Chapter 249: Mission and the Past

Just imagining a scene like that was enough to make his mouth water.

For one thing, every last spirit matter construct Mercury had left behind in the workshop was still stored in the warehouse’s secure vault.

As soon as Ji Jue finished repairing the Doomsday Express, he could pour resources into reconstructing them whenever he wanted, including control systems powerful enough to sustain cycles of rift realms, furnaces and equipment on the same level as those used by sages, along with all the techniques and achievements Mercury had left behind.

With the Myriad-Phenomena Engine providing the necessary resources and the mobility of the Doomsday Express on top of that, what would Ji Jue possibly have left to fear?

Even if the heavens collapsed and the earth split apart, worst case, he could just grab his friends and family and run. And if he ever ran into that old geezer Jian Yuan again, hauling his workshop around with him, Ji Jue could finally pit his own workshop against his, though that day was still a long way off.

But there was no need to rush. He could take it one step at a time. He was already on the right path. Someday he would get there.

Click!

The layers of sealed doors opened before him, and he went straight into the heart of the train, arriving at the power compartment.

The pipes all around him, barely patched together into a functioning system, still bore the welding marks and makeshift repairs Ji Jue had made for emergency use. Even more temporary cables lay strewn haphazardly across the floor.

Then, as the final seal released, something slowly rose from the darkness. It was the true core of the train, a steel heart taller than Ji Jue himself, the Myriad-Phenomena Engine!

“Haven’t seen you in a few days. How’ve you been?” Ji Jue reached out and pressed a hand against the engine’s casing. He could feel the vast soul slumbering within it, and the complete, undisguised affection and dependence it held toward him.

A deep, distant hum sounded from within the engine and reverberated through the compartment, as though it had opened its eyes from a drowsy sleep to look at Ji Jue.

“I found something good for you.” Ji Jue waved the prime orichalcum ingot in his hand. “I finally found something I can use to service your four reaction furnaces. I’m going to take apart some of the outer casing in a bit, so don’t be scared.”

The engine didn’t respond. A series of grinding metal sounds rang out as all the outer seals disengaged.

Silver streamed from beneath Ji Jue’s jacket, flowing out until it enveloped him. It spilled downward and reshaped itself, forming what looked like a long coat of steel. Behind him, segmented mechanical arms emerged, taking shape and unfolding. One after another, they braced his body and lifted him above the engine.

Ji Jue did not even need to use his hands. Three reconstructed mercury arms extended forward, their tips changing shape before wedging themselves into the seams like jacks and forcing the casing apart as a small gantry crane took shape. It hoisted the heavy outer casing away and set it down to one side. Finally, the intricate machinery within was laid bare.

Ji Jue carefully worked his way around the intricate spirit matter structures, taking care not to damage them. He focused strictly on the physical components, dismantling them layer by layer.

At last, the four massive reaction chambers surrounding the core were revealed. This was where the fuel was burned and converted.

Unfortunately, after so many years of abandonment and the brutal treatment they had once endured, the accumulated grime and wear inside had become severe enough to affect operating efficiency.

Even so, to Ji Jue, the ash and oily residue left behind by incomplete combustion were still valuable materials that could be reused. Flowing mercury stripped every trace of them away and stored them in separate containers.

Within a few short minutes, the pitch-black interiors of the reaction furnaces had been restored to spotless cleanliness, as though they had been washed from end to end. Not even a speck of dust remained.

Only then did the full extent of the damage come into view. The original coating inside the reaction chambers had almost completely worn away. Large areas of the metal had been corroded and pitted, while countless thin cracks spread throughout the structure. At one point, runaway heat had come frighteningly close to leaking out and burning straight through the entire engine.

Ji Jue studied the marks that remained and roughly estimated when the damage had occurred. As the culprit responsible for all of this, he felt his heart grow heavier.

The engine didn’t say anything. Only a faint hum echoed through the compartment, distant and gentle like a whale song. It did not seem to care in the slightest.

“I know. You don’t have to comfort me.” Ji Jue let out a long sigh.

A trace of relief rose in his heart. Luckily, he had come well prepared this time. Otherwise, he would have embarrassed himself all over again.

He ran a few tests on the main structure of the reaction chambers and found that, aside from the sections that had been corroded or burned away, the framework remained solid and stable. There was no need to replace the entire structure. As long as he used sufficiently high-grade materials to repair the damaged sections, that would be enough.

Ji Jue spent the entire afternoon moving back and forth between the train and the outside world, hauling materials in and out. He even urgently called in an express delivery from the Balance Chamber of Commerce.

Materials science had advanced enormously over the past several centuries, and there were now plenty of newer options when it came to heat resistance and structural stability. The only real problem was money. Technically speaking, none of it was particularly difficult to repair. All Ji Jue needed to do was reshape and repair the damaged sections, then relocate and adapt the existing spirit matter structures so they would not interfere with the new work. It was basically masonry work.

The most important part was the final coating made from prime orichalcum. It had to be extraordinarily thin and perfectly stable.

After Ji Jue had processed it nine times, its structural stability was already close to flawless. Heat resistance and corrosion resistance were what prime orichalcum excelled at to begin with, and now, after being processed through Pacifier with techniques from both Fluid Alchemy and modern alchemical procedures, there was no room left for even the slightest flaw.

Even so, when the time came for the test startup, Ji Jue could not help feeling nervous. The low whale song gradually turned from a faint hum to a powerful cry, and an exultant song echoed around him.

Amid the harmony of countless metallic vibrations, Ji Jue wiped the sweat from his face, took a step back, and admired the sight before him. After all the time and resources he had poured into it, the train could finally operate at the bare minimum.

If the test had failed, he did not have enough spirit matter reserves or fuel left to support another start-up attempt.

Unfortunately, the spirit of the train was still weak and drowsy. It had once crashed and fallen from the sky, then spent centuries abandoned, enduring untold damage and abuse. Even though it had been reborn in Ji Jue’s hands, the toll had still been far too great. He could only wait until his skills and abilities improved, then heal and repair it little by little.

As the engine’s test startup came to an end, its spirit intelligence sank once more into deep slumber. Before that happened, Ji Jue could not stop himself from asking, “Do you know what things are like inside Skyrail right now?”

A faint hum sounded once more, carrying a vague confused response.

Scenes from the past surfaced in his mind. Amid endless banks of dark clouds, the Doomsday Express, already on the verge of collapse, lost power completely. Badly damaged and completely spent, it plunged through the clouds as its hull split apart and burned. With the last of its strength, it let out one final cry.

From the distant horizon, no answer came. There was only dead silence.

The train crashed through layer after layer of boundary membranes, countless streams of light fading away until nothing remained but desolation. Alone, it plummeted downward and crashed into a narrow rift realm, then shattered.

That was the final scene the Doomsday Express remembered from long ago.

Ji Jue absorbed the first-person images surfacing in his mind, like the state of the train’s interior, the scenes around it, even the time displayed on the instrument panel.

More than two hundred years ago...

According to the Encyclopedia of All Things, the bankruptcy and collapse of Skyrail Transportation had happened only a few months after that. Which meant that even before then, the Doomsday Express had already suffered catastrophic damage.

No. It was very likely that Skyrail’s situation had already been dire by that point.

“What happened?” Ji Jue pressed.

The drowsy soul struggled to turn its thoughts. Through the connection of Deus Ex Machina, scattered words slowly surfaced in Ji Jue’s mind.

Task. Duty. Mission.Must... complete.

Along with those words, shattered scenes and fragments flooded into Ji Jue’s mind. They seized hold of him and dragged him back through centuries of time in an instant.

The records and memories were far too vast and complicated, too fragmented to piece together. They did not belong to the Doomsday Express alone. There were other perspectives as well, such as views seen through the eyes of other colossal existences.

For one fleeting moment, Ji Jue saw the vast world spread out beneath him, radiant and magnificent. Then, after a blur of broken fragments, that immense, clear world was swallowed by gloom, and countless rifts appeared across it.

Void Tracks intertwined like blood vessels, gradually breaking apart, severing and vanishing one by one. Endless darkness surged forth. Within the darkness, brilliant lights flared to life one after another, shining like stars. Ji Jue was one of them.

Majestic whale songs rose and fell without end, filling the void and the darkness, reverberating all over. Once again, they drew upon countless Void Tracks and set them into motion.

Then the scene changed. There were endless plummets and wreckage, scenes of repairs, buildings consumed by fire, rift realms collapsing, heated arguments, corpses, ruins, barren earth, and surging flames.

Yet no matter how the scenes shifted, that magnificent whale song never ceased. Only gradually did the mighty chorus begin to fade, its soaring cries sinking into low, distant calls. The responses from its companions grew fewer and more distant until the last complete image emerged.

The Doomsday Express was racing through the void as though crossing the universe itself, yet there were no stars to be seen. Only eternal emptiness stretched ahead.

Behind streaks of blazing light that shone like stars, brilliant trails stretched across the darkness and lingered without fading. And precisely because of those trails, the colossal thing rising from the deepest reaches of the dark was finally outlined. It resembled a blazing sun with bright violent flames so intense that even space warped around it.

Yet for all its eerie brilliance, its light held no color at all, only a cold, hollow emptiness. It was a void purer than darkness itself.

Even sensing It through nothing more than a memory made Ji Jue’s soul tremble uncontrollably. He could not even perceive Its true form. All he could feel was terror unlike anything he had ever known.

It was right behind them, relentlessly closing in. A storm tore through the void and slammed into them. The train’s hull groaned under the strain as cracks and breaks sounded one after another. As the boundary membranes shattered and space collapsed, the sound of chaos tore through the void like a furious roar.

Ji Jue finally realized that It was not pursuing them. Rather, they were dragging It forward!

Skyrail was in motion. Countless trails of light stretched through the void like chains, winding themselves tightly around that indescribable dark star. It was like innumerable moths trying to shackle a giant, hurling themselves uselessly into the flames.

Explosions rang out without end. Within the whale song, cries of agony echoed through the void. And still the Doomsday Express hauled on the chains, unfurling its invisible wings again and again.

Amid the broken, intermittent whale song, hundreds upon thousands of trains thundered onward, singing out with unwavering resolve.

They had to keep moving forward. They could not stop.

Mission... must be completed... Task... must be completed... The world... must be completed!!!

The Skyrail had to keep running, even if it meant sacrificing everything. They had to hold on until the miracle arrived or until they were reduced to ashes, and all things were reshaped from the ending itself, or the myriad phenomena were reborn at the farthest reaches of despair.

They flew through the darkness, dragging their chains behind them forward without end. An enormous rift opened ahead of them like a cage, slowly swallowing the dark star that spewed endless darkness before closing around it. Its mission was complete.

The lonely whale song echoed through the void. No answer ever came again. It watched as the stars left it behind, continuing onward toward their eternal duty. And in its exhaustion, it fell.

The memory ended there. Ji Jue opened his eyes and gasped sharply for breath. The engine’s final, gentle song lingered beside his ears, gradually fading away.

There was no need to fear. Those were merely memories of the duty it had once carried. Yet there were still far too many mysteries he could not unravel, far too many questions for which he could find no answers.

“Feels like there’s only going to be more and more trouble waiting for me in the future...” Ji Jue sighed and slumped back in the chair.

But once there were enough problems, one more hardly mattered. Even if it was trouble, it was still far too distant to feel real. His bank balance was much scarier.

With another sigh, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep from sheer exhaustion.

By the time morning came the next day, his phone screen lit up due to an incoming call.

“Are you done with all that stuff?” Professor Ye asked without a preamble.

“Mm. More or less.” Ji Jue sat up and rubbed his face. “There are still a few loose ends, but nothing important.”

“Come to the workshop.”

The call ended, and Ji Jue was instantly wide awake. He shot to his feet. Work had come knocking!