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

At the bottom of an abyss thirteen thousand meters deep. There is no wind. There is no light.

The air was filled with a strong metallic rust smell, along with the cold, pungent chemical odor characteristic of living metal.

The Devourer sat silently at the edge of the wasteland. The rock-breaking drill bit at the front still emitted the dark red residual heat from its high-speed cutting through the rock layers. The tungsten steel rails beneath the chassis gripped the ground tightly.

Directly in front of the Devourer, less than fifty meters away.

A mobile fortress, over thirty meters tall, stands atop a mountain of scrap. The fortress is entirely pieced together from discarded armor plates, broken spindles, and old tracks, exuding a primitive and rugged heavy industrial feel.

A transparent life support capsule is embedded in the chest of this steel behemoth.

The emergency light in the life support pod cast a faint yellow glow, illuminating the face of the man inside.

He was a middle-aged man who appeared to be in his fifties. His hair was gray, his eyes were sunken, and he was so thin that he was almost nothing but skin and bones. He wore a tattered research uniform from the Blue Star Expeditionary Force. The uniform was covered in oil stains and bloodstains. The nameplate on his chest was somewhat blurred from years of wear and tear, but the words "Pangu Project · Deputy Chief Engineer · Lu Ye" were still clearly legible.

The control room was deathly silent.

The words "Welcome home" that had just come from the loudspeaker were still faintly echoing in the carriage's loudspeakers, carrying the characteristic hissing sound of an old-fashioned stereo.

On the roof of the car.

Wang Hu's body was as stiff as a stone. One of his hands was still on the ammunition feed mechanism of the train gun, with half of an armor-piercing shell stuck in the slide, unable to go up or down.

His bull-like eyes widened, his gaze shifting between the unreachable sky above and the emaciated man before him. His heavy breathing landed on the cold metal deck.

A vast land in the sky.

There is a Luye underground.

The facial features and bone structure of these two people are almost identical. But Lu Ye in the holographic projection on the sky track is dressed in a suit and tie, with a haughty look in his eyes and a coldness that treats human life as worthless.

The one in front of me looked like an old scavenger barely surviving in a garbage dump.

Inside the 013 wounded ward.

Upon hearing the words "Welcome home," Tang Lan's expression suddenly darkened. Almost instinctively, she drew her large-caliber pistol from her waist and pressed the hammer down with her thumb. A crisp click rang out.

She didn't look at the seriously wounded; her gaze, through the bulletproof observation window on the side, was fixed on the thirty-meter-high mobile fortress opposite. The muzzle of her gun rose and fell with her breath. In this damned wasteland, the word "home" was often accompanied by the deadliest trap.

Inside the 017 hibernation isolation chamber.

Jiang Yu's one arm clung tightly to the edge of the cabin door, his fingers turning white from the excessive force.

His breathing stopped completely due to extreme fear and confusion. The shadow of the life support pod was reflected in his pupils.

As a communications soldier in the 011 crew fourteen years ago, he knew better than anyone what the name "Lu Ye" represented in Project Pangu. It represented the highest level of authority outside of the mainframe.

But how could the highest authority from fourteen years ago have been divided into two? And one is a god in heaven, while the other is a ghost on earth.

Only Su Yuan was not startled by this sudden and bizarre scene.

He sat in the driver's seat. His eyes were colder than the sea of ​​waste outside.

He ignored the other person's sentimental greeting and didn't try to guess whether it was true or not.

His right hand shot out like lightning and grabbed the brake lever.

Click.

The 123-ton Devourer suddenly sank. Its brake claws dug hard into the rock at the bottom of the abyss, locking it completely.

Immediately afterwards, Su Yuan swiped his left hand across the fire control interface on the console, directly cutting off Wang Hu's manual control privileges and taking over the "Mother Nest Butcher" train cannon on the roof.

A heavy mechanical clanking sound echoed from the roof of the vehicle.

The twelve-meter-long cannon barrel began to spin at a teeth-grinding speed.

The dark muzzle of the 400mm caliber cannon slowly lowered, the rifling inside the barrel reflecting the light. Finally, the muzzle locked onto the fragile, transparent life support capsule fifty meters away.

The crosshair flashes red on the fire control screen. Locking on.

"What does JY-003 mean?" Su Yuan stared at the screen, his tone calm and without any fluctuation.

His finger hovering above the red launch button did not tremble at all.

Don't try to build a relationship with me. My patience only lasts three seconds.

A distance of fifty meters.

A 400mm railway gun. Firing at this distance, the enormous muzzle velocity wouldn't even require the delayed fuse of an armor-piercing projectile. The kinetic energy would directly smash the life support pod, along with the man inside, and even the 30-meter-tall mobile fortress, into a shower of flying metal fragments.

Facing the cannon muzzle that could shatter everything.

Lu Ye, inside the life support pod, neither dodged nor panicked.

He leaned back in his badly worn chair, looking at the Devourer's posture, ready to fire at the slightest provocation, and actually chuckled to himself.

He laughed with great effort. His chest made a sound like a broken bellows.

Lu Ye suddenly coughed violently. He turned his head and sprayed a mouthful of thick, black, blood-tinged phlegm onto the inner glass of the life support capsule.

Black bloodstains slowly slid down the glass.

"Your temper is exactly the same as hers back then." Lu Ye wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his withered hand. His voice came through the loudspeaker into the Devourer, filled with weakness and self-mockery.

He pointed to the sky. That unreachable celestial orbit.

"Does the 'me' in heaven seem high and mighty? Doesn't my speech appear incredibly logical, with every word calculated as a matter of gain and loss?"

Lu Ye stared into Su Yuan's eyes.

"That's a fake. Fourteen years ago, the main brain of the Pangu Project forcibly cloned my brain data in pursuit of so-called 'absolute efficiency,' and then stripped away all human characteristics to generate a pure logic operation model."

Su Yuan remained silent. His finger was less than two centimeters from the fire button.

one second.

"The mastermind believes that human emotions are the most deadly redundant code in the face of disaster." Lu Ye raised his hand with difficulty and patted his chest.

"Compassion, fear, weakness, and reluctance to let go. These emotions can lead to poor decision-making. In the face of the threat of living metal, only absolute rationality can guarantee survival."

Lu Ye lowered his hand, a bitter, cold smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"So this original body of mine, bearing only the title of deputy director, was deemed non-biodegradable waste because it was inefficient and because it possessed excessive compassion in the eyes of the mainframe."

He jerked the lever.

The 30-meter-tall mobile fortress raised its massive engineering pincers, pointing towards the vast, boundless sea of ​​waste around it, towards the mountains of rusted wagons.

"Those in the heavens enjoy the protection afforded by absolute rationality after the stripping away of humanity."

"And the 100,000 skeletons and tens of thousands of tons of remains underground became the stepping stones for them to maintain their noble status."

"They abandoned the convoy that refused to leave the wounded. They abandoned the crew that refused to hand over life-saving supplies. We were just trash under these tracks."

two seconds.

Wang Hu, listening from the rooftop, gritted his teeth. That finally made sense. He'd always thought that Lu Ye in the sky spoke like a rigid calculator, his emotions completely off.

"You've been talking too much nonsense," Su Yuan interrupted him, her voice cold and hard. "What does this have to do with JY-003? You have one second left."

Lu Ye, inside the life support capsule, looked at the massive body of the Devourer and a fanatical light suddenly flashed in his eyes.

He stopped keeping everyone in suspense.

"Do you really think that with your beat-up car, you can break through the deadlock of the Great Wall defenses fourteen years from now?"

"What makes you think you have the authority to forcibly recast the energy conductor of the Zhenshan core? Why do those living metals fail when they come into contact with 005's force field?"

"And what gives you the right to directly access the 011 train commander's real brain without suffering brain death due to rejection on the spot?"

Lu Ye's voice suddenly rose in pitch, echoing through the vast sea of ​​waste.

"Because deep within your bones, in every inch of your genes, is engraved the 'lower-level veto power' that Ji Yun personally implanted back then."

"You're not some wanderer roaming the wasteland, Su Yuan. You don't even have your own past."

The mobile fortress took a heavy step forward. Its massive mechanical legs screeched against the scrap metal. Broken steel beams were crushed to pieces.

"Fourteen years ago, the Great Wall defense line was about to be completely breached by living metal."

"In order to fight against that monster, Ji Yun overruled all objections and launched Project JY."

"She extracted the original sample of the first-generation living metal and combined it with the most resilient human genes. Through forced fusion, she cultivated three 'key containers' in a nutrient pod to restart the Great Wall."

"She tried to use monsters to defeat monsters."

Lu Ye stared at Su Yuan in the driver's seat, speaking slowly and deliberately.

"You are the container codenamed JY-003."

These words were like a bombshell, exploding directly in the Devourer's communication channel.

All the secrets, all the irrationality, found their perfect balance in this moment.

Why can Su Yuan ignore the radiation from living metal?

Why do living metal fragments that approach him react by retreating or even submitting?

Why was he able to dismantle those sophisticated old Blue Star heavy industry facilities as if they were toys?

Inside the 017 hibernation isolation chamber.

Jiang Yu shuddered, feeling as if all his strength had been drained, and collapsed onto the cold metal floor. His back slammed against the cold bulkhead.

"Project JY..."

Jiang Yu's lips trembled, his teeth chattering. "Impossible... that plan was already deemed heretical by the General Headquarters back then..."

He stared at his severed arm, now parasitized by living metal. Memories from fourteen years ago surged back like a nightmare.

"Headquarters said those fusion entities are mindless monsters. They're the ultimate source of contamination, even more uncontrollable than the living metal outside! They ordered those three containers, along with the lab, to be destroyed! I saw the destruction report with my own eyes. Those three petri dishes were thrown into the incinerator..."

Wang Hu gasped. He stiffly turned his head to look at the windshield of the driver's cab below. He swallowed hard.

Tang Lan gripped the gun handle tightly, her palms sweating profusely.

She wasn't afraid of Su Yuan. She was shocked.

This group of people followed Su Yuan all the way up from the brink of death. No matter how desperate the situation was, no matter if dozens of train cannons or hundreds of tons of Zero Zone hunter mechs were ahead.

Su Yuan always wore that chillingly cold expression. Then he would break the deadlock using the most unbelievable and unreasonable violent methods.

If it were an ordinary person, even if they had ten thousand lives, they would have been lost in the defense line.

However, if Su Yuan himself was the most taboo product cultivated by the Great Wall defense line back then.

Then all this madness becomes perfectly logical.

The cab was deathly silent. The only sound was the low rumble of the engine idling.

Everyone was waiting for Su Yuan's reaction.

Waiting for this "monster" whose true origins have been revealed to erupt.

However, Su Yuan did not fly into a rage.

There was no hysterical questioning of why she was a guinea pig.

He didn't even blink. His gaze was as still as a stagnant pool.

"Are you done talking?"

Su Yuan released the finger that was hovering above the launch button.

With a flick of his wrist, he slammed his hand down on the power push rod that was firmly welded in front of him.

Snapped.

A crisp sound rang out. A deep rumble emanated from the core of the mountain-suppressing system. The massive heavy drill bit at the front of the machine began to slowly rotate again, emitting a bloodthirsty hum, cutting through the rock layers of the ground.

"I don't care if my bones have Ji Yun's name engraved in them or some bullshit JY-003."

Su Yuan's voice was amplified through an external loudspeaker, spreading throughout the entire waste sea.

Cold-blooded. Domineering. Leaving no room for compromise.

"I don't care who owed whom those messy debts from fourteen years ago. Whether it was a container or a monster."

He slammed on the gas. The Devourer lurched forward half a meter. The heavy chassis crushed several pieces of scrap metal.

"I only know one thing."

"The Great Wall now has to turn according to my direction."

Do not dodge. Do not retreat. Do not be swayed by fate.

Whether they are celestial beings or ghosts on earth, whether they are living metal or cloned artificial intelligence.

Whoever blocks the way will become molten iron in the furnace.

Lu Ye, inside the life support pod, was stunned for a moment.

Then, he suddenly burst into laughter.

The laughter was devoid of the dying embers of before. It was now pure exhilaration and a frenzied madness born of despair. He laughed so hard he nearly fell over, tears mingling with blood as they streamed down his face.

"Fine! Well, I'll just have to follow your steering wheel!"

Lu Ye's hands flew across the worn-out control panel.

The massive mobile fortress began to slowly retreat, deliberately clearing the space directly in front of it. Its mechanical tracks kicked up large amounts of metal filings.

As it retreated, the eight large high-voltage searchlights hanging on the outer shell of the fortress lit up in succession with a series of crackling sounds.

Eight ghastly white beams of light pierced the darkness at the bottom of the ten-thousand-meter-deep abyss. Like eight sharp swords, they illuminated the area even deeper within.

Wang Hu lay on the roof of the car, looking in the direction of the beam of light. His scalp instantly tingled with a fine layer of prickles.

In the depths of that abyss, illuminated by intense light.

This is not a simple garbage dump at all.

Beneath those mountains of waste, the remains of countless compatriots, and the wreckage of thousands of scrapped trains.

The area was covered with a dense network of thick, black cables, each as thick as a python. These cables were wrapped in layers of thick insulating tape, spreading like blood vessels throughout the underground of the waste sea.

All the wreckage and engine debris were hand-welded together with extreme precision. Every weld point showed signs of human intervention.

This formed a gigantic mechanical computing array so vast that it could not be measured by sight.

"For the past fourteen years, I've been alone down here. Eating the flesh of the dead that leaks down from the sky and drinking condensed water. I'm not just waiting to die."

Lu Ye's voice carried a chilling pride. It was the ultimate madness of a top-tier, older generation of engineers.

"This is the 'physical-level counterattack underlying server' that I painstakingly pieced together using the bones of 100,000 corpses and 70,000 tons of scrap metal, inch by inch, thread by thread."

"It has no network ports. The AI ​​Lu Ye high above in the sky has no logical connection to this place. He is completely unaware of the existence of this behemoth."

Lu Ye looked at Su Yuan. Hope shone in his bloodshot eyes.

"Now, I am handing over supreme control of this counterattack server to you."

"Plus the veto power ingrained in your very being."

"We could directly destroy the load-bearing system of the skyrail from a hardware perspective, and take down those 70,000 hypocritical scumbags on it..."

He hadn't finished speaking.

A sudden change occurred.

At the very top of the abyss. Thirteen thousand meters above the ground.

Suddenly, a deafening sonic boom was heard.

It was as if the sky had been violently torn apart by a giant hand. Terrifying sound waves descended from the sky, causing the scrap metal at the bottom of the abyss to hum.

Boom!

On the screen in the main control room, the previously stable radar scanning interface was instantly filled with a glaring blood red.

The piercing alarm blared wildly throughout the carriage. Red warning lights flashed alternately, turning the driver's cab a blood-red hue.

"Red Alert!"

Xiao Huo's electronic voice crackled slightly due to data overload.

"Detection detected in the lower compartment of the skyrail system; all physical sewage outlets are now open!"

"Deploying 'Absolute Elimination Level' contaminant towards the current coordinates!"

Quality assessment: Over 100,000 tons!

"Estimated impact countdown: 30 seconds!"

Wang Hu, who was on the roof of the car, suddenly raised his head.

He ripped down the large handheld spotlight hanging nearby and shone the beam straight upwards.

The beam of light pierced through the frigid air. Thousands of meters in the air, it collided with a dark, overwhelming shadow.

That wasn't a conventional artillery strike. Nor was it an extreme cold-blast mine.

It was a dense mass of deformed train wreckage and extremely cold debris, falling like a mudslide.

Under the searchlight, it was clearly visible that each massive piece of wreckage was covered with living, dark silver metallic tentacles. These tentacles twisted and tangled wildly in mid-air, devouring and mating with each other.

This has created a massive, black, polluting network that blots out the sky, threatening to suffocate all life beneath it.

The mastermind in the sky discovered the anomaly at the bottom.

He abandoned precise fire control strikes and also abandoned sending troops to encircle and annihilate the enemy. He directly adopted the most brutal and convenient method: physical landfill.

The entire bottom of the abyss, along with this decommissioned server and the Devourer, must be completely buried in radioactive debris covered in living metal.

Twenty-five seconds.

A terrifying sense of oppression descended from the sky.

The air at the bottom of the abyss was compressed by the 100,000 tons of mass falling, creating a violent wind pressure exceeding level twelve.

A biting wind swept through the air, whipping up scrap metal from the ground. The metal struck the Devourer's armor, creating a series of crackling sounds.

Lu Ye's expression changed drastically inside the life support pod.

The pride on his face vanished, leaving only terror.

"Reverse! Su Yuan, reverse immediately! Get under my server's main structure!"

Lu Ye frantically pounded on the control panel with both hands. The mobile fortress opened the hydraulic guards on both sides, trying to block the gap above.

He roared into the communicator, "That's the 'cleaning cycle' of the skyrail! The concentration of living metals hanging on it is more than ten times the critical value!"

"No matter how tough your Pangu-class armor is, if it gets hit, it will be assimilated into molten iron within 0.3 seconds!"

This is a double annihilation at both the physical and molecular levels. The combined pressure of 100,000 tons and ultimate pollution. Faced with absolute quality, any attempt is futile.

Twenty seconds.

The falling debris obscured all the space above. Darkness pressed down like a physical entity. The wind howled mournfully, like the wails of a thousand ghosts.

Inside the 013 wounded ward.

The stretchers carrying the seriously injured creaked under the vibration of the wind pressure.

Tang Lan gripped the anchor ring tightly, her eyes fixed on the lead vehicle ahead. The veins on the back of her hand bulged.

She knew that there was only one way out now: reverse. Retreating back into the shadow of that junkyard might allow her to cling to life for a few more minutes.

Su Yuan sat in the driver's seat, staring intently at the purplish-red mass impact points on the screen.

His right hand was resting on the reversing pole.

There was a pause of half a second.

then.

He shoved the reversing lever back into place with a vengeance.

Then, he gripped the welded-on power push rod at the core of the mountain-suppressing structure with his left hand.

Click.

He pushed the pusher forward another inch. 190. Absolutely the red zone.

The roar from the engine was no longer a boom; it was a sharp, tearing sound, completely drowning out the sonic boom crashing from the sky. The energy channels instantly glowed red-hot. Large amounts of scalding steam, hot enough to burn a person's skin, seeped from the outer walls. The temperature inside the cockpit suddenly soared.

"hide?"

Su Yuan's voice boomed through the communication channel.

There was no fear of death in that voice. Only an extreme excitement and a desperate, mad madness.

"What fell from the sky were all top-grade materials that had been rejected from within the Great Wall!"

"So much high-quality scrap steel. Such excellent takeout."

"Just feed it to my mouth."

Su Yuan suddenly stood up. He yanked off the red cover on the control panel. His fingers flew across the keyboard so fast they were barely visible.

"I'll take them all!"

Command input complete.

"Mobile refining furnace, fully loaded and overloaded, operating simultaneously!"

"Thirty-six dark gold conduits, abandon all external protection. All of them, tilt them upwards at a ninety-degree angle!"

"Activate maximum negative pressure suction! Swallow it!"

With Su Yuan's roar, a blinding red light burst forth from the middle section of the Devourer's vehicle.

The mobile refining furnace, originally intended for absorbing wreckage from the side of the vehicle, had its door forcibly pried open by internal hydraulic rods. The force of the action was so violent that two of the fixing hinges snapped. Broken pieces of iron flew out.

Thirty-six thick, dark gold conduits, like raging, heavy metal hydras, shot out instantly, pointing straight to the sky.

The 1,500-degree heat surged forth with the roar of the negative pressure engine.

Directly above the Devourer, a visible, spiral-shaped, inverted, high-temperature, absorbing funnel appeared out of thin air. The surrounding air was instantly sucked away, creating a small, localized vacuum.

Fifteen seconds.

The first batch of smaller, distorted debris to fall crashed into the edge of the inverted, swirling funnel.

scoff.

A piercing screech of vaporization filled the air. Thick white smoke billowed up instantly.

The scrap steel plate, weighing over ten tons, along with the dark silver living metal tentacles covering it, didn't even have time to touch the roof of the Devourer.

Under the intense heat of 1,500 degrees Celsius and the violent negative pressure, it instantly disintegrated and vaporized, turning into clumps of viscous, shiny molten metal droplets, which were directly sucked into the depths of the refining furnace through the dark gold conduit.

effective.

But what fell from the sky was a full 100,000 tons.

ten seconds.

Huge chunks of waste rained down like raindrops.

The inverted, high-temperature vortex funnel began to deform violently. After continuously consuming thousands of tons of matter, the dark gold conduit began to develop abnormal white spots on its surface. The conduit itself even began to bend.

The load on the refining furnace instantly surged from 100% to 300%. The hands on the instrument panel bent sharply.

"Warning! Warning!"

The alarm from Xiao Huo was so loud it almost shattered my eardrums.

"The internal pressure of the furnace cavity is overloaded! Exceeding the design limit by more than two times!"

"A primary structural crack has appeared in the furnace wall!"

"The cooling system's water jacket is boiling and is about to fail completely!"

"Flare countdown, seven seconds!"

The heavy outer shell of the refining furnace emitted a teeth-grinding cracking sound. Fine cracks spread rapidly like a spider web.

Blindingly hot flames shone through the cracks, illuminating the car body.

This refining furnace, which once devoured the wreckage of the entire defensive line, now resembles a nuclear bomb ready to explode at any moment.

Inside carriage 013.

Tang Lan clung tightly to the spare cooling valve, pressing her entire weight onto the valve handle. She was trying to pump the last bit of the spare liquid nitrogen mixture towards the refining furnace.

It had no effect. The coolant evaporated into gas before it even entered the pipes due to the high temperature conducted from the outside. Hot white smoke billowed from the exhaust vents.

The temperature inside the carriage soared from 20 degrees Celsius to nearly 50 degrees Celsius in just three seconds.

The life monitors in the casualty ward were flashing red lights. The urgent beeping became a death knell. Several seriously wounded soldiers' wounds had begun to bleed due to the dilated blood vessels caused by the high temperature. The blood dripped onto the metal plate, instantly turning into black scabs.

"Hold on! You all fucking hold on!" Tang Lan roared through gritted teeth.

To stay awake in the intense heat, she even pulled out a dagger and slashed her thigh. Blood flowed out. Her eyes were fixed on the thermometer in front of her.

Wang Hu, standing on the roof of the car, was completely frantic.

He gripped the firing handle of the train gun tightly with both hands. The barrel was almost vertically upward. He fired wildly at the giant chunks of scrap that were about to smash through the core of the funnel.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Four hundred millimeter high-explosive armor-piercing rounds exploded one after another in mid-air. Clusters of orange-red fireballs bloomed in the darkness. Smoke filled the air.

The train chassis wreckage, stretching for tens of meters, was blown into several pieces. This slightly reduced the pressure on the refining furnace from swallowing it whole.

But this is simply a drop in the ocean.

The sky seemed to collapse completely. A massive black shadow loomed overhead, and the Grim Reaper's scythe was already at your neck.

Five seconds.

Lu Ye, inside the life support pod, was completely stunned by the Devourer's seemingly intent on forcibly swallowing the heavens.

He thought he had spent the past fourteen years surviving like a rat at the bottom of a ten-thousand-meter abyss, piecing together servers, always ready to perish together. This was already the most insane revenge against the Great Wall.

But he never expected that this container, codenamed JY-003, wasn't there to take over permissions in a step-by-step manner.

He wasn't a logical engineer, nor a rule-abiding savior.

He was a complete madman. A monstrous beast in human skin.

He wanted to chew up the 100,000 tons of despair that the entire orbiter was about to crash down on, and swallow it down whole.

I stared at the refining furnace's outer shell, which was on the verge of cracking. I watched the blinding flames shooting out from the cracks.

Lu Ye's expression changed.

It was the final resolve of an older generation of guardians who, upon witnessing a more resolute and fanatical inheritance than themselves, erupted into action.

"JY-003".

Lu Ye suddenly sat up straight. He clenched his fist and slammed it into the core control panel in front of him.

boom.

He smashed the bulletproof glass shield covering the highest-authority button. Sharp shards of glass pierced his fist, drawing blood that dripped onto the button.

But he didn't even blink.

"Since you want to devour the heavens, I'll give you a little push today!"

Lu Ye pressed down hard on the two bright red physical buttons hidden at the very bottom of the control panel.

That was the ultimate self-destruct switch for a physical-level counterattack against the underlying servers.

hum.

The thirty-meter-high waste fortress suddenly emitted an extremely high-frequency buzzing sound from within.

Immediately afterwards, the thick, scrap metal armor used for defense and camouflage crumbled off in large sections, like scales falling away. Huge steel plates slammed heavily onto the ground, kicking up rust and dust.

The fortress disintegrated instantly, starting with its core load-bearing structure. Countless gears, bearings, and connecting rods scattered in all directions.

Accompanied by a blinding blue light.

A ten-meter-long, thick log, burning with a ghostly blue plasma flame—a pure blue fusion fuel rod—was completely exposed from the deepest part of the fortress.

This is all the hard work Lu Ye has accumulated over fourteen years. It is the energy core that he painstakingly extracted and concentrated from countless scrapped core units in preparation for one day counterattacking Tiangui.

Once this fusion fuel rod is inserted into the base of the space orbiter, it will be enough to burn up the entire lower-level main control logic.

But now, he doesn't need to.

"then!"

Lu Ye let out a furious roar that tore his throat apart.

The last hydraulic catapult inside the fortress activated. A tremendous thrust acted directly on the base of the fuel rods. The hydraulic rods made a sharp cracking sound.

The ten-meter-long pure blue fusion fuel rod, trailing a trail of eerie blue flame, pierced the darkness at the bottom of the abyss.

Like a spear piercing through despair.

It was fired directly at the mobile refining furnace of the Devourer, which was about to fall into pieces.

Su Yuan's pupils suddenly contracted at that moment.

He didn't analyze the energy level of the fuel rods, nor did he care whether the refining furnace could withstand such terrifying energy.

Without any hesitation, he pulled down the yellow lever on the control panel that indicated the safety lock.

Release. Fully open.

"Catheter! Grab it!"

The two thick, dark gold conduits closest to the refining furnace seemed to come alive, suddenly pulling back from the edge of the devouring funnel.

In mid-air, it precisely entangled the ten-meter-long fusion fuel rod.

Without the slightest pause, ignoring the terrifyingly high temperatures emanating from the fuel rods—temperatures capable of melting steel—the conduit suddenly contracted, violently drawing the fuel rods into the raging furnace chamber.

three seconds.

The moment the fusion fuel rods are inserted into the furnace.

The air temperature around the entire waste sea instantly rose by fifty or sixty degrees Celsius. The dark puddles on the surrounding ground vaporized in a fraction of a second, sending up large plumes of white mist.

There was no violent explosion.

There is only one ultimate sublimation that transcends the limits of physics.

The furnace temperature of the refining furnace. From the extreme of 1,500 degrees Celsius.

Soaring. Two thousand. Two thousand five.

It broke through the 3,000 degree mark.

The massive furnace shell changed color from a dangerous crimson to an unbearably bright white in half a second.

The light even outshone all the searchlights, illuminating the bottom of the abyss as if it were daytime.

Those fine cracks that had already broken open and were on the verge of causing an explosion, miraculously underwent a perfect physical healing process while encased within the ultra-high temperature liquid metal of 3,000 degrees Celsius.

The impurities within the cracks were instantly burned away. The metal molecules were forcibly rearranged and recombined. The outer shell became smoother and more indestructible than before.

Qualitative change.

This refining furnace, pieced together and rebuilt along the way, after consuming this fusion fuel rod that had accumulated fourteen years of vengeful energy, completely shattered the technological ceiling of the old Blue Star expeditionary force era.

It evolved into a destructive furnace capable of melting and assimilating everything.

The swallowing funnel above instantly expanded its range more than tenfold.

What was originally just a funnel covering the car body now resembles a gigantic, smooth maw that blots out the sky, suspended upside down in mid-air. Even the center of the funnel shows a slight spatial distortion.

That 100,000 tons was originally enough to crush the Devourer into a pancake, posing a deadly threat.

Faced with this terrifyingly powerful devouring force, the vehicle was abruptly halted for a fraction of a second in mid-air, less than twenty meters from the roof.

Mass and gravity are forcibly pulled and canceled out by the violent negative pressure.

Then, like all rivers flowing into the sea.

Countless deformed wrecks covered in tentacles. Mountain-sized chunks of extremely cold waste. A twisted and deformed heavy-duty chassis.

They were all forcibly drawn into that bright white vortex.

It is decomposed in mid-air. It is stripped away. It is burned into pure metallic liquid at a high temperature of three thousand degrees, and then falls into the furnace.

The small fire engine's announcements were flooding the driver's cab. This was the first time it had ever spoken at such a rapid pace. Characters were jumping wildly across the screen.

"Warning lifted! Furnace pressure is extremely stable!"

"Abnormal energy fusion complete. Conversion rate 99%."

"Material decomposition complete. Forced recasting initiation!"

"Obtained: Space-orbit-level super-limit-resistance compression frame!"

"Obtained: Ultimate Counter-Coating for Living Assimilation!"

"Acquired: 200 tons of high-purity zero-zone memory armor plate!"

"Special component successfully separated: 12 fragments of the anti-gravity levitation unit!"

100,000 tons of pollution and deaths.

The Devourer devoured it completely, leaving not a single scrap metal on the ground.

The finished product output port on the side of the refining furnace looks like a crazy money-spitting machine.

It continuously spews out top-grade alloy plates and special components, still retaining a temperature of three thousand degrees Celsius. As soon as these components emerge from the furnace, they are forcibly welded to the hull of the Devourer, guided by an automated robotic arm. Sparks from the welding process bloom like fireworks on the side of the vehicle.

Tang Lan was in carriage 013. She watched as, in just a few seconds, a dark blue, pressure-resistant frame was automatically welded onto the exterior wall of the carriage. The heat-insulating coating instantly reduced the temperature inside the carriage to twenty degrees Celsius. It was a cool feeling.

The tension in her body suddenly eased, and she collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath. She dropped the dagger and pressed her hand against the knife wound on her thigh.

Wang Hu lay on the roof of the car, looking at the dark sky that had returned to its empty state, where not even a single piece of scrap metal remained.

He threw away the empty shell casing in his hand and let out a near-manic laugh.

"Awesome!! Drop some more, you bastard!! I'm still not full!!"

The entire convoy escaped death.

But Su Yuan did not laugh.

He sat firmly in the driver's seat, his gaze piercing through the windshield, fixed on the very top of the abyss.

After that area of ​​wasteland was completely swallowed up, the sky did not close again.

At an altitude of 13,000 meters, the enormous metal tunnel remained completely open.

That was the final drainage outlet at the bottom, which the skyrail system had to open to dump these 100,000 tons of waste.

It's over a hundred meters wide. The edge of the bottomless, pitch-black passage is covered in a corroded, dark golden slime. It leads directly to the lowest level of the sky rail.

"Old man."

Su Yuan suddenly spoke. His voice traveled through the communicator to Lu Ye, who was panting heavily and completely defenseless inside the life support pod.

"I can borrow your server for a bit. You don't need to return it, right?"

Lu Ye stood there, stunned.

He gazed at the endless underground server array protected behind the Devourer. He didn't understand what Su Yuan was planning. He assumed Su Yuan would take over control and send a virus from below to burn down the Sky Orbit.

But Su Yuan didn't wait for his reply at all.

"Wang Hu, Tang Lan. Everyone, listen up!"

Su Yuan jerked the steering wheel with both hands, aiming the massive front of the Devourer at an angle completely unbelievable from a physics standpoint.

It's almost vertically upwards.

"All eight cables are deployed!"

"Tie the anti-gravity levitation unit that the refining furnace just spat out to the chassis!"

"Rock-breaking drill bit. Point it to the sky!"

Su Yuan's eyes were terrifyingly bright.

There was no retreat, no forbearance. It was a pure madness suppressed by absolute reason.

"People in the sky. Since they like to throw garbage down there."

Su Yuan immediately channeled all the energy he had just absorbed into the propulsion system.

"Then today, we'll step on this garbage and crash against the current!"

hum.

The massive deep-ground rock-breaking drill bit at the front of the vehicle emitted a deafening, high-frequency shriek, creating a visible spiral of air.

Eight thick, black steel cables, like eight giant hands, shot out from the side of the vehicle, gripping the twelve newly produced anti-gravity levitation units tightly and forcibly pulling them under the chassis. The cables were taut and rang with a metallic clang.

The front of the Devourer suddenly rose high.

The massive chassis, agitated by the anti-gravity unit, emitted a visible repulsive wave, lifting the vehicle three feet off the ground with a roar.

The Zhenshan core's 190-watt overpowered output emitted a 100-meter-long incandescent white tail flame.

This steel dragon weighs hundreds of tons.

And so it faced the sewage outlet above the abyss, soaring 13,000 meters into the sky, straight up into the clouds.

The air surrounding the rock-breaking drill bit was compressed wildly, creating a shockwave that broke the sound barrier. In the darkness of the abyss, the Devourer was like a shooting star hurtling backward, determined to smash through the darkness.

Just as the Devourer completely broke free from Earth's gravity and hurtled towards the sewage outlet ten thousand meters in the sky, about to plunge into the tunnel...

On the main screen in the driver's cab.

Accompanied by a piercing static shock, the image flickered and distorted.

Suddenly, a very faint encrypted signal flashed by, which was not blocked by the Skyrail AI Lu Ye.

The source of the signal was inside the massive sewage outlet they were about to crash into.

The sound waves on the screen were undulating. It was a blood-stained audio clip.

"Run...don't come up..."

"The people in heaven...were all..."

"It's all been eaten..."

The audio abruptly stopped amidst a chilling, scalp-chilling metallic chewing sound. It sounded like countless mouths gnawing at bone.

Su Yuan stared intently at the pitch-black interior of the sewage outlet on the radar screen.

He did not slow down.

The knuckles of his hands, gripping the steering wheel, turned white from the extreme force.

Whether those in the sky are humans or ghosts, whether it's heaven or some other, more terrifying hell.

Today, he's going to smash a hole in this rotten sky.