Chapter 518 The Colorado Evacuation
It was already dark. The darkness only turned the crimson fog into pitch black, and only when the train's searchlight shone into the sky could one see a blood-red beam of light.
The terrifying giant eye hanging in the sky resembled a planet from another world, gazing down upon the earth and bringing a chilling aura. The release of its super dark energy was so intense that one could even feel the air itself corroding their skin.
An unprecedented sense of oppression hung over the hearts of all the survivors. Within each convoy, someone could undergo a transformation due to a breakdown of will at any time. The comrades could only endure the pain and reluctance to point their guns at their former comrades. If they hesitated even slightly, it could trigger a chain reaction like an avalanche, resulting in the deaths of dozens or even hundreds of people.
Cries, panic, and screams echoed throughout the carriages. Armed guards peered through the train windows at the thick fog outside. Tension and a sense of suffocation filled every carriage. The men gripped their guns tightly, waiting for the eerie army that could burst out of the fog at any moment.
This was neither a defensive battle nor an encounter, but a pure desperate escape.
"Start moving! Why hasn't the train started moving yet?!"
"Run! If you don't run, you're definitely going to die..."
"Is the road ahead blocked?"
"That fog must be teeming with monsters, what do we do?!"
"We have no choice but to fight!"
Despair and unease spread rapidly. The steel train, stretching for hundreds of kilometers, lay motionless on the tracks that had sunk into the eroded terrain, filled with hydraulic steam. Outside the train, dozens of car battle groups were also filled with restlessness.
Although the motor transport corps is more agile than the train and can escape at any time, this advantage is obviously no longer valid in the current situation. Without the firepower of these five or six thousand armed trains and the support of millions, they would be completely annihilated and swallowed up in a very short time if they encountered a dense horde of monsters under the crimson night. Now they can only retreat by relying on the line of the trains, otherwise they have no chance at all.
The first line of defense is an ironclad line of 150,000 troops from the Second Intercontinental Force, the 13th and 22nd Iron Guard Brigades, and three medium-sized fleets defending the airspace. This is the core defensive force of the Orbital Force. Compared to the armed survivor convoy, almost 80% of the heavy firepower comes from the Interstellar Force. So if the Interstellar Force Iron Guard Brigades are wiped out, the entire train convoy of millions of people will be instantly destroyed.
Luo Shaokai was well aware of this. Looking at the red light on the radar screen, the chief of staff of the Second Intercontinental Force had eyes that looked like they were filled with lead.
Compared to the defensive battles that once took over cities, this kind of defensive battle, in which troops are dispersed and deployed over a large area while moving in the field, is tantamount to sending the troops to their deaths. In the past month, about 60,000 of the nearly 200,000 troops have been killed. In order to protect the train's progress, there is no way to dig and build defensive fortifications. All firepower has also been dispersed. They cannot actively break out of the encirclement and can only passively follow the train to defend.
Old Luo knew, of course, that the life-or-death situation lay on this evacuation route. He stared at the countdown timer, his fists clenched tightly.
"Those two hundred kilometers, I don't know how many people will die..."
He pondered, recalling the earlier firing at Nantianmen. He thought that if there were reinforcements from a larger force, there might still be a glimmer of hope, although he sensed that tonight's crisis was the final death knell for the entire migrating force.
...
Bang! Bang!
On an armed train with its roof covered in dense anti-aircraft guns, a dozen members of the team, clad in power armor, shot and killed one of their comrades. The mutant fell from the roof, and countless tiny tentacles trembled wildly from the broken power armor masks and gaps. Boom! A flamethrower shot into the sky.
"I'm sorry, Lao Lu..."
Amidst a multitude of complex gazes, this former comrade-in-arms was reduced to ashes in the raging flames.
"Get ready, and don't make too much noise."
Zhao Yang, the deputy captain of the Red Train Squadron, wearing a giant bear-like Iron Hunter armor, slung the pulse cannon over his shoulder and said to the team members behind him, "We have 5 minutes left before we have to speed up and run. Drones are gathering ahead to lay tracks. Those monsters are very smart. If they sense that we are retreating, they may charge ahead of time. Speeding up such a long train will take a lot of time. We can buy as much time as we can."
The Red Train Corps is quite large, with more than 10,000 people and powerful firepower. It has nearly 4,000 combat personnel alone, making it a mainstay of the train group.
"good."
"clear!"
"Team Leader Zhao!" At that moment, Xiao He, the information officer of the convoy, quickly climbed onto the roof of the vehicle from the back stairs and said in a panicked tone, "Something's wrong! We can't find Team Leader Wei anywhere!"
"What?"
Zhao Yang frowned and immediately tried to contact the leader of the Red Train team using a communicator.
"Old Wei, Old Wei, can you hear me?"
"Not in the frequency band."
"Old Wei!"
"Captain Zhao, look." A sniper next to him pointed his rifle northeast: "Isn't that... Captain Wei?"
Upon hearing this, Zhao Yang immediately looked in the direction of the sound. He activated the visual enhancement system of his power armor and searched continuously in the darkness. Sure enough, in a crimson mist, he saw a flying motorcycle speeding towards a hillside, its red taillights flashing intermittently, kicking up a cloud of dust on the ground.
"It's our car!" A team member noticed at this moment.
"Where is Captain Wei going?"
Deputy Captain Zhao Yang looked puzzled, but he immediately gave the order without hesitation: "Ah Jian, Zilong, come with me. The rest of you stay put. If I don't come back, the horse team will take over command of the convoy."
After quickly giving instructions, he immediately led two of his men off the roof of the vehicle, activated the power armor's thrusters, and flew and leaped towards the hillside.
"Old Wei!!"
"Damn it!" Zhao Yang cursed as he listened to the hissing sound in the frequency band. He couldn't understand why his team leader would suddenly run away at such a critical moment.
*Whoosh! Whoosh!*
The three Iron Hunter power armors pushed their performance to the limit. Although they couldn't fly at high altitudes like interstellar armors, their speed was already very fast, and they unleashed astonishing power in a short period of time.
Soon, Zhao Yang and his two men caught up with the departing flying motorcycle. Just then, he saw the flying motorcycle stop suddenly after reaching the top of the hill.
drop!
"The communication frequency has been restored," Zhao Yang shouted immediately.
"Old Wei!"
However, the former captain did not reply, but instead made a strange gesture in his line of sight.
He took a miniature pulse rocket maglev from the back rack of his motorcycle, slung it over his shoulder, opened his mask, and aimed at the terrifying giant eye in the sky!
Upon seeing this action, Zhao Yang and the other two gasped, feeling a chill run down their spines. He immediately shouted...
"Old Wei, what the hell are you doing?!"
At this moment, Old Wei turned around. His weathered face was visibly cancerous and scabbing over due to exposure to scarlet radiation. He looked at his teammates rushing towards him and said hoarsely...
“They are right. This is not a confrontation at all. Human civilization can only find another way out. Old Zhao, I'm sorry to everyone…”
"No!!!!"
Zhao Yang's eyes were bloodshot. Without hesitation, he took out his pulse cannon, aimed it at the old captain who had once rescued him from the ruins, and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The pulse cannon fired, instantly piercing through Lao Zhao's power armor!
However, it was still a step too late. The pulse rocket magnetic storm missile had already been launched. The micro-missile emitted a piercing whistle and soared into the sky, appearing like an extremely tiny spark on the entire plain, accelerating continuously toward the giant eye in the sky.
Many convoys and soldiers from the Iron Guard Brigade in the vicinity witnessed the strangely launched magnetic storm bomb, and countless people were horrified.
Zhao Yang and his two teammates watched helplessly as the magnetic storm bomb continued to rise, and then... beneath the giant eye in the sky, it exploded, illuminating a barely visible spark of magnetic storm light.
Zhao Yang looked up at the sky, then suddenly took two steps back and fell to the ground. The pulse cannon in his hand also fell to the side. Inside his power armor visor, his face was covered in cold sweat, unable to believe what the old captain had done.
One second, two seconds, time seemed to freeze at this moment.
At that moment, millions of people watched in disbelief as the once motionless giant eye in the sky seemed to be turning blood red.
That wasn't an illusion. Under the crimson sky, the giant eye in the sky began to resemble a blood-red planet suspended in the heavens. For some reason, Zhao Yang and the other two began to feel their bodies becoming heavier, as if the gravity of this land was slowly increasing.
A breeze began to blow from the ground, gradually turning into a howling gale that blew the crimson fog into a storm-like mass.
Buzz buzz buzz!
Sitting on the ground, Zhao Yang looked at his hands. There seemed to be a slight earthquake on the ground, with tiny grains of sand bouncing around his hands. Gradually, the tremors began to intensify.
"Captain Zhao, a strange tide is coming!!!"
The two people behind them exclaimed in surprise as they looked at the thick fog behind the hillside.
It's over.
For a moment, Zhao Yang's mind went blank. When he came to his senses, he immediately grabbed the pulse cannon from the ground and, while retreating, shouted to his teammates, "Quick, retreat! Run back!!!"
...
In the command centers of each front, all the interstellar military leaders, along with the core members of the Infinite Alliance, Utopia, and the Republican Alliance, were aware of the recent anomaly. At this moment, the intelligence officer's shouts echoed throughout the intelligence command center.
"Radar detected a massive, strange tide!!"
"They are rapidly approaching from both the east and west!"
"Expected to enter firing range in 30 seconds!!"
Snap!
Luo Shaokai crushed the water glass in his hand, abruptly stood up, and immediately realized that someone had received instructions from some foundation to disrupt their evacuation. He immediately looked towards the Sky Train and the Silver Star and asked...
"Is the track laying group ready?!"
"Not yet, but there's a 40-kilometer buffer zone, so the train can start moving first," Jian Xuwei's voice came through.
"It will take at least 15 minutes to fully accelerate, so 40 kilometers is probably not enough."
"We can't wait any longer. If we can't get this momentum going, we'll never get going again!"
"clear!"
Inside the Silver Star's main control room, Jian Xuwei saw the Sky Train taking off and immediately gave the order: "Full power engines, start!"
The crimson fog was suddenly torn apart, and the deep purple arc of the Silver Star nuclear-powered locomotive flickered. A pulse current of 290 megawatts pierced through the power rail, and more than a dozen electric locomotives began to roar. But this was not enough. To activate the entire rail force, the power output of all the convoys was required. With the signal transmission, the control rooms of Longshan No. 1, the military intercontinental armed train captured from Hawaii Island by Infinite, and more than two hundred convoys all received the order to start!
In an instant, the iron wheels began to spasm and vibrate, the vibrations spreading in waves along the alloy rails. The Silver Star's Eternal-class electromagnetic wheel set gripped the steel rails and burst into blue flames. The steel dragon more than a hundred kilometers behind was like a spine activated by an electric current, with each car connecting to the rails cracking with the sound of metal joints!
"Full power start!"
Commands from each driver's cab overlapped on the channel, and the circulating pumps of the nuclear power unit emitted a hum like a giant whale from the abyss. The steel dragon began to move from a standstill to a rotating motion, pulling one section at a time. The people in the carriages felt the carriages in front of them shudder violently as they were pulled one by one. Then, a metallic groan came from the connection between the carriages, and the entire train set began to move on the twisted and sunken tracks!
Ahead of the Silver Star, a battle group led by key members of the Infinite Alliance numbered over a thousand. Ryunosuke's twelve metal giants were at the forefront, followed by people clad in full-body power armor. The main fighting force consisted of three heavy infantry regiments from the 22nd Iron Guard Brigade, which were advancing rapidly.
As the core of computing power, Viola is currently commanding nearly 10,000 drones and factory machinery to form a construction team. Her task is not only to quickly survey the terrain and make decisions, but also to lay the track as quickly as possible. This train, which carries millions of people and travels hundreds of kilometers, will require a braking distance of at least thousands of meters to stop even if it accelerates to 40 kilometers per hour. It can be said that the slightest carelessness could lead to a catastrophic derailment.
"Tonight will be a tough battle."
Lu Chang stood in front of the assault team in a Vulcan mech, next to the Black Dragon armor of the building. Although the Infinite team was not on the first line of attack, in the dark fog, the monsters would not attack from the front.
“Since the Apocalypse, every battle we’ve faced has been a tough one,” Shu Qin’s voice came through the communication channel. “Many people have died; we’ve just been lucky enough to survive.”
The building's commotion was palpable. "Watch out for the predators. Don't let them get inside."
Empty!
The Iron Guard brigade at the front began to advance, while the combat backbone of the Infinite Alliance on the second line of defense all rode in military vehicles alongside the train.
On the main bridge of the Sky Train, Chen Sixuan made the entire train levitate in the air less than 500 meters above the ground and move slowly.
"Brother Huo, Jiang Yun, don't get distracted. Once the train starts moving, it can't stop, or we'll be scattered. You few who have reached the Transcendent level must make sure the path is clear," Chen Sixuan said over the communication channel.
"Received."
"Understood, don't worry."
(End of this chapter)
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