Apocalypse: I Built the Infinite Train-Chapter 340: Weird Mother Nest

The moment Lin Xian laid eyes on that humanoid figure, his first instinct was to strike.

He raised his hand and pointed. The Kinetic Cannon fired in unison with 25 Thunder Falcon drones, unleashing a barrage of pulse beams straight at the creature’s twisted face.

Whoosh!

But the white shadow moved incredibly fast—before they could blink, it had already vanished back into the tunnel. Dozens of pulse beams hit something, triggering a blast and a cloud of smoke.

Moments later, the sound of ka-ka-ka cackling echoed out from the depths of the tunnel—like it was luring them in.

Seeing the creature disappear, Ning Jing turned to A Bai.

A Bai shook his head oddly. “So weird… I feel like we’ve been marked, but there’s no obvious sign on us...”

“Maybe in a place like this, you don’t need a mark.” Monica said it flatly, cutting straight to the point.

“What do you mean?” Ning Jing looked at her. “Are you saying this world already belongs to the dark creatures?”

“That’s impossible!” Qian Dele immediately objected. “If no mark was needed, our base would’ve been gone already!”

“This is our world.” Lin Xian stared toward the tunnel, expression grim. “It’s just been corrupted by the Abyss.”

“Why’d that thing run off instead of attacking us?” KIKI asked, full of suspicion. This was the first time they’d seen an Eerie Entity retreat without even leaving a mark.

“Let’s move!”

Not bothering to analyze further, Lin Xian sprinted toward White City’s track station. The deeper strangeness of White City was beginning to show. Their best chance was to solve what they could and get back to the train—to break out of the Abyss!

Zzzzt—

As soon as they moved, the mech signals began to flicker. Even though KIKI and Fire Bro were just ahead and behind, the comms were full of harsh static. Inside his holo-helmet, Lin Xian steadied his breathing, nerves taut.

As they pressed through the darkness, the number of 'people' on the streets steadily grew—more and more of them.

Lin Xian noticed: these people were all heading toward a central area. Realizing that, he stopped and pulled up White City’s map. Sure enough, they were converging on the city center.

White City, a mountain city, had a narrow layout—north to south along the hills, wider east to west. Aside from the center, most buildings were old and low-rise.

From above, the city looked like an eye nestled in the mountains, and the White City track station was located out in the eastern suburbs.

But something felt off.

When Grace had scouted the area earlier, she’d moved without issue. They’d specifically avoided the northern sewage plant, choosing a different route. Yet now, Lin Xian had an uneasy feeling about the whole thing.

“Guys,” Monica said, running behind him, “I’m hearing more and more noises getting closer. This isn’t good.”

Lin Xian glanced toward the street below—dense with dried corpses staring up at them. He barked, “Get inside! Don’t let those things see us!”

Thump!

Before he finished, Ning Jing had already launched herself off a low rooftop, boosters flaring as she dropped vertically into a building, disappearing through the top floor.

The windows were all gone—just skeletal remnants like fish bones. The rest of the team quickly followed, ducking into the corridor.

Whump.

The silence of the hallway was instantly broken by light, hurried footsteps. The surroundings were pitch-black. Under night vision and spotlights, the floor was covered in broken bricks and debris. It looked like an old apartment block, just ten or so floors tall. The room numbers on the decayed doors were barely legible. Their footsteps echoed faintly.

“Grace, scout ahead!”

The situation outside was too strange. The number of 'people' was growing. With both A Bai and Monica sensing trouble, Lin Xian decided to send Grace out while the team stayed in this building to observe.

[Understood. You can trust Grace.]

Tap-tap-tap.

In a flash, Grace assumed sprinting posture. The crisp clicks of her heels faded into the dark hallway as she darted into the street.

Lin Xian and the others found a unit and entered. The old security door was rusted through—one light push and it fell off with a clatter.

Lin Xian quickly fabricated a metal door and sealed the entrance. “Give it a few minutes. Let’s assess the situation first.”

Ning Jing nodded and motioned to Xiao Qing, who immediately drew her blade and swept through the rooms.

Meanwhile, Lin Xian built several airtight metal window panels to block the light. Only then did he light a lamp in the living room.

As the lamp pushed back the dark, a fully grayed-out living room came into view—sofa, coffee table, TV, stand, wooden floor—all still vaguely intact in shape, but blanketed in a thick layer of dust and ash.

“That was terrifying. So many people out of nowhere—barely had time to react.”

As KIKI spoke, she tapped a nearby bookshelf. It instantly crumbled into a pile of decayed fragments, stirring up dust.

Qian Dele looked around the apartment and turned to Lin Xian. “So... you didn’t attack those people because they didn’t have marks?”

Lin Xian, eyes on Grace’s data feed, replied, “They were clearly corpses.”

“Zombies don’t tag us... but that thing in the tunnel...” “Something’s definitely off.”

Lu Xingchen raised one hand, summoning a warm glow that dispelled the chill. He said solemnly, “We humans... we still like places with light.”

Chen Sixuan returned after checking the rooms with Xiao Qing and gathered with the rest.

“Lin Xian, those meat-like structures... don’t they remind you of what was beneath Underground City No. 9?”

Lin Xian nodded. “That’s what worries me. There might be something huge in this city.”

KIKI frowned. “But Grace didn’t see anything a few hours ago. How’d it get here?”

“We’re still 8 km from the track station,” Ning Jing noted. “If the streets are blocked, maybe we go around the mountain? Or use KIKI’s flight ability?”

“Captain Lin?”

She looked over—but Lin Xian didn’t respond.

Then he suddenly said, “A Bai was right. Good thing we didn’t fly up.”

Grace had just transmitted a visual feed. With the distance being short, there was little delay. Lin Xian shared the video with the others.

“Out there—it’s all Eerie Entities!”

[I’m currently heading east on Yushu Street. Dozens of bodies are hanging from power lines. I’m also being watched by several human? figures. Bioscanners detect no life signs.]

The footage showed corpses dangling like puppets. Ahead of Grace, a few ‘childlike humans’ stared directly at her—some crouched on cars, others mid-run. But as she advanced, they all scurried into shadows and under vehicles.

Her voice came through, cold and crisp, unaffected by the creepy, pitch-black street.

Watching the footage, Lin Xian’s gut tightened.

“Scan for any incoming light sources. If attacked, retaliate immediately.”

[Grace understands.]

Inside the ruined apartment, the recon team watched the holo-feed, brows furrowed.

“They look human... but aren’t.” Chen Sixuan spoke uneasily. Had they seen monsters, it might’ve been easier to deal with. But this—this was the first time they’d entered a city within the Abyss, and what they found were all ghostlike horrors mimicking humans—each one more twisted than the last.

A Bai stood quietly, staring at the apartment. Occasionally, he glanced at the door, face pale. He seemed to sense footsteps below—something breathing from the dark corridor.

The metal panel Lin Xian made sealed the room in total darkness. Everyone watched Grace’s updates intently.

On the shadow-cloaked streets of White City, the silver-black female robot moved with silent precision, leaping over cars and debris. Agile and graceful, she made no sound.

Yet all around her, things were watching.

A haunting, bizarre tension filled the air. The streets felt abandoned... and crowded all at once.

Her system detected more suspended corpses above. The reddish-brown organic material on the streets was getting denser. Recognizing the threat, Grace scaled a building and set a relay node, then crossed the rooftop.

Her radar now showed buildings wrapped in fleshy growths. Soon, there were no more concrete surfaces—just walls, roads, rooftops turning into organic mass.

Reaching a high-rise in the city center, Grace’s night vision revealed a city drenched in death.

The asphalt roads were layered in fleshy tissue. Sticky membranes squirmed over buildings—like rotting skin. And at the heart of it all stood the source—a massive flesh hive the size of a stadium.

Its surface throbbed with black veins. Purple capillaries spread like tree roots. The hive opened like a volcano—spewing thousands of tentacles. Human corpses were fed in, broken down.

Above the hive floated something even more twisted—like a biomechanical printer of flesh and madness. Covered in cysts and tendrils, it spat out half-formed monsters that fell onto the meat carpet, twitching as they crawled.

Disjointed limbs, inverted heads, bent joints—yet they walked, crawled... and whispered.

Then came the stitching—the corpses and malformed creatures fused together. Black mist surged into them, accelerating mutations—spines, claws, armor, fangs.

The Three-Headed Spider Monster, White Skeletal Horrors, Black Behemoths, and upside-down crawling freaks...

Each one born from human remains, grotesquely manufactured—before crawling into the shadows.

Eyeballs multiplied. Arms twisted. Skeletons cracked. Flesh melted—

And the Abyss grew hungrier still.

That flesh hive had no discernible pattern of production—like an unrestricted AI generator overloaded with chaotic keywords, churning out grotesque, illogical “results.”

Countless plumes of black smoke spewed from the hive’s gaping maw, roaring like an old gas turbine running at full capacity. Across the city, the black vascular system devoured human corpses one after another.

From a distance, Grace tried to transmit the data, but the interference was overwhelming. All the video feeds became distorted and glitchy.

To Lin Xian and the others, the view from the city center looked like a descent into hell—it made their skin crawl.

Hissssss!!

Inside the sealed apartment, several members of the recon squad sucked in sharp breaths. They stared at the holo-displays synced to Lin Xian’s feed in stunned silence.

After a few seconds, KIKI gasped, “Oh my god, that’s how those Eerie Entities are made!?”

“I always thought it was strange how those monsters seemed so human… Turns out they really are stitched together from human corpses.” Qian Dele was stunned. “Where the hell did these things come from? Another alien civilization?”

Ning Jing’s pupils trembled. “This is... like a monster factory.”

“There’s probably more than one of these things. I bet they exist in every Abyss zone. That’s why monsters appear whenever darkness falls,” Chen Sixuan said grimly.

Fire Bro said nothing, staring at the hive in the feed with visible shock.

“So if we destroy things like that, the apocalypse might not come?” Unexpectedly, the quiet Xiao Qing asked a question that left everyone speechless.

“It’s not that simple,” Lin Xian said solemnly. “Didn’t you notice? The ones being stitched together are mostly C-Class or B-Class Eerie Entities.”

“What about the A-Class, the Mutants, the S-Class? How are those made?”

“And those gigantic beasts—spanning dozens of kilometers, occupying volcanoes, oceans, even the skies—those global catastrophes aren’t created like this.” frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓

Monica nodded. “There has to be some kind of system among these creatures.”

“What kind of system?” Qian Dele asked.

“Just like humans and Earth’s organisms—insects, microbes, animals, even ourselves—are divided by tiers, access to resources, and roles. It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Monica explained coolly.

“I don’t think this is the time for that discussion,” Lin Xian cut in.

He watched the increasingly frozen feed, face tense. “They’re coming. From all directions.”

Outside the sealed apartment, the noises were intensifying—movement, crawling, the whisper of unspeakable things in dark alleys, screeches echoing in the shadows. The entire squad held their breath, eyes on A Bai.

One thing was certain—if any of them got marked, they’d be swarmed by an endless monster tide.

And now, seeing that hive, they finally understood why no matter how many were killed, the monsters in the dark never seemed to end.

11:04.

Lin Xian stared as the timer froze at 59 seconds—and for a moment, it felt like time itself had stretched, breath suspended across the room.

11:05.

Suddenly, the noises vanished. A few seconds later, Grace’s voice came through:

[Target lost. Unable to retrieve valid data. This may be a visual distortion caused by spatial anomalies.]

Lin Xian’s heart skipped. What happened? Why did everything suddenly vanish? Weren’t they still in the Dark Night?

Caught off guard, he quickly ordered Grace to re-scout the area—and sure enough, not just the hive, but the corpses and tissue masses across the street had vanished without a trace.

The team was dumbfounded.

“What happened? A hallucination?”

“Strange... A Bai says he can’t sense their aura anymore.”

“They disappeared? In the Dark Night?” KIKI looked puzzled. “Aren’t they supposed to emerge during the night?”

This sudden shift overturned everything they thought they knew.

Lin Xian was filled with questions, but regardless of the reason, the disappearance of the Eerie Entities was good news—for now. And since Grace couldn’t be marked or attacked by them, Lin Xian instructed her to head to the former hive site to investigate—just to be safe.

Grace moved instantly, sprinting across rooftops before leaping back onto the street, racing toward where the hive once stood.

Soon, a massive sinkhole appeared ahead, splitting the city plaza right down the center. Oddly, the surrounding buildings remained intact. What was even stranger—there were several new-looking armored survivor vehicles, all bloodstained, but completely abandoned.

Grace quickly scanned the area, gathering data while awaiting Lin Xian’s next instructions.

Then—a sharp, eerie whoosh tore through the air. A black iron spear shot toward Grace like a lightning bolt.

Clang!

Grace raised her arm mid-task and caught the spear with mechanical precision.

[Hostile detected. Combat system engaged!]

More spears flew. At the same time, two nearby cars suddenly jerked toward Grace, seemingly pulled by some invisible force, trying to crush her between them.

She leapt instantly, flipping midair as a plasma pulse beam fired from her wrist, slicing one car in half and melting the spears.

But then—a figure suddenly appeared behind her. The joints of their mechanical power suit surged with energy. They dashed forward like a shadow, grabbing Grace by the neck and slamming her into the ground.

Boom! The impact left a crater.

Just when the assailant thought he’d subdued her, Grace twisted her head sharply, scanned him, then jammed both feet into the ground and flipped. The black shadow felt a surge of power twisting his wrist—he let go just in time and swung a punch at her head.

Grace tilted her head effortlessly, dodging the blow. She grabbed his arm, twisted, and flipped him to the ground.

But before she could follow through, the concrete beneath her suddenly rose unnaturally, slamming her away. Another car launched toward her, smashing her against a heavy truck and pinning her.

The attacker stood, voice cold.

“Now that’s a damn good robot. Must be a Cerebrain-class alloy unit from Crimson World—rare to see one of those.”

It was a short-haired woman in black powered armor, with two short swords strapped to her back. Her body radiated strength, likely enhanced by high-level gene evolution. Her exoskeleton suit bore a distinct red insignia.

She seemed to be communicating via headset. Right as she spoke, another man’s voice echoed from above:

“Ran, don’t get distracted.”

A man floated down from the sky, wearing strange powered armor with a hood and a katana at his waist.

He raised his hand—and rubble and metal fragments on the ground all lifted into the air, twisting into razor-sharp spears and firing toward the jeep that pinned Grace.

Boom! The car exploded into shards.

From the wreckage, a metallic figure burst out, leaping across vehicle rooftops toward the White City train station.

“Trying to run?!” The hooded man, who seemed to share an ability similar to KIKI’s, soared after her. He tried to restrain Grace with his power, but her output was too strong. So he unsheathed his red katana.

Seeing this, Amano Ran spoke into the comm:

“Ryunosuke, don’t damage it. That’s a quantum Cerebrain. It’s extremely valuable. Better if we bring it back to Shinji in one piece!”

“Shiori, follow up!” “Got it.”

From a nearby alley, a petite girl in high-end flight armor shot out, chasing after them. She opened both arms, creating a dark green energy field that enveloped all three of them.

She added, “This bot still has residual Soul Wave energy. It came from a powerful Ability User.”

“That means it must belong to Crimson World’s upper echelon.”

Upon hearing that, Ryunosuke put away his katana and began using his powers again—gathering bricks, stones, and debris to form a cocoon around Grace.

As the three pursued Grace, Shiori suddenly turned her head toward the dark alley behind them, face darkening.

“They’re coming. Fast!”

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