Surviving a time-traveling adventure in a school, I can synthesize everything!

Chapter 123 The Pioneer Train

Chen Qi wiped the cold sweat from his face and directed the remaining five team members to frantically start the three riot control armored vehicles.

The roar of the engine sounded particularly jarring in the empty valley, like some kind of provocation, trying to break the tranquility of this desolate place.

"Hurry! Get to work quickly!" Chen Qi stood by the car door, cautiously observing the hazy sky, and urged, "Push the front of the car into the dormitory lobby, turn it sideways, and use it as cover!"

Jiang Ming, carrying the Thunder Prison Horse-Slaying Sword, stood on a high ground in front of the dormitory building, his perception attributes fully activated.

The subtle sense of being watched did not disappear with the escape of the Stoneclaw Flying Beast; instead, it became even stronger, as if glue had been mixed into the air, sticking to the skin.

"Brother Jiang, the car's parked." Chen Qi ran over, his tone slightly ingratiating. "What do we do now? Just wait here until dark to settle the accounts?"

He now understands that if you follow the official rules and regulations, you won't survive more than half an hour in this place.

Jiang Ming didn't reply. He turned his head slightly, his brows furrowed into a knot.

"Did you hear that sound?"

Chen Qi paused for a moment, held his breath and listened carefully, but apart from the sound of the wind and the clanging of the team members carrying supplies, there was nothing else.

"No, except for the sound of the wind..."

"Ugh—!!!"

A deep, long, metallic whistle sounded out of nowhere from outside the fault line on the west side of the school.

The sound was so deep and heavy, like the roar of some ancient beast, that it made the windows of the dormitory building rattle.

"Holy crap, what's that noise?" A team member who was carrying compressed biscuits was so startled that his hand trembled and the box fell directly onto his feet.

Chen Qi was also dumbfounded. There wasn't even a railway track in this place, so where did the train whistle come from?

Without saying a word, Jiang Ming climbed onto the second-floor terrace of the dormitory building, with Chen Qi following closely behind.

The two looked in the direction of the sound, and the scene in the distance left them completely dumbfounded.

Where once a desolate, bluish-black rock fault line stood, a long, jet-black dragon had appeared out of nowhere.

That was a train.

It had no tracks laid out; it simply sat quietly on the hard rocky ground.

The front of the car has an extremely exaggerated streamlined shape. The black coating gleams with a cold luster in the dim light. There are no signs or windows. It looks like a piece of raw iron pulled from the abyss, exuding an indescribable evil.

"Where...where did this come from?" Chen Qi rubbed his eyes, his face full of disbelief. "There was nothing there just now, not even a ghost in sight. How did a train suddenly appear in the blink of an eye?"

Jiang Ming stared intently at the row of black monsters, his mind churning with turmoil.

This is definitely not a product of Earth, nor is it a medieval-style carriage.

This thing has an absurdly strong industrial feel, yet it appears in this supernatural wilderness.

Before he could figure it out, a thick plume of black smoke suddenly billowed from the train's chimney. The smoke condensed in the air and did not dissipate, like a giant black hand that obscured the already dim sky.

"Ugh—!!!"

Another whistle blew.

This time, there was a clear sense of urging in his voice.

"Brother Jiang, look over there!" Chen Qi's voice suddenly became sharp, and his finger trembled as he pointed in the opposite direction.

That's the hillside on the east side of the school.

The once desolate mountains were now as if a pot had boiled over, with countless gray and white shadows emerging from the cracks in the rocks and the caves.

It's a Stoneclaw Flying Beast!

Not only flying beasts, but also packs of strange, three-horned giant wolves on the ground, as well as some black-armored crawlers the size of small mountains.

Densely packed, covering the mountains and plains.

There were so many that they were impossible to count, like a gray tsunami cascading wildly down from the mountaintop.

The goal was very clear—the school.

"Did I just stir up a hornet's nest?" Chen Qi's face turned pale, and the Type 95 rifle in his hand looked as powerless as a toothpick.

This is no longer a battle; it's a one-sided massacre.

With a beast tide of this scale, let alone seven special operations teams, even if you brought over an entire reinforced regiment, it would probably only be enough to fill the gaps between the monsters' teeth.

"They're not here to eat us." Jiang Ming was frighteningly calm as he watched the monsters' movements. "They're driving us away."

"Drive them away?"

"Look at the formation of those monsters. They've blocked all escape routes except for the western one," Jiang Ming pointed to the dark train. "They're forcing us to get on."

Chen Qi glanced at the eerie train, then at the horde of beasts behind him that could tear them to shreds, and his teeth chattered.

"Can we get on that car? What if it's a trap?"

"If I stay here, I'll just be pooping in a minute. Getting in the car might give me a little more time to live." Jiang Ming jumped off the balcony, kicking up a cloud of dust as he landed.

He yelled at the SWAT team members who were still standing there in a daze downstairs: "Forget those junk cars! Grab all the ammunition and supplies, and run west!"

"Follow me if you don't want to die!"

Jiang Ming took the lead, carrying the Thunder Prison Horse-Slaying Sword, and transformed into a blur as he rushed out of the school gate.

Chen Qi gritted his teeth, turned around and roared at his team members, "Listen to Mr. Jiang! Run! Run at full speed!"

Although the five team members were so frightened that their legs went weak, their survival instincts still enabled them to unleash astonishing speed.

Carrying heavy backpacks and clutching their guns tightly, they frantically followed Jiang Ming's retreating figure towards the black train.

Behind them, the earth trembled more and more violently.

The monster's roars were almost within reach, and the stench of blood had already filled everyone's nostrils on the wind.

"Faster! Faster!"

Jiang Ming glanced back and saw that the lead stone-clawed flying beast had already flown over the school playground and ripped off the roof of an armored vehicle with a single claw.

This scene terrified the special operations team members behind them, who wished they had two more legs.

On the western side of the fault line, a faint red light suddenly appeared at the door of the black train, as if guiding them.

"We're here! It's just ahead!" Chen Qi was panting like a broken bellows, his eyes almost bulging out of their sockets.

500 meters.

Two hundred meters.

Fifty meters.

Jiang Ming was the first to rush to the train. He then discovered that the train was four or five meters high and the surface of the carriages was covered with fine, scale-like patterns.

The red light emanated from a circular sensing area.

Jiang Ming didn't have time to hesitate and immediately reached out and pressed it.

"Crack—Sizzle!"

A sound of air pressure being released rang out, and the heavy, black car doors slowly slid open to the sides, revealing the deep and spacious interior.

"Get in! Get in now!"

Jiang Ming turned to the side, standing guard at the door like a god of death, with the Thunder Prison Horse-Slaying Sword already in his hand.

Several special operations team members scrambled into the carriage, with Chen Qi being the last. Just as he stepped through the door, a stone-clawed flying beast swooped down from the sky, its sharp claws less than half a meter from the back of his head.

"roll!"

Jiang Ming's eyes flashed with anger, and he swung his horse-slaying sword horizontally, bringing with it a violent burst of lightning.

boom!

The heavy sword collided with the flying beast's head, and lightning exploded instantly.

The Lv.14 monster was hit as if by a speeding truck, screaming as it flew backward and crashed into a rock not far away.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Jiang Ming sheathed his sword and leaped into the carriage.

"Close the door! Close the door now!" Chen Qi shouted, collapsing to the ground.

Jiang Ming searched for the control device inside the car and found a red lever by the door.

He pulled suddenly.

"Bang!"

The heavy car doors slammed shut instantly, blocking out the screams and crashes of the frantic slamming.

An eerie silence fell over the carriage.

Only the heavy breathing of a few special operations team members echoed in the narrow space.

"Where...where is this?" Chen Qi stood up, leaning against the cold carriage wall, the beam of his flashlight swaying wildly inside the carriage.

The interior of the carriage was not filled with seats like a regular train, but rather a spacious hall.

The floor was covered with some kind of soft black leather, and the surrounding walls were inlaid with dark red crystals that emitted a faint but steady light.

There was no rusty smell in the air; instead, there was a faint, sandalwood-like scent.

"Don't move." Jiang Ming pressed his flashlight and pointed to a display screen at the end of the carriage.

On the screen, lines of blood-red characters were flashing.

Welcome aboard the "Pathfinder" shuttle train.

[Current Site: Vast Mountains - Thousand Slope Forest]

Next stop: Poisonous Fog Swamp

[Departure countdown: 10, 9, 8...]

"Departure? Where to?" A team member pounded on the vehicle window in fear, but all he saw was thick armor.

Jiang Ming didn't speak; he felt the floor beneath his feet begin to tremble slightly.

A powerful sense of acceleration came over me; although I couldn't hear any engine noise, the behemoth was indeed moving.

And it's extremely fast.

"Ugh—!!!"

The final whistle blew, its sound piercing through the heavy carriage, as if bidding farewell to the mountains.

Jiang Ming walked to a gap that resembled an observation window and looked out.

Outside the window, the monsters that roamed the mountains and plains were roaring madly around the edge of the fault, but not one of them dared to step into the area where the train passed.

They seemed to be filled with awe for this row of black dragons.

As the train accelerated, the hideous monsters and familiar school buildings quickly turned into tiny black dots, eventually disappearing completely into the grayish-white mist.

"Now we're completely stuck here." Jiang Ming leaned against the carriage wall and closed his eyes.

Chen Qi stared at the words "Poisonous Mist Swamp" on the screen and swallowed hard.

"Mr. Jiang... do you think we can ever go back?"

Jiang Ming opened his eyes, a slight smile playing on his lips, but there was no joy in his eyes.

"If you can't go back, it's just bad luck."

The train sped through the darkness.

Although there were no windows, the slight, sound-barrier-breaking vibrations sent shivers down everyone's spines.

"This speed... it must be at least 500 miles per hour, right?" Xiao Zhang huddled in the corner, clutching the rifle tightly to his chest, his voice trembling. "And there's not a sound at all, this is illogical."

"We've already time-traveled, and you're still trying to talk to me about science?" Chen Qi retorted irritably, but he kept fiddling with the gun handle, trying to find some sense of security.

Jiang Ming ignored their whispers.

He was circling the empty carriage, his senses suppressed to a three-meter radius around him, carefully sensing every fluctuation in the air.

The carriage was ridiculously large, at least a hundred square meters, yet it had absolutely no furniture.

He found a groove in the corner of the wall, reached out and touched it, and felt a cold, mechanical sensation.

[Energy interface detected. Should we deploy materials for resupply?]

The sudden pop-up notification on the panel startled Jiang Ming.

This train... can it still be used for resupply?

He tried to pull out a used battery he had previously stolen from the training building from his fanny pack and threw it in.

"Creak—"

Several tiny metal tentacles protruded from the groove, instantly crushing and swallowing the battery.

The red text on the screen flashed once:

[Supply successful, train points earned: 0.1.]

[Current train level: Lv.1 (Damaged).]

[Unlock basic functions: air circulation, temperature control system.]

"Damn it, are they trying to fob me off like a beggar?" Jiang Ming cursed under his breath.

A lithium battery only gets 0.1 points?

According to this calculation, to repair this train, you would have to dump batteries from several cars into it.

However, this also provided him with a crucial piece of information: the train could be upgraded and repaired.

These "passengers" are more like the train's maintenance workers or...

Fuel provider.

"Mr. Jiang, look at this!"

Chen Qi's voice came from the connecting part of the carriage.

Jiang Ming walked over and found Chen Qi staring at the door leading to the next carriage.

The door had no lever or sensor area; instead, it had a circular recess shaped like a human handprint.

But in the center of the handprint is a white skull carving.

"I just tried pushing it, but it didn't budge." Chen Qi's face was grim. "And the smell on it..."

Jiang Ming leaned closer and took a sniff.

A strong, putrid stench, like rotten meat that had been piled up for half a month, was wafting out from the crack in the door.

"Could this be... a morgue?" a special operations team member muttered to himself.

"Don't scare yourself." Jiang Ming patted the door, the sound as dull as hitting a solid lead block. "Since this train is called 'Pioneers,' there must be more than just us."

He suddenly turned around and looked at the seven special agents behind him.

"Gather all the grenades, bullets, and any other usable explosives you have on you."

Chen Qi was stunned: "Now? We haven't even encountered the enemy yet."

"It'll be too late by the time we encounter them." Jiang Ming's eyes were cold. "This carriage is too clean, abnormally clean. Do you really think such a large train would come all the way here just to rescue a few of us?"

Chen Qi shuddered and immediately ordered, "Everyone, get ready! Unload your gear! Inventory all supplies!"

Just as the special operations team members were busy unpacking their backpacks, the train suddenly shook violently.

"Ugh—!!!"

The whistle sounded again, but this time it was short and shrill, as if issuing some kind of warning.

The dark red crystal on the top of the carriage suddenly began to flash wildly, and the light turned into a blinding blood red.

[Warning! Spiritual intrusion detected!]

[The defense system has been disabled. Passengers are requested to clear the area themselves!]

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