Outside the train window stretched an endless expanse of reddish-brown desert, the ground littered with rocks of all sizes. Here and there, a scraggly bush clawed at the dry air, every branch brittle and dead.
W followed her gaze. "This is a scenic route," he said. "Though I'm not sure what the attraction is, given how desolate it looks."
Pei Ran thought to herself: You'd be surprised how many people in another world would give anything to see something this beautiful.
The sheer openness—being able to see all the way to the horizon—was enough to shock a child raised inside a bunker.
She pulled out her JTN35, swallowed one piece, and extended her life by another day.
It was Saturday. According to her memo, today was Beef Noodle Day again. Must be one hell of a noodle bowl, she mused, to deserve a repeat every week.
Two students from Night Sea University came through the cars, arms full of food containers, distributing meals one by one.
Pei Ran received a tray of braised beef and potatoes. The potatoes were soft and starchy, the beef tender and rich. It was enough to ease her yearning for noodles—slightly.
That eight-hundred-noodle-roll of adhesive tape from Sheng Mingxi really was worth it. Her facial rash had improved a lot.
After eating, Pei Ran tore off a beef noodle sticker and slapped it on her cheek. Only then did she grab her backpack and head to the driver's compartment.
Inaya was behaving herself, still asleep against the seat. The parrot nestled in her neck feathers had its head tucked under its wing, snoozing deeply.
The driver's cab was lively.
Jiang and Aisha were eating breakfast together and nodded as Pei Ran walked in.
They looked almost identical in height, features, even expressions. Grandfather and granddaughter remained composed and clear-headed even in the apocalypse. The only difference was Jiang's white hair versus Aisha's black. It was as if someone had taken one person and aged them fifty years overnight—where had all that time gone?
At the controls was Sheng Mingxi.
Her curls were a frizzy mess from sleep, eyes sharp as ever as she gripped the steering handles, refusing to budge. Tang Dao stood beside her, nudging her repeatedly to swap places, but she stayed planted—probably her first time driving a train, and she clearly wasn't done enjoying it.
The flat desert began to ripple with low hills. On the horizon, the outlines of towering buildings emerged.
The final stop of the Night Sea No. 7: Yelcha.
W leaned in to explain, "Yelcha is the largest city in the northwest of the Federation. It's an industrial city, a financial hub, and a major transport nexus…"
Everyone on board craned out of the windows, eyes filled with both excitement and unease.
From this distance, at least, Yelcha appeared intact. Skyscrapers stood anchored to the ground, silent and unmoving—not a hint of life.
The train drew closer.
Like Night Sea, Yelcha had long since lost power. Signs on the buildings were charred and broken. The entire city was silent. The train itself felt like the only living thing.
The station at Yelcha was outdoors, decorated in a deliberately retro style.
The train pulled in and came to a smooth stop.
Nothing had happened the entire night after they left the Tangu Dam. No new deaths. They'd spent the night safe in the cars. And now, though they'd arrived… no one dared to disembark.
Pei Ran adjusted her backpack, picked up her metal sphere, opened the cab door, and was the first to jump down.
The air outside was cold and crisp, typical of winter in the northwest—dry and sharp.
Aisha hopped down next, cradling her potted peace lily, then turned to help Jiang. Sheng Mingxi and Tang Dao helped Jin Hejun, whose eyes were still bandaged.
Once they led the way, the others followed, one by one, lugging bags and bundles onto the platform.
Pei Ran waited for everyone to get off, then did a headcount. They had started out with forty-seven people and one bird when they left Night Sea. Now they had thirty-seven—and the bird. Ten people lost.
Black Well Base was still more than twenty kilometers away. The land in between was rugged, full of canyons and rifts—impossible to drive. The group included the elderly and children. They'd have to go on foot. It wouldn't be easy.
Pei Ran opened the holographic screen on her wristband and magnified the map, showing everyone the direction of Black Well in relation to Yelcha.
In case anyone got separated, they'd at least know where to head.
The group set off.
One after another, they filed out of the station into the empty streets of Yelcha. The quiet made their numbers feel uncanny.
They walked northwest along the clean, well-kept streets.
Unlike chaotic Night Sea, there wasn't a single scrap of paper or debris. During the previous two phases of the Silence, people would've discarded anything with text. Such papers would burn during the next upgrade of the Silence. There should've been at least some scorch marks.
But there was nothing.
Pei Ran asked, puzzled, "W, is it usually windy in Yelcha?"
W immediately caught her drift. "Due to the terrain, Yelcha's average winter wind speed is 0.8 meters per second…"
Pei Ran squinted. "Level 10 language-processing mode, seriously?"
Who the hell knows whether 0.8 m/s is fast or not?
W sighed dramatically. "Long story short, the winter winds are weak. No way they blew all the ashes away."
Pei Ran looked up at the buildings around them. No signs of burning inside. Maybe the sprinklers still worked. But even if fire or water forced people out, the streets wouldn't look this untouched.
There was something deeply wrong with this city.
A dreadful suspicion crept into Pei Ran's mind: What if, before the Silence even upgraded—before any fires—the people here were already gone?
Their footsteps echoed too clearly in the dead city.
Suddenly, Sheng Mingxi grabbed Pei Ran, staring ahead without blinking.
Pei Ran froze and followed her gaze. Just gray sky between tall buildings.
Their halt sent a ripple of nervous stillness through the group.
Sheng Mingxi mimed a pair of eyes, then slashed a hand through the air. Something just whooshed by.
W spoke next. "Pei Ran, I think I heard something strange too. A low buzzing sound… it's coming closer."
His metal orb had sharper senses than any human. Pei Ran held her breath and strained to listen—nothing.
W added, "You might not be able to hear it yet. But it's close. You will soon."
Pei Ran looked around, trying to spot cover.
Then, behind them, came a voice—singing, loud and crisp, like a military march:
"You said that gentle breeze was the song of your courage—
On that night, did you ever dream of a glimmer of hope—
Across the vast lands of East Manya…"
Pei Ran turned.
Inaya looked horrified, clutching her parrot's beak shut and stuffing it inside her coat.
The others all turned, staring at her in panic.
But the song wasn't the cause. The buzzing was already heading their way. This time, even Pei Ran could hear it.
From between the skyscrapers above, countless black dots flew toward them in formation.
At a glance, they looked like drones—dozens, maybe hundreds—perfectly synchronized in speed, distance, and motion. Every turn, every acceleration, was executed in flawless unity.
In a silent city, under the weight of the Silence, a swarm of drones still patrolling the skies was deeply unnatural.
Maybe they were AI-controlled.
Pei Ran frowned. "Do they have any text markings on them?"
If even a single character remained inside, they should've been incinerated.
W's sensors zoomed in. "Pei Ran… those aren't drones."
In the span of a few seconds, the truth became clear. As the swarm got closer, everyone could see their actual shape. Eyes widened in horror.
Pei Ran saw it too.
They were people—flying through the air.
Or rather, they had once been people. Their bodies were stretched flat like kites. Heads, torsos, limbs—all compressed and elongated into drifting sheets of flesh.
Their skin and clothes had fused into strange, petal-like patterns. It reminded Pei Ran of the time she picked a yellow wildflower on the surface and pressed it between the pages of her notebook. When she checked later, it had become a delicate, dried sliver.
These… human slices were just like that.
They could fly so smoothly because each had a propulsion unit embedded into their abdomen, seamlessly melded with their flattened forms.
Inside the bodies, the drone parts hummed softly.
There were men, women, children. Their faces, smashed flat, all looked eerily alike—emotionless, like dried flower husks. Only their eyes remained round, glassy orbs spinning wildly inside the sheets.
No question—they were frenzied fusion entities.
There were thousands of them, flying in formation. Suddenly, the swarm stopped mid-air.
They shifted.
Each took its place. Together, they formed the shape of a jewelry box.
The "lid" opened. A "ring," made of hundreds of human-drone hybrids, slowly lifted out of the box.
Over the silent city, in the bleak sky of the apocalypse, someone seemed to be proposing marriage using flattened human corpses as drones.
It was grotesque.
Pei Ran thought: Just write "Marry Me."
If they displayed those words, the Silence would trigger, and at least half the swarm would burn.
But there was no writing. The ring and box vanished. The swarm snapped back into formation—and charged straight toward the group.
Most of the people stood there in shock.
Pei Ran was already sprinting across the street.