Train Body

"Big boss..."

"Boss..."

As he watched Tian Xiaotian's silhouette vanish completely into the white light of the return passage, Ye Chuan withdrew his gaze. He turned around and walked toward the Death Train parked not far away.

"I seem to have quite a bit of fate with that silly melon."

"Hope we meet again."

The fog on the platform had completely dissipated, leaving only the train resting quietly on the tracks. The carriage doors slid open automatically, as if awaiting his arrival.

"So, how do I clear this train instance? By reaching the next station?" Ye Chuan pondered. Although he had cleared the station's instance, it didn't seem to have much to do with the Death Train itself.

He hadn't gathered any information about the train, either.

All he knew was that monsters haunted it, and violating the rules would corrupt you into becoming one.

Whatever, forget it.

He stepped into the carriage. The familiar scent of the seats hit his face, yet it carried a trace of eeriness different from before.

The moment he sat down, the train slowly lurched into motion. The friction between wheels and rails created a piercing screech, sounding like old gears being forcibly turned.

"Buzz—Zzzzt—"

"Zzzzt... Zzzzt..."

"Ohhh... Hooo..."

Just as Ye Chuan settled in, the overhead broadcast suddenly crackled to life. The static was sharp enough to make eardrums ache. The mechanical voice that should have announced the next station was gone, replaced by intermittent noise mixed with indistinct murmurs.

It sounded like countless people whispering through the airwaves, yet not a single word was legible.

The restless static sounded almost like a cry for help.

Ye Chuan focused intently, but only caught a few broken syllables. The destination of the next station was completely drowned out by the screaming static.

He couldn't hear it.

...

...

Time passed unknowingly. Ye Chuan had lost track of how long he had been sitting on the train, yet the scenery outside remained unchanged.

The next station never appeared.

Nothing happened.

"So, where's the next destination?" Ye Chuan raised an eyebrow, resting his chin in his hand as he thought.

The train wouldn't just keep going like this forever, would it?

Would it never stop?

Ye Chuan pondered and decided he needed to break the status quo.

Why not actively violate a rule and see what happens?

It was better than staring at the scenery forever.

Ye Chuan recalled the train's rules: one was no fighting with other passengers, and then there were restrictions on smoking and alcohol.

"Fighting?" Ye Chuan glanced at the empty carriage.

Forget passengers; there wasn't even a ghost in sight.

As for cigarettes and alcohol, Ye Chuan didn't touch them.

"Oh..." Although he didn't have cigarettes, Ye Chuan actually did have alcohol.

Though not alcohol in the conventional sense.

Ye Chuan pulled a white jade bottle from his inventory space. As a warm-hearted cultivator who always gave his all for others, he naturally received plenty of gratitude.

Aside from spirit stones, the most common item in other people's storage bags was immortal wine.

Holding the white jade bottle, Ye Chuan tilted his head back. "Glug, glug, glug, glug—"

"Damn it!"

Downing it in one breath, Ye Chuan smashed the bottle onto the floor!

Come on!

The surroundings remained quiet. Nothing changed.

"Hmm?"

Just as Ye Chuan felt puzzled, the environment inside the carriage shifted abruptly—

The originally mottled metal walls began to ooze a thick, dark red liquid. Like coagulated blood, it flowed slowly down the walls, pooling into tiny streams on the floor, emitting a thick stench of sweet iron and rot.

The leather of the seats melted into a mushy, fleshy substance, its surface covered in pulsating veins. Occasionally, pustules would swell up and burst, splattering yellow-green pus.

The light bulbs on the ceiling shattered. The moment the fragments fell, they transformed into countless eyeballs suspended in mid-air. With cloudy whites and abyssal black pupils, they all stared in unison at Ye Chuan.

It changed!

It really changed!

Ye Chuan took out another bottle of immortal wine. After chugging it down—glug, glug, glug—he threw the bottle directly onto the pile of rotten flesh.

Not enough!

Ye Chuan looked out the window and discovered that the scenery outside had begun to change as well—

Flanking the tracks were undulating mountains that looked like raw flesh. The surfaces were covered in a slimy membrane, beneath which countless thick veins throbbed madly. Occasionally, massive, twisted tentacles would burst from the mountains, thrashing against the void. The suction cups at the tips of these tentacles were embedded with human-like teeth and eyeballs.

"It looks pretty similar to when I first entered this weird world," Ye Chuan observed, feeling not a shred of fear.

Even with the floating eyeballs staring at him.

Perhaps he was just used to seeing the dense cluster of eyeballs on Ye Yue's body.

Only then did Ye Chuan realize that the tracks were laid upon a bridge made of interlinked spinal columns. Each vertebra was thicker than the train carriage itself, with black hair tangled in the bone crevices. As the train vibrated, it produced a clacking sound.

In the distant sky, countless shattered architectural ruins floated. These ruins were covered in thick fleshy tissue, and occasionally, half of a twisted limb could be seen hanging from the debris, swaying slowly in the void.

The whispering inside the carriage became increasingly clear. It was no longer static from the airwaves, but a voice resounding directly in his mind—

"Sacrifice... Kill him..."

"Offer... your soul..."

"Return... Return to the source..."

The voices repeated endlessly. If an ordinary person heard this, their mind might have collapsed in an instant.

Ye Chuan looked at the twisted world of flesh outside the window. His gaze didn't waver; instead, it held a hint of amusement.

"Is this the true form of the Death Train?"

"No... or is it that I've been polluted?"

"Did those passengers who turned into monsters all see this version of the world?"

He stood up slowly, condensing a blade of sword qi at his fingertips, and casually slashed at the melting seat beside him.

The sword qi struck, splitting the flesh instantly, but it healed just as quickly. The healing speed even accelerated, emitting a squelching sound like swallowing.

"Can't be killed? Or do the rules work differently here?"

Ye Chuan pondered, raising his head to look into the darkness at the front of the carriage.

The shadows there were thickening. He could vaguely make out a massive silhouette with countless tentacles slowly approaching him.

"Sacrifice..."

A man-sized monster walked slowly toward him. Its appearance mirrored the train itself—constructed of flesh and blood, faceless, resembling the source of the plague in Plague Town.

"Mob spawn." Ye Chuan actually sighed in relief upon seeing such a disgusting monster.

Spawning mobs was good; it was much more interesting than watching the scenery.

Ye Chuan even felt a strange sense of affection for the monster before him.

The fleshy creature suddenly let out a piercing shriek and lunged at him!

[Cognitive Pollution]

Ye Chuan immediately used Cognitive Pollution, but the monster's movements weren't affected in the slightest. The fleshy tentacle whipped directly toward him!

"Huh?"