Chapter 329 Run!

September 6, 2069, Apocalypse Day, D-100

100 days after the Apocalypse, a joint train led by Longshan No. 1 and Infinity entered the vast no-man's land from Aksai to the east.

At 10:02, the sun, like a furnace pick burning white-hot, pierced straight into the exposed spine of the Gobi Desert. The combined train ran at high speed over the rust-brown gravel plain. The saline-alkali land on both sides of the rails was steaming with mirages, twisting the wind-eroded rock pillars in the distance into swaying candle tears.

The train team that had just been repaired in Aksai was now suffering heavy damage. Thick smoke billowed from many carriages and the remains of monsters were everywhere. The steel corroded by black blood was emitting thick smoke, revealing its hideous state after the battle. Fortunately, the battle was short and the armor of each team was thick. The eggs of those monster insects were not corrosive enough to melt through the armor and carriages. However, the carriages hit by the huge black beam were a different story.

Behind the joint train, several carriages of the convoy were torn open, with huge collapse and fragmentation on the sides and roof of the carriages. Almost 2/3 of the protection of the entire carriage was gone, leaving only the frame under the car still pressed on the track. One of the carriages even had half of its track wheels gone. Half of the carriage was pulling the train behind it, running at high speed with friction and sparks. The battle was brutal!

The Dawn Convoy, the Aksai Brotherhood, the Wind Walker, the Fu Lu Shou and other car convoys lost more than a dozen trucks and hundreds of people.

The sad atmosphere didn't have time to spread yet, the entire convoy didn't dare to slack off and continued to run at high speed!

Because there are less than 9 hours left until dark!

They must rush into Quancheng before dark, but the no-man's land is still at least two thousand kilometers wide. Under this sense of oppression, no one has time to stop and reorganize, no one has time to cry and grieve, and no one wants to fall behind!

The sound of the wheels hitting the rails was as muffled as a death knell. The quartz sand grains between the gaps between the sleepers were shaken into powder and rolled into golden dust by the heat wave.

"I have remade the mounting hook, hurry up and move it!"

Lin Xian and KIKI led the team to the damaged carriages of the convoy at the rear. His purpose was not only to help the convoys deal with the damaged carriages, but also because if these carriages were not cleared away, they would bring safety hazards to the entire train.

The convoy in front of us is the Red Rose Convoy. Most of the people on board are women. In the previous battle, one of the living carriages was almost broken into two under the black light. Only three of the dozen people living inside survived.

At this time, with the help of their teammates, the women did not even have time to treat their wounds and urgently moved the remaining supplies in the damaged carriage. KIKI was responsible for unhooking and moving the carriage away, allowing Lin Xian to deal with it, and then the carriage behind was accelerated to connect.

This operation is not a difficult task for Lin Xian and KIKI.

"Thank you, Captain Lin."

"Everyone move quickly."

"Don't worry about the good or the bad, just take them all."

The steel skeleton of the carriage stood up like a fish bone gnawed by a giant beast, and the charred iron sheet curled up into scales. Under the dilapidated carriage, the members of the Red Rose Team hurriedly picked up the remaining things in the carriage, even including the body fragments of their teammates. There were very few men in this team, and the team leader was also a woman. All the women survived in the doomsday by earning a little bit of supplies by trading in the flesh. Every woman held a weapon, of various kinds, but most of them were relatively simple. The core combat power was relatively better configured. This time in Yijin City, they also obtained more than a dozen sets of power armor and various supplies, which was barely considered an enhancement.

Lin Xian had no ill feelings towards this convoy. On the contrary, he was quite respectful of them. In this doomsday, sacrificing one's body in exchange for survival was not something that was difficult to talk about. When faced with danger, each of these women could resist with a gun. At this moment, he saw them desperately picking up the scattered usable supplies with their slightly simple equipment, and even taking off a thick-soled military boot from a half-corpse without hesitation and hanging it around their necks. It was obvious how cautiously they lived.

"Captain Lin..." After finally finishing the collection, Zhou Hongqiu, the captain of the Red Rose Team, who was wearing power armor, did not have time to wipe the blood stains on the power armor. She said to Lin Xian with a grateful face, "Thank you for your help."

Lin Xian nodded, and immediately asked everyone to leave the car. He decomposed and devoured the steel components at the connection, and then KIKI used his telekinesis to move the entire car away. After the car behind accelerated and approached, Lin Xian directly made the car connection components at high speed to combine the two cars together.

By the way, he also created full range armor at the joints, which was a help.

The damaged carriage was devoured by Lin Xian and transformed into materials. After that, the two continued to deal with the other carriages.

"That giant creature just now, even if it's not special grade, it must be at least A grade. Damn, this is the first time I've encountered such an unkillable creature."

In the leader's communication band, Shi Diyuan, who had just finished dealing with the post-war damage report of the train, cursed: "If it weren't for Brother Lin's quick reminder, I think several carriages would have been lost."

"Captain Lin!"

Hu Lushou's voice came at this time: "Do you want to speed up? Our car convoy is almost behind."

After the sandstorm, the visibility became clear and the drivers could finally breathe a sigh of relief, but the train began to accelerate again, making it difficult for their car convoy to keep up.

Although it is also a hard road, the Gobi Desert is certainly not as good as the highway. Even if their fleet vehicles are modified high-end tanks with high-horsepower motors, they cannot be compared with trains running on tracks.

"Stop talking nonsense, just run along the track. This is the closest route to Quancheng." After resolving the situation with the train convoy, Lin Xian began to repair the damage to the Infinity, and at the same time took out the materials from the decomposition space to manufacture a large number of bullets.

"All convoys have been marked with a dark mark. There will definitely be a lot of trouble at night." Qian Dele said at this time: "So we can't slow down now, we can only speed up. As usual, you should line up in a row and let 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 convoy had the most trucks and the best configuration. He was the first to adjust the convoy formation, keeping the team in a long line and speeding up.

On the Queen Mo, Monica checked the combat status of all the carriages along the way, and said in the communicator as she walked: "I suggest that in addition to the track detector, it is best to arrange drones to take turns to conduct high-altitude patrols to investigate the road conditions ahead. Otherwise, at such a high speed, it will be troublesome if it derails."

"Don't worry, our drone will always be in the air to conduct reconnaissance on the vehicle." Ning Jing said.

The temperature was scorching and the horizon was filled with heat wave mirages. Clang clang clang clang, a crisp sound of shaking rails gradually sounded and the yellow sand around it vibrated. A black and green heavy armored locomotive covered with the corpses of strange insects came roaring in with a violent momentum. Behind it was a long steel dragon winding to the end of the earth.

On the Infinity, the engines of the Giant Whale 03E heavy gas turbine locomotive and the Dragon-class electric locomotive were roaring wildly. The entire train was speeding at high speed, and the more than 100 people on the train were in panic.

According to the configuration, the firepower of Infinity is already very strong. Even when facing the large A-class parasite encountered in Yu Town before, it can be annihilated by head-on firepower. However, as they get closer to Xingyuan, the strange creatures they encounter are more troublesome than each other, and they are unpredictable. The short tens of minutes just now have put tremendous survival pressure on the entire group.

"It has been downgraded to level 2, but we have no way to eliminate it now." At the information center configured by Luo Yang and Xiao Bai at the weapon station in carriage No. 12, the backbone members of Infinity gathered here.

Shuqin wiped the blood off the power armor panel with a sackcloth and said, "It's very risky to go into the dark like this."

"The other teams should be similar to us..." Chen Sixuan also said at this time: "This is no-man's land, and we can't go back into the sandstorm to clear the marks."

“Now we can only make more preparations.”

Lin Xian did not stop for a moment, because he needed to speed up the production 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, and personnel are relatively easier to dispatch. The carriage No. 13 next to it is the armory. At this time, several PX05-robots are operating fully automatic bullet stamping machines, and batches of bullets emitting residual heat are produced.

He said with a gloomy face: "Actually, the most troublesome thing is those bugs that can get into any hole. Otherwise, as long as the firepower frequency is sufficient, the giant body can be dealt with quickly."

KIKI crossed his arms and nodded: "It was mainly because those things appeared at the same time that we were all a little confused, plus it was a sandstorm, otherwise it would not be so difficult for us to deal with the firepower of so many trains."

"But we have been running for so long. Unless it is an S-level monster or a big monster with a clear territory, we often face a monster tide." Luo Yang sighed: "I can only say that the sand ants are too disgusting."

"That's right. It's a complete waste to use cannons or guns to attack. The only thing we can do is hide. There is simply no solution." Lu Chang said with a resentful look on his face.

Lu Xingchen sat in the distance and said calmly, "How can there be no solution? If it weren't for the issue of protecting other trains, we could have set fire to all the carriages and the sand ant disaster would have been resolved in an instant."

KIKI glanced at him and said speechlessly: "Then bake the inside of the carriage evenly and use high heat to collect the juice?"

"Doesn't that mean we'll be roasted before the sand ants come in?" Sasha clicked her tongue.

"Fortunately, we have arc pulse string vibrators, which can clear these things much faster." The big guy Liang Lei and the building stood together. The two of them were like two iron towers. The battle just now was the most frustrating for them. 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 jail.

"This thing has too slow a frequency. It was originally used to deal with strange creatures that climbed onto cars." Lin Xian, who was concentrating on making it, said helplessly at this time: "I have thought of many plans before, but none of them worked."

Whether it is the arc pulse string vibrator, the electric blade armor, or the ultra-high temperature plasma beam cutting array that Lin Xian has not yet manufactured, these are all designed to withstand large-scale monster tides, but sand ants and including those small beetles are really a headache.

KIKI said at this time: "I do know that the Interstellar Army has a technology on a starship that does not have physical isolation capabilities. It is mainly used to resist charged particle flows or high-energy heavy ions and secondary radiation. Perhaps..."

"Oh, I know this, the electrostatic force field generator." Luo Yang's eyes also lit up.

Lin Xian smiled helplessly when he heard this: "After we are all on the starship, why should I still worry about the sand ants?"

"Uh..." KIKI shrugged. "It's better to be prepared. But after we get out of the no-man's land, there may be no sand ants."

"The Spring City is in the desert, how could it be missing, unless you go out of Luling." Li Yi also spoke at this time.

"Well, we are lucky that no casualties occurred. Now all we can do is to hurry up and get on the road. There might be a fierce battle tonight." Lin Xian breathed a sigh of relief and looked at the Shuqin Building: "Shuqin Building, you arrange the ammunition production. Mainly prepare 12.7 and 30, at least 5 bases, and the extra will be used to support other convoys. As for those Spark 26 fully automatic rifles and rifle bullets we had before, we don't need them now, so give them all to those small convoys."

Lin Xian made such arrangements not because there were too many materials and weapons to be delivered, the main reason was that the joint train was now on the same boat, and any troubles had to be solved together. Once the weak convoy was eaten up, it would directly lead to the collapse of the continuity of the front and the doubling of pressure. Now these thousands of people were basically evolved humans with combat capabilities. Human life and teammates were much more valuable than weapons. If there was one more person with a gun and bullets, their pressure would be less.

Hearing Lin Xian's arrangement, Shuqin and Dalou nodded in response.

"Okay, we'll arrange it right away."

"Longshan No. 1 also has a bullet loader. They have a lot of people but are short of weapons." Lin Xian pressed the communicator and told Shi Diyuan and Ning Jing his thoughts.

"Brother Shi, the people rescued by the bandits should be able to form combat effectiveness. If you can't arrange for them there, disperse them to other convoys. Let's get through the current difficulties first. As for the subsequent arrangements, it's up to them."

"Hey, I was just about to say this." When Shi Diyuan heard what Lin Xian said, he felt a bit overwhelmed and said, "More than a hundred people are not that easy to digest. I'll keep some of them, and the other teams can help take some in. Oh, doesn't Miss Mo want those dozen women?"

"No problem, I've got the carriage ready." Monica's voice came.

"Please arrange 10 people for me as well. It doesn't matter whether they have fighting ability or not, but they can't be pretentious~" Qian Dele said in a leisurely tone.

"We are traveling at high speed now. How should we distribute the troops? Should we let those with flying ability lead the way?"

Lin Xian glanced at KIKI, who sighed helplessly: "Okay, okay, it's me again~"

After saying that, KIKI left.

"Liang Lei, inspect and inspect the working condition of the train." Lin Xian immediately made arrangements.

"OK!"

"Shasha." Lin Xian looked at Shasha at this time: "Your Sally will be deployed tonight. I don't have time to help you test your new weapon, but remember to test it in advance."

Shasha nodded and said seriously: "Brother Lin, don't worry, Luo Yang and the others will help me."

"Miao Lu, help me check on Lao Mo and the others. And Teacher Chen, have you received any signal from the radio station?"

Chen Sixuan shook her head: "There is none in any frequency band. This situation is indeed very abnormal. I am worried whether it is related to the situation you mentioned."

Luo Yang also frowned and said, "Normally, this kind of open area should be able to receive the Phoenix Society's global radio station, but we haven't received it for a long time since we left Yijin City, except for the civilian frequency band information we received from Boss Hu when we were close to Aksai."

"Captain Lin!"

Just when Lin Xian was doubting what Luo Yang said, Hu Lushou's voice rang out in the channel: "Something is wrong. All radio frequency bands are filled with noise. This is the same situation we encountered in Weihe River before!"

"What's the situation? Can you be more specific?"

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

"that is……"

In the RV, Hu Lushou, sitting in the passenger seat, scratched his head with a complicated expression, saying, "Anyway, I can't receive any frequency signals. Mine is an upgraded version of the dark radio, equipped with a second-level blood essence, but it's all noise. Several teams noticed this problem at the time. Now that I think about it, could it be related to the instability of Star Abyss No. 5?"

Lin Xian couldn't help but feel depressed when he heard this: "Besides this, are there any other special signs?"

"Signs..." Hu Lushou said, "There were no signs. It just got dark, and then I got lost."

Hu Lushou's tone suddenly changed in the communicator: "Oh, by the way, I seem to remember that the dark time came five minutes earlier that day. Does this count?"

"Five minutes early? 18:40?"

"Yes, I remember I complained about it at that time, saying why the dark tide came earlier today..."

"Why didn't you tell me about this earlier?" 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 at the time. It was the first time I encountered such a situation. And the sky that night was very strange. It was not black, but dark blue. My god, I feel scared when I think about it."

Shi Diyuan said in a deep voice: "It seems that we were right to set off early. Maybe it's just like what Brother Lin said. This matter is really related to that taboo. This uninhabited area is not peaceful. Now at night, no one can let down their guard!"

“Sizzle~”

At this time, Hu Lushou sent a message to Lin Xian from a personal channel: "Captain Lin, do you think this matter is related to the silver bullet I gave you?"

When Lin Xian heard the words on the communicator, his mind raced and he said directly, "If it was related, your radio station in Aksai would not have sent out the message."

"That's right." Hu Lushou reacted immediately after hearing it.

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

On the blue planet, the night sky viewed through the atmosphere is normally dark blue, and only in extreme circumstances will it be very dark. But when Lin Xian heard what Hu Lushou said, he felt something was wrong.

"I don't remember the second half of the night. Anyway, I still have some impression before I met the strange body. The deep blue I mentioned is not the transparent kind. It feels like a pure color, like projected onto the retina. Tsk tsk, I don't know how to describe it. Anyway, it's weird..." Hu Lushou's tone was a little confusing, but when Lin Xian heard it, it immediately reminded him of what Chu Yan had said to him.

"Don't understand taboos with human eyes. If you see them, don't look at them. If you try to understand them, it will definitely go against common sense. Don't describe them!"

"Don't even look into the sky!!"

"Don't look into the sky..."

In carriage No. 12, Lin Xian was the only one sitting here making the electromagnetic railgun. He kept thinking about these two sentences, and he felt a chill down his spine.

Since the Day of Revelation, the sky has been synonymous with danger.

Be it the sky hazard ban issued by the Federation and the Phoenix Society, the floating giant corpse in Jiang City, the atmospheric mica in Daluo Mountain, the black thorns in the clouds in Xilan City, and the creatures that have never appeared, including the Eye of the Starry Sky that Lin Xian saw in a trance when he was testing the mechanical energy cannon after he defeated the Zerg with Daying and the Sun Chasing Convoy just after leaving Hengshan Pass that night, all of them made people shudder.

Before all mankind could react, the arrival of the polar night on Apocalypse Day completely cut off the connection between mankind and the low-Earth orbit of the blue planet. The United Space Station disappeared, and global satellites went offline. Lin now knew that both the Phoenix Order and the Federation must be carrying out starship projects, including the current Sky City, but so far, he has never heard of a successful case or news. Therefore, in the eyes of most people, the sky is covered with dangers that are even more desperate than the ground.

So far, neither the Phoenix Order nor the Federation has been able to find a truly feasible solution for the continuation of human civilization.

The Federation is defending the city and frantically building underground cities. The Phoenix Society is rescuing people while fleeing, trying to find the final answer before the global polar night. But no one knows what the final outcome of this escape will be. From what Lin Xian sees now, human power is too small. Even though they have evolved to a violent level of strength in just 100 days, it is still far from enough to face the darkness.

Rub, rub, rub.

Lin Xian's Mechanical Heart was running at full power at this moment. His left hand was manufacturing the electromagnetic railgun, and his right hand was constantly taking out the materials converted by the preparation center to supply the munitions manufacturing carriage. All the other team members were tense and busy at this moment.

It’s 16:40 in the afternoon, less than two hours until dark.

The Infinity's third G3-electromagnetic railgun was finally successfully manufactured. This was the first time that Lin had manufactured two heavy weapons in one day. Because carriage No. 12 was the center of the train, this weapon station was also the only carriage that had two long-range and short-range firepower. The purpose was naturally to protect the ammunition carriage, the material carriage, and the nearby living carriages.

At this time, Lin Xian only had about 30% of the materials left in the decomposition center. In addition to continuing to make ammunition, he made Lei Falcon 2000 drones while walking to enhance his combat capability. This thing is powerful and fast. Even a medium-sized monster cannot withstand dozens of them firing at the same time, so Lin Xian plans to make a few more.

However, the precision of this thing is comparable to that of the PX-05 robot, and the manufacturing speed is not fast. Fortunately, it is small in size, so he does not have to sit in the same place, but came to carriage No. 3 to find Ding Junyi.

"Director Ding, what's going on?"

As soon as Lin Xian walked in, he saw the Hell Black Chrysanthemum emitting a faint red light, so he asked.

Ding Junyi put down the mobile terminal in her hand and looked at him and said

"A few pieces of news. First, from the effective monitoring, the physical toughness of all members has increased a lot since Xilan City. It's just that we haven't obtained the latest detector of the Phoenix Order yet. However, the fury level of our car has definitely increased, and perhaps it has reached the destruction level."

"Second, my abilities have also improved a lot. I am currently learning how to apply them to help the team. The other one is Silver Dragon's 100,000 Mistakes." Ding Junyi pointed to another training cabin.

“It has grown its first inflorescence.”

Upon hearing this, Lin Xian immediately walked closer to take a look, and indeed discovered that at the top of the flower stem with the purple crack, a white flower bud the size of a peppercorn had grown. It looked very ordinary, but the flow of the originally very tiny purple light in the dark within the stem seemed to have become faster, which was significantly different from before.

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

Lin Xian nodded, and saw a pile of black substances placed in containers on Ding Junyi's laboratory table. It seemed to be the corpse tissue from the huge black body before.

"Why are you researching this?"

"This is human tissue." Ding Junyi picked up a piece of it while wearing gloves, and then crushed it into powder with her fingertips. She said solemnly, "It looks like it has been processed in some special way and has been separated from the water. However, it is easy to analyze the cells and protein tissues inside, and even the DNA. This is no longer a 'parasitic' situation."

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

Lin Xian's eyes narrowed and he was about to say something when a sudden noise came from the communicator.

It seemed to be the same as the frequency in the radio band. He didn't know if it was an illusion, but Lin Xian felt that the noise in that frequency was more like a mixture of countless sharp cries, very much like the sound they made after they had dealt with the monster and approached the black smoke drilling into the ground.

"Zizizi~Everyone, something's happening."

The person speaking on the communicator was Shi Diyuan.

At this time, in the cockpit of the lead vehicle of Longshan No. 1, Shi Diyuan was holding an electronic telescope and looking in a distant direction with a strange expression on his face. Ning Jing and a group of engineering department staff were standing beside him.

The alarm message was sent via a drone, and when Shi Diyuan found that direction, his expression changed.

"What is that?"

Ning Jing, who was standing by, was also somewhat stunned as she looked at the scene in the electronic telescope.

In the Gobi Desert northeast of the train track, a strange white stone sculpture was quietly floating in the wilderness. The stone sculpture was huge and majestic, with a fish tail and a lion face, and looked very much like a human creation.

But what is strange is that under the scorching sun, the light on the stone sculpture is obviously different from the light in the surrounding environment. It is not only dimmer, but also very abrupt.

It looks like the thing was photoshopped onto the Gobi Desert using crude photo-editing techniques.

But no one could ignore the huge size of the stone sculpture, and the strong sense of weirdness floating quietly in the wilderness. Even Steve, who was used to big scenes, felt a chill down his spine when he saw this scene. Strong negative emotions began to spontaneously arise in his brain, making him forget whether to exhale or inhale air.

On the Infinity, Lin Xian opened the sunshade of the carriage, and the visual system of the power armor just looked in that direction. In an instant, the entire power armor system crashed and went dark, and then it was urgently restarted.

[Black Hawk - Silent Hunter Armor 01 starts, and performs program self-check]

Lin Xian's heart skipped a beat and a great sense of terror came over him.

He quickly pressed the communicator and shouted

"Don't look, run!"

(End of this chapter)