Beneath the Dark Forest, a massive, bizarre train had suddenly materialized among the mountain trees, lying across the forest floor. Tens of thousands of trees were crushed or snapped, and the screeching of twisted metal echoed across the area. This colossal construct of modern industry had appeared out of nowhere—without the slightest warning.

Lin Xian tried using a drone to scout the distance, but under the black curtain above, all he could make out were some mountain silhouettes. It was unclear whether it was just a trick of the thick black mist, but those mountains seemed to be slowly shifting. Their shadows dissolved and reformed in the fog, and the sky above was an unnatural deep blue—starless, moonless. The terrain was unreadable. There was no telling east from west.

Lin Xian was apparently the first to snap out of the mind-numbing trance. He grabbed Chen Sixuan and, after using the drone to survey their surroundings, the others slowly began to regain awareness—or more accurately… to wake up.

【Massive Dark Fear Invasion Detected】 The Eerie Cube’s alarm kept blaring.

BZZT BZZT

Suddenly, the comms within Infinite Train came back online. KIKI had already rushed to the front car. Upon spotting Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan, she shouted, “You guys okay?!”

“How’s everyone else?” Lin Xian asked, immediately switching channels to check the other carriages.

“We’re fine!” “We’re all OK!” “Rear carriage secured!”

Messages poured in from all parts of the train, the comms filled with panicked chatter. Clearly, everyone was just now snapping out of that terrifying daze.

“Brother Shi, how are things over there?” Lin Xian turned his attention to the other trains after confirming Infinite Train’s status.

After several fragmented signals, Dragon Mountain No. 1 finally came through—but the first thing they heard was gunfire!

RATATATAT! BANG-BANG-BANG!

Other convoys followed with their own outbreaks—shouts, gunshots, screams.

“Dark mutation!” someone yelled.

“Old Chen—NO!” “Take him down!!” “Carriage’s lost control—seal it!”

BANG-BANG-BANG!

“Wake up! He’s one of ours!!”

Within moments, agony, cries, and panic flooded the public channel. Everyone now understood: a dark mutation was erupting within the convoys!

“All carriages lockdown! Handle it internally!” From Dragon Mountain No. 1, Shi Diyuan and Ning Jing led a squad, racing between cars to suppress the chaos. They were forced to shoot down once-familiar, even beloved faces—people they knew well.

At the same time, he shouted on the leadership channel, “Brother Lin! Everyone! The Soul Wave Value is through the roof here—we’ve got an Eerie Entity approaching for sure! Handle the internal mess now!”

On the Joker Convoy, Qian Dele acted fast—a flash of golden light zipped through the carriage, and in the blink of an eye, a few mutated teammates had their necks snapped. His response time was unmatched, and no one in Joker batted an eye—everyone had long accepted the rule: mutation equals death. Hesitation could mean disaster.

“You guys may have cleaned up internally, but we’re also… off the rails,” Tang Yunyi said coldly, staring at the body of Old Zhou the cook. She sighed quietly.

Monica Queen was dealing with similar problems. Thankfully, everyone in her group wore power suits linked to her control system. If someone’s vitals or heart rate went abnormal, an immediate alert would lock their combat functions. Monica would then remotely disable their weapons before taking them out herself.

But in one carriage, there happened to be over a dozen women they'd taken in from Old Scorpion—and three had already mutated. Before Monica executed them, they had already bitten two others to death.

Looking at the surrounding terrain on her holographic interface, Monica quickly reported, “I found out why Hu’s team got lost—looks like the Abyss ripped us into another space or zone.”

Back on Infinite Train, Lin Xian, Chen Sixuan, and KIKI were sprinting toward the rear cars. In Car No. 3, Ding Junyi had also been shaken by the strange event. She followed Lin Xian and, glancing through a gap in the blackout curtain, gasped, “Could the Abyss be some kind of black hole singularity? The forest closest to Akesai’s uninhabited zone is at least 4,000 kilometers away—this makes no sense!”

“Captain Lin!” Shu Qin ran up, with Luo Yang, Lü Chang, Old Mo, and Sun Yuzhen close behind.

“Captain! This is exactly what happened to us before!!” Old Mo, still nursing injuries, shouted in alarm. “We’ve got to leave—now! Otherwise…”

BOOM!

Before he finished, a massive shockwave hit. It seemed to come from another convoy further back, yanking the entire front half of the train backward so violently that Lin Xian and the others almost lost their footing.

“What happened?!” “Eerie Entity!”

BOOM! BOOM!

A horrifying cacophony erupted from the dark forest—unseen horrors rapidly closing in on the United Train.

“The rear convoy fell into water!” “Fell—into water?” “Captain Lin! We, along with Wind Sail, Great Victory, Iron Fortress... we’re all sinking into a swamp! Ocean, Parrot—they’re already under the lake!”

From the Rose Convoy, Captain Zhou Hong stood in a tilting troop carriage, staring out at the swamp, now writhing with tentacles and unspeakable creatures crawling onto the vehicles. She reported to the front with a voice full of fear.

BANG-BANG!

Inside hundreds of train cars, internal mutiny wasn’t even resolved before a battle had broken out outside. Alarms wailed across the board. Infinite Train’s fire control systems automatically activated. The railguns and 1130 CIWS began blasting with full power!

From the Rose Convoy onward, over a third of the entire fleet had sunk into the swamp. Over thirty carriages of Ocean and Parrot were flooding fast, sinking into a deep, unknown body of water.

A giant lake.

And the United Train was positioned right on the edge.

“We’re flooding! Help!!!” “What do we do?!”

“Open the doors! Everyone swim out!” Ocean’s captain acted fast, but the carriage was already half-submerged. Black water poured in. Even the nuclear-powered cars were taking on water. The power flickered, valves jammed, doors stuck.

He summoned Ability Users to manually open exits, but right then, a massive black serpentine shadow slid past the carriage windows. In the flickering lights, dark green scales and twisting coils flashed—it was some enormous aquatic beast lurking in the black depths.

KRAK! Another sound echoed—one of the rear cars was crushed inward, wrapped in some unknown force. The entire train tilted front and back, water rushing in like a flood. People could barely stand upright.

Whatever lived beneath that lake was pulling them under.

And from the forest, vague, formless monsters began pouring out toward the train. Every convoy’s weapon system screamed to life. Gunfire and cannon blasts lit up the dark, desolate woods.

“We’re being dragged back!!” “Something’s pulling us into the lake!”

Every traction locomotive roared, but hard steel wheels were no match for muddy ground—they had no grip.

“Monica!” Shi Diyuan shouted, “Fire up your all-terrain traction units! We’ve got two in the fleet—switch to tracked mode and pull us out!”

“On it!”

Both Dragon Mountain No. 1 and Monica Queen’s all-terrain locomotives activated their track drives, tearing into the swampy ground with brute force. Rocks and dirt flew everywhere. They barely managed to stop the retreat.

But the forest ground was nothing but soft, rotten soil—useless for traction.

“It’s not enough! We need rail traction!” Lin Xian called out over comms.

Dragging this many cars through mud with just two haulers? Impossible.

“The only way,” he said, “is to build tracks ahead of the train, move the carriages one-by-one onto them, and use the friction to gain traction. If it’s not enough—we lay down more tracks. Gain ground inch by inch!”

KIKI and the others quickly joined the strategy session.

“If we lay tracks and pull the train back on one at a time, maybe we can reset their alignment,” Lin Xian said.

“But that’d take a lot of track,” KIKI replied. “Without enough length, we’ll just slip again.”

“What if we use trucks and tow hooks…” Shu Qin suggested.

“No way.” Luo Yang shook his head. “Five hundred carriages? You can’t haul tens of thousands of tons with a few tow cables.”

Time was running out. Creatures were closing in. There was no time left to argue.

Then Old Mo suddenly spoke up: “Captain Lin! The fastest way to recover a derailed heavy train is the ‘guided lift’ method. Remember the Climbing Elevator traction platform? If you can build a non-fixed track ramp and use a traction platform to lift each carriage back onto rails, the train’s own power can pull itself forward!”

“The ramp can be built with simple piles—it doesn’t need full stability. Half a kilometer is enough! Once we gain traction, we lay simple rails up ahead and pull the rest!”

Lin Xian's eyes lit up. Of course! Old Mo, veteran engineer from Xinghua Heavy Industries, nailed it in one sentence.

It was simple: turn Dragon Mountain and Monica Queen’s traction units into ramps, lay down steel plates and piles to guide carriages onto a prepared temporary rail, and pull the lead car with Infinite Train’s four traction locomotives and two nuclear-powered cars.

That much torque could pull anything.

He relayed the plan. Shi Diyuan and Monica understood immediately.

“Let’s do it! Monica, you and Ning Jing prep the haulers. Old Qian, you and I will cover Lin’s team!”

“Got it!”

“All units—move out!”

Lin Xian’s side prepped for a full engagement.

“Lei Zi! Protect Captain Lin!” Li Yi shouted.

Liang Lei nodded. He and Daluo, along with Li Guangwen and others, followed right behind Lin Xian.

“Assault Team, Mobile Unit—lay down suppressive fire for me!” “Ms. Chen, Recon Unit—hold the line at the train!” “Got it!” “Fire Bro, you know what to do!” “The real deal's on it!”

From Carriage 21, the roof of the military car burst open. A Fire God Mecha roared to life, leaping down with a thunderous burst of energy. Inside, Shasha shouted, “Watch me tear it up!”

“Fire Fist!”

Boom! Lu Xingchen soared high into the sky, unleashing a massive firestorm toward the twisted, creature-infested forest. A giant fireball blazed across the treetops, igniting hundreds—if not thousands—of trees in a burning blaze that lit up the heavens.

Within seconds, every member of the Infinite Train clad in Power Armor, along with squads from Dragon Mountain No. 1, Monica Queen, and Joker Convoy, surged out in full force. Under heavy train artillery, they opened fire toward both sides of the forest as the monsters advanced.

The enemies were grotesque—unidentifiable, twisted humanoids, coral-like growths, bugs, freaks, and horrors that reeked of madness. Their very presence gnawed at the survivors’ retinas and mental stability.

Deep in the forest ahead of Dragon Mountain No. 1, a translucent worm, a meter in diameter and with unknown length, emerged. Within its body glowed a corrosive blue-green bioluminescence.

Far off the side of the Infinite Train, a massive shadow, even larger than Fog Spiders, flickered silently across the forest—like a low-frame-rate entity from a silent film. Each time it appeared, swarms of orb-like spiders would flood out of the woods in its wake.

On the Infinite Train’s roof, Chen Sixuan took aim with her Meteor-3 Anti-Material Sniper Rifle, holding her ground with Miao Lu and the Recon team. The moment a bizarre, scraping sound pierced the air, she spun around and fired—lighting up a towering tree where a giant snake, covered in human hands, was climbing.

In front of Dragon Mountain No. 1, humanoid abominations let out ghastly laughter as they sprinted past the train’s headlights.

At the Rose Convoy in the rear, shadows emerged from the swampy waters. In the submerged Ocean Convoy, survivors were being dragged out through shattered windows, taken by mysterious figures. Those trying to help saw grotesque creatures growing from the drowned bodies under flickering cabin lights.

The Hellbringers Squad faced a deafening buzz overhead—like swarming bees. As Da Dong Bro torched the forest, he uncovered bizarre hives fused with human corpses.

Most of these dark beings weren’t just beasts or bugs—they defied all understanding. The only certainty: they were alive, spreading, and devouring humanity.

From the front to the rear of the 15-kilometer convoy, the line became a warzone. Death and strange phenomena erupted nonstop. Though only minutes had passed since entering the Abyss, it felt like an eternity.

Lin Xian and KIKI, both in Power Armor, felt a suffocating chill the moment the explosion-proof doors of the Infinite Train opened.

It wasn’t temperature—it was spatial pressure, an oppressive, mind-bending force that instantly clouded the mind and disoriented the senses.

Lin Xian reeled for a second, then, without hesitation, charged across the black humus soil of the forest.

Qian Dele, Monica, and the crew of Dragon Mountain No. 1 joined the fray. Monica Queen detached from the Infinite Train and moved forward, while Dragon Mountain’s backup all-terrain engine reversed course to assist.

Thud-thud-thud! The rear carriages kept rolling backward—the situation was critical.

Screeeeech!

More and more cars began sinking into deep water. Screams and cries for help crackled over comms, blending with the unnatural howls from the forest and the reality-warping monsters closing in. G3 Electromagnetic Railguns roared into the night, while two 1130 CIWS turrets mowed down entire rows of trees with sheer firepower.

“Start building a guide ramp, then lay down rails! Use steel frameworks to maintain track width and haul the Infinite Train back up!”

Old Mo and Sun Yuzhen jumped out to help. Sun Yuzhen unfurled her wings and soared into the air. She scanned the terrain and quickly reported to Lin Xian: “Three o’clock! That way leads into a mountain ridge zone—solid ground! You can divert us into open space!”

Whoosh whoosh whoosh! While KIKI summoned a storm of Silver Blades to block the unseeable monsters, she also used psychic force to lift the Whale 03E Heavy Gas Turbine Locomotive, allowing Lin Xian to construct a metal ramp underneath.

Lin Xian’s hands flurried—materials flew out, rails and iron stakes taking shape. Liang Lei and Daluo fought while leading the engineering crew, hammering stakes into the ground.

On both flanks of the convoy, over a thousand soldiers in Power Armor were engaged—some laying down suppressive fire, others plunging into the monster hordes under cover fire.

In mere minutes, Li Guangwen, Lolo, A Min, Shu Qin, Miao Lu, Lü Chang, and others were already in a red-eyed frenzy. Lin Xian felt it too—the overwhelming Dark Invasion gnawed at his sanity. Even inside his Black Hawk Armor, he was drenched in sweat, pouring every resource into track construction.

Buzz...

Dragon Mountain No. 1’s all-terrain engine arrived. Along with Monica Queen, they latched the Infinite Train to their tow hooks. With three lead engines now underlaid with fresh track, track-laying vehicles took over.

Lin Xian and KIKI dashed to build temporary guide plates for other powered engines in the rear—boosting traction so multiple engines could pull forward simultaneously.

Time ticked away. The gap between the Infinite Train and the Joker Convoy widened. Qian Dele and Xiaomeng were locked in a brutal fight. Dozens of white humanoid monsters surged into the convoy, killing many. Qian Dele shouted commands to break formation and focus fire.

“Xiaomeng, behind you—look out!”

A White Monster burst from the shadows, bullets tearing into it—only for its shredded form to regenerate. It twisted back into humanoid shape before being blown apart by concentrated fire, leaving behind squirming white maggots.

Xiaomeng grabbed a flamethrower and torched the maggots clean.

“Look out!”

“Activate high-voltage wall!”

“Armor car can hold—fall back!”

Track-laying vehicles arrived. Two all-terrain engines hooked to the Infinite Train. Lin Xian had completed track placement under ten train engines—beyond that was swamp and shallows, impossible to pave further.

“Brother Shi! Monica! Ms. Chen! Ready for ignition!”

“Lin Xian!” KIKI’s voice came from mid-convoy. She pointed toward the swamp and the sinking carriages in the distance. Flames blazed as survivors fought Eerie Entities in the water—and something colossal stirred below.

BOOM!

A dark green leviathan burst from the lake, swallowing dozens in a single gulp and smashing into carriages—warping and crushing several.

A lake monster!

Seeing this, Lin Xian took a deep breath and shouted into the comms:

“All engines—fire up!”

VRRRROOOOOOM!!!

Inside the Infinite Train’s cockpit, Chen Sixuan amped up power. Engines roared, sinking a few centimeters under the strain. With a screech of metal, the train finally halted its retreat—then slowly began to roll forward.

Two all-terrain engines and over ten powered locomotives moved in unison, grinding across the segmented tracks. Twisted carriages straightened out. Joints groaned and snapped into place.

The Joint Convoy was moving!

“Don’t max out power! If the drive wheels slip, we’re done!” Old Mo warned from inside.

“Got it.”

Whirrrrr...

Countless tow cables snapped taut. Under a storm of Eerie assault, the train clawed its way forward. Trapped convoys like Rose, Wind Sail, Great Victory, and Iron Fortress felt a massive force pulling them from the mire.

Connections between dry land and sunken cars creaked violently. Metal cracked, even burst, from the strain.

KIKI and Lin Xian worked in tandem—she used psychic force to lift carriages while he secured the connections. Their momentum increased.

But death swept the marsh and Black Lake—countless survivors lost.

“Lin Xian, at this rate, even if we escape the lake, we’ll never outrun the darkness! There’s only one option!”

Wearing Power Armor, Ding Junyi flew overhead with Sun Yuzhen while Fire Bro guarded them.

Her voice was ice:

“Based on territorial theory, we have to wipe out everything here to survive. Running around the Abyss with marks on us is suicide.”

Without track, there’s no speed—only survival through elimination.

“But this isn’t even the worst of it.”

Ding Junyi gazed through the black mist toward distant peaks—where entire mountains were moving. High in the sky... a fragmented bay floated.

That bay wasn’t whole—sliced waves, interlaced shallow and deep seas, and a hollow core in the center...

It looked like—another dimension.