Apocalypse: I Built the Infinite Train

The Wind-Eroded Valley, the dried-up riverbed—a 15-kilometer-long heavy rail train stood quietly, its 500-plus carriages winding like a dragon, stretching all the way to the distant horizon.

18:00

The setting sun dyed the gravel plains of the Gobi Desert a rusty red. Fine grains of sand shimmered like tiny golden scales in the twilight, only to be whipped into a flowing red tide by the sudden north wind. It carried pebbles crashing into half-buried oil drums, producing hollow echoes.

On the United Convoy Train, over four thousand people were rushing to prepare for the coming night.

"They say sand ants aren't exactly the same as regular ants. Just to be safe, check every gap, vent, and even the bathroom pipes!" Chen Sixuan’s voice came through the Infinite Train's comms as she briskly walked through the carriages, reminding everyone.

Lin Xian was also inspecting each carriage one by one, as meticulously as he had when dealing with snowmelt leakage before. But he knew sand ants were a different beast entirely. They could probably slip through the tiniest cracks. His biggest worry now was whether these sand ants, like the Snow Wraiths, might also leave a Dark Mark on people.

"Didn't Hu Lushou say the convoys he contacted didn’t show any Dark Marks, even though they stayed in Akesai for several days? So it should be fine, right?" KIKI followed behind Lin Xian, asking as they reached Car No. 3.

"Better to stay cautious," Lin Xian pointed outside the window. "I’ve stationed a few drones and planted some pre-set explosives out there, just in case."

"Director Ding," said Shu Qin, turning to Director Ding, who was conducting fungal regression experiments. "Temporarily shutting down the air circulation in the two Kor experimental carriages shouldn’t cause any serious damage to the plants, right?"

"Director Ding," Lu Shun interrupted, giving her a meaningful look.

"It will."

"It’s bad."

Lu Shun sighed gloomily, clearly frustrated with Director Ding’s habit of being too blunt and concise.

Finishing his thought, he pressed the comms button and instructed all convoy leaders, "Repeat: during the sand ant migration, absolutely no one is allowed to open fire without permission."

"Understood!" came the first response—from the Ocean Convoy’s captain.

Even though Lu Shun had already shared all the intel they had gathered about White Night with the various convoys when they first returned, Lin Xian still thought it was worth repeating again.

Over four thousand people—no small number.

After Apocalypse Day, Shu Qin had struggled even to manage a dormitory full of elementary school boys. Who could imagine managing a group this mixed—soldiers, refugees, thugs—all crammed together on the United Train? Despite everyone's cooperation under their common predicament and alliances, from a management perspective, Shu Qin knew there were still plenty of fools around. So she mustered up every ounce of patience she had, hoping to keep things calm until nightfall.

"Brother Lin," came Shi Diyuan’s voice through the comms. "After you guys got back, you had the entire train checked for Dark Marks again, right? No issues?"

"All good."

"Don't stress, Captain Lin, your team is tight," Monica said gently, speaking from Carriage No. 1 of her own Queen Monica Train.

"No need to worry," added Qian Dele.

"No issues on your side either," Luo Yang chimed in. Lin Xian had already finished arranging the kids in the large carriage. After experiencing so many crises—monster tides, worm tides—these kids had learned to stay calm and quiet without needing much instruction.

"Captain Lin," Li Yi approached Lu Shun and reported, "When you were away, the Hellbringers gave us some extra information. Mainly about abducting ability users. They traded them to some organization. The deal was made at a place called Iron Pot Valley, but we couldn't find that on any maps."

"Iron Pot Valley? Sounds terrain-related," Lin Xian immediately caught on.

"According to them, the place has a lot of abandoned radio telescope dishes. That’s why it’s called that."

"Radio telescopes?" Lin Xian frowned slightly. "Sounds like it used to be some kind of observatory."

"Easy," said KIKI, whipping out her mobile terminal and searching quickly. "Found it! Bailutan Observatory. It shut down back in 2056."

"Abandoned for 13 years, huh..."

"According to the map, their movements matched that area a few times, but not much overlap."

"Because they only go there at certain times," Lin Xian said after checking the coordinates. "After we finish dealing with the sand raiders in Akesai, we need to check this place out."

Lin Xian realized he had overlooked something. He had been filtering out areas with low signal overlap, assuming they weren’t important. But this transaction location was definitely worth a closer look.

Shu Qin nodded. "And regarding the trade rates: according to their intel, a King-level evolved human could be traded for two Level-1 Eerie Blood Crystals. An ability user could fetch five. A Berserker-level would be five times that, and a Destroyer-level twenty times."

"What?!" KIKI pointed at herself, incredulous. "I’m only worth 25 blood crystals?!"

"Could be worse. Two and a half tubes of Cold Dark Reagent ain't bad," Lin Xian teased.

"Hmph!" KIKI huffed and coldly snorted, "I’d like to see them try!"

Lin Xian’s gaze darkened. "Robbing a convoy of 20–30 people might usually net a little loot, maybe a few crystals. But with this human trafficking, those sand raiders could score 10–20 crystals at once. Even if they can't handle the high-tier evolved ones, there are plenty of small and mid-sized convoys out there. It's way more profitable than simple looting."

Shu Qin added, "A haul like that could feed them for a month. No wonder those sand raiders are so crazy."

"Any more news?" Lin Xian asked.

Shu Qin shook her head. "Not yet. Big Brother Dong said they're still squeezing them for info. But one of the seven already died. He asked if we could hold onto the others for a few nights, just in case they spill more."

"Whatever. Keep them locked up but don’t kill them yet," Lin Xian said darkly, cutting her off. "They’re worthless to us now. Just don't let them escape."

"Got it," Shu Qin replied with a strange smile, not pressing the issue further.

Hearing that, KIKI immediately made a disgusted noise, glaring at Lin Xian. "Gross."

"You can't put it that way," Lin Xian said, taking a deep breath. "In the natural order, there’s always a counterbalance. Against scum who assault women, isn’t this fitting revenge?"

"Besides," he added with a grin, "if our enemies suffer and our allies are happy, isn't that a win-win?"

"Ewww!!!" KIKI scrunched her face, pulling her chin back. "I want no part of that kind of ally."

Lin Xian chuckled helplessly, then turned to Shu Qin. "By the way, make sure the Windrunners Convoy hears about this."

The Windrunners Convoy, the group from the raided minibus, was parked quietly beside the United Train on the Gobi. Shu Qin had already updated them about the sand ants, and they were making their own preparations.

"Understood," Li Yi nodded to Shu Qin and left immediately.

As nightfall approached, food supplies had been distributed across the convoy. Water rations were now stretched—one bottle had to last two days. Everyone was well aware of the pressure.

Each carriage had sealed its windows and drawn blackout covers. Inside, a tense atmosphere was brewing.

Lin Xian personally shut all the bulkhead doors between carriages. Then he and Chen Sixuan made their way to the cockpit, peering through the windows at the dusky Gobi landscape outside.

Rustle, rustle—

The barren desert was filled with nothing but the sound of wind dragging sand across the land. Grains smacked against the carriages and cockpit glass, making a dry scratching noise.

Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan sat silently, one on each side, waiting for the black night to fall. On the convoy's comms channels, everything had gone quiet. Everyone was just watching the clock.

"Remember when we first left Jiang City? It was like this too, waiting for nightfall," Lin Xian said, glancing at Chen Sixuan’s wary face.

Back then, Chen Sixuan had been a desperate university lecturer, clutching the piece of bread Lin Xian gave her, hiding in a corner of the cockpit hallway, while he kept watch with a short blade against the undead scratching at the train outside.

Chen Sixuan turned slightly to look at him, then back out the window. "Even though there are no Dark Marks, I still feel uneasy in this vast emptiness."

Her gaze drifted far out over the wasteland, her eyes narrowing slightly.

The world felt too vast, the horizon too distant—and yet, deep in that empty zone, it somehow felt crowded, a suffocating sense she couldn’t explain.

Lin Xian swept his gaze over the land, his breathing slowing.

Beep, beep.

The tiny beeping of a wristwatch broke the silence of the carriage—soft, but somehow stark and jarring in the vast, deathly quiet.

"The night’s falling."

Whoosh—

A tide-like wave of light swept across the sky, pulling a dark curtain over the land.

In the next second—the world switched off.

The sun hadn’t even set yet, but the entire western Gobi plunged into darkness ahead of schedule.

Even the stars seemed muffled under some chaotic haze.

The land was dead silent.

Everyone held their breath at that moment.

Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan sat there, feeling only the pounding of their own heartbeats.

Suddenly, the wind picked up—and a faint pattering sound emerged.

"Is it raining?" Lin Xian frowned slightly.

"No," Chen Sixuan said, her expression grave as she stared into the blackness beyond the cockpit window.

"It’s the sound of the earth itself."

In the living quarters, the lights had long since gone out. The children all held their breath, huddled together, too afraid to make a sound.

Dodo lay on her pillow, peeking through a tiny gap in the blackout cover, staring out at the dark horizon.

The sound of rain seemed to be growing louder, evolving from a soft drizzle into a rattling downpour—yet not a single droplet was visible on the windowpane.

She widened her eyes, watching intently, when suddenly, with a faint ding, a strange little bug scuttled across the outside of the glass.

It moved quickly, dragging a long tail like a tiny spider, no bigger than her thumb, its true shape impossible to make out.

All she could sense was that the creature seemed to be constantly twisting and shifting, crawling across the window at terrifying speed.

Startled, Dodo shrank her neck back instinctively.

The next second, more and more of those black bugs began swarming over the window, growing denser by the moment.

The rain-like noise intensified, evolving into a torrential downpour!

Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh!

In an instant, the entire world outside the United Train was engulfed by that eerie sound, as if a sandstorm was hammering against the carriages.

The noise was so intense it drowned out everything else.

Inside the Infinite Train’s cockpit, Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan watched in horror as the front viewport was completely swallowed up by the swarm of black insects.

Both of them instinctively stood up and took a step back.

At that moment, all light seemed to vanish.

The entire carriage plunged into pitch-black darkness.

Sand Ant Migration!

A stifling sense of suffocation enveloped the 15-kilometer-long train.

No one could see even a sliver of light.

The rain-like noise continued to sweep across every surface—sides, roof, undercarriage—dense and overwhelming, as if the world was reduced to nothing but this sound.

Hearts pounded.

Some people gripped the handrails and weapons tightly, but no one dared to move.

In this complete darkness, all they could do was pray—

That nothing would crawl into the carriages!

In Car No. 2, KIKI and Shasha huddled together, covering their ears.

KIKI also conjured a small telekinetic shield to wrap around them, terrified that in this darkness, those flesh-tearing bugs might suddenly crawl onto them.

Meanwhile, Lin Xian’s expression darkened.

He frantically activated his Mechanical Heart, scanning the Infinite Train’s metal structure for vulnerabilities.

But the more he tried to feel the surfaces, the clearer it became—

It was as if billions of eerie lifeforms were crawling all over them.

His entire spine tingled.

This suffocating nightmare lasted for two full hours before the deafening "rain" finally began to subside—and eventually disappeared.

Gradually, the windows once covered in sand ants cleared again, revealing faint starlight and the outline of the horizon beyond the wasteland.

“Phew—”

Lin Xian let out a long breath, finally relaxing a little.

He was just about to press the comms button to check on the other convoys when Chen Sixuan suddenly stepped forward and slapped her hand over his mouth!

“Look over there!”

Her urgent whisper filled his ear.

Lin Xian immediately turned to follow the direction she pointed—and his pupils shrank sharply!

Several kilometers away, above the barren Gobi Desert, a thick yellow cloud of sand churned and seethed in the sky like boiling soup.

From within that dense cloud, several massive, segmented limbs—like grotesque insect legs—slowly descended.

Everyone could see their misshapen, monstrous outlines.

The inverted legs dangled in the air, brushing lightly across the desert as if moving aimlessly with the drifting clouds, slowly sliding deeper into the wastelands.

Around them, sandstorms howled and battered against the United Train, the wind keening like a mourning whistle.

The survivors who witnessed this scene all felt a chill pierce their bones—not merely fear, but something deeper.

The dangling limbs exuded a weird psychic shockwave, carrying a surge of ultra-concentrated Dark Fear energy, crashing outward across the barren desert!

[Detected minor Dark Fear Energy impact!]

At that moment, a warning hologram from the Eerie Cube flashed across Lu Shun’s vision.

The windows of the United Train fogged up with a thin layer of icy mist.

Shu Qin could do nothing but hold her breath and remain perfectly still, just like everyone else on the train.

Their hearts seemed to collectively stop.

Minute by minute, the monstrous limbs gradually receded into the depths of the desert.

Finally—the desolate riverbed grew quiet again.

Woooo—

A cold, harsh night wind blew across the wasteland, rustling dry grass and tumbleweeds.

Lin Xian could feel warmth slowly returning to his hands and feet.

He glanced at Chen Sixuan, whose eyes were still wide with shock.

Their gazes met—both filled with the hollow, dazed look of people who had skirted the edge of terror.

"At least... we don't have any Dark Marks," Chen Sixuan murmured, her face pale, still shaken.

She and Lin Xian had been through so much together—

They had even faced S-Class Eerie Entities before.

But what they had just witnessed wasn’t merely terrifying—it pressed down on their souls with a suffocating, brutal weight.

Lin Xian exhaled heavily.

He had felt this poisonous invasion of darkness the night before, even as he slept.

The spiritual impact was absolute—and devastating.

This was why, on Apocalypse Day, billions mutated into zombies overnight.

The survivors—though adapted somewhat to the dark energy over time—were still fragile when facing true darkness.

Thinking of this, Lin Xian immediately pressed the comms button.

"All convoys—report your status!"

“Rose Convoy—two people on the brink of mutation, but stabilized!”

“Triangle Iron Convoy—six people showing unstable signs, one fully mutated, a fight broke out in Car No. 2, but situation neutralized!”

“Hidden Forces reporting…”

“Ocean Convoy…”

“Dragon Mountain No. 1 is stable, but a lot of women and children are vomiting heavily. We’re handling it,” Ning Jing reported.

“Captain Lin, same here,” said Li Yi, busy tending to the children’s carriage.

Many of the little ones were pale-faced, vomiting uncontrollably.

On Luo Yang’s side, young adults were trembling without meaning to.

Li Guangwen slapped his thigh hard and gritted his teeth, growling:

"Dmn it, what the hll is this?! Why can’t I stop shaking?"

"I can’t control it either!" another teammate cried, staring at his own trembling hands.

In Monica’s Queen Monica Train, she monitored the vitals of all her crew via the internal screens.

Her eyes narrowed, and she pressed the cabin intercom.

"Everyone, stay calm. Wicker, get everyone a hot coffee."

"Yes, Queen Monica!" her catering staff responded immediately.

Meanwhile, in Joker Convoy, Qian Dele was dashing between carriages with Xiaomeng and other trusted aides behind him.

He pressed the comms button:

"Captain Lin, I suggest we turn on all lights and heating—to chase away the lingering fear."

"Agreed!"

Lin Xian had already been thinking the same.

With the desert finally silent again, he immediately ordered all convoys to activate lights and heaters, trying to warm everyone up and drive off the oppressive gloom.

Click, click, click—

One by one, the carriages lit up, heating and air circulation systems humming to life.

The entire United Train seemed to come back from the brink of hell.

Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan moved swiftly, inspecting Car No. 2, Car No. 3, and onward to the living carriages.

Thanks to the Eerie Cube, Infinite Train's situation was relatively stable.

He checked the Cube’s diagnostics, scanned his crew—most looked pale and shaken, but intact.

Chen Sixuan quickly distributed pre-prepared vegetable juice.

Miao Lu, wrapped in a blanket, chugged hers down in one go—despite its unpleasant flavor, the refreshing taste and the rising warmth in the carriage helped calm her trembling heart.

Around her, others were in a similar state.

Xiao Yuan, who had just recovered from a major illness, looked especially pale.

The slightly chubby girl's voice trembled:

"It’s so weird... it felt like... like a ghost was staring at me."

"Yeah!" Lü Chang nodded fiercely. "Exactly! Like sleep paralysis—you can't even fight back."

Lin Xian handed a bottle of water to Shu Qin.

"You holding up?"

Shu Qin shook her head lightly. "I'm fine, Captain," she said, then added with a complicated expression, "but for a moment there, it reminded me of Apocalypse Day."

Lin Xian nodded solemnly.

"Never thought the Gobi Desert would have such intense dark invasions.

We weren’t as prepared as we should’ve been."

"But Captain," Shu Qin said, "this kind of event shouldn’t be common.

Otherwise, people in Akesai wouldn’t have survived there for days.

At least now, we'll be mentally stronger after experiencing it."

"Yeah."

Lin Xian fell silent, contemplating.

Darkness—the source of the apocalypse, and the force behind humanity's forced evolution.

Survival was a fragile balancing act—one misstep, and they'd be swallowed whole.

By 1 AM, the suffocating oppression had finally lifted.

The United Train began to settle.

Lin Xian made his way to Car No. 2 to gather key personnel for a meeting about their next move regarding Akesai.

Just then, a notification pinged from the R& D center.

He remembered—the upgrade project for the G3 Electromagnetic Railgun was nearing completion!

[G3 Electromagnetic Railgun (Blueprint) upgrade completed!]

[Congratulations! You have obtained the blueprint for the Nichi K1 Orbital Quake Cannon!]

"What the h*ll?!"

Staring at the massive blueprint displayed in his holoscreen, Lin Xian’s pupils shrank.

"This thing... isn't it a starship main cannon for the Starfleet??!"

"And you’re telling me... we can mount it on a train???!!!"