254: Chapter 254 External enemies are not to be feared, internal strife is what is truly worrisome!

"This is a flight skill I found on the floating islands."

Ruan Li steadied herself in mid-air. "When we were attacked, I caught them off guard, flew out of the Astral Express, and hid underneath the train."

She shook her wings and continued to explain.

"The information I was able to gather was actually all from the chat channel, but not long after, there were no new messages in the channel."

"Then, the Astral Express was destroyed. I followed the falling train all the way down to the ground and finally landed on the coast."

Lin Xiao stood up.

"Alright, I understand the situation."

He pointed to the red giant above the Coating, then pointed toward the back of the Astral Express, which was the direction where Tang Chen and his group were located.

"Our Astral Express is currently rescuing survivors who have been attacked. You are not an isolated case; just a moment ago, we rescued over a hundred people who were passengers from another train."

Upon hearing this, Ruan Li's expression changed.

She glanced quickly at Hao Ke on the Coating and gestured to him.

The crouching red giant immediately straightened up.

"Mr. Lin." Ruan Li descended from the air back to the ground and folded her wings. "Hao Ke knows some information that might be helpful to you—and to all of us..."

Lin Xiao turned his head and looked above the Coating.

He noticed that the red giant's figure was slowly shrinking, and the Coating beneath his feet began to sag.

Before Hao Ke could react, he passed through the membrane and fell down, landing heavily on the non-slip steel plate on the roof of the Astral Express.

Now, he was no longer that three-meter-tall red giant.

His figure began to shrink the moment he fell, eventually turning into a young man.

He looked to be under twenty years old.

He was on the thin side, and his frame hadn't fully developed yet.

He was still wearing only those plate armor pants; the equipment had re-adapted as his body size shrank.

"Sister Ruan, are you okay..."

Hao Ke struggled to climb up from the ground.

But before he could even steady himself, he stumbled forward, grabbed Ruan Li's sleeve, and checked her over several times before letting out a sigh of relief.

Compared to the muscular, enraged red giant from just a moment ago, Hao Ke looked quite frail in his current state.

No wonder he couldn't beat the others even after transforming; his foundation was just too poor, wasn't it?

Lin Xiao looked at him and couldn't help but shake his head, his expression somewhat subtle.

"Alright." Ruan Li reached out and ruffled Hao Ke's hair, pulling him to her side. "Sister is fine, don't worry, Mr. Lin is not a bad person."

Hao Ke turned his head to look at Lin Xiao, who held a faint smile, his eyes still showing defiance.

"Alright, hurry up and tell Mr. Lin what you discovered!"

Ruan Li briefly relayed the situation she had just learned to Hao Ke.

Upon hearing this, the young man couldn't help but widen his eyes. "It wasn't just our Astral Express that was attacked?"

"So," Lin Xiao's voice cut in, "what do you know?"

The hot-blooded young man clenched his fists. He was impulsive, but he also understood who the real enemy was:

"Those people, they didn't come for resources."

He looked up and said, word for word,

"They were after the train core!"

"The train core?"

Lin Xiao thought he had misheard.

Hao Ke nodded and began to recount it in a somewhat fragmented but urgent manner.

When he was fighting the soldiers of the Silver-White Train, a person who looked like a leader stepped forward.

The leader tried to persuade him to give up resistance and join the Silver-White Train's conquest plan.

Hao Ke's response was to throw a punch directly.

Of course, he didn't win in the end.

But before he passed out, he heard the conversation between that leader and his subordinates.

"Have you obtained the core... We are still far short, we need to speed up the operation..."

After finishing, Hao Ke's face showed a hint of lingering fear and some unwillingness.

Lin Xiao stood to the side, silent.

The train core.

He knew the purpose of this thing better than anyone else present.

Because he had a [tide core] in his hands.

It was precisely because of this core that the Astral Express was able to actively undergo an upgrade.

Wait...

Lin Xiao suddenly thought of something.

In his past life, similar situations occurred in the gathering areas of the fog region.

In the fourth stage of the conflict mode, there was something extremely similar to the train core.

A micro-device called the "Main City Hub".

It was the heart of the gathering area.

Once the hub was breached or seized, the entire gathering area would begin to collapse.

All defensive mechanisms, rules, and regional protections would disappear; walls and turrets would turn into piles of scrap metal, and survivors would become prey waiting to be slaughtered.

Just like a doomsday train that had lost its core, it could be directly destroyed by external forces and eventually turn into a pile of wreckage.

Those people destroying the trains clearly had a specific purpose.

And that phrase "still far short" meant that the Silver-White Train needed more cores.

Was it for upgrading, or some unknown purpose?

"Old Fan." Lin Xiao spoke up.

"Yeah!"

"Take these two into the carriage and arrange food and lodging for them."

Fan Sinian acknowledged and motioned for the two to follow him.

When Ruan Li left, she looked back at Lin Xiao as if she had something to say, but in the end, she just gave a slight nod.

Liu Bi stepped forward.

After hearing the woman's description, his expression became very ugly, and his voice turned somewhat hoarse.

"Brother Lin, the situation has become quite serious."

Chen Pingan had also walked over at some point.

He placed his hand on the hilt of his horizontal blade, his expression grave. "If that Silver-White Train finds us, how should we deal with it?"

"Don't worry." Lin Xiao's tone was calm. "Our strength is not something these people can compare to."

Full-coverage Coating, seventy-six naval guns, and all core members equipped with Level 3 sets.

And he himself had a Level 4 set, a Level 5 giant axe, and a divine artifact in hand.

There was nothing to be afraid of at all.

Before everyone could even breathe a sigh of relief, there was movement ahead.

It was a new train wreckage.

Over the next few hours, the doomsday train traveled along the coastline.

Every short distance, one could see new train wreckage stranded on beaches, reefs, or in bushes.

They were of all different colors and completely different designs.

Some were double-decker, some single-decker, and a few weren't even trains but rather some kind of round-shaped orbital capsule.

Lin Xiao arranged for the passengers and Merfolk Guards to continue the rescue.

Batch after batch of survivors were pulled from the wreckage, brought onto the roof, and given preliminary placement.

Their conditions were getting worse one after another; physical weakness from long periods without food was only one aspect, as many of them had developed mental issues.

By evening, nearly five hundred survivors had gathered on the roof.

Without exception.

All of them had encountered attacks from the Silver-White Train.

Lin Xiao synthesized the information provided by the various trains.

He discovered that these trains came from different terrain regions.

Tang Chen's group was from the marshlands, and Ruan Li was on the floating islands.

In addition, there were those that had rushed out of primeval forests and those that had been blasted away from volcanic areas.

Before being attacked, every single train had been in a completely different geographical environment.

All the attacked trains had been targeted only after completing the second round of stage settlement.

There was not a single exception.

Just as he had guessed before, this was definitely not random hunting.

However, what was currently placed before Lin Xiao was not these external crises.

These five hundred or so survivors had few resources on them, and after staying, they would inevitably consume the Astral Express's reserves.

The survival pressure inside the Astral Express began to soar rapidly.