Chapter 160: Dead City

This was the first time Lin Xian’s Mechanical Heart had completely devoured his energy. The feeling was as if the Mechanical Heart had initiated some kind of self-preservation program and forcibly ‘shut him down’.

When the mechanical Esper ability started working again, Lin Xian began to feel a cold sensation on his skin, and… a sense of weightlessness!

The Infinity was descending rapidly.

Whoosh!

The tracks hummed, and the train trembled slightly.

Lin Xian opened his eyes to find himself lying on a bed in car number one. He heard Chen Sixuan’s sharp command from the cockpit: “Decelerating. No obstacles ahead.”

“Everyone, hold on tight! Shasha, take care of your Brother Lin!”

His gaze shifted, and he saw Lou Shasha nervously pressing down on his shoulders to prevent him from rolling off the bed due to inertia, her small face anxiously watching the view outside.

“Sister Chen, we haven’t received any broadcasts related to Jiazhou City yet,” KIKI’s voice came from car number two.

Lin Xian’s head felt groggy. His subconscious told him that this downward slope had to be an ascent passage.

Have we already arrived at Jiazhou City?

Ding~

A notification came from his Mechanical Heart. Lin Xian then realized that the research center had completed the research for the M556 light machine gun several hours ago. A new blueprint pack prompted him that it was available.

A flash of light, and a brand-new blueprint appeared in the research center.

[Congratulations, you have obtained the Roarer K23 Electric Rotary Machine Gun (Blueprint)]

Lin Xian craned his neck for a look, his pupils trembling slightly, before his whole body fell back onto the pillow.

“Am I seeing things?”

“What the hell is this thing? A firepower enhancement research directly produced something like this…”

Lin Xian pondered for a moment, certain that this research center wasn’t just a simple blueprint upgrade. Just like the A1-class subcritical reverse osmosis water purifier, it was creating things out of thin air.

He even began to suspect that the ultimate upgrades from the research center might not be things produced on this planet at all…

“Phew!”

At this critical moment, Lin Xian had no time to think further. He shook his groggy head and immediately got up.

Seeing Lin Xian awake, Shasha immediately exclaimed, “Brother Lin, you’re awake?!”

“Where are we?”

“The descent track of Jiazhou Spaceport Two. We were on the Sky-Corridor for seven or eight hours,” Shasha said.

Lin Xian sat up from the bed. The entire car was tilted downwards. He immediately activated his Mechanical Heart and found that Chen Sixuan was using the Horizon Braking System to control the descent speed. For now, everything seemed to be going smoothly.

The black armored train continued its descent toward the ground. In the cockpit, Chen Sixuan saw Lin Xian walk in, a flash of surprise in her eyes. “You’re awake?”

“Is everything going smoothly?” Seeing the train was still moving at high speed, Lin Xian didn’t dare to be careless and began to control the train, adjusting its posture.

“No other problems for now. I pushed the train to its top speed on the Sky-Corridor, but at our pace, we’re several hours slower than the others.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Lin Xian said in a deep voice, “As long as we made it, that’s what counts. This is already the fastest we could escape the night and the farthest distance we could cross in a short time.”

All the vehicle traction platforms had been electromagnetically accelerated to a speed of 1,000 kilometers per hour. Trains like the Silver Star and Dragon Mountain One were well-equipped, and their speed was not something the current configuration of the Infinity could match. It was normal that they couldn’t keep up.

But for the team that had already crossed the 4,500-kilometer Great Pillar Plateau, they had temporarily escaped the threat of the polar night.

“I wonder if anyone stopped at Jiazhou Spaceport…”

“I don’t know about the others, but Shu Qin and her group should be waiting for us,” Lin Xian said.

After that night at the spaceport, he decided to expand the train on a large scale, like the Silver Star and Dragon Mountain One, to carry more passengers and fully tap into the potential of his Mechanical Heart.

At the same time, he needed to solve an important problem: the train’s all-terrain mobility.

The Circinus Line would pass through large cities and many extreme regions, so he had to have multiple route options, just like the Phoenix Society’s Dawn Center.

At this moment, the slope eased. The train rushed down the ascent track and began to decelerate. A large track hall appeared in their line of sight.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The massive sound of the train echoed in the track hall, which seemed very empty. As far as the eye could see, there was no one. Jiazhou City’s Spaceport Two was built on a mountain, with the tracks connecting to an underground tunnel. Following the tunnel along the underground tracks, they soon saw a beam of light!

The Infinity didn’t stop at all and charged straight out of the tunnel. In an instant, the dazzling sunlight enveloped the train, illuminating all the cars. At the same time, a sense of warmth followed.

“Is it morning?”

“The sun is up so early…”

Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan felt their eyes sting a little. Just then, Shasha, KIKI, and the others also ran in.

Through the glass porthole, under the early morning sun, a quiet, large city appeared in their view.

The time was 7 a.m. The morning sun was still quite cool, but for the team that had just sped from the blizzard and low temperatures of Yubei City, this temperature was already considered warm.

“Wow, it’s been so long since I’ve seen the sun this early,” KIKI exclaimed as she walked over.

Chen Sixuan’s gaze was leisurely. “It feels like being reborn.”

“Our daytime is so much longer now,” Shasha said with an excited face.

Whoosh…

The train sped across the spaceport’s elevated tracks. The cityscape in the distance came into view, giving them a feeling that was both strange and familiar.

“4,500 kilometers. The area from Jiazhou to Longjiang is getting close to the middle zone between Starry Abyss No. 3 and No. 5,” Lin Xian said.

Shasha was very envious. “The people here are so lucky. They have more daylight than other places…”

“That’s one way to put it…” KIKI frowned and moved closer to the window, looking at the city in the distance. “But why do I feel like this city is a little too quiet?”

“It looks like a dead city.”

“Logically, shouldn’t there be a lot of survivors in the middle zone of the Starry Abysses?”

Lin Xian shook his head. “It’s not that simple. Starry Abysses No. 3, 5, and 7 are too close to each other. Even if there’s temporary living space in the middle zone, it’s just like being a frog in slowly boiling water. And the dangers in the night are the same everywhere…”

Cities farther from the Starry Abysses did indeed have more living space and time, but the nocturnal infection was just as deadly. And because the distribution and expansion speeds of the Starry Abysses were different, some areas were covered by the polar night more slowly, and the chances of survival were higher.

Although Jiazhou City was far from the rapidly expanding Starry Abyss No. 3, it was not far from Starry Abysses No. 5 and 7. If the other two Starry Abysses also expanded rapidly, this area would be encircled and quickly swallowed.

“Population and cities are all influencing factors,” Ding Junyi walked over at this moment and said from a distance. “Lucheng and Dingzhou, where Starry Abyss No. 3 is located, are the most densely populated urban areas in Tianhai Province. Like North America’s No. 1, Asia-Pacific’s No. 2, Europe’s No. 9, and the Republic’s No. 11, they are all Starry Abysses where the dark tide expands the fastest. That’s why the Phoenix Society advocates for finding living space while on the move. For example, the Arctic polar ice cap. With the influence of the polar day, calculations suggest it might be the last area to be covered by the polar night.”

“There’s no Starry Abyss there, but it’s also in a period of polar night right now, isn’t it?” Chen Sixuan responded.

“In four months, it will enter a six-month-long polar day. Coupled with the absence of the dark tide’s influence, it’s the most suitable area for refuge. The South Pole is currently in a polar day as well, for the same reason.”

Lin Xian nodded. “Not bad. For us humans, it’s like a constantly shrinking safe zone.”

As he said this, he inexplicably felt that this was very similar to a certain game from decades ago, where you had to run from the poison…

“You call that a safe zone?” KIKI was dumbfounded. “That place is the polar region! There’s nothing there. How can people survive there…”

Lin Xian turned to look at her and said meaningfully, “Believe me, when the entire globe is covered by the polar night and monsters are running rampant, that kind of uninhabited area full of sunshine will be the destination everyone dreams of.”