Armed Train in the Apocalypse

The latter immediately relaxed and called the men around him over to share this ”cup” of beer.

After a simple transaction, they’d already built some basic trust.

A minute later, the short, stocky man was swaying on his feet, his face flushed. ”This is what you call strong?”

If it weren’t for everyone’s steady breathing and strong heartbeats, he’d have thought Su Huan was freaking poisoning them!

The ones who could come to the tavern were all Iron Wolf Corps elites, and yet they’d all been knocked flat by a single jujube-soaked beer. He was only holding on by sheer Tier One Evolver physique.

Su Huan shrugged. ”Just say if it’s strong enough or not.”

The man’s tongue was a bit thick. ”Strong is strong, it’s just...”

”Relax, you’ll be fine in half a day. This stuff just makes you woozy for a bit.”

Su Huan was telling the truth. This jujube really could make even his Tier Three Evolver brain go a little dizzy for a moment, but for these Evolvers who were mostly not even Tier One yet, how long they’d be out was hard to say.

But it had been diluted so much, it definitely wouldn’t kill anyone.

Right then, Su Huan suddenly felt the ground under his feet shake. He frowned inwardly. ’I barely drank anything...’

The short, stocky man’s expression changed and he suddenly bolted out of the tavern.

The ones still conscious inside left half their number to look after the men who’d collapsed, and the rest all rushed out.

”What’s going on?”

Qu Hang came up and whispered, ”The edge of the floating land collapsed.”

”Come on, let’s take a look.”

Su Huan walked out.

The Iron Wolf Corps’ base was built on a large floating land mass about twenty meters off the ground, around four hundred meters across, roughly the size of a university stadium. He had no idea how this bunch had climbed up here in the first place.

The base had originally been a small-town worth of buildings, then they’d modified some of it. For example, the bar under their feet was a sheet-metal shack built between two existing buildings.

No matter where you stood, you could see the whole floating land in one glance.

At its edge, huge chunks of earth and stone were breaking off and falling away under the shouts of the people in the base. The reinforced concrete buildings by the edge naturally couldn’t escape either—half their bodies collapsed with a roar, ripping out the circuits and water pipes inside before crashing more than twenty meters to the ground with a thunderous boom.

A woman ran out carrying a child, then stopped in the doorway and shouted back inside.

The short, stocky man rushed in and, just as the entire building was about to fully collapse, he jumped out carrying a man and an old lady.

But this time, the area that caved in was huge, more than ten meters across. Su Huan could clearly hear the building breaking apart. Several houses along the edge, plus all kinds of structures built on top of them, started to come down as well. The people inside had no time to escape and were about to plunge down.

Even the train stretching a kilometer long that had silently pulled up near the floating land went completely unnoticed.

”Should we give them a hand?”

Qu Hang asked.

He wasn’t just talking nonsense. You could tell the conductor didn’t dislike this little faction.

”No need.”

Su Huan said mildly.

Qu Hang was a bit puzzled, but in the next second he heard the screech of twisting steel.

From the collapsing buildings on the floating land, countless metal rebars suddenly extended out, twisting together like intelligent metal serpents, then drilling into the floating land itself. It was like ten thousand snakes leaving their holes, the momentum shocking, forcibly halting the already fractured floating land in midair.

More metal swarmed in from above and below, hoisting the hundreds-of-tons of floating land, then wedging it back into the main mass, forming a half-enclosed steel fortress!

”Master Eight is here.”

Understanding flashed in Qu Hang’s eyes.

He looked down and quickly spotted the wheelchair-bound teenager on top of the train, the corner of his mouth twitching uncontrollably.

After advancing to Tier Two, Master Eight’s legs were completely healed, yet he still sat in a wheelchair. He’d once curiously asked why, and Master Eight had answered with a pure expression that he wanted to give the enemy a nasty surprise when they underestimated him.

Couldn’t deny it, that was very much like the early days of the conductor.

Close red, close black—surrounded by the conductor, even the originally pure and kind Master Eight had been led astray.

With Xiaoba’s help, the short, stocky man finally got everyone out. Without Xiaoba’s constant support, the collapsed floating land started crumbling again and quickly smashed into rubble before everyone’s eyes.

The short, stocky man ignored the train that had silently appeared below, just walked up to Su Huan and said solemnly, ”Our Iron Wolf Corps owes you a favor. I’ll personally lead a team as your guide.”

Su Huan looked down at the floating land beneath his feet and gave a stomp. The slowly stabilizing floating land suddenly shuddered, sinking by a meter under the horrified gaze of the short, stocky man. Fortunately, Su Huan stopped in time, and the floating land slowly rose back to its original height.

Su Huan asked, puzzled, ”Does your floating land normally sink like this?”

The man swallowed as he glanced at the giant pit under Su Huan’s feet. ”It collapses every now and then, but never over such a big area like today.”

”Then why do you still live up here?”

”It’s less dangerous up top. We only have to deal with the occasional collapse and Mutant Beasts from the sky. On the ground we have to face a lot more things—especially recently, with corpse hordes wandering all over the surface.”

The man answered truthfully.

Su Huan nodded. He’d already gathered enough information and didn’t plan to waste more time up here. He said calmly, ”I’ll be setting out very soon.”

The man was stunned for a moment, then insisted, ”I just need a second to give some orders.”

Su Huan nodded. ”I’ll wait for you down below.”

He walked to the edge of the floating land, looked around for a moment, then stepped out with his hands in his pockets, long hair snapping back in the wind.

He hit the ground with a boom, instantaneously stamping a web-like crater into the frozen earth, yet his feet didn’t sink into the ground even a fraction.

The soldiers behind copied him and dropped like dumplings, slamming into the ground one after another, making a continuous series of booms echo across the wastes. They were nowhere near as graceful and relaxed as the conductor—each landing cratered them nearly twenty centimeters into the earth.

Luckily, Evolvers were thick-skinned and tough. They were only a bit numb from the impact. After pulling themselves out and shaking off, they moved around freely again.

The sight left the people of the Iron Wolf Corps on the floating land in stunned silence.

The Gravity here was only one-fifth of normal, not zero. An ordinary Awakened jumping down would just end up splattered.

What kind of monsters were these people?

...

Su Huan quickly dealt with some matters on the train, then attended a briefing that summarized their findings on the Gravity Zone.

Professor Ma: ”...Based on the information so far, we’ve roughly summed up a few basic Rules of the Gravity Zone. The closer you get to a certain central point, the more severe the Gravity imbalance becomes, manifesting as floating land masses in some areas, or depressions in others.”

”This situation isn’t fixed. It cycles every so often. When that happens, floating islands not only drop but also move, and according to our simulations, when two floating islands get close to each other, a ’Gravity rainbow bridge’ will appear. If we calculate the timing and distance right, we can jump from island to island.”

Su Huan’s eyes flickered. If they didn’t have the armed train, building an aerial floating island would actually be pretty interesting. Not only would it avoid most ground-level threats, it could also use the imbalance effect to cross regions. The pity was it wouldn’t take them out of the Gravity Zone.

”What’s the natural disaster of the Gravity Zone?”

”Gravity storms. According to our calculations, the Gravity Zone should have periodic Gravity storms. They won’t affect the train too much. We just have to carefully avoid regions where Gravity multiplies, since with how heavy the train is, if it falls into a Gravity-multiplied zone it’ll get trapped.”

Su Huan nodded. He now had a basic impression of the Gravity Zone in his mind.

Give these scholars some time and they’d quickly figure out the basic Rules of any region, more comprehensive and fundamental than the intel he’d brought back from his rebirth.

Thinking of this, Su Huan suddenly looked up. ”Right, is it possible that the Gravity imbalance is also caused by a Rule Stone?”

Information about Rules hadn’t been widely disseminated, but for a few senior researchers it wasn’t a secret.

Professor Ma and the others exchanged a look, then said seriously, ”That’s exactly what we were about to bring up.”

”We suspect that the core of the Gravity imbalance is where the [Gravity] Rule is located. If we can obtain that Stone, we might be able to control Gravity itself and make the train float.”