The radiance ahead blazed intensely. Inside the sunken gray-orange crystal formation, heat gathered like glowing magma in a lava lamp, gushing and roaring forth.
A phantom-like freight train engine emerged from the perfect hexagon gleaming at Yang Zicang’s chest, shot up, and banked skyward with a whoosh.
Within the cavernous rock layer encasing this strange, towering black-iron construction, numerous similar crystals kept flaring up and spewing energy as the train engine surged onward.
Phwoom! A palpable, thick shockwave tore through the air toward the captain’s shoulder blade at the rear of the carriage. Just as the wave was about to sear his skin, Captain Horne sensed that an orange mesh of intricate strands, like a spiderweb, slammed into his skin and enveloped him.
The incoming energy shockwave smashed into Captain Horne’s skin.
Although shield-bearing, the half-staggered captain still felt the flash of biting sting yet snapped immediate bellow! “Chairman Yang! Pay me no care. “
“Why aren’t you using Stellar Yuan to protect yourself? You’ll die! “
Kevin shouted from up ahead, “Our Stellar Yuan has been extremely compressed, and it’s hard to extend it over to your side! “
“I want to see what the hell this thing is! “
As he spoke, several more streams of scorching energy penetrated the car walls wrapped by Yang Zicang’s Amplified Chrono.
This scorching energy capable of piercing specially enhanced vehicles carried a wave of intense heat towards Captain Horne, who, gritting his teeth and turning sideways, instead raised one arm to block.
Pffzzzt!
The burning ray left a deep scorch mark on the skin of his palm, and only then did a dense aura of Stellar Yuan phantom energy burst outward from his body.
“Did you feel any trace of Miasma? ” Pag asked immediately from the front of the vehicle.
“No, it’s not Miasma Pollution. It’s an incredibly strange energy. I can’t describe it. I’ve never encountered a weapon like it. “
Yang Zicang, who was steering the vehicle in a detour, found more new possibilities surfacing in his mind concerning this weapon, which looked like a platform probe light.
This era’s Warriors had never heard of such a thing.
The high-speed vehicle nimbly dodged more illuminated scorching circular lights.
Yang Zicang’s senses swept over hundreds of these things. Gradually understanding their form, the young man realized these devices didn’t seem to belong to his own era’s creations either.
Instead, they exuded a heavy yet exquisite industrial style.
Moving quickly upward along a gradually curving path, they discovered this roughly the size of a small county town, this was an arc-shaped sphere.
The Fire Phoenix emerged from the soil ahead of all eyes within the vehicle, appearing darker and more subdued than the natural earth in reality.
The Phoenix spun around, drawing the attention of those in the car, then tilted and flew off to the side, its hasty demeanor as if urging the people behind to follow quickly.
This time, Yang Zicang closely pursued its lead.
As soon as they left, the people inside the vehicle felt a rumbling tremor behind them, with countless sharp iron vine tendrils surging forward.
All the iron vines underground around seemed to be mobilized at this moment.
Just as Yang Zicang grit his teeth, struggling to control the locomotive forward, suddenly he, along with Sword Thirteen beside him, and even Pag and Kevin, all saw…
Three or four small energy bees slowly, yet seemingly swiftly, flew out from inside Yang Zicang’s embrace, rushing towards the front and outside of the vehicle.
After a brief moment of daze, Sword Thirteen, along with Yang Zicang, Kim Kleinster, and the others, immediately realized that all their worries, tensions, and fears were completely dissipated, replaced by clarity.
“Faster, they’re coming! ” Sword Thirteen shouted. He raised his hand and drew the sharp sword from behind his shoulder.
A number of slender iron vines converged from both the left and right sides of the earth.
Amidst a sharp, clattering sound of collision, in the phantom of the speeding vehicle, the iron vines on both sides—which had formed an ambush deep underground—had their tips severed. Slowed down, they were overtaken by the vines that were rushing in later.
Finally, with a piercing cry, the phoenix of flame ahead led everyone as they burst forth from an underground fissure.
In the darkness, the fiery phoenix and the mist-wrapped locomotive engine that followed, tumbled one after the other into the interior of this space.
……
Soldier No.5 sat atop theRoyal Ridge Steam Train, which was pulled by iron-bird-like Colossi.
Ahead of him, Haili Fenny turned her eyes and glanced at this expressionless, strange man. No.5 gazed down at the dark land below.
Sensing her gaze, he looked back at the woman.
“Did President Buchen send for you? ” Haili Fenny asked.
No.5 thought for a moment, then looked up to scrutinize the lady before him, a silhouette he had seen among the new devices engineered by imperial scientists.
“Yes, ” he said. No.5 continued: “There are no other matters. Please be quiet. “
Hearing this commanding tone, a defiant Fenny folded her arms and leaned back in her chair.
……
Ang Pailisi finally lowered the signal receiver in his hand.
He looked up and surveyed the surrounding personnel dispatched from the Prime Minister’s office.
“Chairman Yang and the others have already gone underground in Heiwenzike (Heaven’s Respite Justice?), accompanied by their followers. “
“So fast! ” The people there exchanged glances.
Colonel Brownlion sighed and said:
“We still can’t determine yet whether the underground vein map that Colonel Otto provided, which was detected by President Buchen, is connected to the Doom Vines. Deciphering this map requires abilities similar to Chairman Yang’s. Besides, I doubt it holds the solution. “
“Why? This is the closest we have to the trajectory of those underground iron vines—traced to some biomes that have already gone extinct, recording their patterns of movement underground. “
Colonel Brownlion pondered aloud.
“I figure this vein map must have been made a long time ago by someone who went down there, managed to map out the movement of some steel vines, then somehow extracted ore using a furnace, pressed the pattern in using a cracking technique, and sent it up piece by piece, which eventually caught our attention. “
He stood up, paced a step, and looked at the diagram on the table. “But even that furnace has collapsed, with nothing left but unexcavated minerals. “
“Isn’t this a map showing the way into the underground? “
“It’s probably one of the migration paths of the metal vines. “
Frowning, the colonel thought it over and said, “But if a path were all it took to solve things… that would be too unlikely. “
Colonel Brownlion, already knowing the magnetic field of the entire planet, and that metal vines spread beneath the whole landmass, turned his head to the diagram on the table — the vein map that Yang Zicang had managed to extract from the minerals.
Just how could something like this possibly resolve a cataclysm that spelled the doom of mankind?
……
The flame in the hollow led the gray mist train-like head towards a lateral crack, flew into it, and then continued to dive following this winding hollow that seemed to have been rubbed out by a giant monster.
After turning another corner, a metal vine suddenly burst out from a pitch-black fork on the side ahead.
The hovering Fire Phoenix twisted its body and led Yang Zicang’s group towards another safer large branch hollow it had already explored.
“Damn it, there’s no way to shake these things off. “
Kevin tensely looked back through the window; sparks from some iron vines scraping against the cave walls chased after them like dense bolts of lightning.
After another turn temporarily shook off the diverging vines behind, the Captain in the rear tapped on the iron window and spoke tensely to those ahead:
“Everyone, I get the feeling that these vines are like our military units; they have fixed distribution zones! “
Although he didn’t elaborate due to the time crunch, everyone immediately understood what Captain Horne meant.
Yang Zicang, who had already been pondering something puzzledly with a vague notion yet unable to pinpoint it, suddenly recalled something recorded in his mind upon hearing these words.
Then, the image of Otto, who had visited him at the rental property, along with the elderly gentleman at his side, emerged, accompanied by the task list he had submitted.
It was as if a congested river channel had suddenly been cleared wide open.
The youth, following the Phoenix through an underground passage of unknown depth, twists, and countless tributaries, instantly overlapped the path just taken with the vein pattern recorded in his memory, aligning them in a certain area!
So that night, he had encountered not just the Black Sheep!
Yang Zicang, his mind jolted, shoved the gear lever forward once more. With a mournful roar from the car’s engine, he no longer controlled his speed and abruptly shot past the Phoenix ahead. In Phoenix-Perching Tree’s slightly tense and somber gaze, he veered into a tributary passage on the right.
“Phoenix-Perching Tree, follow me!“
The Phoenix, flying at high speed, was taken aback.
It heard from a cluster of holes on the left the familiar sound of surging vine-and-iron currents! With a brief pause, the Phoenix, its tail leaving a long, lingering trail behind, flickered its body into a blazing fireball, illuminating the winding tunnel as it chased after Yang Zicang.
…
Inside the car, Sword Thirteen and the others watched Yang Zicang race ahead at high speed through the complex network of branching tunnels as if they were utterly unguarded.
Gradually, they began to sense something unusual.
The sounds of surging steel tides from various directions were reaching their ears at increasingly shorter intervals.
After speeding along for several minutes, everyone was astonished to discover that the screeching rasp of those steel vines seemed to be following a rhythm only as regular as the “clack-clack ” of train wheels on rails.
“Chairman Yang, you never cease to amaze me. ” Pag said incredulously.
“I just happened to have gathered intelligence on this matter. “
Kevin said in surprise, “Is it a coincidence? “
Sword Thirteen also looked over.
The small rattling iron shutter on the partition behind slid open sideways again, revealing the concerned and curious gaze of the Lieutenant behind.
“Maybe, but I still feel that it was also an inevitability. “
“Inevitability? “
“Mm. ” Yang Zicang steered the vehicle into another wider tunnel.
“Ever since I came to this world, while on the Misty Sea, I was targeted by someone because of certain matters. Not to mention that incident in White Violet City, when protecting trapped villagers by the seaside triggered worldwide attention to the multinational tacit understanding of ‘looting commoners as laborers and captives,’ causing numerous civilian and official forces to take notice of me. “
Thinking about how back in Hydrapower City, anyone with any influence knew he had been burned and was recuperating in the rental zone, Yang Zicang continued:
“And at that time, within the Grand Duchy’s rental zone, the number of people remaining was not very few. At the very least, there weren’t many like me who could so easily be accepted by unfamiliar invitation-based intelligence-sharing gatherings. “
“I see, ” Pag nodded in understanding. Under the Lieutenant’s gaze, which resembled that of someone looking at a long-admired hero, she said quietly to Yang Zicang, “So at that gathering, you obtained the route? “
“I only just realized it myself. “
Rumble! The locomotive burst through the smoke and cobwebs of the dark tunnel entrance, emerging into a pitch-black, colossal cavern.
The Fire Phoenix flashed in behind, its swaying glow illuminating the surroundings. This cavern was at least five or six times larger than the air-filled stalactite cave they had discovered earlier.
After Yang Zicang controlled the locomotive to descend onto a relatively gentle slope covered with a thick layer of rock, Captain Horne in the rear first glanced at the compass—it had completely failed—and then took out the barometer.
Captain Horne’s gaze shifted, observing the needle on the gauge. They should be in a deeper place, yet the air pressure here was lower than in the previous stalactite cave.
Even without any special protection, an ordinary person wouldn’t feel too much discomfort upon arriving here.
Suddenly, a dense rustling sound reached them. Inside the carriage, everyone tensed and took a step back, looking outside through the windows. Rows of misty, swaying orange circular lamps lit up across the walls, ceiling, and behind the rocks.
The rocks blocking these lights kept issuing a crackling sound from thermal expansion, crumbling and falling off with sharp snaps.
Kevin immediately shielded Kim Glenister, who seemed to be stirring slightly.
“Let me go, ” said the young man from Mutao, wearing a black charcoal tube mask, to the figures in the carriage.
“We’ve come this far. As the representative of the sect that communicates with underground demons via the campfire, I have a duty to try communicating between our Hellfire Sect and the demon here as well. “
Behind the iron bars, the Captain, who had one hand clutching a wound on the other, lowered his eyes dimly upon hearing this.
If it hadn’t been for the violent wind on the ground before departure, he might have thought this young man before him was just some oblivious thrill-seeker trying to clock in.
But now, amidst the efforts to reverse the apocalyptic disaster, every sacrifice made was real and worthwhile.
“Let me confirm the danger level here. “
Sword Thirteen glanced at the distant Fire Phoenix, which was still wandering idly around without triggering any iron vine attacks, and said,
“My sword can hold the line for a while, so don’t come out yet until I confirm it’s safe. Brother Horne, give me some coal. “
“Alright. I’ll prepare it right now. “
Horne picked up a black iron bucket that had fallen into a corner, grasped the iron shovel, opened the coal stove, and shoveled a load of ash-coated coal—which brightened a few shades upon contact with air—into the small iron bucket.
“Be careful, big brother Thirteen, ” Yang Zicang said softly but solemnly.
“Mm. ” He stepped carefully from the still-trembling train car door onto the ground and walked toward the window at the rear of the carriage.
As he moved forward, amidst the rustling sound of falling rock fragments, other scraping noises suddenly emerged.
The crowd turned to look ahead at the cave wall, where the layer of grime plastered over rows of stone surfaces was collapsing and falling under the high heat.
The entire wall was fully exposed now.
Within the countless dense intersecting metal grids, numerous humanoid faces gradually formed from murky gray-orange magma gathered and manifested within the crystal of these intersecting metal lattice.
“Th-Those are… “
Sword Thirteen stared dumbfounded on the spot. The Captain, who had stuck his head out of the train window, muttered along with a few others.
“So many, so many faces! “
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