

By 16:40, with less than two hours until nightfall, the Infinite Train’s third G3 Electromagnetic Railgun was finally complete.

This was the first time Lin Xian had built two heavy weapons in a single day. Because Carriage 12 sat in the train’s center, it was now the only carriage outfitted with both short- and long-range firepower—meant to protect the weapons carriages, resource carriages, and nearby living quarters.

At this point, the Disassembly Center’s materials were down to just 30%. Lin Xian began crafting several Thunder Falcon 2000 drones to boost his combat capabilities. These were powerful, fast, and deadly—even mid-sized Eerie Entities couldn’t withstand a swarm. He planned to make several.

However, the drones were nearly as complex as the PX-05 robot, so production wasn’t quick. Luckily, they were compact. He didn’t need to stay seated—he took the process with him to Carriage 3 to find Director Ding Junyi.

“Director Ding, any updates?”

As Lin Xian stepped in, he saw the Hell Black Chrysanthemum glowing faintly red. He asked about it immediately.

Ding Junyi looked up from her mobile terminal. “A few updates. First, our vitals across the board have improved since leaving Xilan City. We still don’t have the latest testing devices from Phoenix, but I’m sure we’ve gained more Rampage-levels. Maybe even... Destruction-level.”

“Second, my ability has improved significantly. I’m working on applications that can benefit the team. And one more thing—Silver Dragon Ten-Thousand Error,” she said, pointing to another incubation pod. “It’s grown its first inflorescence.”

Lin Xian stepped closer. At the tip of a flower stalk with purple fissures, a tiny white bud the size of a peppercorn had emerged. It looked normal at first glance, but the purple glow in the stem now pulsed faster—clearly different than before.

“Objectively speaking, once it blooms, we may start to see its real traits,” Ding Junyi commented.

Lin Xian nodded. Then he noticed a pile of black material arranged in containers on her lab table. It looked like chunks of the massive black entity they’d fought.

“What are you researching here?”

“This is human tissue.” Ding Junyi put on gloves, picked up a piece, and crushed it into powder between her fingers. Her expression turned grim. “Looks like it’s undergone some unique preservation—completely dehydrated. But it still contains intact cells and proteins, even recoverable DNA. This isn’t parasitism anymore.”

She looked at Lin Xian with a heavy expression. “They use human corpses to build their bodies. That means the humanoid form is just a mimicry of their true biological nature.”

Lin Xian’s eyes narrowed. He was about to speak when suddenly, a burst of static crackled through the comms.

It sounded just like the garbled signals from the radios—but to Lin Xian, it wasn’t random. The static resembled thousands of piercing screams meshing together, like the noise that emerged after that black smoke entity burrowed underground.

Zzzzz... everyone, we’ve got something.

It was Shi Diyuan speaking.

Inside the lead cockpit of Dragon Mountain No. 1, Shi Diyuan held a digital scope, his expression turning strange. Ning Jing and several engineering personnel stood by.

The warning had come from a drone, and when Shi Diyuan looked in that direction, his face changed.

“What is that?”

Ning Jing peered through the digital scope—and her eyes went blank with shock.

Northeast of the train tracks, floating quietly in the Gobi, stood an enormous white stone statue. Majestic and alien, it had the tail of a fish and the face of a lion—almost like something man-made.

But the light reflecting off it was wrong.

Under the blazing sun, its lighting didn’t match the environment. It was dimmer—and strangely prominent, like it had been sloppily Photoshopped into the landscape.

Yet no one could ignore its colossal size, nor the sheer strangeness of it hovering silently in the open desert. Even battle-hardened Shi Diyuan felt a chill up his spine, a creeping sense of dread. His mind instinctively flooded with negative thoughts. He even forgot whether he was breathing in or out.

Back on the Infinite Train, Lin Xian opened the blackout panel. The moment his power armor’s visual system glanced in that direction, the entire system blacked out, then forced a reboot.

[BLACK HAWK – Silent Hunter Armor 01: SYSTEM REBOOTING – SELF DIAGNOSTICS INITIATED]

Lin Xian’s heart skipped a beat. A wave of sheer terror surged over him.

He slammed the comm button and shouted:

“Don’t look at it! Run—NOW!”