Chapter 126: Fury
The thing that had worried the Train Conductor for a month finally happened.
Accompanied by a violent vibration, several railway lines leading to Changli County exploded at the same time.
Over ten tons of steel rails twisted into hideous shapes in the explosion, sleepers flew into the sky, gravel flew in all directions like shrapnel grenades, and the mine-sweeping drone in mid-air was directly blasted into a pile of electronic garbage by the gravel.
Even the land beneath the railway tracks was blasted into a large pit.
Dust fell with a rustling sound, and faint whispers and cold laughs could be heard.
“Look, someone else blew up his railway tracks.”
“What brainless person would think of running a train in the apocalypse.”
“Because they don’t understand at all that railway tracks need people to maintain them. Who will maintain them in the apocalypse…”
However, the three hundred meters buffer was enough for the low-speed train to stop before the broken tracks.
The clanging rhythm was interrupted.
The view switched to the vehicle’s own perspective, and Su Huan stared blankly at the large pit on the screen.
The first voice to ring out was Xiao Zhao’s report, “The drone line has been fully recovered, the backup drone is ready, and it will take three minutes to replace.”
Professor Ma stood up with a smile, “I didn’t expect my ability to be used first for repairing railway tracks. It’s quite interesting.”
Various scattered gravel and sleepers floated up as if they had lost gravity, hovering one meter off the ground in mid-air.
Although the steel rails did not float, their weight was greatly reduced.
The youth in the corner’s eyes instantly turned metallic, the steel rails were like mutated sea urchins, instantly sprouting thousands of soft steel wires that filled the large pit with the hovering clods of earth and gravel, the surrounding iron fences and utility poles turned like melted liquid, gathered by gravity into pure metal sleepers, falling onto the refilled large pit.
Accompanied by “crack crack” crisp sounds, the corrected straight railway tracks also fell back into place.
They didn’t even need screws; the two newly repaired steel rails were even more sturdy and reliable than before!
The two twenty-five-meter-long railway tracks lay quietly back in place, and if not for their brand-new appearance, no one could tell there had been any change here.
And the entire process took no more than five minutes.
Su Huan’s mouth curved upward; without knowing about Xiao Ba’s existence, no one would choose to blow up every steel rail and sleeper for dozens of kilometers.
Even placing explosives at every node, to blow up dozens of kilometers of railway tracks would consume an amount of explosives equivalent to stacking sedans to the height of an entire soccer field—even the most fanciful novelist before the apocalypse wouldn’t do that.
What kind of world-shaking intelligence could come up with such a great idea.
Su Huan had survived four years in the apocalypse, seen hundreds of thousands of zombies impact human settlements, but never seen hundreds of thousands of zombies impact two steel rails.
Even the Butcher, notorious for his itchy hands, wouldn’t destroy this thing.
On the way from Dongping City to Changli with the armored train, they had already discovered two ordinary landmines and one General Energy Bomb.
As the Train Conductor, no one understood the armored train’s weaknesses better than him.
That was the railway tracks under their feet.
Before letting the nearly ten thousand tons of steel train fly up, he would use every means to ensure the train’s normal operation. On these two railway tracks, no one would spend more effort than him, because this was his life!
Liang Kuan started the train again, and at that moment, a battered SUV rushed over and stopped directly across the railway tracks.
A neatly dressed man got out of the vehicle and waved his hands toward the front of the train, while zombies attracted from the distance by the explosion had already locked onto him.
Surging over from all directions.
Thanks to the high-definition camera, they could even see the sweat beads of tension on the man’s face.
This scene was projected on the screen by the just-replaced drone.
“Train Conductor, that person says he wants to talk to us.”
Xiao Zhao controlled the drone, listened to the information coming back from it, hesitated, and said.
Su Huan sat on the sofa behind the driver’s cabin, legs crossed, looking at the screen above and smiling, “Why can’t I see anyone on the screen?”
Xiao Zhao felt a chill upon seeing the smile on Su Huan’s face and didn’t dare to make a sound.
Professor Ma continued to close his eyes and absorb the General Energy Crystal in his hand, as if he hadn’t heard the conversation between the two.
Liang Kuan was long accustomed to Su Huan’s style, didn’t even ask, pushed the lever to the bottom, and the train gathered full power and slowly started.
When the four-meter-long steel cone stained with a bloody smell came straight at him, no one could remain unmoved.
The man shouted until his throat was hoarse, but the train didn’t stop; he tried to get back into the vehicle behind him, but the train’s speed kept increasing.
Looking at that huge spike, sweat beads rolled down his forehead.
Gritting his teeth, he abandoned the vehicle and ran directly off the railway tracks.
“Bang!”
The steel cone pierced into the vehicle’s undercarriage, and with increasingly powerful momentum, the man could only watch as the vehicle was directly flipped away.
But his bigger problem was the growing number of zombies around him.
Gritting his teeth, he ran to the side of the train and grabbed the outer metal to climb up.
Suddenly, two sharp claws pierced through his chest.
The powerless corpse fell to the ground, a Night Demon began to devour the fresh flesh and blood voraciously, wings spread, scarlet eyes staring at the departing train.
But Su Huan inside the vehicle paid no attention to any of this.
At this moment, he was constantly switching surveillance cameras on the cockpit screen.
He asked with interest, “Who is controlling these drones?”
Xiao Zhao answered, “They are all pre-written programs. Due to limited activity space, these drones just act as fixed cameras, keeping speed with the train, no need for much change.”
Looking at the map in the bottom left corner, half an hour away from Changli County, Su Huan opened the in-vehicle surveillance.
……
“It’s moving, it’s moving. Looks like the problem is solved.”
The Ring Man data collector subconsciously twisted the ring on his hand, his eyes devoid of any glow, in a dim state, looking out the window.
Another young man glanced at the micro map on his watch, frowning, “Did you see anything?”
“The railway tracks flew up and grew back by themselves. It should be in the Manipulator field, like Metal Affinity or telekinesis or something. What kind of messed-up profession is this?”
The Ring Man muttered to himself.
A flash of thought passed through the young man’s eyes, “Maybe a combination of multiple abilities. According to current research, Manipulators can generally only manipulate one type of thing, unless the other party is a Gene Primordium with cross-field professions, but that probability is too small, really one in ten thousand.”
Light returned to the Ring Man’s eyes, his confusion undiminished, “I also saw someone blocking the train get knocked away.”
“Survivor?”
“Doesn’t seem like it, and the armored train doesn’t refuse survivors boarding.”
“The train’s current direction is a bit strange…”
“How strange?”
“It seems to be heading to the Steel Council’s Changli County.”
The Ring Man was stunned, “No way, did you see wrong? You’ve seen the company’s information—the armored train just had a little friction with the Steel Council, then came to Dongping City. Now the Steel Council’s New City Plan is in full swing; why would he go back?”
“…Revenge?”
The young man gave a reason even he thought was untenable.
Do major forces have hatred between them?
That’s obvious.
Only individuals have hatred between them; between collectives, only interests can maintain relationship orientation.
“That doesn’t bring any benefits. The Steel Council has its eyes on Changli County, and the armored train can’t pick that peach. Rashly intervening would only tear faces with the Steel Council, ending in mutual defeat, and I don’t think the train can beat the Steel Council. Probably some cooperation plan between them.”
The Ring Man analyzed.
“Yeah, everyone is focusing on development now, avoiding conflicts… Wait, the camera is watching us.”
The young man instantly reverted to a lazy sitting posture, just like the other passengers, slumping in his seat.
In the upper right corner of the carriage, a micro camera turned and swept over the two.
Inside the cockpit, Su Huan narrowed his eyes slightly at the two.
These two Deep Blue Data data collectors were discovered by him on the second day after boarding.
Because he patrolled the entire train every morning.
Although he wouldn’t walk through the carriages, he would walk outside or on the roof, using General Energy Perception to scan for any suddenly evolved passengers or threats to the train’s safety.
When General Energy Perception scanned others, even ordinary passengers would have a slight General Energy Fluctuation.
But these two guys were completely blank.
The first time Su Huan passed by, he was stunned and circled around them several times; clearly they were right there, but that area just vanished.
Then, combining the transaction with Deep Blue Data a few days earlier, he vaguely guessed their identities.
Acting in pairs, one responsible for concealing themselves, one for collecting data—this was the standard configuration for data collectors.
This proved that Deep Blue Data had noticed the armored train but showed no hostility toward it.
Collectors only collect evolution-related information, don’t fight, assassinate, or spy on military intel.
If discovered, they surrender directly, and Deep Blue Data will pay a large ransom to get them back.
Once major forces go to war, these collectors are the first to disappear.
Over time, Deep Blue Data’s collectors became like goldfish in a well or mice in a mine; all major forces tacitly accepted their existence.
Any force without a couple of Deep Blue Data collectors wouldn’t dare call itself a major force.
Even the Mechanical God Cult wouldn’t kill them.
In his previous life, some force had a sneaky move: discovered collectors but said nothing, waited until short on money, then grabbed them all at once and exchanged them with Deep Blue Data for cash.
Then major forces followed suit, treating collectors as a kind of foreign exchange reserve.
Whenever short on money, they’d grab internal spies and conduct internal purges.
It even formed a certain trend.
To save on ransom costs, Deep Blue Data had to scale back their collectors.
Plus the wasteland professional system boom, more data collectors headed to the wasteland and small settlements.
Su Huan was thinking about how to make use of these two.
After all, they were two Tier 1 Evolvers; letting them go to waste was too much. Since they boarded his train, they had to serve him.
Half an hour later, the train entered Jinzong City territory.
There was still one county between them and Changli.
The clouds on the horizon were like a thick rust-colored carpet, dark and grimy, with fierce winds carrying wisps of moisture slamming into the armored train’s bluish armor.
Pinching to zoom the screen, in the high-definition camera, an attack helicopter marked with Qinggang Industrial logo came whistling.
Over ten kilometers away, Su Huan seemed to feel Li Tao’s towering rage.
