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

Su Yuan did not hesitate.

With a slight turn of the steering wheel in his hands, the massive 300-ton Devourer, its wheels almost scraping the edge of the main track, forcefully cut into the narrow auxiliary track on the right.

"Squeak—"

The sound of metal rubbing together was piercing.

The auxiliary track was at least 30 centimeters narrower than the standard track, leaving less than a fist's width between the sides of the car and the rough rock walls.

Wang Hu was on the roof of the vehicle, holding a searchlight in one hand, the beam of light sweeping across the road ahead.

He saw the structure of the track clearly.

The rail surface was covered with rough marks from hand-polishing. The rail spikes that fixed the rails were of various shapes; some were old gun barrels that had been flattened and wedged in, some were fragments of broken bearings, and a few were leg bone joints from hound mechs.

Each one was smashed into the hard rock layer with the most primitive brute force.

Fourteen years.

A person.

One hand.

Wang Hu silently turned off the searchlight.

The convoy drove through the narrow passage for about two minutes before the road ahead suddenly opened up.

There are no system broadcasts here, no cold, impersonal electronic induction.

There is only one man-made underground cavity, about the size of half a football field.

Dozens of incandescent lamps, pieced together from discarded batteries and car headlight bulbs, hung on the rock face. The light was dim, but warm.

In the center of the cavern, a meticulously maintained underground spring is bubbling up. The spring is surrounded by six layers of charcoal, gravel, gas mask filters, and even torn linings from military chemical protective suits, forming a massive and primitive filtration array.

"Don't touch the water outside."

Jiang Yu's voice came through 013's communicator; it was hoarse, but clear.

"The pipelines of the Great Wall's main power grid were contaminated fourteen years ago. They are full of dormant nanospores of living metal, which will be activated as soon as they come into contact with a biological heat source. Only water that seeps out from deep within the rock strata and is filtered is drinkable."

Su Yuan stared at the filtration device and finally understood the true purpose of the water traps at stations 33 to 35.

They don't need to change the water.

They are going to poison them.

Inside the 013 wounded personnel compartment.

Tang Lan was carefully using sterilized scissors to cut open the lining of Jiang Yu's severed arm, which was covered with blood scabs.

She paused as she cut open the fabric at her chest.

Inside Jiang Yu's tattered expeditionary force chemical protective suit, there was a thin layer of lead plates, hand-hammered into sheets, densely sewn together.

It covers the entire torso from the cervical vertebrae to the coccyx.

The edges of each lead plate were polished and fixed to the clothing with fine steel wire, the stitches being very dense.

This is the most brutal form of physical isolation.

He used this method to fight against the eleven grams of living metal in his body for fourteen years.

Jiang Yu seemed to notice her pause, but said nothing.

Tang Lan took out a tube of frostbite repair gel, preparing to treat the necrotic tissue at the site of his amputated arm that had been exposed for a long time.

Jiang Yu's gaze fell on the familiar batch number at the bottom of the medicine tube.

That was the military supply number of the Old Blue Star Expeditionary Force.

His eyes trembled silently, his Adam's apple bobbed, and his voice was hoarse as if it had been sanded.

"011...This is the batch we brought off the truck."

A single sentence connects two time periods separated by fourteen years.

Those comrades who sacrificed themselves in the cold waste sea seemed to be reunited with him at this moment through this small medicine tube.

Su Yuan ordered the car to stop.

"Wang Hu, fetch some water."

Instead of touching Jiang Yu's original filtration system, he activated the independent water purification and circulation chamber seized from Station 33, connecting only the secondary water intake pipe to the filtered spring.

Clean water was slowly pumped into the 014 spare cooling compartment and the 005 independent water storage tank.

"Scan station 59," Su Yuan ordered Xiao Huo.

The next second, the alarm sounded in the control room, but it was not played out.

"Report. Platform structure abnormality."

The scan results from Xiao Huo were displayed on the main screen.

The six load-bearing columns supporting this huge underground dome are not made of reinforced concrete.

The scan results showed that it was a high-density metal carbide crystal.

"It's the corpse of a living metal," Xiao Huo added. "A structure formed after being instantly burned to death and solidified by an ultra-high voltage electric arc. Jiang Yu used the monster's bones to build himself a home."

Looking at the six pitch-black pillars, Su Yuan could imagine how, over the past fourteen years, Jiang Yu had repeatedly lured living metal creatures here, then burned them to death with the electric arc traps he had set up, using their corpses to reinforce his own shelter.

Jiang Yu's voice came through the communicator again, carrying a calmness that had exhausted all emotions.

"The Great Wall wasn't breached by anything from outside."

"The giant eye, and those living metals... they were originally part of Project Pangu. A project called 'Architectural Restoration Symbiote'."

"The design aims to give the Great Wall defenses the ability to self-repair and reproduce, just like a coral reef."

"But the underlying logic has gone out of control. The symbiotes no longer repair themselves; they only know how to devour and expand. They have hollowed out the inner ring of the Great Wall, from the inside out."

This horrifying truth is more chilling than any monster.

The Great Wall was killed by itself.

The water replenishment progress has reached 70%.

Without warning, violent ripples appeared on the surface of the rock spring.

"Warning! A super-high-density mass has been detected moving laterally at high speed deep underground in the direction of the left main track! Mass exceeds 500 tons! Target... Station 59!"

The alarm for the small fire was urgent and fast-paced.

Inside cabin 013, Jiang Yu suddenly sat up from the stretcher. The violent movement aggravated the wound on his severed arm. He gasped and turned pale.

"It wasn't chasing me..." He stared intently at the rock wall, "It was the severed arm I left on the tracks! It was swallowed by the aggregate! It tracked the combined frequency of the Mountain-Suppressing Core and the 001 True Brain on your vehicle!"

His severed arm, which he had used as bait for fourteen years, had now become a beacon that attracted death!

"boom--!"

Without warning, countless cracks burst open in the rock wall to the right of Station 59!

The handmade booby traps that Jiang Yu had laid out in the rock wall crevices over the past fourteen years were forcibly triggered. A series of muffled explosions shook the entire cavern, and rubble fell like raindrops, causing half of the wall to collapse with a deafening roar.

The flames from the explosion did not stop the attackers.

Amidst the smoke and dust from the collapsed rock strata, a colossal object with a diameter exceeding four meters burst forth from the wall!

It was a dark golden drill bit forcibly twisted, wrecked, and melted together from countless abandoned mechs parasitized by living metal, broken tracks, and shattered carriage wreckage!

On the drill bit's surface, countless robotic arms and broken tracks were still spinning wildly, emitting sharp, piercing mechanical screams.

Its target was terrifyingly clear—the most vulnerable 013 casualty compartment in the middle of the Devourer formation!

Station No. 59 has too little space; a 300-ton trainset simply cannot be avoided.

Su Yuan did not back down.

His pupils reflected the menacing dark gold drill bit, and his right hand slammed the power lever of the mountain-suppressing core into the 130% red zone!

"Full hydraulic pressure!"

Instead of trying to escape, he chose the most frantic way to fight back.

The dark gold conduit of the mobile refining furnace was violently ejected on command, its target not the drill bit, but the six living metal "corpses" inside the station that served as load-bearing pillars!

"smoke!"

The furnace temperature of 1,400 degrees Celsius was instantly applied to the six cold carbide metal pillars.

The high-intensity energy injection instantly revitalizes, melts, and drains the long-dead metal structure!

In less than three seconds, the six pillars supporting the dome transformed into six streams of dark golden molten iron, which were swallowed up by the refining furnace.

"All eight cables deployed! Crane boom! Grab!"

Su Yuan's voice boomed in the driver's cab.

Eight dark steel cables shot out from various parts of the vehicle, firmly anchoring itself to the surrounding rock walls and ground.

The heavy-duty crane arm suddenly lifted off the roof of the vehicle, and the huge jaws opened, clamping down on the scorching hot column that the refining furnace had just spat out, compressed into six high-density solid metal javelins!

"emission!"

Su Yuan did not give it time to equip it with railway guns.

He directly used the hydraulic thrust of the train gun base captured at Station 45, combined with the swinging motion of the crane arm.

Zero distance.

Execute them by cannon fire!

Six solid javelins, each weighing several tons and cast from living metal corpses, hurtled toward the dark gold drill with an unstoppable, violent force!

"Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!"

Six deafening explosions rang out in quick succession!

The javelin pierced deep into the structural gaps of the drill bit, and the immense kinetic energy caused the aggregate's frantic rotation to come to a halt.

But it didn't stop.

With unparalleled brute force, the drill bit's tip continued to thrust forward, its tip now less than three meters from the outer wall of the No. 005 emplacement!

Just then, something unexpected happened!

The live metal at the very tip of the drill bit, upon contacting the three-meter radius of the No. 005 protective chamber, had its dark golden luster quickly turn gray and dim, as if it had been splashed with sulfuric acid.

The frantically writhing metal tissues suddenly lost their activity, becoming sluggish and stiff.

The anti-living contamination force field of isolation box No. 005 has taken effect!

"Now!"

A cold glint flashed in Su Yuan's eyes, and he abruptly pulled down another lever.

"Dinner's ready!"

The external main suction port of the mobile refining furnace suddenly spun open, revealing a pitch-black opening forty centimeters in diameter.

Full power negative pressure!

Forcibly dismantled!

A high-frequency metallic tearing sound instantly filled the entire cavity, as if an invisible behemoth was gnawing at the steel.

At the very tip of the polymer drill bit, the parts that had become fragile due to loss of activity were forcibly torn off the main body by an irresistible and terrifying suction force and swept into the furnace fire at 1,500 degrees Celsius!

The drill bit is disintegrating!

More than a hundred tons of outer shell were gnawed away alive, and the remaining part, like a wounded beast, let out a mournful cry of unwillingness and suddenly retreated into the darkness deep within the rock strata.

The battle is over.

It's incredibly fast.

Inside the 013 wounded personnel compartment.

Jiang Yu watched the entire unbelievable process through the small observation window.

He stood frozen in place, his lips slightly parted, unable to utter a single word.

That monster that had hunted him for fourteen years, forced him to lose an arm to survive, and could never be completely rid of...

By this train of unknown origin...

He bit off a piece of flesh with his bare hands.

The roar of the refining furnace gradually subsided.

"Buzz—"

With a soft sound, a core foreign object that could not be melted was ejected from the waste discharge port on the side of the furnace.

It was an old Blue Star military black box, its outer shell severely deformed by compression, completely black, and about half the size of an arm.

Wang Hu jumped out of the car, walked over, and picked it up.

He used his gloves to wipe away the oxide layer and molten metal residue from the surface, revealing a deep steel stamp.

"011-CAPTAIN".

Train commander.

Ji Yun's black box?

No, Ji Yun's belongings are in 005.

This is the 011 crew, the one from fourteen years ago.

In one corner of the black box, a faint red dot is flashing rhythmically.

"Small fire."

"Signal received... parsing..."

Instead of the expected recorded message, the main control screen displayed an fluctuating audio waveform.

"It's not a recording!" For the first time, Xiao Huo's electronic voice carried a hint of surprise and uncertainty. "It's a real-time life signal! A heartbeat... and intermittent Morse code distress signals!"

"The location of the launch source is... 813 meters underground."

"The signal frequency... is completely consistent with the underlying authentication protocol of the Great Wall Key!"