Chapter 158: [Bonus Chapter] Main Rails
SWOOOOSH!
Reign's speed was beyond human comprehension, a blur of motion accompanied by crackling sparks of lightning.
To the untrained eye, it felt as if a powerful gust of wind had swept through .
Now, with renewed energy and no worry of fatigue, he moved even faster.
In no time, he reached his destination, finding himself in another abandoned station.
He jumped onto the station platform and noticed an entrance.
Stepping through it, he found himself in what appeared to be a long corridor. The area was filled with scattered debris, suggesting it had been abandoned for quite some time.
Along the way, he found several doors and decided to check each one.
He discovered a cafeteria, sleeping quarters, and various other amenities meant to serve passengers during their wait.
It seemed delays in the train schedule were frequent, so they had set up these rooms to accommodate travelers.
But among all the rooms he discovered, one place made him stop in his tracks: the CCTV room.
He hurriedly checked the monitors to see if they were recording, and they were.
Seeing this, he decided to take out the physical hard drive from the PC and started destroying it.
To ensure all evidence was erased, he then burned the entire room down, watching as the flames consumed everything.
'I doubt anyone could recover anything now,' he remarked playfully, a smirk spreading across his face as he watched the flames.
Once the flames had consumed the CCTV room, he resumed his stroll.
He walked down the corridor until he reached a large metal door at the end.
Locked from the other side, it presented a little challenge.
BAM!
Reign smirked and punched it, the force dislodging the door from its frame with a loud crash.
When he got a clear view of the other side, he was shocked by the stark contrast between the two area.
It felt like he had teleported through time, with technology suddenly advancing by 10-20 years.
The once derelict surroundings gave way to sleek, modern designs, advanced machinery, and well-lit spaces. It was as if he had stepped into a different era entirely.
This station was way larger than what he saw in Summit City, with a design that seemed almost out of place in the desolate dark underground.
Moreover, the tunnel itself was two times larger, with two railings instead of just one .
The floor was also polished to a mirror-like finish, reflecting the dim lights that lined the walls.
These lights, unlike the flickering bulbs before, emitted a steady, soft glow, illuminating the station with an almost serene ambiance.
There was some dust buildup on the floors and walls, but not enough to suggest long-term neglect. It hinted that the place had been abandoned recently.
He tried to damage the hard looking walls, channeling 15% of his raw strength without adding any energy on it before he could scratched it.
15% of his raw strength was already enough to destroy a normal wall multiple times over, so this just showed how hard the material used to construct this station was.
"This thing is tough," he mused aloud, acknowledging the material's durability.
He couldn't even begin to fathom how much the human race had spent to build this place.
How wealthy were they to afford this despite being hunted to the brink of extinction?
Little did Reign knew, despite the ongoing challenges posed by the Corrupted, humanity remained a resilient race.
They displayed their adaptability through their relentless pursuit of technological advancement.
In fact , the station's material originated just from ordinary minerals, but through decades of human ingenuity and innovation, they created a new type of artificial hard metal, through a secret processed that was closely guarded by the government.
This breakthrough spared them from the exhaustive and expensive process of extensive mining, and at the same time boosted the defenses of their cities by using a harder version of this metals.
Without this inherent human traits, they might have faced extinction long ago.
But, their resourcefulness has defied the odds, prolonging the existence of the human race despite the relentless challenges posed by the world itself.
'It's strange,' Reign muttered to himself, taking in the somehow clean appearance of the station.
'This place looks clean, but there's no one around,' he added, noting the absence of any signs of living beings.
'What happened to this place?' he wondered as he looked around the station, until his gaze fell on an office.
How did he know it was an office?
Well, there was a literal sign on it that read "Administrative Office."
CLICK!
He opened the door ; it wasn't locked, so he was able to accessed it without any resistance.
Stepping inside, he found himself in a room that, despite the lack of humans in the station, was surprisingly well-preserved.
He began his search methodically, starting with the desk in the front of the room until the last corner.
Pulling open the drawers, he rifled through stacks of old papers and documents.
Many of the documents were covered in a very thin layer of dust, suggesting that no one had been here for at least a months.
Alternatively, it could be that the employees were just too lazy to clean their own drawers.
He quickly scanned each one, discarding anything that wasn't useful.
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Next, he moved to the filing cabinets along the wall.
He opened each drawer, sorting through folders and files, looking for any sign of a rail map or anything useful.
His movements were precise and efficient, driven by the urgency to find his way to Green Valley City.
Reign's eyes darted around the room, landing on a bookshelf filled with manuals and logbooks.
He pulled out a few, flipping through their pages quickly.
Finally, in the back of one of the logbooks, he found what he was looking for—a detailed rail road map
He spread the map out on the desk, studying the intricate network of tracks and tunnels.
Tracing the routes with his finger, he pinpointed his current location and charted the course he needed to take to reach Green Valley City.
'What's this ?' A paper drop down when he raised the logbook. As he knell to look at it , he found that the material used in this paper was different .
He looked closer and finally figured out what was going.
According to this memo, Green Valley City Council had announced the total closure of Summit City Area, instructing all personnel to abandon the place due to the imminent threat of the Corrupteds reaching the area.
As for this place itself, it served only as a boarding station.
Since the armored trains could pass through using the main tracks without stopping here, they deemed it unnecessary to station personnel in this location.
'So much for a free ride,' Reign sighed, feeling a bit disappointed.
He glanced at the map again, noting that Summit City was at the far end of this region.
With its closure, trains would now likely stop at the next Tier 4 City instead.
With limited option, he ran his fingers across the map, searching for the nearest city and noting its distance from his current location.
'Crestwood City, huh,' Reign muttered to himself.
It was the closest city around, but it was still a staggering 1500 kilometers away.
'This will be a long walk,'