Doomsday: I Build an Infinite Train.

Chapter 329 Run!

September 6, 2069, Apocalypse Day, D-100
100 days after the Apocalypse, a joint train led by Longshan No. 1 and Infinite traveled eastward from Aksai into the vast uninhabited area.

At 10:02, the sun, like a furnace shovel burning to incandescence, pierced straight into the bare spine of the Gobi Desert. The United Railway train sped across the rust-brown gravel plain, and mirages rose from the salt flats on both sides of the tracks, twisting the distant wind-eroded rock pillars into swaying candle tears.

The train crews, which had just been refitted in Aksai, were now heavily damaged. Thick smoke billowed from many carriages, and fragments of monster limbs were scattered everywhere. The steel corroded by black blood emitted thick smoke, showing the grotesque state after the battle. Fortunately, the battle was short and the armor of each train crew was thick enough that the erosion caused by the eggs of those monsters was not enough to penetrate the armor and carriages. However, the carriages hit by the huge black beam of light were a different story.

Behind the combined train, several carriages of the convoy were torn open, with massive collapse and fragmentation on the sides and roofs. Almost two-thirds of the carriage's protection had disappeared, leaving only the frame of the carriage underneath pressing on the tracks. One carriage even had half of its rail wheels missing. Half of the carriage was pulling the train behind it, sparking as it sped along. The battle was truly devastating!
The Dawn Team, the Aksai Brotherhood, and other car teams such as Windrunner and Fortune lost more than a dozen large vehicles and hundreds of people.

Before the somber atmosphere could spread, the entire convoy dared not slacken its pace and continued speeding at high speed!
Because there are less than 9 hours left until dark!
They had to rush into Jinan before dark, but the no-man's-land was still more than 2,000 kilometers away. Under this pressure, no one had time to stop and regroup, no time to cry or grieve, and no one wanted to fall behind!

The sound of wheels hitting rails was muffled like a death knell, and the quartz sand particles between the sleepers were shattered into dust, which swirled into golden dust with the heat.

"I've remanufactured the trailer hitch, hurry up and move it!"

At the rear of the train, where the carriages were damaged, Lin Xian and KIKI arrived with their team. His purpose was not only to help the train deal with the damaged carriages, but also because if these carriages were not removed, they would pose a safety hazard to the entire train.

The convoy in front of us is the Red Rose Convoy. Most of the passengers are women. In the battle just now, one of the living quarters was almost broken in two by the dark light. Of the dozen or so people living inside, only three survived.

At this moment, with the help of their teammates, the women hurriedly moved the remaining supplies from the damaged carriage without even having time to treat their wounds. KIKI was responsible for uncoupling the carriage and moving it away so that Lin Xian could take care of it. Then the carriages behind would be sped up and rejoined.

This operation was not difficult for Lin Xian and KIKI.

"Thank you, Captain Lin."

"Everyone, hurry up and move it."

"Take it all, good or bad, don't worry about it."

The steel frame of the carriage stood erect like fish bones gnawed by a giant beast, the charred iron sheets curled into scales. Beneath the dilapidated carriage, the members of the Red Rose Caravan hurriedly gathered what remained, even the remains of their teammates. The caravan had very few men, and the leader was a woman. All the women had survived by selling their bodies in the apocalypse, earning a meager amount of supplies. Each woman carried a weapon of various kinds, but most were rather rudimentary. The core combat force was relatively better equipped; they had acquired over a dozen sets of power armor and various supplies in Ejin City, which could be considered a slight improvement.

Lin Xian felt no ill will towards the convoy; on the contrary, he admired them quite a bit. In this apocalyptic world, exchanging one's own body for survival was not something shameful to talk about. When faced with danger, each of these women was capable of fighting back with a gun. Seeing them desperately picking up the scattered usable supplies with their somewhat rudimentary equipment, even taking off a thick-soled military boot from a half-corpse and hanging it around their necks without hesitation, it was clear how cautiously they lived.

"Captain Lin..." After finally finishing collecting the loot, Zhou Hongqu, the captain of the Red Rose team, wearing power armor, didn't even have time to wipe the blood off her armor before saying to Lin Xian with a grateful expression, "Thank you for your trouble."

Lin Xian nodded and then had everyone leave the carriage. He disassembled and devoured the steel components at the connection point. Then, KIKI used her telekinesis to move the entire carriage away. After the carriages behind accelerated and moved closer, Lin Xian directly created connecting components at high speed to combine the two carriages together.

Incidentally, he also created full-range armor at the connection point, which was a small favor.

Lin Xian then used the damaged carriage to absorb and transform it into materials. After finishing that, the two continued to process the other carriages.

"That giant creature just now, even if it wasn't a special-class, it was at least an A-class. Damn, this is the first time I've encountered something so unkillable."

In the leader's communication band, Shi Diyuan, who had just finished processing the post-battle loss report of the train, cursed and said, "If it weren't for Brother Lin's quick reminder, I estimate that several carriages would have been lost."

"Captain Lin!"

Hu Lushou's voice came through at this moment: "Do we need to speed up? Our convoy is about to fall behind."

After the sandstorm cleared up, visibility improved, and drivers could finally breathe a sigh of relief. But then the train started to accelerate, making it difficult for the convoy of cars to keep up.

Although it is also a hard surface, the Gobi Desert is definitely not comparable to a highway. Even if their convoy of vehicles are high-level combat vehicles that have been modified and have high-horsepower motors, they cannot be compared with trains running on tracks.

"Stop talking nonsense, just run along the tracks. This is the shortest route to Quancheng." After dealing with the train convoy, Lin Xian began repairing the damage to the Infinite, while also taking out materials from the decomposition space to manufacture a large number of bullets.

“All the convoys have been marked with dark markers, which will definitely cause a lot of trouble at night,” Qian Dele said. “So we can’t slow down now, we can only speed up. As before, you all line up in one row, with the big trucks in front to reduce wind resistance.”

"This is the only way!" Lu Zhao didn't waste any words. He and the Fu Lu Shou team had the most large vehicles and the best equipment. They took the lead in adjusting the team formation, maintaining a long, single-line formation as they sped off.

On the Queen Monica, after inspecting the combat situation in all the carriages, she said into the communicator as she walked, "I suggest that in addition to the orbital probe, we should arrange for drones to take turns conducting high-altitude patrols to scout the road ahead. Otherwise, at this speed, it would be troublesome if we derailed."

"Don't worry, our drone will be constantly monitoring the area from above," Ning Jing said.

The heat was scorching, and the horizon was filled with heat waves and mirages. Clang clang clang clang clang, a crisp sound of rails vibrating gradually rose up, and the surrounding yellow sand shook. A black and green heavy armored locomotive, covered with the hordes of strange insects and corpses, roared in with a ferocious force. Behind it was a long steel dragon that stretched to the end of the earth.

On the Infinity, the engines of the Giant Whale 03E heavy gas turbine locomotive and the Mighty Dragon-class electric locomotive were roaring wildly, and the entire train was speeding along, with the more than one hundred people on board filled with fear.

In terms of configuration, the Infinite's firepower is already quite powerful. It could even annihilate the large A-level parasite it encountered in Rain Town with direct firepower. However, the closer they get to the Star Abyss, the more troublesome and unpredictable the strange creatures they encounter become. In just a few tens of minutes, the entire team has been under tremendous pressure to survive.

"It's already downgraded to Level 2, but we can't remove it now." At the weapons station in carriage 12, in the information center set up by Luo Yang and Xiao Bai, the core members of the Infinite were gathered.

Shuqin wiped the bloodstains off the power armor panel with a burlap sack and said, "Going into the night like this is very risky."

“The other teams should be in a similar situation to us…” Chen Sixuan said at this time, “This is an uninhabited area, and we can’t go back into the sandstorm to remove the markers.”

"Now we can only do more preparation."

Lin Xian didn't stop for a moment because he needed to speed up the manufacturing of a G3-electromagnetic railgun here. So, everyone agreed to arrange it here. At the same time, this is also the middle of the train, where personnel are relatively easier to dispatch. The 13th carriage next to it is the armory. At this moment, several PX05-robots are operating fully automatic bullet presses, and batches of bullets that are still radiating heat are being manufactured.

He said with a grim expression, "Actually, the most troublesome thing is those ubiquitous insects. Otherwise, as long as the firepower is frequent enough, those giant creatures can be dealt with quickly."

KIKI nodded with her arms crossed: "The main problem is that we were a bit thrown off balance when all those things appeared at once, plus it was a sandstorm. Otherwise, with so many trains of firepower, we definitely wouldn't have had such a hard time dealing with them."

“But we’ve been running for so long, and unless it’s an S-class monster or a large monster that clearly has territory, we’ve mostly been facing monster hordes.” Luo Yang sighed, “I can only say that those sand ants are disgusting.”

"That's right, using cannons and guns is a complete waste, all we can do is hide, it's practically unsolvable," Lü Chang said with a resentful expression.

Lu Xingchen sat in the distance, his expression calm, and said, "How can there be no solution? If we weren't considering the protection of other trains, we could simply set fire to the outside of the entire carriage, and the sand ant disaster would be resolved in an instant."

KIKI glanced at him and said speechlessly, "Then bake the inside of the carriage evenly and reduce the sauce over high heat?"

"Wouldn't we be roasted alive before the sand ants even get in?" Sasha clicked her tongue.

"Luckily we have the arc pulse string vibrator, which makes clearing things much faster." The big guy Liang Lei stood with Da Lou, the two of them like two iron towers. They had the most frustrating battle just now. They couldn't touch the big monsters, and they couldn't touch the small monsters because they didn't have power armor to protect themselves. They were definitely going to be jailed.

“This thing operates too slowly. It was originally designed to deal with the creepy creatures that climb onto vehicles,” Lin Xian, the engineer at Chenxin Manufacturing, said helplessly. “I’ve thought of many solutions before, but none of them seem to work.”

Whether it's the electric arc pulse string vibrator, the electric blade exoskeleton, or the ultra-high temperature plasma beam wire cutting array that Lin has yet to manufacture, these are all designed to withstand large-scale strange tides, but the sand ants, including those small beetles, are truly a headache.

KIKI then said, "I do know of a technology on starships that the Interstellar Force doesn't have physical isolation capabilities. It's mainly used to defend against charged particle streams, high-energy heavy ions, and secondary radiation. Perhaps..."

"Oh, I know that, an electrostatic field generator." Luo Yang's eyes lit up as well.

Lin Xian smiled helplessly upon hearing this: "Once we're all on our starships, why would I be worried about sand ants?"

“Uh…” KIKI shrugged: “It’s better to be safe than sorry, but once we get out of the no-man’s land, there might not be any sand ants left.”

“Quancheng is right in the desert, how could it not exist? Unless you go out of Luling,” Li Yi said at this moment.

"Alright, we're lucky we haven't suffered any casualties. Now all we can do is hurry on our way, there might be a fierce battle tonight." Lin Xian breathed a sigh of relief and looked at the Shuqin Building: "Shuqin Building, arrange the ammunition production, mainly prepare 12.7mm and .30mm, at least 5 basic units. Give the extras to other convoys. Also, we don't need those Xinghuo 26 automatic rifles and rifle bullets anymore, give them all to those smaller convoys."

Lin Xian's arrangement wasn't because he had too many materials and weapons to send away. The main reason was that the joint train was now in the same boat, and they had to solve problems together. If the weaker convoy was wiped out, it would directly lead to the continuous collapse of the front line and a significant increase in pressure. Now, these few thousand people were basically evolved humans with combat capabilities. Human lives and teammates were far more valuable than weapons. The more people there were, the less pressure they would be under, as they would have guns and ammunition.

Upon hearing Lin Xian's arrangement, Shu Qin and Da Lou quickly nodded in agreement.
"Okay, we'll make the arrangements right away."

"They also have ammunition loaders at Longshan No. 1. They have a lot of people but are short of weapons." Lin Xian pressed the communicator and shared his thoughts with Shi Diyuan and Ning Jing.

“Brother Shi, the people rescued from those bandits should also be able to form a fighting force. If you can’t arrange them there, then distribute them to other caravans. Let’s get through this immediate crisis first. As for the arrangements afterward, that’s up to them.”

"Hey, that's exactly what I was thinking." Shi Diyuan said with a headache after hearing Lin Xian's words, "More than a hundred people, it's not so easy to take them all in. I'll keep some for myself, and the other teams can help take in some too. By the way, didn't Mo want those dozen or so women?"

“No problem, the carriage is ready.” Monica’s voice came through.

"Give me 10 people too. It doesn't matter if they have combat ability or not, just don't be pretentious~" Qian Dele said leisurely.

"We're traveling at high speed right now, so how should we allocate the passengers? Should we let those with flying abilities carry them?"

Lin Xian glanced at KIKI, who sighed helplessly, "Alright, alright, it's me again~"

After saying that, KIKI set off.

"Liang Lei, inspect and check the train's operating condition," Lin Xian immediately instructed.

"Ok!"

"Sasha." Lin Xian looked at Sasha and said, "Your Sally will be deployed tonight. I won't have time to test your new weapon for you, but remember to test it in advance."

Sasha nodded and said earnestly, "Don't worry, Brother Lin, Luo Yang and the others will help me." "Miao Lu, could you check on Lao Mo and the others? And Teacher Chen, have you received any radio signals?"

Chen Sixuan shook her head: "It's not on any frequency band. This situation is indeed very abnormal. I'm worried that it might be related to the situation you mentioned."

Luo Yang frowned and said, "Logically speaking, such an open area should be able to receive Phoenix Radio's global radio stations, but we haven't received any since we left Ejin City, except for when we received Mr. Hu's civilian frequency information when we were close to Aksai."

"Captain Lin!"

Just as Lin Xian was beginning to have doubts after hearing Luo Yang's words, Hu Lushou's voice rang out in the channel: "Something's not right. All radio frequencies are filled with static. This...this is the same situation we encountered at the Wei River!"

"What's going on? Be more specific?"

At this moment, all the team leaders paid attention to Hu Lushou's words.

"that is……"

In the RV, Hu Lushou sat in the passenger seat, scratching his head with a complicated expression, and said, "Anyway, I can't receive any signals on any frequency. Mine is an upgraded version of the Dark Radio, equipped with Level 2 Blood Essence, but it's all static. Several convoys noticed this problem at the time. Now that I think about it, could it be related to the instability of Star Abyss No. 5?"

Upon hearing this, Lin Xian's heart sank: "Besides that, are there any other special signs?"

“Omens…?” Hu Lushou said, “There were no omens, it just got dark and then we got lost.”

Hu Lushou's tone suddenly changed over the communicator: "Oh right, I seem to remember that it got dark five minutes earlier that day. I wonder if that counts?"

"Five minutes early? 18:40?"

"Yes, I remember complaining about it back then, saying that the Dark Tide happened early today..."

"Why didn't you say so sooner?" Qian Dele scolded him directly, "So it's possible that it will get dark earlier than expected tonight?"

"Well, I... I..." Hu Lushou explained, "I didn't know either. This was the first time I'd ever encountered something like this. And what was really strange about the darkness that night was that it wasn't black, it was a deep blue. My god, just thinking about it gives me the creeps."

Shi Diyuan said in a deep voice, "It seems that we were right to set off early. Perhaps, as Brother Lin said, this matter is indeed related to that forbidden item. This no-man's-land is not peaceful, and no one can let their guard down until tonight!"

"Zizzizi~"

At this moment, on Lin Xian's side, Hu Lushou sent a message to Lin Xian from a personal channel: "Captain Lin, do you think this matter might be related to the silver bullet I gave you?"

Upon hearing the words on the communicator, Lin Xian's mind raced, and he immediately said, "If it were relevant, your radio station in Aksai wouldn't have been able to send out the message."

“That makes sense.” Hu Lushou immediately realized.

However, Lin Xian continued, "But you can't be sure about forbidden things. We can only take it one step at a time. You just said that the sky was dark blue all night, is that right?"

On Earth, the night sky is normally a deep blue color when viewed through the atmosphere, and it can only be very dark in extreme cases. But when Lin Xian heard Hu Lushou say that, he felt that something was not right.

"I don't remember the latter half of the night, but I still have some impression of it before I encountered the strange entity. The deep blue I was talking about wasn't the transparent kind. It felt like a pure color, projected onto the retina. Tsk tsk, I don't know how to describe it, it was just weird..." Hu Lushou sounded a little confused, but when he heard it in Lin Xian's ears, it immediately reminded him of what Chu Yan had told him.

"Don't try to understand forbidden things with a human perspective. If you see them, don't look. If you try to understand them, it will only be counterintuitive. Don't try to describe them!"

"And don't even think about peeking at the sky!!"

"Don't try to look up at the sky..."

In carriage number 12, Lin Xian was the only one sitting there, building an electromagnetic railgun. He kept thinking about those two sentences, and a chill ran down his spine.

Since the day of the Apocalypse, the sky has been synonymous with danger.

Whether it was the Sky Danger Prohibition issued by the Federation and the Phoenix Society, the floating giant corpse in Jiang City, the atmospheric mica in Mount Daluo, the black thorns in the clouds in Xilan City, or the creatures that had never appeared, including the starry sky eye that Lin Xian vaguely saw when he was testing the mechanical energy cannon after defeating the insect swarm with the Eagle and the Chasing Sun team just after leaving Hengshan Pass that night, all of them sent chills down one's spine.

Before humanity could even react, the arrival of the polar night on Apocalypse Day completely severed humanity's connection with Earth's near-Earth orbit. The Joint Space Station disappeared, and global satellites went offline. Lin Xian knew that both the Phoenix Society and the Federation were definitely working on starship projects, including the current Sky City. However, so far, there had never been a single successful case or news. Therefore, in the eyes of most people, the sky was covered by a danger even more desperate than the ground.

To date, neither the Phoenix Society nor the Federation has been able to find a truly feasible solution for the survival of human civilization.

The Federation defended the city and frantically built underground cities. The Phoenix Society rescued people while fleeing, trying to find the final answer before the global polar night. But none of these rushing people knew what the final outcome of this escape would be. From Lin Xian's current perspective, the power of humanity was too insignificant. Even though they had evolved to the berserk level in just 100 days, it was still far from enough to face the darkness.

Rub rub rub.

Lin Xian's mechanical heart was running at full power at this moment. With his left hand, he was manufacturing electromagnetic railguns, and with his right hand, he was constantly taking out materials converted from the preparation center to replenish the munitions manufacturing carriages. All the other team members were on edge and busy working.

It was 16:40 PM, less than two hours before dark.

The third G3-electromagnetic railgun of the Infinite was finally successfully manufactured. This was the first time that Lin had manufactured two heavy weapons in one day. Because carriage 12 was the center of the train, this weapon station was the only carriage with two long-range and short-range firepower in the same carriage. The purpose was naturally to protect the military train carriages, supply carriages, and the adjacent living carriages.

At this time, Lin Xian only had about 30% of the materials left in the decomposition center. In addition to continuing to manufacture ammunition, he was also manufacturing Thunder Falcon 2000 drones while on the move to enhance his combat capabilities. These drones were powerful and fast-moving; even a medium-sized monster could not withstand dozens of them firing at once. Therefore, Lin Xian planned to manufacture several more.

However, this thing is as sophisticated as the PX-05 robot, and its manufacturing speed is not fast. Fortunately, it is small in size, so he didn't have to stay in one place. Instead, he went to carriage number 3 to find Ding Junyi.

"Director Ding, is there any situation?"

As soon as Lin Xian walked in, he saw the Hell Chrysanthemum emitting a faint crimson glow, so he asked.

Ding Junyi put down her mobile device and looked at him, saying...

"Several pieces of information: First, based on effective monitoring, the physical strength of everyone has improved significantly since we left Xilan City. However, we haven't yet obtained the Phoenix Society's latest testing equipment. Nevertheless, the number of Berserkers on our vehicle has definitely increased, and there may even be Destruction-level ones."

"Secondly, my abilities have also improved considerably. I'm currently learning how to apply them to help the team. The other is the Silver Dragon Ten Thousand Mistakes." Ding Junyi pointed to another cultivation chamber.
"It has produced its first inflorescence."

Upon hearing this, Lin Xian immediately approached and looked over. Sure enough, he found that at the top of the flower stem with purple cracks, a white bud the size of a peppercorn had grown. It looked very ordinary, but the flow of the originally very fine purple light inside the stem seemed to have become faster, which was obviously different from before.

"Objectively speaking, this disaster-stricken plant may reveal its characteristics after it blooms," Ding Junyi said.

Lin Xian nodded. At this moment, he saw a pile of black substances placed in a container on Ding Junyi's experimental table. It seemed to be the tissue from the corpse of the huge black body from before.

Why are you researching this?

“This is human tissue.” Ding Junyi, wearing gloves, picked up a piece and crushed it into powder between her fingertips. She said with a solemn expression, “It looks like it has undergone some kind of special processing and has lost its moisture. However, it is easy to analyze the cells and protein tissue inside, and even the DNA can be separated. This is no longer a case of ‘parasitism’.”

Ding Junyi looked at Lin Xian and said with a deep expression, "They use human corpses to form their bodies. From this, it is not difficult to see that the human form is just a kind of mimicry of their species."

Lin Xian's eyes narrowed, and he was about to say something when a burst of static suddenly came from the communicator.

It seemed to be the same as the radio frequency. Lin Xian wondered if it was just his imagination, but he felt that the noise on that frequency was more like a mixture of countless sharp cries, much like the sounds they made after they had dealt with the monster and approached the black smoke as it burrowed into the ground.

"Buzz~ Everyone, something's up."

The person speaking over the communicator was Shi Diyuan.

At this moment, in the driver's cab of the Longshan No. 1, Shi Diyuan was looking in a direction in the distance with a strange expression, holding an electronic telescope. Ning Jing and a group of engineering staff were standing next to him.

The alarm was transmitted via drone, and when Shi Diyuan found that direction, his expression changed drastically.

"what is that?"

Ning Jing, standing to the side, looked at the scene through the electronic telescope with a somewhat astonished expression.

In the Gobi Desert northeast of the train tracks, a strange white stone sculpture floated silently in the wilderness. The sculpture was huge and majestic, with a mermaid tail and a lion's face, and looked very much like a human creation.

Strangely, under the blazing sun, the light on the stone sculpture was distinctly different from the light in the surrounding environment; it was not only dimmer but also quite jarring.

It looks like it was photoshopped onto the Gobi Desert using poor Photoshop skills.

But no one could ignore the enormous size of the stone sculpture and the intense eeriness of it floating silently in the wilderness. Even Shi Diyuan, who was used to seeing big scenes, felt a chill run down his spine when he saw this scene. Strong negative emotions spontaneously began to arise in his mind, making him forget whether to exhale or inhale.

On the Infinity, Lin Xian opened the sunshade of the cabin. The power armor's vision system looked in that direction, and instantly the entire power armor system crashed and went dark, before urgently restarting.

[Black Hawk-Silent Hunter Armor 01 activated, performing program self-check]

Lin Xian's heart skipped a beat, and a sense of great terror suddenly overwhelmed him.

He quickly pressed the communicator and shouted.
"Don't look, run!"

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(End of this chapter)