Nighttime Devouring of Cars

Aus Furniture City was located on the outer ring road of Jiang City, usually sparsely populated, and with no other survivors idly seeking shelter in the furniture store, it gave Lin Xian the perfect chance to let loose.

Lin Xian checked the time—16:30, still over two hours until dark.

So he didn't hold back. First, he picked an expensive yet understated sectional leather sofa, moved it onto the flatbed truck with a forklift, then found a foldable steel-frame bed.

The door of Carriage 3 was fairly large, but stuffing a solid wooden bed inside wouldn't be practical, so Lin Xian planned to weld the steel-frame bed into the carriage. With a foldable mattress and latex topper, it'd be plenty comfortable.

Right, pillows and blankets were a must.

The more Lin Xian hauled, the happier he got. Then he spotted a 60-inch light-curtain TV mounted on the wall of a brand store, and his eyes lit up.

"Yeah, if I had an entertainment area, playing games or watching movies in downtime wouldn't be bad either."

"Take it!"

Without a second thought, Lin Xian dismantled whatever he could, and soon the flatbed truck was packed to the brim.

If not for the limited space in Carriage 1's bathroom, he'd have even grabbed a toilet and bathtub from the washroom area.

Vroom~

On the small truck, Lin Xian's eyes glowed faintly as the Mechanical Heart drove the engine to roar again. Laden with his haul, he circled the parking lot's main road and drove into the greenbelt beside the railway tracks. He floored the accelerator, crashing straight through the isolating rail fence wall, and the truck lurched onto the gravel slope of the tracks.

Chen Sixuan had waited over an hour on the train. When she saw Lin Xian charging in with a truck, she was completely stunned.

Then she noticed the sofa, mattress, and even a TV in the truck, and her confusion deepened.

Was this really supplies?

In the apocalypse, shouldn't the priority be finding water or food, or maybe weapons? Chen Sixuan felt a bit flustered, but as she watched Lin Xian drive the truck to the back of Carriage 3, she hurried over to help.

Clang~ Whoosh~

The liftgate at the back of Carriage 3 slowly lowered. Lin Xian hopped on, short blade strapped to his back, and first moved aside the motorcycle and hoist inside. Then the two of them started hauling the sofa, bed frame, mattress, pillows and blankets, carpet, and TV all into Carriage 1.

By the time everything was done, the sun was setting.

Both of them were drenched in sweat.

Beep, beep, beep~

The alarm on his watch started ringing. Lin Xian's expression turned serious, and he said to Chen Sixuan, "Go over there, grab something to eat and tidy up. I need to deal with this truck."

He had a bold idea now. Since the truck was right in front of him, why not take the chance to devour it?

Even if danger came, he could immediately raise the carriage's protective liftgate.

It sounded a bit risky—after all, the dangers in the dark weren't ordinary zombies—but Lin Xian didn't want to waste this rare upgrade opportunity. He decided to gamble.

"Okay."

Chen Sixuan was like an obedient, well-behaved wife at that moment, following Lin Xian's instructions without question.

Once Chen Sixuan left Carriage 3, Lin Xian took off the custom tow hook from the truck door and strapped it around his waist. As dusk hadn't fully fallen yet, he stepped off the train, placed his hand on the small truck, and without hesitation activated the Mechanical Devour ability.

Devour Progress 1%

That familiar sensation from devouring a car before washed over him. Lin Xian felt his energy draining faster, while the progress bar on the light screen in front of him crawled along far slower than it had with the small appliances.

One hand pressed against the small truck, the other tightly gripped the metal tow hook.

The reason Lin Xian had attached the tow hook cable was to maintain control over the Infinite Train at all times. His ability only worked on machinery he was touching; with a metal wire connection like this, it would fail if the distance grew too great.

Devour Progress 2%

Devour Progress 3%

Time ticked by, second by second. The surroundings were dead silent. With no lights anywhere, the fading sunset plunged the view into deeper darkness, and Lin Xian's expression grew tense.

In a daze, he even felt, inexplicably, that the earth was breathing...

Was this the Dark Tide?

18:45

The sky suddenly went pitch black, as if there were no transition at all—eerily unnatural.

For over two months, survivors seemed to have grown used to this change.

All they could do was pray for the night to pass quickly. Only when daylight came did some survivors dare to leave their shelters and search for supplies to help them survive.

But everyone knew that after the polar night, food and water would eventually run out. Whether dawn would ever return, no one could say.

Hiding in a shelter was a slow death, but fleeing was an even bigger gamble. Reinforced concrete, steel doors—none of it could necessarily stop the horrors in the dark. Out in the wild, hiding in a vehicle, how much chance of survival was there?

Neither choice offered absolute safety.

So, ability users became the leaders of survivor groups. They possessed powers beyond ordinary people, offering a sense of security that surpassed steel and concrete.

Before the network had completely collapsed during the polar night, Lin Xian had seen plenty of ability users with strange powers online. They quickly became internet sensations, sought-after apocalyptic leaders, and the focus of official research and cooperation.

When Lin Xian first posted his Infinite Train recruitment plan on the forums, he'd considered revealing his ability to attract a large following.

But he quickly dropped that idea.

He didn't think he had the capacity to manage hundreds or thousands of survivors in an apocalypse. His ability was amazing, sure, but right now he could barely protect himself. If he became a leader, the most he could offer was driving the train and fixing machinery. If he ended up not as a leader but as someone else's human battery, that would be a miserable fate...

His worries proved entirely justified. Just two months into the apocalypse, atrocities born from fighting over supplies and violent mobs killing each other had become commonplace. And those ability users possessed a power that was hard to fathom. In contrast, Lin Xian's ability, at this early stage, seemed rather unremarkable.

Devouring Progress: 63%

An hour into the night, the devouring progress had finally passed the halfway mark. Lin Xian maintained absolute focus, staying alert to the pitch-black surroundings at all times.

He had turned off all the lights on the train, blending into the darkness as if he were one with the night. Even his breathing slowed. He simply reached out, placed his hand on the small cargo truck, and devoured in silence.

To avoid even the faint glint in his eyes giving him away, Lin Xian closed them, relying entirely on his ears to stay vigilant. On both sides of the railway were barbed-wire fences. If anything stirred, he should be able to hear it. And if something approached along the tracks, it would likely make a sound too.

Devouring Progress: 77%

Almost there. Almost succeeded...

Crunch—

Just then, the faint sound of gravel shifting suddenly rang out.

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