The progress of Infinity was smoother than Lin Xian expected. Apart from encountering the Hunting Body on the first night, they only faced harassment from some scarlet zombies or energy-devouring worms during their journey. Although the Infinite Train had more than a dozen carriages, it relied on heavy defenses and a large deployment of drones, so these monsters posed little pressure.

Yet, the smoother it seemed, the stranger Lin Xian felt. As they delved deeper into the scarlet, Infinity was now traveling across the mountainous plains east of the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico. The tracks were not particularly smooth; this north-south mainline was nearly 40 years old and not part of the Star Orbital main route. After the apocalypse, tracks without maintenance faced frequent situations like breaks, rust, and terrain collapse.

The dim daylight couldn’t penetrate the thick scarlet clouds, making the space hazy like being surrounded by dense fog. By the afternoon of the third day from Hakko, Lin Xian and KIKI drove Infinity close to the vicinity of Leon City in central Mexico.

Ping ping ping!

Countless steel structures and tracks flew rapidly in the air, driven by magnetic forces to precisely fall and combine, constructing a small steel track bridge across a broken valley out of thin air.

Lin Xian, dressed in modified power armor, resonated with dark energy, and after all components were positioned, he raised his hand to grab, instantly welding the metal parts together. He completed constructing and laying this nearly 50-meter-long rail bridge in less than three minutes without relying on drone power, his efficiency was astonishing.

"From the North American direction, there are mainly three lines, besides the one we’re taking, there is a west line from Guaymas to Mexico City, close to the Pacific Ocean, and then another west line from Monterrey. All three lines can be crossed, but given this line’s situation, no convoy seems to have evacuated through it."

KIKI flew down from the sky, inspecting the road ahead, and said over the communication frequency: "Do you think we might have missed the main group?"

"That would be good news." Lin Xian stepped onto the low-temperature sandy soil covered with ice shards and walked towards the edge of the valley, frowning at the Spirit Vibration Value concentration on his HUD panel. "But it shouldn’t be that coincidental."

KIKI landed beside him, looking ahead. Under the scarlet mist, the entire valley was eerily silent, with the riverbed exposed as the river had long dried up, appearing gravelly. The decayed vegetation and trees seemed burned by fire, dry and black-gray, like sinister deadwood from an eerie place, devoid of life.

"Feels like we aren’t on Blue Star anymore, it’s so lifeless." KIKI tossed a small stone out, which fell on the riverbed without making a sound, rolling lazily. "Didn’t you say the Tower People’s civilization had clear mountains and rivers, and towered canopies? Why is there nothing except for those ugly ’Angels’?"

"Civilization games only provide us with something we can understand, but it’s not necessarily true."

Bang bang!

Lin Xian’s Mechanical Heart activated. As he walked ahead, the Infinite Train parked on the tracks followed his control and advanced slowly, crossing the valley. Yet before it moved a hundred meters, another broken section of tracks appeared ahead, the fractured and bent rails scattered buried in the sand and stone, seemingly broken towards one direction.

KIKI grabbed the broken tracks from the sand and stone and handed them to Lin Xian for mechanical forging, quickly reinstalling them in place.

Efficiently working together, repairing along the way, Lin Xian devoured every piece of metal creation within view without wasting any, the Black Star Forge’s seven manufacturing sequences tirelessly operating for track and component production, crucial for future evacuation needs. He must ensure they were properly repaired.

"Lin Xian."

KIKI descended from the air, a wave of telekinesis dispersing the scarlet dust ahead. The two looked forward into the dim light where outlines of collapsed ruins intermittently emerged. Shortly, a once dense city cluster appeared in view.

Tall buildings and streets completely veiled in scarlet, Infinity gradually approached a station within the city. Lin Xian and KIKI returned to the train, observing from the cockpit as black vascular patterns resembling plasma mold veins crawled over exterior building walls, layer by layer wrapping around buildings. The city was deathly silent, scattered throughout were stationary humanoid corpses, unclear if zombies or some deceased Uncanny Human stand idly in threes and twos.

"The scarlet is intensifying, denser than the North Bay Mist Array we encountered before," KIKI quietly said, staring outside, "Should we speed up and dash through? With all these dense buildings, there must be a good number of Scarlet Abnormal Bodies here."

Lin Xian shook his head: "Rushing won’t help. It’s not like there’s anything chasing us, and... where is there a safe place?"

The heavy train rumbled slowly on the tracks, traversing the desolate grey city at low speed. KIKI and Lin Xian managed obstructions and repaired tracks, avoiding causing much disturbance. Along the road, the city seemed devoid of colors, with advertising boards on streets near the tracks coated in a layer of scarlet frost, as if all colors in the world were erased, the entire city buried beneath a thick layer of sand.

Yet they understood it wasn’t sand, but the substance of blood fog mixed with ice shards, unable to extract water for drinking. In this entire world, there was no food, no water, nor air, even without breathing under strong distorted dark energy radiation, one could quickly mutate and perish.