The "Survival on the Train" game has bugs, it's really laggy!

The ground moved first.

It wasn't the track surface vibrating; the entire foundation of Station 58 was shaking. Su Yuan felt the frequency emanating from the soles of his feet—twelve hertz, so low it made his teeth ache.

A sound emanated from the direction of the upper gate. It wasn't a broadcast, nor was it a voiceprint simulation. It was the hissing sound of liquid material flowing through a narrow gap at an extremely high flow rate.

"The sonar has been activated." Xiao Huo's voice was flat, but his speech was a third faster than usual. "The 5,300 nodes in the direction of the waste sea are being awakened. The density of living metal behind the upper gate exceeds the sensor's range."

Switch the main screen to the view of the exploration vehicle.

The clean platform behind the upper gate vanished. Dark silver liquid metal gushed from the ceiling, walls, and floor cracks at an extremely rapid pace, engulfing supply crates, medical cabinets, and the crew rest area. The liquid level rose visibly, overflowing the bottom beam of the door frame in less than three seconds.

The living metal spreads from the upper layer down into the lower layer channels.

"Let's go." Su Yuan turned around and rushed into the driver's seat, slamming his hand on the control panel.

The main power output was increased to sixty. The wheels of the lead vehicle of the Devourer rolled over the lower threshold of Station 58, and the white light from the headlights pierced into the vertical shaft. The concrete wall of the eight-meter diameter shaft showed the pouring patterns in the beam of light, and the lifting platform had already sunk to an unseen depth with 005.

"All trains in. The third section follows, 013 stays close, 014, 012, and 009 must not decouple."

Wang Hu ran to the side of the door frame and slammed down the manual lock beam with his right hand. The hinges of the three-meter-thick explosion-proof door made a dull metallic clanging sound, but the door did not close—the hydraulic oil pipes had been cut, and the closing mechanism was broken.

"The door won't close!"

The living metal had flowed to the entrance of the lower passage, and the dark silver liquid covered the last two meters of the platform floor.

Su Yuan didn't turn around. He stared at the shaft structure scan that Xiao Huo was pushing onto the auxiliary screen.

Seventh level. Inside the well wall. Spiral descent path.

The track protrudes from the concrete wall of the well, is 1.4 meters wide, and has a slope of 42 degrees. It is an old Bluestar standard maintenance track design, used for small maintenance vehicles to travel back and forth.

The spiral ramp has a 42-degree incline and a 1.4-meter-wide track. The Devourer features wide wheel flanges and newly installed anti-stripping rings on the wheel sets, with an outer wheel track of 1.37 meters.

Three centimeters of clearance.

Lu Mingyuan's voice popped up on the entire channel.

"Su Yuan! The maintenance rail is designed to carry a load of 35 tons, but your current formation weighs over 300 tons. The refining furnace weighs 78 tons, the 014 missile plus coolant weighs 42 tons, and the external ammunition magazine fuel racks total—"

"I know."

"The track will collapse."

Su Yuan turned the communication volume down to the lowest setting. His right hand was already gripping the control panel of the heavy-duty rail spikes seized at Station 25. Forty-eight rail spikes were distributed on the outer sides of the lead car, the third section, and chassis 013 and 014.

"Turn the fire down, unlock all rail spikes and eject them. Engage the wide flange module."

A dull clattering sound came from the chassis. Forty-eight tungsten steel rail spikes popped out from both sides of the wheelset, each spike tip extending four centimeters. At the same time, the wide rim outer ring expanded outward, increasing the rim width from ninety millimeters to one hundred and twenty millimeters.

The Devourer isn't running on its tracks anymore. It's driving nails into the well wall.

"The entire train tilts 15 degrees to the left and enters the spiral track."

As the vehicle tilted, a metallic clanging sound came from inside compartment 013—the stretcher's securing lock was struggling. Tang Lan braced one foot against the support pillar of the compartment wall and pressed her hands against the edge of the nearest stretcher.

"Hold on!" she shouted.

The wristbands of the two frostbite victims turned yellow simultaneously.

The moment the lead car's front wheels pressed onto the maintenance rail, a sharp metallic deformation sound emanated from the rail surface. It wasn't a crushing sound—it was a squeezing sound. The weight of the 300-ton trainset was distributed across the 1.4-meter-wide rail surface through the rail spikes and wide wheel flanges, causing the steel reinforcement in the concrete base to deform under stress.

The entire train of the Devourer tilted to the left, with the right-side wheels almost suspended in the air. The rail spikes were embedded three centimeters into the concrete of the well wall, and gravel and dust sprayed out from the spike holes.

The track surface did not collapse.

Rail spikes anchor the car body to the well wall. Gravity is decomposed into a sliding force along the slope and a pressure perpendicular to the slope. The rail spikes bear the lateral shear, and the wide wheel flanges bear the longitudinal friction.

Three hundred tons. Forty-two-degree slope.

The noise from the friction of the wheels penetrated the armor of the entire train. The squeaking and twisting sound of metal against metal was so sharp that it made one's teeth chatter, and the medicine bottles in compartment 013 rattled in the cryogenic chamber.

Su Yuan didn't look at the rearview camera. He knew the living metal had reached the wellhead.

"Wang Hu. What is the minimum low-temperature reserve in the spare cooling compartment of car 014?"

"Twenty-three units."

"Inject the exhaust gas from the refining furnace into the wellhead. All of it. Spray it towards the wellhead."

Wang Hu ran to the connecting pipe between tank 014 and the refining furnace, and opened the cryogenic residual discharge valve with both hands. Liquid nitrogen mixture at -180 degrees Celsius rushed out from tank 014 and flowed back into the refining furnace exhaust port along the exhaust gas pipe.

The exhaust vent of the refining furnace faces upwards, towards the wellhead.

The white mist shot out and met the rising warm air currents in the well. The temperature difference exceeded two hundred degrees Celsius. The water vapor condensed instantly, and the ice crystals expanded rapidly in the eight-meter diameter well, layer upon layer.

two seconds.

A dull thud came from the direction of the wellhead. The scan image from Xiao Huo showed that an ice plug with a diameter of more than seven meters and a thickness of nearly two meters was blocking the contraction section between the first and second layers of the well.

A dark silver liquid had condensed on the surface of the ice stopper. Living metal was piling up on top of the ice, but the temperature of the liquid nitrogen deactivated it—the dark silver turned grayish-white, and the flow stopped.

"How many have left?" Su Yuan asked.

"Below the ice plug, clean it," Xiao Huo said. "Estimated duration: seventy to ninety seconds. The living metal will regain its activity after temperature compensation."

Ninety seconds.

The Devourer accelerated up the 42-degree spiral ramp. The component of gravity propelled the 300-ton train downwards, and the Mountain-Suppressing Core only needed to control its speed and direction. The headlights swept across the curved shaft wall, and the textured lines of the formwork on the concrete surface flashed by.

First layer. Second layer. An ice plug blocked the way from above, freezing the dark silver liquid.

The third layer.

The headlights swept across the surface. Something that didn't belong to concrete appeared on the well wall.

Metal. A metal structure covered with a black oxide layer, embedded in a groove beside the well wall track. Wang Hu peeked out from the side window of the driver's cab.

Three.

The wreckage of an early scout vehicle from the old Earth. The hull is crushed, the wheels are detached, and the cockpit is squeezed into an irregular shape. It is embedded in concrete, and the depth of embedding indicates that it was fixed in place by concrete after falling from above.

"From fourteen years ago." Xiao Huo read the information from the remaining serial numbers: "003, 007, and 009 were the initial scouting batches. No return record."

No one speaks.

Three lead cars. Three train sets. Three groups of people. All of them died in this shaft.

The cockpit window of the third wreck still had a small section intact, reflecting the white light of the Devourer's headlights in the darkness.

The scene changed.

The small scanner detected a heat source on the third wreckage. Not residual heat—it was a constant heat source of 63 degrees Celsius. The same temperature as the living metal fragments found in the decommissioned locomotive at Station 50.

"Heat source mutation—"

Before he could finish speaking, the wreckage moved.

It wasn't a single part moving. Something was protruding from inside the flattened vehicle body. The black oxide layer shattered, and a dark silver light shone through the cracks. Three mechanical appendages emerged from the wreckage, each thicker than an adult's forearm, with sharp three-pronged claws at the tips, and liquid metal flowing at the joints.

The direction of limb extension – Casualty compartment 013.

The three appendages of the grappling hooks precisely gripped the edge of the newly equipped heavy deck of the 013 military train, and the metallic scraping sound was so loud that it gave Wang Hu goosebumps.

Tang Lan reacted extremely quickly.

She took half a step back from the hatch, her right hand already drawing a large-caliber pistol. The muzzle peeked out from the gap in the 013 side door, aimed at the root joint of the nearest appendage.

Fire.

The muzzle flash exploded inside the tilting carriage; the bullet struck a joint, sending sparks flying. The appendage was severed. The end, still attached to the grappling hook, slammed against the rails and bounced twice.

The second shot. The second appendage was severed in the middle, and dark silver liquid gushed out from the break, quickly solidifying in the low temperature.

The third appendage dodged the angle of the gun muzzle, circled around from the roof of vehicle 013, and aimed the grappling hook at the hinge of the medical hatch.

Tang Lan adjusted the firing angle. The muzzle rose, and the bullet struck the grappling hook. Sparks flew. The bullet bounced off.

"The shell's hardness exceeds the standard," she said through gritted teeth.

The grappling hook wasn't penetrated. The bullet only left a white mark on its surface. The third appendage continued forward, its three claws already gripping the sealing strip at the edge of the medical bay door, tearing it inwards.

Inside compartment 013, two frostbitten patients clung tightly to the edge of a stretcher. The older one was curled up in a ball, while the younger one's fingers gripped the restraint straps, his knuckles completely white.

"012." Su Yuan's voice came through the communicator. There were no extra words.

Wang Hu was already operating the controls. The coupling control for the 012 forward-protruding sled was at his fingertips. He pulled down the reverse release lever, and 012 disengaged from the forward limit, accelerating in the opposite direction using the slope.

The forward-propelled trolley, weighing over ten tons, reversed along the spiral track towards the third recessed area. The heavy armor shell of the 012 rammed head-on into the wreckage.

The entire wreckage was squeezed out of the groove and pressed between the 012 casing and the concrete well wall. The still-extending appendage was stuck, its root deforming along with the wreckage, and the sound of metal twisting echoed throughout the wellbore.

"Catheter," Su Yuan said.

The dark gold conduit of the mobile refining furnace extended from the side plate, passed over the top of the 012 shell, and its tip plunged into the crack that had been opened by the impact.

Extract and start.

The liquid metal, residual electrolyte from the old Blue Star power battery, and mechanical grease inside the wreckage were all sucked into the refining furnace by the negative pressure field of the dark gold conduit. The parasitic appendages turned from dark silver to grayish-white within three seconds, and then became a dried-up empty shell.

The grab hook detached from the edge of the 013 hatch and smashed into three pieces on the rail surface.

The refining furnace swallowed the green light.

"Recovery complete." Xiao Huo reported, "Twelve liters of high-density live metal raw material, three sets of old Blue Star military lithium battery cells, and two hundred meters of low-loss nerve conduction wires were obtained."

012 is repositioned to the front.

Su Yuan did not stop.

The countdown is still running. Above the ice stopper, temperature compensation of the living metal is underway.

Fourth floor. Fifth floor. The car headlights swept across the clean concrete wall.

The sixth floor.

A sound came from above. A muffled thud. Then a cracking sound.

"The ice plug has ruptured." Xiao Huo's tone became calm, indicating that the data was extremely bad. "Living metal has regained fluidity. Downflow velocity—7.3 meters per second. The current distance between the tail of the formation and the flood is 52 meters."

Fifty-two meters. The descent speed of the train on the spiral track is four meters per second. The live metal pours down from above, unrestrained by the track, flowing irregularly along the well wall at almost twice the speed of the train.

They caught up with the last car forty seconds later.

Su Yuan did not apply the brakes. His hand was on the Zhenshan core power control lever.

"Red Zone".

The power output jumped from seventy to one hundred and twenty. The core of the mountain-suppressing machine emitted a deep rumble from deep within the chassis of the Devourer, its vibration frequency leaping from eight times per second to fourteen times per second. The drive wheel set's speed increased dramatically, and the trajectory of the rail spikes on the well wall changed from intermittent to continuous lines.

The combined effect of gravitational acceleration and active driving force caused the speed of the 300-ton train to jump from four meters per second to nine meters per second on a 42-degree slope.

The heat generated by the friction between the wheelset and the rail surface caused the tips of the tungsten carbide rail spikes to glow red. The spark trail extended from the chassis of the lead car all the way to the rear of the 009 bracket, leaving a bright orange trail more than ten meters long in the dark shaft.

The medicine bottles inside compartment 013 were no longer just colliding. The harnesses creaked, and the entire compartment experienced a sense of weightlessness as it plunged downwards. Tang Lan braced herself against the ceiling handle with one hand and pressed down on the young wounded man's shoulder with the other.

"Don't let go," she said.

"Approaching the seventh level," Xiao Huo said. "Three hundred and twenty meters from the bottom of the well. Expected arrival in eighteen seconds."

The live metal torrent was 31 meters from the tail of 009.

Su Yuan watched the number on the auxiliary screen shrink. Thirty-one. Twenty-eight. Twenty-six.

"The well bottom anti-airborne system," Xiao Huo's voice suddenly came out, "has been triggered."

Ahead. Forty meters ahead of the spiral track. Metal structures simultaneously popped out from both sides of the well wall.

Twelve heavy-duty hydraulic interception beams.

Each beam is 60 centimeters wide and over 15 centimeters thick, extending from opposite sides of the well wall and converging at the center of the track. It is made of old Blue Star standard explosion-proof steel with a hydraulic shock-absorbing coating on the surface.

Design purpose: to intercept falling objects.

Twelve paths lay across the front, spaced one meter apart, forming a wall.

"3.2 seconds from the intercept beam," Xiao Huo said.

Wang Hu saw the row of crossbeams through the driver's side window. His mouth opened slightly, but he said nothing. He looked at Su Yuan.

Su Yuan's right hand was still on the power lever. It hadn't moved towards the brake.

"Eight cables. All out."

Eight steel cables were launched from each anchor point of the Devourer, with the cable ends hooking onto the hydraulic bases at both ends of the interception beam. The purpose was not to hold the formation in place—but to distribute the force across the entire formation structure at the moment of impact.

"Refining furnace at full power. Maximum diameter of the absorption field."

The furnace opening of the mobile refining furnace was fully extended. The dark gold conduit no longer extended as a single tube—six tubes popped out simultaneously, fanning out to cover the entire cross-section directly in front of the lead car.

120 power. 300 tons. 9 meters per second. 42-degree slope.

The front beam of the lead vehicle collided with the first intercepting beam.

The sound wasn't an impact; it was a tearing sound. Six dark gold conduits pierced the surface of the interceptor beam the instant they made contact, activating the absorption field. Within a hundredth of a second, the steel was softened, decomposed, and sucked in. The front beam's heavy armor was far harder than the interceptor beam—the latter was a fall-prevention and deceleration design, not a structure designed to withstand heavily armored trains.

The first step. Break it.

The second step. Break it.

The third layer. The steel cable disperses the impact force onto the connecting beams of the third section and 013, so that both carriages are subjected to the force simultaneously, without any single point bearing the impact.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth intercepting beams were continuously shredded in the refining furnace's engulfing field. The fragments and molten metal were sucked into the furnace cavity, and the furnace temperature jumped to 1400 degrees Celsius.

The refining furnace completed the casting process during the impact.

As the seventh to twelfth beams were shredded, the finished product was ejected from the other side of the furnace opening. The streamlined, curved armor plates, still carrying the residual heat of the dark red high temperature, were pushed directly from the refining furnace outlet to the roofs of vehicles 013 and 014 by dark gold conduits.

Pressure-resistant ceiling.

Six curved panels were welded onto the top of the two carriages within three seconds. The curved surfaces faced upwards, and the streamlined airflow direction was directed towards the path they had come from—upwards.

All twelve intercepting beams disappeared. The area in front of the track was once again an open spiral ramp.

The torrent of living metal has been caught.

A massive amount of dark silver liquid poured down from above, covering the well walls and rail surface. When the liquid metal came into contact with the tail bracket of 009, the temperature instantly carbonized the lime powder on the bracket's surface.

But it can't flow in.

The streamlined, pressure-resistant roof's curved surface guides the liquid metal to both sides. The airflow generated at a train speed of nine meters per second creates a positive pressure layer around the train body, tearing the dark silver liquid into thin sheets that slide along the roof's curved surface towards the side walls.

Not a single drop entered the gaps in the armor.

Inside compartment 013, Tang Lan heard the sound of liquid washing over metal overhead. A continuous, rustling sound. But the temperature inside the compartment remained unchanged; the seal was intact.

"The torrent was diverted by the roof," Xiao Huo confirmed. "No living metal was detected on the vehicle's surface."

Su Yuan loosened his grip slightly. The power gauge was still at 120.

The speed continues to increase. Ten meters per second. Eleven meters.

"Bottom of the well—one hundred meters."

The temperature is changing. The thermometer in the control room jumps from 19 degrees to 24 degrees, then to 31 degrees. The heat source is below. The reactor at the bottom of the silo. A 380-degree core that has been operating continuously for 21 years.

"Fifty meters."

The light changed. It was no longer just the Devourer's own headlights. There was light at the bottom of the well. Dark red, uneven, seeping from the edge of the entrance to the vast space.

The spiral track unfolds at the bottom of the well, becoming a horizontal arc that leads to an opening on the side.

Su Yuan pressed the brake. The segmented heavy-duty brake array engaged completely.

The wheelset left a final trail of sparks on the rails. The speed of the 300-ton trainset decreased from nine meters per second to five meters per second, and then to three meters per second.

The headlights shone through the side opening into a space.

huge.

The dome was over forty meters high. A small fire sweep across its horizontal span took two seconds to complete. The ground was paved with standard heavy-load orbits from old Blue Star, but these orbits were covered in dark silver crystals—the solid form of living metal. At the very center of the space was the initial reactor of the Pangu Project; its outer shielding shell was still intact, but the cooling tower on top had stopped rotating, and two-thirds of its heat dissipation fins were covered by dark silver crystals.

The No. 005 tail anchor car is parked on the second ring of tracks surrounding the reactor. The containment compartment is intact, the boron-lead plates are still there, and the seals are still in place. The steel cable of the lifting platform has been detached and is hanging to the side.

But 005 is not alone.

It was surrounded by hundreds of them.

Early engineering heavy mechs from the old Blue Star. Bipedal standing type, four to six meters tall, with hydraulically driven engineering grabs as their arms. Each mech's surface is covered with an uneven layer of dark silver metal, some so thick that the original paint is invisible, while others only show traces of silver flowing at the joints.

They are arranged in three concentric circles. The center of each circle is 005.

A net stretched between the shoulders of the outermost mechs and the grabs of the innermost mechs. It was an electromagnetic capture net. Blue-white arcs of electricity danced at the nodes of the net; each node was an old Blue Star military-grade electromagnet, its magnetic field pointing entirely towards the center.

Oriented towards 005.

Knocking was heard coming from inside the 005 emplacement.

Urgent. More urgent than ever before.

Short, short, short—long—short, short, short—long—

The translation took 0.4 seconds. The text appeared on the main screen.

"Don't slow down. Crush them."

Su Yuan stared at the electromagnetic mesh. He looked at the hundreds of mechs. He looked at the gaps between them—from the outer ring to 005, the narrowest point was less than three meters. The front beam of the Devourer was two and a half meters wide.

Three hundred tons.

The kinetic energy accumulated during the 1200-meter vertical descent was not completely dissipated by braking. The segmented braking only reduced the speed from nine to three, but the momentum of 300 tons multiplied by three meters per second, combined with the continuous thrust of the mountain-stabilizing core's 120-power output—

He released the brakes.

The power lever was pushed from 120 to 130.

"Lock all carriages together and lock them in place," Su Yuan said. "Roll them over."

The Devourer's headlights were on full blast. The white light shone on the electromagnetic capture net, turning the bluish-white electric arcs pale in the intense light.

The 300-ton trainset accelerates. Three meters per second. Four meters. Five meters.

The mech swarm reacted. The outermost mechs turned towards the Devourer, raising their hydraulic grabs. The outermost nodes of the electromagnetic network disconnected, attempting to re-establish the network for interception.

too slow.

The front beam of the lead car crashed into the outer ring.

The first mech was struck directly by the front beam. The six-meter-tall mechanical body was flattened by the 300-ton mass, the dark silver metal layer shattered, and a mixture of hydraulic oil and living metal sprayed onto the well wall.

The second one. The third one.

The electromagnetic mesh collapsed the instant the front beam cut into it. The nodal electromagnets were knocked away one after another, and the blue-white electric arcs vanished. The sound of the mesh breaking was completely drowned out by the impact.

The Devourer did not slow down. The heavy armor surface of the front beam was splattered with hydraulic oil and live metal fragments, and the vehicle shook with each impact. Inside compartment 013, Tang Lan wedged herself between two support pillars, her legs braced against the floor. Two wounded soldiers were tightly strapped to stretchers, their bodies swaying back and forth with each impact.

Five. Seven. Eleven.

The inner mechs attempted to close their grabs to clamp the vehicle. Two succeeded—the grabs secured themselves to the outer armor of the third life pod's side, and the hydraulic joints retracted at full force.

The third section of the side armor is a heavy protective plate seized from Station 12. The hydraulic pressure of the grab bucket is insufficient.

The metallic creaking was so sharp it pierced the eardrums. The two mechs were dragged five meters by the Devourer, their bases ripped off the ground tracks, and overturned next to carriage 013. The dark gold conduit from the refining furnace swept over, piercing the power compartment of one of the mechs, and drained it dry in three seconds.

The last three units.

It's directly in front of the 005 naval compartment, less than two meters away.

The front beam of the Devourer crashed into it from the side. The angle was off—the spiraling arc entering the hall meant that the lead vehicle didn't head-on into 005, but rather swept past it tangentially.

The three mechs were plowed over by the side of the front beam. The first one broke off at the waist, its upper body flying more than ten meters. The second one was crushed between the front beam and the ground, and a cracking sound like bones breaking was heard as it was run over. The third one was tripped by one of the eight cables, dragged for twenty meters, then came loose and tumbled into the reactor shielding.

brake.

Full braking. Segmented array engages.

The Devourer has stopped.

The front beam is 1.7 meters away from the 005 emplacement.

White light shone on the boron-lead plate of 005. The plate surface was intact. The seal was intact. Black condensate hung quietly on the edge of the seal without spreading.

The knocking inside the 005 emplacement stopped.

There was a two-second silence. Then two long and one short sound came through.

receive.

Wang Hu jumped out of the cockpit, his feet landing on the shattered wreckage of the mecha. The ground was covered in a muddy mixture of hydraulic oil and dark silver fragments, making it slippery. He steadied himself by holding onto the side of the front beam and looked around.

More than a hundred engineering mechs. Not a single one is still standing.

Some were crushed into iron discs, some were dragged in two, and some were drained into shriveled shells by the dark gold conduits. Fragments of the electromagnetic capture net hung in the gaps of the ground tracks, and all the node electromagnets were extinguished.

The refining furnace is still operating at low power, with the furnace temperature maintained at 800 degrees Celsius, awaiting instructions.

"013," Su Yuan's voice came through the communicator.

"Both wounded soldiers have slightly elevated heart rates, and the immobilization straps have abrasions to their collarbones, but no fractures," Tang Lan replied quickly. "The hull is intact. The roof panels held it in place."

"014".

"Coolant level is normal, cryogenic margin is zero. No cracks in the frame," Wang Hu shouted from below.

"The third section."

"The outer armor was scratched twice by the impact, not deep. There was no penetration into the inner wall." The old mechanic's voice was muffled, with ringing in his ears from the impact.

Su Yuan stood up from the driver's seat. The entire formation was complete. 005 was parked quietly 1.7 meters ahead, surrounded by the battlefield wreckage from before it was protected.

The space was vast. It was hot. The perceived temperature exceeded forty degrees Celsius, and the air smelled of oxidized metal and the alkaline odor of evaporating reactor coolant. Forty meters above the dome hung old industrial lighting fixtures from Blue Star, but all the bulbs were out; the only light source was the dark red radiation seeping from the seams of the reactor shielding.

Xiao Huo's scan data is continuously updated.

The reactor core temperature is 382 degrees Celsius. Operating status: 21 years without interruption. The cooling system is partially disabled; heat dissipation relies on natural convection. Fuel rod consumption rate is 67%.

"How much longer can the reactor core last?" Su Yuan asked.

"At the current consumption rate, it will take seven to nine years," Xiao Huo said. "But if the cooling continues to worsen—"

He stopped talking.

The main screen flickered. It wasn't signal interference—the scanner actively switched to the highest priority target.

The back of the reactor. The side with the thickest shielding. There is a gate.

The gate is made of the same material as the explosion-proof door at the wellhead. It is three meters thick, and the door frame is cast in one piece. However, this door has no lock cylinder, no piezoelectric crystal, and the surface of the door is so smooth that there is no structure that can be gripped.

The gate is opening.

A gap. Starting from the bottom, it rises upwards. The hydraulic sound is extremely deep, transmitting up from the ground, making the soles of my feet numb. The door rises very slowly, less than a centimeter per second.

Light shone through the crack.

It's not dark red. It's dark gold.

Wang Hu stopped. He stood beside the front beam and turned to look towards the reactor. Dark golden light spread out from the gap at the bottom of the gate, shining on the ground and mixing with the hydraulic slurry to create a strange reflection.

The gap widened to ten centimeters.

The light source is not uniform. It is concentrated at two points. There are two circular light sources, symmetrical from left to right, with a center-to-center distance of about three meters. Each light source has a diameter of more than one meter.

The spectral analysis results for Xiao Huo popped up on the screen.

"Dark golden light source. Wavelength concentrated between 580 and 590 nanometers. Not natural light. Not thermal radiation. Structural characteristics—"

He paused for 0.3 seconds.

"Lens group. Multi-layered composite lens. Embedded neural pathways. Possesses active focusing behavior."

Focusing behavior.

Two dark gold circular light sources moved simultaneously. The displacement was minuscule, less than two degrees of angular change. Yet, the direction of movement was precisely aimed at the same target.

Devourer of the Wilderness

The gate continues to rise. Fifteen centimeters. Twenty centimeters. Thirty centimeters.

The full picture of the light source is gradually revealed as the gap widens. It is not a lamp. It is not a projection device.

It's an eye.

Two dark gold mechanical compound eyes, embedded in a massive metal panel. The panel's surface was made using the earliest alloy casting techniques of the old Blue Star Expeditionary Force, with an oxide layer over twenty years old at the edges. The lens assembly inside the compound eyes was constantly in motion—fine-tuning the focus, fine-tuning the optical axis—observing like a living being.

It is watching the Devourer.

Inside cabin 013, Qin Yan's metal plate struck something. Just once. Then it stopped moving.

There was no knocking inside the 005 emplacement.

The entire underground space fell silent. Only the low-frequency hum of the reactor coolant circulating and the muffled sound of the hydraulic valves continuing to rise could be heard.

The gap in the gate has reached fifty centimeters.

Both compound eyes were fully exposed. Dark golden light refracted and flowed between the lens layers inside them, forming ever-changing patterns of light. Xiao Huo was comparing the frequency of the light patterns.

A cycle lasts 4.7 seconds.

The firing interval is consistent with that of the calibration missile at the fire control tower of Station 44. It is consistent with the ignition pulse of the decommissioned Zhenshan locomotive at Station 50. It is consistent with the pre-crack stress cycle of the dummy toothed rail at Station 45.

This thing. The underlying beat of all websites. It's all its.

Wang Hu's wrench slipped from his hand. He gripped it tightly and stepped back to the front beam.

Su Yuan stood at the door of the driver's cab, his right hand resting on the power lever. He neither pushed the lever nor pulled the brake.

Two dark golden compound eyes stared at him.

The gate is still rising.