Chapter 115: Protocol

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, the Gemini 11R nuclear-powered electric locomotive picked up speed. The slope ahead flattened, and Lin Xian knew they were entering the 65th-floor freight rail platform, which meant they were about to catch up to the Infinity.

As the train rushed onto the platform, dense figures of various zombies and human anomalies instantly appeared under the lights.

Seeing this scene, Lin Xian didn’t slow down at all and charged through with a roar.

Bang, bang, bang!!

The 290-megawatt Gemini 11R nuclear-powered electric locomotive was like a roaring steel beast, madly compressing the atmospheric pressure in the narrow tunnel and platform passage, streaking past like a black and purple bolt of lightning, running over the zombies!

The zombies and human anomalies on the platform seemed to only see a strong light rapidly approaching from the depths of the tunnel. In the next instant, they were sent into the cycle of reincarnation, their bodies disintegrating under the train’s front and iron wheels!

Splat!

Like a high-speed car hitting some kind of moth or insect, blood plasma instantly splattered across the train’s windshield. Various pieces of skin and bloody intestines hung like noodles. Kiki had to turn her eyes away, unable to look.

Lin Xian’s heart pounded, and he immediately turned on the wipers.

“What are you staring at? Get those intestines stuck there off for me! Are you saving them for a midnight snack?!”

Lin Xian shouted when he saw Kiki covering her eyes.

“Alright, alright!” Kiki hissed, deftly raising her hand and waving, clearing some of the obstructions from the windshield.

Thump, thump, thump!

Aftershocks rumbled from underground. A beam of light began to appear in their line of sight ahead.

“It’s the Infinity!”

The train accelerated, and soon they saw a train rapidly ascending in the tunnel ahead. Its black armor and ice-breaking shield exuded an aura of destruction.

“Lin Xian!” Teacher Chen’s call came from the transponder.

In the tunnel passage, the two rapidly ascending trains gradually approached. Lin Xian could almost see Chen Sixuan waving at him through the armored grille on the Infinity.

“Almost there!”

“Kid, help me out!”

Lin Xian stood up, controlling the train’s deceleration while quickly building two carriage connection pillars outside the window. Because the front of the Whale 03E heavy-duty gas turbine locomotive was equipped with an ice-breaking shield, Lin Xian couldn’t just drive the train to push it from behind.

Kiki also used her ability, and the speeds of the two trains began to synchronize. While moving at high speed, the connection pillars were successfully installed.

After connecting, Lin Xian began to operate his Mechanical Heart to accelerate. The immense thrust pushed the low-on-power Infinity up the tunnel.

BOOM-RUMBLE!!

The earthquake struck again. Tunnels behind them began to collapse continuously. Sand and dirt fell from the descending track platform, and cracks tore open on the concrete tunnel ceiling.

“Be careful, that thing is coming again!”

ROAR!!!!!

A huge, dull roar sounded. The underground city was like the inside of a sealed drum, and the sound vibrated in everyone’s heart. Anyone with a little less courage would have had their legs turn to jelly from this earth-shattering sound.

BOOM!!!!

The tunnel, the floors, collapsed with a roar. The entire side wall fell away.

Moonlight poured into the tunnel.

In an instant, everyone saw that row of sky-blotting giant eyes coming straight at them.

“Ahhh!!!!” On the Infinity, Zhao Yan and Xu Wen were so frightened by this scene that their faces turned deathly pale, their screams echoing in the carriage.

Shasha and Chen Sixuan were also completely dumbfounded, their minds blank.

The collapsed walls of the underground city, the falling floor slabs, and debris from various commercial and residential areas fell continuously. Along with the falling debris were dense black figures. A closer look revealed they were the underground city residents who had turned into zombies, falling like rain into the deep pit.

In that moment, Lin Xian felt his heart turn cold.

There was no escape…

In front of this abyssal behemoth, even the underground city was like an anthill, with no power to resist.

On the Infinity, Ding Junyi’s expression was tense, but her face remained unchanged. The huge earthquake only made her fall to the ground. After she got up, she continued to operate the system.

“Mr. Lin.”

Ding Junyi’s voice came from the transponder.

“I’ve sent a link to a system backup plan to Miss Kiki’s mobile terminal. It contains a self-destruct protocol for the four energy cores of Underground City No. 9. Theoretically, we can use this protocol to activate the self-destruct program of the No. 3 backup core on the 70th sub-level. There is no higher-level management authority feedback in the city now, so only P4-level internal confirmation is needed to activate it. If it’s feasible, we might be able to use this self-destruct program to buy some escape time.”

Hearing Ding Junyi’s words, Lin Xian’s eyes narrowed, and he immediately looked at Kiki.

Kiki, at the side, heard this and immediately opened the mobile terminal in her hand. She found that a protocol link had indeed popped up on the panel.

“It’s real. It’s indeed a built-in system protocol. I’ll hack into it and control the P4 authority right away.” Kiki operated quickly, her face growing more surprised the more she looked. “Heavens, this… is actually a pre-set directional destruction protocol. It’s not just the core; it also includes floor sealing commands.”

Hearing this, Lin Xian immediately sensed an opportunity and said to Kiki, “Can you activate it?!”

Tap, tap, tap.

Without needing Lin Xian’s urging, Kiki had already begun to operate with a serious expression. “Not a big problem. The main system of this underground city is already missing, so the subsystem has the highest authority. The protocol requires P5-level confirmation and contact with the satellite and Federal headquarters for confirmation, but neither is unique. This means that when this system protocol was set up, it was defaulted that the leader of the underground city had the highest authority over the life and death of the entire city.”

“OK, the No. 3 backup core is online. Should I activate it?”

“How much time do we have?” Lin Xian asked immediately.

“30 seconds,” Ding Junyi said through the transponder. “At our current speed, activating it in 20 seconds at the earliest will give us enough time.”

The main structure of the underground city had already collapsed. Although this self-destruct protocol was originally intended for the destruction of specific floors, the city in its current state definitely couldn’t withstand it.

If it was detonated, it would definitely cause a chain reaction from the bottom up, and the tunnel would also completely collapse.

But the power of this core meltdown explosion was not that of a real nuclear bomb. The main thing was to cause the collapse of the underground city. For Lin Xian and the others, this might be their chance to escape!

BOOM-RUMBLE!!

The earthquake struck again. This meant that the abyssal behemoth was circling the walls of the underground city, coming for the train.

“There’s no time, activate it directly!”

Lin Xian decisively shouted to Kiki. There was no time to wait. Compared to the ground collapsing, the abyssal giant was even more terrifying. And if it didn’t achieve the expected effect, if they couldn’t take advantage of being far from the surface to activate it early, even if they rushed out to the surface, who could be sure that the abyssal giant wouldn’t follow and crawl out from the ground?

So Lin Xian made a decisive decision. He could only take a gamble.

Hearing Lin Xian’s words, Kiki understood his intention. Without any hesitation, she activated the self-destruct protocol.

[No. 3 Backup Core Self-Destruct Protocol Activated. Countdown: 30 seconds.]

Whirr~

Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click!

Inside the underground city, the lights in the corridors, offices, halls, commercial areas, industrial areas, and residential areas from the 70th floor up to the research level began to turn off layer by layer. They flickered for a moment, then lit up again.

The music and advertisements in the elevators turned off and then began to play again.

“Charm X Beauty and Hairdressing is newly opened. All underground city citizens who sign up for a membership this month can enjoy a buy 500 get 1000 discount. Experience address, 61st floor…”

“Delao Human Resources, helping you solve work problems anytime, anywhere. Regardless of gender, as long as you are 14 years old, you can participate in underground city work. With just a 35% deduction from your monthly salary, you can quickly get a satisfactory job…”

In the upper right corner of those video advertisements, a red countdown with no introduction began to appear.

…