Chapter 103: Chapter 103: The End of the Ashen Rain! The Infinite Mob Spawner of the Burning Earth!

By this time, Bai Cheng and her crew had been navigating the scorched tracking lines of the Lava Volcano grid for nearly an entire day.

The sky overhead remained choked in a gloomily dark, oppressive layer of smog, and the continuous, gray flakes of the Ashen Rain had not shown a single sign of letting up.

As for the viral rumors currently circulating like wildfire across the server channel—no, at this point, they were documented tactical facts—a completely bored Yu Nian had already thoroughly audited the chat logs and relayed the situation to Bai Cheng.

While Bai Cheng was somewhat surprised that her exact configuration had been mapped out so quickly, the development was still entirely within her analytical expectations.

Among all the active Pioneers on the regional server, only Tang Yan was suspected of possessing a high-grade prophetic talent capable of foreseeing future trajectories. She didn’t need to burn a single brain cell to guess that he was the shadowy director who had exposed her private metrics to the public.

And his primary objective in orchestrating this server-wide leak? It was nothing more than a classic, textbook webnovel setup: mobilize a mob of cannon fodder to kill the rank-one powerhouse and rob her corpse.

Bai Cheng wasn’t worried about the upcoming coalition siege in the slightest, but that didn’t mean she simply brushed it off without locking it into her tactical awareness.

Her gaze shifted downward as she reviewed the follow-up message Leng Ningxue had just sent across the private encrypted thread.

[Encrypted DM: Conductor Leng Ningxue]

-> "I’m officially eligible to manually trigger my Elite-grade promotion quest now, and my baseline metrics should be sufficient to complete the instance solo."

-> "But I’m deeply terrified that the server-wide broadcast of a promotion sequence will inevitably attract nearby hostile Pioneers to contend for the drops. I have zero desire to align myself with Tang Yan’s syndicate, nor do I want to surrender my progression slot to his camp..."

-> "So, if an external conflict violently erupts during my trial... I’d like to ask you, Bai Cheng, to act as my high-tier helper and help me repel them."

Bai Cheng was slightly taken aback by the timing. It had indeed been exactly three days since she had successfully completed her own breakthrough trial.

In her eyes, a low-tier regional promotion skirmish was a minor matter that required very little output, and it presented an excellent tactical opportunity to formally introduce Leng Ningxue to her newly consolidated vice-captain, Yu Nian.

But just as Bai Cheng’s fingers hovered over the console to input her confirmation, Yu Nian, leaning against the adjacent bulkheads, raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow.

"Xiao Cheng, don’t you think the structural timing of this request is just a little bit too coincidental?"

"Hmm?" Bai Cheng turned her head, her white hair swaying over her shoulder. "Are you implying that Leng Ningxue might have already signed a secret treaty with the Pioneer coalition, and this call for aid is just a coordinated trap to bait our train into an ambush grid?"

Operating as a seasoned hardcore grinder, Bai Cheng could naturally deduce Yu Nian’s underlying operational concerns.

Yu Nian nodded firmly. She had been fully aware of Leng Ningxue’s existence on the leaderboards long before their respective trains had systematically merged, and she had tracked the exact moment Bai Cheng had first interacted with the girl. While she was genuinely happy that her captain was forming social bonds in this brutal world, Leng Ningxue’s current sequence of actions was simply too suspicious to ignore!

From a strategic standpoint, Yu Nian felt that Leng Ningxue wasn’t sincerely trying to align her faction with Bai Cheng; instead, her behavioral patterns felt like a calculated, deliberate attempt to force proximity.

"The most statistically illogical variable is right here, Xiao Cheng," Yu Nian pressed, pointing at the historical logs. "You clearly offered to hand her a guaranteed, risk-free promotion slot for free during your last run. So why in the world would she reject a secure shortcut and insist on challenging a high-mortality loot quest by herself instead?"

Bai Cheng stroked her chin thoughtfully. "I think she’s just an intensely self-reliant player. She doesn’t want to accept a game-changing progression advancement as if it were a piece of charity or a handout."

In her estimation, Leng Ningxue possessed the pride of a top-tier ranker and wanted to validate her own combat value, which was why she insisted on clearing the instance under her own power.

Of course, Yu Nian was also completely secure in their current overlapping combat parameters; a disorganized encirclement commanded by a handful of unpromoted, mid-tier Pioneers was nothing for their retainers to fear. However, deploying the locomotive to intercept them would waste a significant amount of high-grade fuel and travel time, making it a low-efficiency endeavor in her playbook.

"Look, whether this request is a genuine plea for help or an absolute setup, we’ll map the truth the exact second our cowcatchers clear the terminal, won’t we?" Bai Cheng shrugged nonchalantly.

Ever since her train had successfully merged with Yu Nian’s array, Tang Yan—who had been persistently trying to court and win over Leng Ningxue to secure her faction’s assets—had abruptly halted all diplomatic overtures. The ambiguous relationship where the two top-tier rankers traded data had completely collapsed, deteriorating into bitter regional rivalry.

If either of them managed to lock down an Elite-grade promotion slot now, they would absolutely never share the surplus benefits with the other unless extorted for an astronomical price.

And with Yu Nian’s analytical reminder locked in, Bai Cheng’s tactical checklist for this detour gained a vital secondary objective: to run a live-fire diagnostic on Leng Ningxue to see if she was truly worth trusting as a long-term ally.

As for Bai Cheng’s primary objective for this little trip?

Naturally, it was to completely trash Tang Yan’s deployment plans and ensure that his syndicate couldn’t smoothly extract a single progression profit from the local sector!

If the system mechanics hadn’t constantly kept their coordinates separated by vast track distances, she would have already tracked his engine down and shown him exactly why flowers bloom so red in the arena. Since he wanted to complicate her survival curve by leaking her legendary assets, she likewise wouldn’t miss a single opportunity to derail his progression.

"It’s just a bit annoying that the server rules actively bar me from physically stepping back inside an Elite-grade promotion station once I’ve cleared it," Bai Cheng pouted slightly, turning her gaze toward her vice-captain.

The instance boundaries strictly restricted a conductor based on their personal level brackets, but the lockout didn’t apply to the secondary crew members registered to a merged train.

Yu Nian could seamlessly cross the threshold alongside the golden-eyed Qing Niao. With their combined output, their faction strength was completely sufficient to utterly crush a standard station boss and any lurking survivor squads combined.

After exchanging a few more brief, professional pleasantries over the direct message interface, Bai Cheng finalized her terms as an external helper.

Ding!

Massive system notification text immediately rolled across her command console.

[System UI: Pioneer Leng Ningxue has successfully joined your temporary campaign lobby!]

[Do you wish to authorize your locomotive to lock onto her coordinates and proceed to the designated Promotion Station?]

The moment Bai Cheng slammed her palm against the confirmation prompt, the radar telemetry on the detection platform re-mapped itself in a violent flash of blue light.

[Fixed Detour Trajectory Engaged: Distance to Target Promotion Station: 800km]

[System Appendix: Upon exiting the promotion instance, your locomotive array will automatically warp back to its original longitudinal rail coordinates.]

"That’s perfect. The displacement distance isn’t too extreme, meaning we won’t waste a whole day’s worth of boiler pressure on the transit."

After all, Bai Cheng’s primary route was already closely tracking the coordinates of the hidden station dedicated to forging Lifebound Weapons. If she hadn’t been missing one final legendary component to round out her sacrificial material list, she would have completed her own artifact forge before responding to Leng Ningxue’s ping.

She cast her gaze back out the reinforced cockpit glass; the train’s massive wheel assemblies had already quietly begun to pivot across the automated switching tracks, deviating onto the detour line.

The hazy, choked atmosphere outside grew increasingly gloomy as the ambient light dimmed. Checking her dashboard clock, she noted that the harsh volcanic night cycle was rapidly descending upon the map.

Yet, the persistent Ashen Rain drumming against the steel plating showed absolutely zero signs of stopping.

The localized geography of the Lava Volcano was an absolute dead zone under the oppressive shroud of this falling ash. Forget about encountering lush forests or harvestable nodes—the land was so heavily eroded that not even a single loose boulder could be seen across the flat, cracked plains. The desolate, crimson earth baking under the unbearable high temperatures made it a complete miracle that any standard survivor could maintain their hydration meters here.

"And here I was, hoping I’d get a chance to stress-test my newly upgraded gear," Bai Cheng sighed, shaking her hair. She prepared to sit back down at her assembly bench to continue refining the final sacrificial weapon catalyst for her upcoming forge.

But the exact second she turned her back to the glass, Chi Yan’s rough, heavily hoarse voice rumbled like thunder from the primary driver’s console behind her.

"Young Miss! Look at the atmospheric pressure feeds! The Ashen Rain has completely stopped!"

Bai Cheng froze mid-step, her head snapping back around to stare directly out the main viewport.

The falling gray snowflakes that had dominated the sky for twenty-four hours had completely vanished out of thin air. In their place, the surrounding ambient temperature began to spike at an astronomical, terrifying rate.

Violent, undulating heatwaves rippled off the baked earth, visibly distorting and warping the spatial horizon in front of the engine cowcatcher. The entire dead, suffocatingly quiet landscape suddenly began to erupt into a deafening chorus of chaotic noise.

Up in the higher atmospheric layers, the majestic Qing Niao, who had been maintaining a wide aerial scouting loop above the moving train cars, suddenly spotted a massive shift in the terrain data and let out a sharp, piercing screech of warning. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Chi Yan immediately gripped the heavy iron throttle levers, his eyes flaring as he interpreted the scout’s signal. "Young Miss! Massed biological heat signatures detected converging on our position! A massive swarm of demonic beasts is actively rushing the train cars from all four quadrants!"

Before Bai Cheng could even focus her vision through the dim, shimmering haze outside the glass, a massive, earth-shattering BOOM detonated across the plain, sending violent shockwaves tearing through the bedrock that caused the entire multi-ton steel locomotive to rock unsteadily on its rails!

Rumble—!

A low-lying volcano situated barely two kilometers out from their starboard side had violently erupted. Rolling columns of superheated white smoke and toxic volcanic ash shot thousands of feet into the sky, blooming into a colossal, apocalyptic mushroom cloud that completely blotted out what little light remained.

At the absolute edge of her trembling line of sight, through the falling debris, Bai Cheng locked onto a sight that made her blood pump with pure adrenaline.

Countless packs of gigantic, grotesque monsters encased in living, lava-colored rock plating were charging straight down the ridges toward the tracks. They moved in terrifying sync—some possessed the massive, muscle-bound frames of demonic oxen, others were hunched, humanoid abominations dragging stone clubs, and ripping through the ash-choked sky above them were swarms of avian terrors with wingspans exceeding three meters, their entire feathered bodies engulfed in active, crackling system flames.

The sheer volume of the demonic beasts surging inward from every single degree of the horizon was astonishingly, beautifully massive.

The exact second the scope mapped out the swarm, a brilliant, hyper-focused spark of pure excitement flared deep within Bai Cheng’s eyes.

She didn’t see a life-threatening natural disaster. She saw an absolute, gold-tier automated experience farming exploit.

"Chi Yan! Slam on the emergency air brakes! Bring the train to a complete halt right here!"

This wasn’t a crisis—this was top-tier endgame experience points hand-delivered straight to her front door. What constituted an absolute, run-ending disaster for any standard survivor squad was nothing short of a premium luxury welfare package in the eyes of the white-haired grinder.

"I’ve been sitting on my hands for a whole day waiting for this environment to shift," she cheered, a deadly grin stretching across her face as the heavy iron brakes shrieked, slowly grinding the massive armored train cars to a standstill on the tracks.

Reaching down to her utility belt, Bai Cheng smoothly drew a sleek, pitch-black short sword from her personal inventory slot.

This was a legendary-grade armament she had just finalized through her crafting table hours prior, and its fused, high-tier mechanical attributes were completely absurd.

Staring down the vanguard of the roaring, lava-plated horde as she threw open the primary carriage door and let the scorching wind whip through her white hair, she let out a cold, confident laugh.

"Let’s run a live-fire diagnostic, shall we? I want to see who has the higher numbers here—your entire volcanic horde, or the endless wave of elite reinforcements I can summon into this grid!"