1: Chapter 1 Death Train

Cold.

Hard.

His nostrils were filled with a mixture of rust and stale dust.

Lin Feng opened his eyes to see a dim, flickering yellow ceiling light above him.

He sat up abruptly and found himself lying on a metal floor covered in scratches.

This was a dilapidated green train carriage.

Many people were lying around in total disarray; as Lin Feng moved, the others began to wake up one by one.

"Where... where is this?"

"My head hurts so much. Weren't we just at a meeting in the school auditorium?"

"Who's playing this prank? Why is the door locked tight!"

Panicked whispers spread through the enclosed carriage. Lin Feng rubbed his temples, his gaze quickly scanning the crowd.

Thirty people, all of them girls.

Except for Zhao Qiang, a male classmate still dazed in the corner, this carriage contained almost all the influential figures of Jiangcheng University.

In the center of the crowd, he saw Xia Wanqiu hugging her arms with a look of terror in her eyes.

Wearing a white pleated skirt, she was the universally acknowledged 'pure and innocent' belle of Jiangda, looking like a startled rabbit right now.

Not far away by the window stood a girl with gold-rimmed glasses and a cold aura.

Su Ya, the Student Council President and a genius student. Even in this bizarre environment, she maintained her standing posture, though her tightly pursed lips betrayed her inner turmoil.

"Everyone, calm down first!" Su Ya pushed up her glasses, her voice cold and clear as she tried to suppress the noise in the carriage. "First, check your belongings and see if your phones have any signal."

"No signal... completely out of the service area," a younger student with twin tails cried out.

"Call the police! Someone call the police!"

Lin Feng didn't say a word as he walked to the window. There was no scenery outside, only a thick, impenetrable gray-black mist rolling about, squirming against the glass as if it were alive.

Right then, an emotionless mechanical voice exploded in everyone's minds without warning.

[Welcome to the Universal Survival Game.]

[Your location is: Initial Carriage No. 99.]

[Survival rules have been issued:]

[1. Abyss Monsters lurk in the mist; they are hungry and cruel.]

[2. The train must keep moving forward. It will stop at a platform once every 24 hours. During the stop, you may disembark to search for supplies.]

[3. A beast tide is pursuing the train from behind. Those who fail to board the train by the deadline will be obliterated.]

[4. Only by continuously upgrading the train can you survive in the apocalypse.]

[Countdown until the train's forced departure: 10 minutes.]

[Wishing you all a pleasant game.]

The mechanical voice vanished.

The carriage fell into a deathly silence.

Two seconds later, chaos erupted completely.

"What survival game? You've got to be kidding me!"

"Let me out! I want to go home! I don't want to play any game!"

Several girls with lower psychological endurance slumped to the floor, covering their faces and sobbing.

Fear was like a contagious virus, quickly eroding everyone's sanity.

Lin Feng looked at the crimson countdown on the edge of his retina: 9 minutes and 45 seconds.

This wasn't a prank. The physical sensations, the voice ringing directly in his head, and the eerie mist outside all declared that the end of the world had arrived.

His heart rate was accelerating, but his gaze grew colder and calmer. To survive—that was his only requirement now.

"Senior Su Ya, what should we do? Are we going to die here?" Xia Wanqiu's voice trembled as she instinctively moved closer to the most composed-looking Su Ya.

Su Ya took a deep breath, looked at the iron doors at both ends of the carriage, walked over, and pulled hard.

The iron door didn't budge an inch, as if it were welded shut to the train body.

"The door is locked; it's some kind of power beyond our understanding." Su Ya turned around and looked at the panicked crowd. "Crying is useless. According to the rules, the train will start in 10 minutes. All we can do now is wait."

"Wait? Wait to die?!"

Zhao Qiang, in the corner, suddenly erupted with a hysterical roar.

His eyes were bloodshot as he rushed to the center of the carriage like a maddened beast.

"What bullshit apocalypse! What Abyss Monsters! It's all fake! It's a kidnapping! Yes, a kidnapping!" Zhao Qiang pointed at the mist outside the window. "They set off smoke bombs and locked the doors just to scare us!"

Lin Feng frowned slightly and spoke coldly, "The rules said there's danger outside. Keep quiet."

Zhao Qiang whipped his head around to glare at Lin Feng, his chest heaving violently. "Who the hell are you? You tell me to be quiet and I'm quiet? I'm getting off! I can't stay in this shitty iron coffin for another second!"

Saying this, Zhao Qiang looked around and grabbed a red fire axe from the corner of the carriage.

"What are you doing?!" Su Ya shouted sternly.

"Smashing the window! I'm going out!" Zhao Qiang gripped the fire axe with both hands and walked toward a window.

The girls in the carriage backed away in fear, screaming for him to put the axe down.

Lin Feng stepped forward, blocking Zhao Qiang's path, the two of them less than half a meter apart.

"I'll say it one more time: there are monsters outside." Lin Feng stared into Zhao Qiang's eyes, his voice devoid of any emotion. "If you swing that axe, you might kill everyone."

"Get lost!" Zhao Qiang was on the edge of a breakdown, his sanity gone. He raised the fire axe at Lin Feng. "You dare stop me, and I'll chop you too! I've had enough of this hellhole, I'm going back to the dorm!"

Facing the cold gleam of the axe blade, Lin Feng didn't flinch, but he noticed that the hand Zhao Qiang used to hold the axe was shaking violently.

Countdown: 3 minutes and 12 seconds.

"Suit yourself." Lin Feng suddenly stepped aside, clearing the way while quickly retreating to create distance. "If you want to die, I won't stop you."

Su Ya glanced at Lin Feng and immediately pulled Xia Wanqiu and several other girls toward the other end of the carriage.

Zhao Qiang looked at the crowd that had moved aside and gave a tragic laugh. "A bunch of cowards, scared out of your wits by a broadcast. Once I get out and call the police, you can just wait here to die!"

He swung the fire axe and smashed it hard against the window.

Bang!

With the first hit, spiderweb-like cracks appeared in the glass.

Bang!

With the second hit, the glass shattered completely.

A bone-chilling wind mixed with a pungent, foul stench instantly poured into the carriage through the hole.

It was a stench like rotting meat mixed with sewer sludge, so strong it made people's eyes water.

"See! There's nothing!" Zhao Qiang dropped the axe, grabbed the broken window frame with both hands, leaned half his body out, and shouted into the mist, "Hey! Is anyone there? He—"

His voice stopped abruptly.

A pair of pale, bloated hands covered in long black hair reached out from the mist without warning and death-gripped Zhao Qiang's face.

"Aaaah!!"

Zhao Qiang let out a shrill, agonizing scream. His hands clawed desperately at the window frame, his nails making an ear-piercing scraping sound against the metal.

But that force was staggering.

Rip!

A tooth-aching sound of tearing flesh rang out.

Zhao Qiang was dragged out of the window by force. Blood sprayed into the carriage like a fountain, splashing onto the faces and clothes of several nearby girls.

From outside the window came the hair-raising sounds of chewing and bones snapping. Zhao Qiang's screams lasted less than five seconds before vanishing completely.

Quiet.

A deathly silence.

Then came deafening screams.

"Aaaah!! Murder!"

"Monsters! There really are monsters!"

The girls broke down. Some fell to their knees as their legs gave out, while others scrambled desperately into the corners, their faces smeared with tears and snot.

Xia Wanqiu covered her mouth tightly, her face as pale as paper, her whole body shaking like a leaf.

Although Su Ya didn't scream, her body was frozen in place, her pupils contracting violently.

Lin Feng stood a few meters away, looking at the bloodstains on the floor. This was his first time facing death directly; his stomach churned, but he forced down the urge to vomit.

The butterfly effect had begun.

Zhao Qiang's death didn't just prove the reality of the rules; more fatally, the scent of fresh human blood wafted through the broken window into the mist.

"Roar!"

"Gurgle..."

The mist boiled as countless scalp-numbing roars and scraping sounds echoed from all directions.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Something was frantically slamming against the train body.

The green carriage groaned under the strain, the iron plating denting inward from the impacts.

Countdown: 1 minute and 05 seconds.

"Back! Everyone get to the very back!" Lin Feng roared, his voice drowning out the screams.

The girls, as if grabbing onto a life-saving straw, scrambled and crawled toward the rear of the carriage.

Because she was running too fast, Xia Wanqiu tripped and fell in the aisle not far from the broken window.

"Wan Qiu!" Su Ya wanted to pull her up, but she was pushed away by the chaotic crowd and couldn't move forward.

Bang!

A monster squeezed through the shattered window.

It was a humanoid Ghoul, its skin ulcerated and oozing pus, its mouth filled with jagged fangs, and its grayish-white eyeballs were fixed on Xia Wanqiu on the floor.

Its lower body was stuck in the window frame, but its upper body had fully entered the carriage. Its sharp black claws lashed out in the air, less than a meter from Xia Wanqiu's face.

Xia Wanqiu looked despairingly at that bloody maw dripping with foul-smelling saliva; even the strength to run had been drained from her.

Lin Feng's gaze narrowed, and his right foot kicked off the ground as he prepared to rush over.

He didn't know if he could beat this monster, but if they lost their heads and were slaughtered at the start, no one on this train would survive.

Just as he took his first step, that cold mechanical voice rang in his head again, but this time, he was the only one who could hear it.

[Blood and crisis detected.]

[Player Lin Feng: heart rate, adrenaline, and survival will meet the standards.]

[Congratulations, Player, on successfully awakening the unique hidden class — Train Master.]

[Train Master privileges activated.]

[Train central control rights bound.]

The moment the mechanical voice finished, Lin Feng felt a massive stream of information flood his mind.

It was as if he could clearly perceive every corner, every door, and every piece of iron plating of this dilapidated carriage.

It was as if this train had become an extension of his body.

The Ghoul let out a shrill screech, its sharp claws tearing through the air, heading straight for Xia Wanqiu's neck.

Lin Feng stopped his advance. The fear in his eyes was gone, replaced by a coldness that controlled everything.

Apocalyptic survival?

No!

Now, this was his home turf.