Armed Train in the Apocalypse

Finally, sixteen kilometers out, Su Huan detected a fluctuation that felt familiar.

”Over there, that’s where you came from, right?”

Su Huan raised his hand and pointed toward the back mountain behind the camp as he asked.

Lian Jin nodded. ”Yeah. On the way here a leopard tried to catch me. I scared it, and it startled quite a few beasts.”

Song Zhiyue said in surprise, ”You found it?”

”Just a lead.”

A minute later, on the back mountain, in a wide birch forest, a black figure slowly descended.

Behind him was Lian Jin sprinting madly. Running on snow meant he had to hold back, so he’d only covered a little over a kilometer. The people from Song Zhiyue’s camp were even slower; they’d only just crawled out of the snow cave.

Su Huan spread his perception again, with no intention of waiting, and lunged straight ahead.

Finally, after spanning eighty kilometers, right at the border between Donghuang and White Bear, Su Huan once again sensed the child’s aura—and another, familiar aura.

On this side of the border lay a pine forest, most of it buried under snow, like snow mountains bulging out of flat ground.

The wind drove the snow and sand along the ground, carving out a wide trench, like a river encircling the snow mountains. At the end of that river, at the edge of a snow mountain, a man stood there.

Not the cowboy, but an ordinary White Bear man, his face flushed red, beard thick.

He was holding a boy by the hand—the very boy who had gone to inform Dun Fentiao that morning.

Su Huan’s eyes were as calm as a still well; he walked toward the man in silence.

”In any world, children make the best bait, because they represent hope and the future. Don’t you agree?”

The man turned his head; white flames rose in his eyes.

”You’re right. But honestly, I’m not really here for him.”

Su Huan said evenly.

The other smiled. ”In front of us, lies have no meaning.”

”Us?”

”You idiot, why are you exposing me?!”

The child at the man’s side suddenly spoke, furious, his voice hoarse and ancient, like boulders tumbling, rumbling as they fell.

Then he grabbed the corners of his mouth with both hands and tore hard. A stream of red-white magma burst more than three meters high, congealing in midair into a burly, imposing figure—four horns on his head, a human face with a beast’s muzzle, flaming mane flowing down his neck, like he was wrapped in a white robe.

The man beside him said helplessly, ”What else could I do? I can’t beat him on my own.”

The newcomer ignored him, instead formally pressing a hand to his chest in salute to Su Huan. Solemnly, he said, ”Weaver of hollow fate, High Jailer of the Abyss of Lies—Marcus greets you, Your Highness.”

Before Su Huan could puzzle out the meaning of that string of titles, the man next to him also straightened, saying gravely, ”Usurper of all beings’ true forms, High Jailer of the Abyss of Lies—Vikaron pays respects, Your Highness.”

Then two more figures appeared silently behind Su Huan, like bonfires soaked in gasoline, flaring up from the void—Old Gao. Though not as exaggerated as Marcus, his intense presence was still impossible to disregard.

”Smearer of memory, High Jailer of the Abyss of Lies—Recill.”

”Twister of sacred contracts, High Jailer of the Abyss of Lies—Miu’en.”

The thin white flames suddenly blazed brilliantly, illuminating a full kilometer of snowy plain. In the midst of four auras nearing Tier Four, stood the silent conductor.

”So, a whole nest of liars.”

There was a faint trace of surprise in Su Huan’s voice.

Marcus, the first to speak, corrected him, ”By your terminology, we’re high-ranking demons. Lies are my Lord’s Domain, not mere cheap tricks.”

”Mm, high-level liars.” Su Huan weighed the phrase, then asked, ”Why do you call me ’Your Highness’?”

The other replied calmly, ”In any world, any plane, a strong one who’s become a legend deserves the honorific ’Your Highness’.”

Su Huan’s gaze flickered; the guess in his heart finally solidified.

These pale demons did indeed come from another world. Their cosmology might resemble the mythos of Western civilization—but only might. Even the color of their flames and the nature of their Life were different.

Of these four high-ranking demons, other than Vikaron the Shapefaker, the rest had no physical bodies; they were pure Energy Life.

”Oh? Then what’s your purpose here—conquest, plunder... or meaningless Destruction?”

Su Huan asked again.

He realized he knew too little about this world. It was rare to have ’people’ telling him this much.

Marcus corrected him. ”Destruction is not meaningless; it simply doesn’t align with our interests.”

”You’re talking too much, Marcus!”

The oath-forger barked from behind, his voice solemn as a priest.

Marcus insisted, ”We must give the strong the respect they’re due.” Then he continued to Su Huan, ”Originally our goal was only conquest. Later, our goal became... you.”

With those words, sound vanished.

Only the blazing white snow grains howled past his body.

But that still didn’t fully answer Su Huan’s doubts. He had thought the pale demons were humanity’s main enemy. Now it seemed they were merely opportunistic invaders, not even the primary wave.

And the foes the Donghuang Military were bracing against might be even stronger than the pale demons.

Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be able to pry more out of the mouths of these four high-ranking demons.

Su Huan fell silent for a moment, tore off the Crystal at his hair tips, and put it in his mouth. When he raised his head to look at the high-ranking demons before him, heaven and earth quietly changed color.

A deep, tranquil blue like the bottom of the sea effortlessly crushed the white flames.

The oath-forger’s voice trembled with shock. ”Why can he still manifest his Domain under our suppression?”

”Because this is Rule!”

The only one with a body, Vikaron, had already charged at Su Huan, wielding a strange double-barreled shotgun. The muzzles were as thick as goose eggs, the gun’s body rough, covered in lava-like intricate patterns. Even unfired, it radiated a lethal sense of danger toward Su Huan.

But Su Huan turned without hesitation, facing Recill—the memory-faker who had never said a word. His eyes were devoid of color, his hands made no visible move; only his lips parted and closed slightly, and a violent surge of Energy erupted between them!

Like a nuclear blast, the Energy detonated within a narrow, one-kilometer sphere.

Energy roared in, gathering around the King, then at his command, bellowed outward, turning into visible ripples of lines that swept through everything, smashing against the Domain’s boundary.

The one-kilometer-wide Domain was forced to double in size in an instant, swelling like an overinflated ball.

Even for Su Huan, it was the first time unleashing an explosion of such scale inside his Domain. He almost lost control, but in the critical moment, the Rule of [Energy] within the Domain took effect, forcibly driving the spreading Energy back, sending it charging again through the ”confined” space.

Like the King’s Knights, tearing apart the enemy’s battlefield over and over.

At the center stood Su Huan; a third of his body was crawled over by luminous white lines, and two massive wounds had opened across his back, as if someone had fired a heavy sniper rifle point-blank into him.

With Su Huan’s current base stats, even without channeling any Energy, a heavy sniper couldn’t leave any injury on him.

The shattered Flesh and Blood hung suspended, scattered in a spray, glowing faintly crimson like the finest gemstones, slowly squirming, as if alive, trying to crawl back into the wounds.

But the violent surges of Energy froze them in midair, leaving that pale spine exposed, along with every nerve and the faintly pulsing organs.

Faced with such grievous trauma, Su Huan merely frowned slightly.

His palm reached unhesitatingly toward Recill before him.

Recill’s form wasn’t as exaggerated as Marcus’s; he was about the same height as Su Huan, roughly two meters. That meant Su Huan only had to extend his arm straight to reach the other’s neck.

Seeing the lines on Su Huan’s palm, a flicker of terror flashed through Recill’s white eyes, and he finally shouted his first words.

”Miu’en, save me!”