Crack!
Before Zhao Yi could finish speaking, a strand of seaweed lashed through the air with a sonic boom, sending the steel pipe in his hand flying!
Zhao Yi felt a numbing shock in his palm as the pipe snapped clean in half, clattering to the ground. Eerie runes crawled along the broken edges, squirming like living things.
Zhao Yi was dumbfounded. He stood frozen, sensing nothing but disdain and mockery from those twisted strands of seaweed... His courage was nothing more than a joke in the face of such overwhelming Calamities.
Rage and helplessness surged through him, his eyes bloodshot—
But he refused to back down. Snatching up a crowbar from the ground, he charged out of the warehouse with a roar, ready to fight the seaweed to the death.
Just as the seaweed prepared to strike, a deafening gunshot rang out!
Bang!!
The power of deconstruction instantly obliterated two strands of seaweed, tearing a gap in the siege around the warehouse. Chen Ling stood at the breach, his gun smoking as he aimed at the writhing tendrils on either side.
Without hesitation, Zhao Yi turned back, scooped up Ling'er, and sprinted toward Chen Ling.
The remaining seaweed lashed out furiously, but Zhao Yi didn’t slow. Gritting his teeth, he barreled forward blindly—his life now entirely in Chen Ling’s hands.
Bang! Bang!
Two more gunshots. The whistling strikes vanished mid-air. When Zhao Yi opened his eyes again, he had broken through the siege, reaching Chen Ling’s side.
He was about to speak when he noticed Chen Ling’s unusually pale face.
"Chen Ling, are you okay?"
"Fine." Chen Ling glanced at the puddles beneath the seaweed. "Avoid water, ice, anything reflective... Winterport was probably wiped out by these things."
"But... there’s ice everywhere!" Zhao Yi stared at the frost-covered ground, his voice bitter.
Chen Ling narrowed his eyes, pressed the gun to his own lung, and pulled the trigger.
The bullet tore through his body, and his eyes instantly flushed crimson. Then, he raised his right foot and stomped down with terrifying force!
Boom!
A spiderweb of cracks erupted across the ice, shattering it completely. With that single step, Chen Ling turned all frost within dozens of meters into powder.
"Not anymore."
Zhao Yi and Ling'er were stunned. Zhao Yi gaped at the self-inflicted bullet wound on Chen Ling’s body, his brain short-circuiting... This was his first time witnessing Chen Ling’s combat style firsthand. Now he understood why the people of Frost Street had regarded Chen Ling with such wariness...
Chen Ling glanced back. The distant seaweed was swarming toward them. "Follow me."
The three weaved through warehouses and buildings until they reached a cordoned-off area. Beyond the barrier stood a massive, towering warehouse.
Chen Ling slashed through the cordon with his knife, then pressed his bloodstained hands against the heavy steel doors. Veins bulged along his arms as he forced the half-ton doors open with sheer strength.
A low creak echoed as dust clouded Zhao Yi’s vision. When it cleared, he saw a colossal steel beast lying dormant inside—
A train.
An exact replica of the K18 they had arrived in.
"This..." Zhao Yi’s eyes widened. "Why is there another K18 here?"
"Get on. Now."
Chen Ling had no time to explain. He herded them into the control room, which was nearly identical to the previous train’s—except for one detail. Every lever, every button, every instrument was connected by pulsing, grotesque blood vessels.
The veins coiled across the machinery, converging at the center of the control panel... where a withered hand protruded from within, its fingers curled as if gripping something unseen.
Ling'er recoiled in terror. Zhao Yi gasped, "What the hell is that?!"
Chen Ling stood beside the locomotive, watching the seaweed swarm outside. His frown deepened. Even if they got the train moving, it would be too slow to escape these things. If this train was destroyed too, it was over.
"Zhao Yi, you’re driving." Chen Ling grabbed several gasoline canisters from the warehouse and nimbly leaped onto the roof.
"Me?! I don’t know how to drive this thing!"
"There’s probably a special method. Figure it out."
Hearing this, Zhao Yi’s gaze landed on the withered hand. Every instrument was linked to it—clearly the core of the system. But the more he stared at it, the more unnerved he became.
Still, Zhao Yi was never one to back down. Gritting his teeth, he clasped the withered hand with his own.
The moment their hands touched, the desiccated fingers clamped down like a vice. The boiler roared to life, steam hissing so loudly it nearly deafened them.
Smoke billowed from the chimney, filling the warehouse. As the drive shaft engaged, the mysterious train—dormant in Winterport for so long—finally rumbled to life, crawling toward the exit.
Seeing this, Chen Ling hurled a gasoline canister in a high arc toward the writhing seaweed.
Before the tendrils could strike, Chen Ling raised his gun and fired without hesitation!
Bang!
The canister exploded mid-air, raining fire across the ground. The rune-covered seaweed writhed in the flames, shriveling as the ice and puddles evaporated beneath the heat.
"Damn it, let’s go!" Zhao Yi seemed to have mastered the controls. Yanking the withered hand forward, he sent the train charging straight into the inferno!
From the roof, Chen Ling lobbed more canisters ahead, igniting a blazing path across Winterport’s wilderness. Unearthly shrieks rose from the flames, as if something raged beneath.
Firelight danced across the steel beast, leaving it unscathed. The train plowed through the sea of fire, wind and flames whipping around it as it barreled away from the coast.
Cloaked in his blood-red coat, Chen Ling stood atop the blackened locomotive, his expression grim as he stared back at the churning Frozen Sea.
"Faster... Something’s coming out of the water."