Otherworldly Desert Dust

The three of them didn't venture far from the train, only scavenging some edible fruits in the verdant forest.

Passing through a patch of flowers, they saw the train still calmly stationed on the overgrown tracks...

But the area around the train was eerily silent.

The others were nowhere to be seen!

"Do you hear anything?" Su Li asked.

Wu Hen shook his head.

There wasn't a sound.

This was highly unusual. The rest of the group was gathering supplies near the train; it was impossible for there to be no noise at all.

Unless...

A gust of wind blew from the other side of the train, bringing with it a strong smell of blood.

Su Li, Wu Hen, and Yang Qin cautiously approached, soon seeing a conspicuous streak of bright red near the train door!

It was human blood!

Freshly spattered!

On the tracks, there was a fallen axe, its blade painted crimson with blood, still sticky with flesh and hair!

Yang Qin covered her mouth, nearly screaming.

That axe, wasn't it the scar-faced uncle's weapon!!

"There's noise in the safety shelter... It's the sound of bones!" Wu Hen finally heard a faint sound and immediately told Su Li.

The safety shelter was fully enclosed and lightproof, necessary for the fireflies that protected them at night.

But if the door was open and the Evil Spirit got inside, the feeble light of the fireflies wouldn't be enough to deter it!

A Midnight Mass was hidden on the train!

And someone had taken advantage of everyone gathering supplies to move the Midnight Mass into the dark safety shelter!

You can imagine; when the people collecting supplies returned to the safety shelter, they wouldn't find fireflies waiting for them but a Midnight Mass!!

"I'll deal with it!" Anger welled up inside Wu Hen.

They had worked so hard to escape together, not dying at the hands of the Evil Spirits, only to fall to their own in a bout of madness.

One Midnight Mass wasn't a big deal; one shot could extinguish it.

The safety shelter was crucial to them; they had to reclaim it, or they wouldn't survive the night against so many Evil Spirits.

"Little Yi!"

Wu Hen tried to summon his weapon.

"Little Yi?"

"Adoptive father???"

However, despite multiple calls, his adoptive father didn't respond. Not even a single glowing rune appeared on his right hand.

"Without Yuan You to nourish it, the superpower will fall dormant," Su Li said.

Wu Hen instantly felt cold.

After showing off yesterday, it had wilted today?

Without Yuan You, it wouldn't care if its brother lived or died?

"What do we do?? What do we do???" Yang Qin was on the verge of tears.

"Abandon the safety shelter; most of the fireflies have probably been released. We'll head to the front of the train and start it up, leaving this Evil Soil as quickly as possible!" Su Li said.

Running on foot, they couldn't leave this soil before nightfall, especially since it was constantly eroding and expanding.

They couldn't abandon the train. Their best option was to leave while it was still daylight; the Midnight Mass wouldn't dare come out of the safety shelter in the daytime. They'd drive away directly!

"Help me..."

"Help me..."

"Uncle Lin went mad. He injured me."

At that moment, a little boy covered in blood was leaning against the window of one of the train carriages, crying for help.

Yang Qin instinctively wanted to help, but Su Li yanked her forward fiercely.

"No... we're not saving him?" Yang Qin asked in terror.

"Trust nothing!" Su Li continued running without a glance at the tragic boy and left a single sentence behind, "If you want to live, crawl to the front of the train by yourself!"

Wu Hen said nothing more, following Su Li to the train's engine.

Luckily, the train's engine was functional, and Su Li let out a long breath.

Fortunately, those struck by madness didn't have the intelligence to damage the engine. Otherwise, they would be in a desperate situation!

"Clunk—"

"Clunk—clunk—"

The train started again, and Su Li could only hope this old train was fast enough to escape the Evil Soil before nightfall!

"They're all dead. They're all dead..." Yang Qin huddled in the train's engine room, looking mentally shattered.

She never expected that in broad daylight, supposedly the safest time, their entire team could be wiped out, leaving only a few survivors.

The worst part was, in the middle of the train, they could still hear a pitiful cry for help. The boy seemed to be trying so desperately to crawl toward the engine.

The boy wanted to survive.

Yang Qin felt hopeless; she desperately wanted to go home.

Wu Hen could naturally hear the boy's helpless cries too...

However, in a scene drenched in blood, the sole survivor was always the most suspicious.

Was it the scar-faced uncle who killed everyone, or was it the boy who brought the Midnight Mass into the safety shelter...

They couldn't make an accurate judgment.

With a fifty percent chance, they had to choose indifference.

"Aunt, last night I saw the city growing like roots along the ground. Will this Evil Soil also keep expanding?" Wu Hen asked.

"Yes."

"Like a desert encroaching on the forest, turning it into a wasteland bit by bit?" Wu Hen asked.

"The nature is similar, but the speed of erosion is different," Su Li said.

"How fast? How fast is it?" Wu Hen recalled the bizarre and horrific scene of the city growing under the sunset from yesterday.

"Faster than we can run," Su Li said.

Upon hearing this, Wu Hen was stunned.

The speed of erosion and expansion was faster than a human could run??

That meant escaping an Evil Soil wasn't about simply walking out but reaching a certain speed!

They needed to take the train to escape because its speed reached the threshold for escape; otherwise, they'd be trapped in this soil forever...

If they stayed still, that living Evil City would even chase them down!!

That was insane!!

To tell the truth, Wu Hen really missed home.

No matter how stormy home was, it was a thousand times better than this place.

No wonder Su Li called it paradise!

"Can we get out?" Yang Qin, face streaked with tears, asked from her corner.

"I don't know." Su Li lifted her head and looked up at the white day in the sky.

"He's silent now..." Yang Qin said quietly.

Su Li remained silent.

If she had bullets, she would have had no problem ending his suffering sooner.

...

The white day moved gradually.

The train roared along the tracks, the long agony making Wu Hen glance repeatedly at the sky.

He hoped the white day would set slower and the old train move faster.

They munched on tree fruits that couldn't quench their hunger, their consciousness drifted inexplicably. Though the land ahead was lush and green, whenever his gaze shifted, he saw only rotting, decaying, pus-oozing landscapes!

Wu Hen rubbed his increasingly dry eyes.

The mental contamination Su Li mentioned had already begun to take effect. Wu Hen's mood grew inexplicably irritable; he wanted to vent some way.

But he knew clearly that wasn't his usual self.

"Creak, creak—"

"Creak, creak!!!"

From the safety shelter came a series of bone-chilling sounds of bone friction.

It was the Midnight Mass hiding in the safety shelter; it started moving again.

Wu Hen glanced at the sky again, seeing the sun tilt, still one or two hours short of setting below the horizon.

"We're almost out!" Suddenly, Su Li's voice carried a trace of joy.

Yang Qin quickly stood up, her gaze cutting through the long railway to a grand mountain range ahead. At the peak of the range flowed an ethereal layer of clouds, like a celestial boundary separating this world from the one beyond.

There was a train tunnel at the base of the mountain.

Though there was still some distance, it was visible to the naked eye!

Glancing at the sky, the sun was still a ways from setting in the other direction.

At the train's current speed, they could definitely pass through the mountain tunnel and reach the other side!

"Can we go home?" Yang Qin asked excitedly.

"Once we're out of the Evil Soil, you won't get lost as easily. Follow the Soul Returning Wood's guidance; you'll surely find the Nuwa Divine Tree," Su Li said.

Yang Qin grew even more excited, about to share her joy with Wu Hen.

Wu Hen didn't respond, his face unusually serious.

"Aunt, something's wrong," Wu Hen said.

"Are you worried the Midnight Mass will attack us while passing through the tunnel?" Su Li asked.

"No, the one in the safety shelter is doing something very strange. It sounds like it's dancing," Wu Hen said.

"Dancing?" Su Li's heart filled with a foreboding sensation.

Suddenly, from the safety shelter carriage, an eerie red light burst through the windows. A torrent of blood-red fluid gushed endlessly from the tiny shelter!!

Like a sudden flood, the crimson liquid instantly covered the tracks, rapidly staining the earth red!!

Wu Hen poked his head out the window and looked back at where the train had passed, seeing nothing but a sea of blood-red.

The plants, the soil, the rocks—the Blood Tide was devouring the mountains at an incredible speed. The sinister light shot up to the sky, turning it into a dark crimson canopy!!

Wu Hen was horrified.

What power could instantly transform the landscape so drastically, or was it...

"Wu Hen, don't blink. This is the true nature of the Evil Soil!" Su Li's voice carried a cold calmness.

Stunned, Wu Hen was rocked to his core and shivered uncontrollably!

In contrast, Yang Qin beside him seemed unaware of the scene, still immersed in the joy of soon escaping, as the surroundings bared their most horrifying visage!

"It was a sacrificial summon," Su Li muttered to herself, "No wonder it killed all our companions!"

"Aunt..." Wu Hen tried to stay calm.

"It's coming," Su Li said, gazing skyward.

Wu Hen was starting to lose understanding but still followed Su Li's gaze to the blood-red sky.

That glance made Wu Hen's scalp tingle, his soul nearly shattered from the overwhelming terror...

The white day in the sky!!

The white day was moving in reverse, racing from the other end of the horizon toward the train at a breakneck speed.

Wu Hen couldn't believe it, it was alive too!!!