Players, Please Board the Train

Everyone expressed disbelief, but the man with the leather suitcase sneered coldly, ”What do you think the staff on this train are, good people?”

”This has nothing to do with whether they are good people or not,” the elderly man said. ”The game should have rules for both players and game staff.”

”Since the conductor said it’s a car-slaughtering monster, then this type of mutant probably really exists,” the glamorously dressed woman said. ”Maybe it will appear again tonight. Rather than arguing about its true identity, isn’t the most important thing how to defend against it?”

”Drive them back,” a man stood up, pointing at Xu Huo and the others. ”I’m getting off at the next stop tomorrow. Why should I share the risk for others?”

”We’ll go to the front carriages,” the female player said, stepping forward to leave, but was blocked by two players from the seventh carriage. She raised her willow-leaf eyebrows. ”What are you doing?”

”Nothing much, just want you to stay quietly in your own carriage,” the glamorously dressed woman said.

The female player sneered. ”Aren’t you afraid the car-slaughtering monster will choose this carriage?”

”One more carriage means one less point of risk for us,” the elderly man spoke up. ”Correspondingly, your risk will also decrease. Whether we get attacked or not depends on luck.”

The words made sense, but the player with purple hair, who had witnessed the carnage in the tail carriage, said, ”I think merging carriages is better. Those sixteen players were wiped out in less than two hours. Having more people is safer.”

The other players seemed to consider it, and in the end, they agreed to let Xu Huo and the others stay. However, the atmosphere was far from harmonious. As a precaution, one player used an item to seal the rear door, saying, ”Seal the back door, leave the front door open. If something really happens, we won’t be left with no way to escape.”Everyone tacitly avoided mentioning the idea of informing the players in the front carriages about the car-slaughtering monster.

After dinner, the time approached eight o’clock. The train announced in advance: ”The train lights will be extinguished. There may be slight turbulence while traversing the Dimensional Rift. Please return to your seats and do not move around.”

Similar to the Preliminary Trial Train, the carriage lights went out, and the sky outside rapidly darkened, plunging into complete darkness within a few breaths.

The breathing of the more than twenty people in the seventh carriage simultaneously grew quieter. The elderly man said, ”No need to be so tense, everyone. I have a lighting item that can allow people inside the carriage to see without alerting the mutants clinging to the train. If something really happens, I will use the item.”

It was both an assurance and a warning.

Xu Huo watched him take out a light bulb and hold it in his hand. After speaking, the elderly man silently moved closer to the carriage’s front door. The man carrying the leather suitcase also seemed able to see in the dark; his eyes followed the movement before settling and then shifting his gaze to look at the others.

Xu Huo met his gaze calmly, without a ripple of emotion. The man with the suitcase glanced at him and then looked away.

However, they were clearly not the only ones in the carriage who could see at night. Skinny Monkey, huddled in the corner, put his glasses back on and tentatively waved at the player beside him.

He was relatively far away, and the wave was small. In the absence of visibility, even if the player sensed it, the perception would only be limited to ”someone is moving nearby.”

Skinny Monkey’s target was still the leather suitcase in the man’s hands. He took out something as thin as a piece of paper, placed it on the ground, stepped on it with both feet, and quickly approached the man with the suitcase, taking advantage of the faint friction sound of his movement to disappear. He placed a short stick of incense in front of the man.

This incense was different from the sleep-inducing incense sold on the train, but its effect was immediate. The man with the suitcase began to feel his eyelids grow heavy. Just as Skinny Monkey was about to take the suitcase, the carriage suddenly jolted. *Pa-pa-pa* sounds, like raindrops, struck the carriage windows, lasting for at least three minutes.

All the players knew those were mutants. Unlike the silence of the mutants on the Preliminary Trial Train, these mutants used their nails to scratch short, *zhi-zhi* sounds on the windows.

The noise outside ”startled” the man with the suitcase awake. His eyes snapped open wide in the darkness. Taking advantage of Skinny Monkey looking toward the window, he chopped at Skinny Monkey’s neck with a hand strike!

Skinny Monkey’s feet slipped, and he retreated violently, but a cut still appeared on his neck. Without a word, he ran toward the front door. The man with the suitcase did not pursue him, instead looking at him with a mocking expression. At that moment, the sound of shattering glass came from a carriage not far away. Within a few short seconds, faint light seeped through from the front!

”How could this be?!” someone in the carriage cried out involuntarily.

Anyone who could become a D-level player certainly knew the rule about not turning on lights at night. The outside was full of mutants; turning on a light was suicide! Even if a car-slaughtering monster had entered the carriage, they shouldn’t panic to that extent!

*Boom! Boom!* Next came a series of dense sonic booms. Without looking, everyone knew the lit carriage was being swarmed. Mutants from other carriages also rushed toward that area at high speed, their roars rising and falling like wild beasts.

The combat power of D-level players should not be underestimated. Moreover, including the adjacent carriages that were affected, at least dozens of players were embroiled in the fight. Everyone thought this commotion would last a long time, but in the next second, a high-frequency, piercing sound came from the front. The mutants on the train scattered and fled!

As this high-frequency sound continued, the lights in the front carriages came on one after another. Through several glass windows, Xu Huo saw the passengers from the first and second passenger carriages during the daytime moving toward them, seemingly checking for something.

His eyes shifted, and he immediately looked at the man with the suitcase, only to see him reaching out to open it.

From the suitcase, which was opened just a crack, came a familiar pulsing sound, mixed with another kind of sharp, piercing noise. The other players in the carriage seemed completely unaware, but Xu Huo found it unbearable. With one hand, he covered the suitcase; with the other, he pulled the suitcase away from the man’s hands.

The man didn’t seem surprised that someone would stop him. With anger on his face, he said, ”I knew you were a lackey of the Purification Squad!”

As he spoke, he spat a tiny needle from his mouth. Xu Huo blocked it with his sword but was forced back two steps by the impact of the small needle. Then the man flipped the suitcase open. Inside was a baby, its entire body purple!

However, the child was not dead. It rolled out of the suitcase and pounced on the nearest glamorously dressed woman. Before she could react, it bit through her throat. Then, kicking away the woman who wasn’t completely dead yet, it hung upside down from the ceiling of the carriage, opening its mouth to continue emitting the high-frequency, piercing sound!

Xu Huo retreated several steps quickly and pressed the carriage light switch. But at that moment, the infant child pounced toward him. After he dodged, it smashed into the carriage wall like a cannonball. The light that had just come on went out again in less than three seconds!

However, this commotion had already alerted the suited men in the front. From one carriage away, one of them threw a red, jelly-like object. That thing passed unimpeded through several doors, arrived in the seventh carriage, and exploded on the spot!

The splattered liquid had a strong corrosive property, instantly injuring several players. The infant child, crawling around wildly, was scalded by it. It let out a soundless scream, crashed through the glass window, and quickly crawled out!