Yan Wei glanced around and asked, “No breakfast today?”
They had come together, but so far, they hadn’t seen Li Mao or the breakfast boxes that were usually placed on the bar counter every morning.
One of the three surviving members answered, “I came as soon as it was light. The Attendant didn’t come to prepare breakfast. He’s sitting in the hard seat carriage two sections ahead, doing nothing but sitting there.”
Yan Wei turned to look. The speaker was a tall, bald man with a gentle demeanor, holding a string of deep brown prayer beads in his hand. Though the beads seemed ordinary, they exuded an extraordinary aura, clearly a Legendary Item.
Yan Wei recognized the man.
His name was Xiang Ying, the second-in-command of Broken Scythe. Yan Wei had first noticed him during his initial Ascension. Xiang Ying’s skills and items were particularly effective against Ghosts/Monsters, and he often ventured into Resentment-filled Ghost/Monster instances, making him somewhat famous among players in the lower floors at the time.
Xiang Ying had even participated in the organizational battles on the 49th floor a few years ago.
However, Yan Wei had ascended too quickly. By the time he was in the lower floors, he had only heard of Xiang Ying but never had the chance to meet him. Xiang Ying had become just another fleeting figure in Yan Wei’s rapid journey upward.
At the start of this instance, Yan Wei had spotted Xiang Ying, but he didn’t recognize him. Since Yan Wei had never revealed his perspective or recordings during his first Ascension, Xiang Ying naturally didn’t know him either. Yan Wei had merely glanced at him, paying no real attention.
He hadn’t expected Xiang Ying to be among the survivors.
Of the other two survivors, one immediately headed toward the two carriages ahead, clearly intending to confront Li Mao, who was posing as the Attendant. The other seemed to have entered with Cao Qun. Now that only he was left, he naturally didn’t get along with Yan Wei and the others. After glancing at them, he walked toward the rear carriages without a clear purpose.
Lin Qing had already approached Xiang Ying and said, “I remember your skill involves detecting Resentment.”
Xiang Ying nodded calmly, “I can exchange information with Blackbird.”
As expected.
His earlier statement was a bid for cooperation.
Lin Qing gestured to the nearby dining table and took a seat on the bench. Xiang Ying nodded and sat across from him.
Yan Wei leaned close to Yan Mingguang’s ear and whispered, “Daytime is our last window. From now until nightfall, we have about ten hours. We can’t afford to relax. I’ll join Lin Qing in talking with Xiang Ying. You take Xu Miaomiao and Ding Xiao’s consciousness, which is now attached to the Puppet, and thoroughly investigate this dining car.”
“What about Li Mao?” Even as he asked, Yan Mingguang’s expression remained unperturbed. The looming shadow of death hanging over everyone seemed to have no effect on him.
Yan Wei looked at his profile, meeting those calm, dark eyes, and couldn’t help but feel that Yan Mingguang had never been worried about this instance from the start.
He blinked, and the calmness in Yan Mingguang’s eyes vanished, as if it had just been an illusion.
Yan Wei replied, “Leave him be for now. He’s used dark magic to control the entire train, enslaving the souls of the deceased workers. On this train, he’s invincible if we confront him directly. We can’t get any information from him head-on, and drawing his attention now would be a bad idea.”
Yan Mingguang said no more and, with Xu Miaomiao and Ding Xiao’s consciousness now residing in the Puppet, began inspecting the dining car from the end to verify if it was indeed the train’s head.
Yan Wei sat down beside Lin Qing.
The train slowly moved forward. Outside, the faint daylight of the overcast sky filtered through the curtain’s folds, casting striped shadows into the carriage. The urgency of solving the situation pressed upon them as Xiang Ying, Yan Wei, and Lin Qing sat across from each other at the table, the striped light sliding across their faces like resting travelers, with all dangers hidden in the shadows.
Xiang Ying nodded at Yan Wei in greeting, but his gaze remained on Lin Qing.
He had always regarded Lin Qing as the leader among them, so he naturally assumed Lin Qing would make the decisions.
“My skill is too costly. Over the past two days, I’ve used it to its fullest extent, scanning about eight carriages ahead and behind,” Xiang Ying said. “The Attendant carries the heaviest Resentment. He must be hiding something—your expressions changed when I mentioned him, so you know something about him.”
Lin Qing didn’t immediately respond but instead turned to look at Yan Wei beside him.
Xiang Ying was puzzled—why look at Yan Wei? Was he signaling this young man to speak?
Yan Wei merely glanced at the prayer beads in Xiang Ying’s hand and said, “I remember you specialize in exorcism. That path is rare in the Tower World because it’s not very combat-effective, requires long preparation, and heavily relies on teamwork. Without a cooperative team, it’s practically useless. But during the 49th-floor organizational competition, you obtained this Legendary Item, which shortens all mental processes, greatly reducing the time it takes for you to read Resentment. It’s helped you get this far, hasn’t it?”
His voice was steady, each sentence flowing without pause, as if he had memorized every detail.
Xiang Ying was stunned. Every word Yan Wei said was correct.
But he had already ascended to higher floors and rarely participated in Tower World activities. The frequency of his entries into instances had also decreased, so few people knew these details, let alone the specific floor where he had obtained the prayer beads.
He hesitated, “…Who told you this?”
Yan Wei simply said, “We know everything about this train, but I also want to know the distribution of Resentment here and ask for your help with something using your skill.”
The prayer beads in Xiang Ying’s hand began to roll faster, betraying his inner turmoil.
He looked at Lin Qing, only to see him slightly lowering his head, as if waiting for Yan Wei’s decision.
Lin Qing seemed to sense his gaze and looked up, saying calmly, “If you agree, then our deal is struck.”
It was clear that he was deferring to Yan Wei’s judgment.
Who was this young man? Why did even the ruthless Lin Qing yield to him and follow his lead so obediently?
Over the years, Blackbird had remained low-key but consistently ranked among the top organizations, never falling. As Blackbird’s second-in-command, Lin Qing was a god of slaughter. Whenever he took action, high-level players from other organizations would steer clear.
Everyone knew the situation with Blackbird. Lin Qing was already the highest authority in the organization. Who else could command him?
Xiang Ying suddenly tightened his grip on the prayer beads.
A thought began to form in his mind, but it seemed too far-fetched. Yet his tone softened, “My item is mainly related to consciousness and mental processes. It can only speed up anything involving thought. My skill is accelerated because I focus all my consciousness in front of me, allowing me to slowly see what’s normally invisible—greed, hatred, Resentment, malice… If what you want me to accelerate isn’t related to consciousness or thought, my skill is useless.”
Yan Wei chuckled, “It’s much simpler than accelerating your skill. I just need you to speed up my thought process.”
Beside them, Lin Qing had already pulled out the documents he had organized earlier and said, “All the information we have so far is here. If we strike a deal, I’ll give it to you. We can work together to deduce the outcome.”
Xiang Ying thought for a moment and said, “Deal.”
Even if they managed to survive the Eighty-ninth Floor Instance, the rewards would be based on the players’ progress in the story. Xiang Ying could tell that Blackbird’s progress was likely almost maxed out.
Regardless of who this young man sitting before him was, using the function of his Legendary Item to exchange for a nearly maxed-out instance progress was a win-win. The other party would be satisfied, and he would profit too.
He asked, “What do you need me to accelerate?”
At that moment, Yan Wei looked up and saw Yan Mingguang in the distance. The man had just finished walking the length of the dining car and had returned to the end, where he stood in the shadows, holding the small blackboard and examining the bound Prometheus.
Noticing Yan Wei’s gaze, Yan Mingguang met his eyes and shook his head.
Yan Wei thought to himself, As expected.
There was nothing unusual.
The dining car wasn’t the train’s head. The idea that the starting point was the beginning was wrong. Their approach had been mistaken from the start.
He said to Xiang Ying, “Accelerate my thought process.”
“Why?”
“Our deal doesn’t require me to explain, does it?”
Xiang Ying was momentarily speechless.
Yan Wei really couldn’t be bothered to explain. He wanted to go over the contents of this instance and all his thoughts again and again, but each round of thinking took too much time. By the time he had thought through it a few times, Li Mao might have already started killing.
But with Xiang Ying’s item, it would be much easier.
It was like a pillow delivered just as he was about to fall asleep.
Xiang Ying also knew better than to pry further. He placed the prayer beads in front of Yan Wei and said, “Then start thinking about whatever you need to think about now.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the beads emitted a faint golden light and slowly floated into the air.
Yan Wei closed his eyes.
In the next moment, Xiang Ying’s face paled from the strain, while Yan Wei’s mind began to flash through all the experiences since entering the instance. With the enhancement of the prayer beads, his thought process was dozens, even hundreds of times faster than usual. The memories, the minute details—everything was quickly replayed in his mind, yet each scene was clear and vivid.
Again and again.
Xiang Ying hadn’t expected the person before him to possess such a powerful consciousness. As he maintained the operation of the prayer beads, beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
The floating beads spun faster and faster…
Yan Wei kept recalling those scenes and memories. The bizarre occurrences on the train, the history of the Azure Sky Project, the Retrospection scenes Ding Xiao had recounted…
The resentful spirits that seemed to be everywhere were once workers of the Azure Sky Project. They had casually made a promise to Li Mao, and for that, he had killed them, binding their bodies and souls to this train as its perpetual driving force.
Prometheus represented all of them, including the players. Zeus was the judging Li Mao, and the Evil Eagle was the executing Li Mao. In Li Mao’s eyes, these people had betrayed the Azure Sky Project and were traitors.
The endless repetition of pain brought suffering, but it also brought eternity.
Li Mao, driven mad, had sought to create a train that would never stop, and through this method, he had succeeded.
But… but…
Yan Wei suddenly opened his eyes.
Xiang Ying had already finished reading the documents Lin Qing had provided and now understood the truth behind the instance.
The ancient prayer beads followed his movement and stopped spinning, falling onto the table with a clatter. Outside the window, the rain intensified with a loud rumble.
But Li Mao hadn’t solved one fundamental problem!
While he had indeed achieved perpetual motion through dark magic, there was a difference between a perpetual motion machine and a train that never stopped. A perpetual motion machine could keep running indefinitely, but for a train to travel endlessly, it needed not only the train itself but also an infinite track.
This was something a worker had casually mentioned during Ding Xiao’s Retrospection.
But Ding Xiao had only mentioned it in passing, and they had all listened casually. Everyone’s focus had been on the train’s head, and they hadn’t paid much attention to the workers’ trivial remarks.
Lin Qing looked at Yan Wei, “You’ve figured it out.” It wasn’t a question but a statement.
Yan Wei smiled and nodded, “I know what’s been bothering me. Even if Li Mao used the workers’ resentful souls to drive the train endlessly, he didn’t have an infinite track. Without an infinite track, how can there be an infinite train?”
This train wasn’t endless at all!!
On the contrary, it was likely very short, just like the Azure Sky Project’s proposal, probably only about two or three hundred carriages long.
Lin Qing was stunned, “But it really seems endless… We’ve considered that the illusion of an endless track might be a trick, but wasn’t that possibility ruled out? If we keep pushing forward, the Ghost/Monster attacks will increase, which contradicts the Death Oppression Instance’s nature of not testing combat strength.”
Yan Wei shook his head, “That’s not the issue. The train’s head doesn’t need to go that far. It—”
Yan Wei’s voice abruptly stopped.
The entire train jolted violently. In the next moment, thick blood began to seep from the seams of the train’s metal walls, sliding down the surfaces and filling the air with a putrid stench.
The three seated men immediately stood up, while Yan Mingguang paused and turned to look toward the rear carriages.
Xu Miaomiao waved her bone staff, and Ding Xiao emerged from it, giving Xu Miaomiao a gentle smile before heading toward the rear carriages.
Yan Wei frowned, “Blood is seeping from the floor too.”
Xiang Ying’s face turned pale, “I used my skill to take a look. The Resentment has intensified tenfold! It seems like the workers’ corpses hidden in each carriage are about to break free!”
A dozen seconds later, Xu Miaomiao groaned and staggered back. Ding Xiao, who had just returned, supported her and said to the group, “I just saw a closed Ascension exit in the next carriage!”
No wonder, aside from Xiang Ying staying in the dining car, one player had gone to confront Li Mao, and another had headed toward the rear carriages, which had seemed devoid of clues.
That player had actually found the Ascension exit and left!
The Ascension exit was a lifeline the Tower provided to players. If a player felt there was no hope of solving the instance, they could search for the Ascension exit to leave. Although the instance would be judged as a failure, and the player’s data and floor level would be penalized, at least they could save their life.
However, as the instance progressed, the Ascension exit would become both rare and dangerous.
Once a player opened the Ascension exit and left, the Ghosts/Monsters in the instance would feel provoked and become utterly enraged!
Xu Miaomiao couldn’t help but curse.
Xiang Ying gritted his teeth, “Selfish bastard!”
Yan Mingguang and Lin Qing remained calm, while Yan Wei frowned slightly, glanced at Xiang Ying, and said coolly, “I think I know what’s going on. If you want to live, follow us.”
“Move forward. The train’s head is the ninth carriage ahead, which is eleven carriages from where we initially chose the sleeper carriage.”
