Armed Train in the Apocalypse

The hall was crowded with hundreds of mushrooms and puppets.

Yet, faced with the invasion, these mushrooms showed no reaction, standing stiffly in place and occasionally trembling.

”Their life force is fading.”

Su Huan glanced around thoughtfully.

In the team, Director Xu and his research assistant stepped forward and chopped down several nearby mushrooms. Each mushroom cut open revealed a dry inner part, its core crumbling like rotten wood, leaving only a wrinkled outer layer.

The puppets were the same, each with atrophied muscles, exposing their bones.

Su Huan wanted to ask about the situation with the Fungus Carpet, but the connection was cut off here, so he had to abandon the thought.

Liang Kuan and others spread out to search the entire hall. After dissecting a few bodies, Director Xu came over and said solemnly, ”This is a way the Fungus Carpet recovers energy, by reconverting the hard-to-transfer parts into energy and taking it away all at once.”

”You mean the Fungus Carpet is going to flee?”

Su Huan raised an eyebrow.

Behind him, Ma Hongyu’s gaze flickered, remaining silent.

”That’s just my guess.”

Director Xu replied.

As Su Huan pondered for a moment, Liang Kuan and others quickly returned with the hall’s situation. This was the surface level, primarily a public living area, built with communal dining halls, water purification plants, medical centers, and various defensive installations. But now most were wrapped in, corroded by the Fungus Carpet, and crowded with thousands of dry corpses.

Following Ma Hongyu’s guidance, the group also found the entrance to the underground level.

On this level, there wasn’t much useful for the train; food had long deteriorated, and the defensive installations were corroded beyond recognition by the Fungus Carpet.

An assigned team was left to destroy mushrooms inside the hall, while the rest followed Su Huan into the negative Level 1.

Levels negative one to negative three were the main living areas, like the surface, filled with various mushroom corpses, with dozens of puppets hidden among corpses attempting an ambush. But in front of the train conductor, their intact life force shone like a blazing torch.

It was cleaned up in less than a minute.

Su Huan took a few steps, turned around, and looked at the green-purple Fungus Carpet covering the entire corridor wall, asking lightly, ”What’s inside here?”

Ma Hongyu examined the relative position, uncertainly saying, ”This level should all be Hive Apartments, nothing special.”

Beside him, Liang Kuan didn’t even listen. As the train conductor asked, he had already inserted his shield into the Fungus Carpet and violently tore it. Several meters of Fungus Carpet were ripped from the wall.

A few recruits gasped.

”Bang bang...”

Several corpses, sealed like wax, slipped and fell to the ground.

Behind the Fungus Carpet wasn’t the wall but a neatly arranged wall of corpses!

The bodies were stacked like bricks, heads and feet placed together, with men and women distinguished only by men usually taking up more space, while women and children took up less.

They had their eyes closed, their bodies as withered as those mushroom puppets.

Seeing this, Ma Hongyu lowered his eyelids, his facial muscles slightly twitching, appearing somewhat fierce and twisted.

Yet he turned his head to explain to Su Huan.

”It considers them... reserve puppets.”

Liang Kuan and other veterans showed no reaction. They’ve seen much more blood and horror than this, and upon ensuring no danger, began inspecting other places.

Su Huan glanced at Ma Hongyu’s grim face, a flash of compassion in his eyes, patted his shoulder, and said, ”Don’t worry, when we leave, I’ll help you burn it all.”

Upon hearing this, Lin Jin paused his steps, left a Fire Seed on the bodies, and caught up.

After spending ten minutes tearing down most of the Fungus Carpet, Ma Hongyu found the entrance to negative Level 4, with Xiaoba easily cracking the complex mechanical lock.

This level and negative Level 5 were the base’s strategic storage, pushing open the door, a damp and musty fungus smell surged up; this area was also invaded by the Fungus Carpet, but only a thin layer of Fungus Carpet was on the ground, with no mushrooms or puppets.

The storage rooms with different functions were separated, unlike the surface; once the mycelium got in, the entire level would be overwhelmed. The separated layout provided some hope for the group; after a simple inspection, they found several small storerooms untouched by the Fungus Carpet, where supplies were well preserved.

Regrettably, there was no weapons storage, only a frozen food storage, a seed storage, and a medical supplies storage.

The base was completely out of power, so the frozen food was hopeless, but the other two storages could enrich the train’s reserves. Yet, for a train that controlled an entire city before, such a harvest was hardly exciting.

Negative Levels 6 and 7 were heavy industrial zones; parts of the military factories were severely corroded, but Director Xu and others found a set of molds for casting different types of bullets, considered the biggest gain of this trip.

A team began returning with this set of casting molds. After multiple separations, only two ordinary officer teams remained behind Su Huan, including Director Xu and others, less than twenty people.

Walking at the front, Ma Hongyu paused his step and earnestly said, ”The next level is the energy center. I’m not sure if there’s nuclear radiation. Are you sure you want to go down?”

Director Xu and others frowned; in every modern person’s understanding, nuclear radiation is a terrifying concept, one that even Evolvers can’t resist. They subconsciously looked towards the train conductor.

Su Huan shrugged indifferently, smiling lightly, ”We’re already here, why not go in and take a look?”

Ma Hongyu did not persuade any further, pointing out the location decisively, with Xiaoba forcefully cracking the lock.