The journey through the front carriages felt like walking inside the intestine of a dead creature. Carriages 3 and 2 were silent, filled with meat cocoons clinging to the ceiling—passengers who had been turned into food reserves. Kavian decided not to disturb them. The priority was the Head Carriage.
They arrived in front of the thick steel door separating Carriage 1 from the Driver's Cabin.
The door was hot. So hot that its paint was peeling off. The smell of ozone—burning electricity—was strong.
"Something's wrong," Arka mumbled, bringing his face close to the door crack, then hurriedly pulling back. "Static shock. All my hair is standing up."
"That means there's an active energy source inside," Kavian said. He didn't get closer but stared at the door with his Inner Sight.
Red lines in his eyes formed complex warning patterns. Behind that door, there was no human. There was a machine breathing.
[Warning: Danger Zone]
Detecting Elite Life Sign.
Energy: Bio-Mechanical.
"Arka, kick the door. Clara, prep the mist," Kavian ordered quickly. "It's tight inside. Don't let him see our real positions."
Clara nodded weakly, her hands raising. "Mist... yes. Imagination. I can do it." Thin mist began to seep from her skin pores, blanketing the floor.
Arka took a step back, gathering power in his thickly muscled right leg (a result of Rank 9 mutation).
"Open up, SESAMEEEE!"
DHUAAAARRR!
Arka kicked right at the hinges. The steel door didn't just open; it flew off its frame, landing with a loud crash inside the room.
Arka and Kavian jumped in, weapons ready in hand. However, the sight inside made them freeze for a moment.
The control room was... disgusting.
The driver was still there. Or at least, part of him.
The driver's lower body had melted and fused with the train's control panel. Thick cables wove in and out of the skin of his back, connecting his spine directly to the machine circuits. A CCTV monitor was embedded in his left chest, flickering with static noise.
The driver's face was half iron, half flesh. His mouth was sewn shut with copper wire.
[Mini Boss Detected!]Entity: The Conductor (Current Controller)
Rank: 8 (Elite)
Status: Immobile (Fused with Machine)
"INTRUDER..."
The voice came out of the speaker on the ceiling, not from his mouth. A damaged, broken digital voice.
The electric cables hanging in the room suddenly came to life like cobras. Their tips sparked with deadly blue electricity.
"BACK!" Kavian shouted.
Bzzt! Crack!
Two cables struck where Arka was standing. The iron floor where Arka stood melted instantly into orange metal sludge.
"Damn it! He's an electric turret!" Arka cursed, jumping behind a storage cabinet panel.
"TARGET: ELIMINATION."
Three more cables shot toward Clara standing near the door.
"Clara! Mist!" Kavian screamed.
Clara shrieked in panic. "Don't look at me! Don't look at me!"
Instantly, thick white smoke exploded from Clara's body, filling the narrow driver's cabin in seconds.
Skill: [Mist of Falsehood].
The room went completely white. Zero visibility. Kavian turned on his Inner Sight, which could see through the illusion.
In the Conductor's eyes, his heat sensors and motion sensors went haywire. Clara's mist wasn't just smoke; it contained false signals. The driver "saw" ten Arkas and five Kavians running around the room.
The electric cables attacked the empty air blindly. Crack! Crack! Crack! Walls scorched, chairs destroyed, but the Trio was safe—for now.
"His position is immobile!" Kavian whispered in Arka's ear inside the mist. "He's anchored to the main panel. His main energy is in the left chest, behind that monitor screen. That's his heart."
"There are too many cables, Kav. If I get close, I'll be cooked into a steak," Arka replied.
"I'll open a path," Kavian said. His eyes glinted coldly behind his glasses. He was going to use his new trump card, even at the risk of lowering his Sanity.
"Clara," Kavian called. "Create an illusion as if the roof is collapsing on him. Make him panic."
"Okay... roof collapsing... concrete... heavy..." Clara closed her eyes, visualizing her fear.
On the Conductor's sensors, he suddenly detected a massive mass weighing 10 tons falling from above. His mechanical reaction was automatic: all electric cables shot upward to hold back the unreal "attack".
His chest area was left open without defense.
"NOW, ARKA!"
Kavian stepped out of hiding. He raised his hand, aiming his palm at the Driver. Kavian focused all his Willpower and Rank to press one absolute command onto the entity.
Skill: [Minor Coercion]!
"STOP!"
A mental shockwave slammed into the Driver's organic brain. His system froze. The screen on his chest blue-screened for a moment. His movements were locked for 1.5 seconds.
Kavian vomited blood. The mental pressure of holding a Rank 8 Boss was too heavy. His Sanity plummeted by 5%.
But 1.5 seconds was enough for Arka Wisesa.
The giant leaped from the mist. He had discarded his iron pole because it was an electrical conductor. This time, he used his fist. His right hand turned pitch black—his skin hardening into organic steel.
Path of Asura Skill: [Iron Impact]
"DIE, YOU JUNK CAN!!"
Arka slammed his fist right into the monitor screen on the Driver's chest.
CRACK! SSSZZZT!
The screen shattered. Arka's hand plunged into the chest cavity filled with oil and blood, grabbing the generator heart inside.
The Driver roared through the speaker. "ERROR! SYST—"
Arka yanked his hand out forcibly, bringing with it a clump of flesh mixed with cables pulsating blue. The machine heart.
The lights in the room died instantly. The electric cables fell limp to the floor like dead worms.
Silence. The mist slowly thinned.
[ELITE FOE DEFEATED!] You killed 'The Conductor' (Rank 8).
Experience Gained: Massive.
Kavian Arsatya rose to Rank 9 (Peak Stage).
Arka Wisesa rose to Rank 9 (Middle Stage).
Clara Adair rose to Rank 9 (Early Stage - Stable).
Kavian collapsed to the floor, wiping blood from his chin. His head hurt excruciatingly. But he was alive.
Arka dropped the machine heart to the floor, his breath heaving. "Crazy... did we just kill a Boss?"
"Just a Mini Boss," Kavian corrected weakly. He crawled toward the now-dead control panel. The driver's corpse hung pitifully there.
"We need to check info," Kavian pressed buttons on the panel, hoping for remaining emergency power.
One small screen lit up. Not a radar, not a route map.
It was the train's front camera. External camera.
Clara, just waking from her magic trance, approached and stifled a scream when she saw the screen.
"Kavian... Arka... look at that..."
On the blurry screen, they saw what was in front of the train.
This train track was not connected to UI Station or Pasar Minggu Station.
The track was... broken.
The end of the track dangled at the edge of a cliff. And below that cliff, it wasn't earth. It was a Giant City of impossible alien architecture. Towers as high as mountains made of bone and flesh curved piercing the purple clouds.
Thousands, maybe millions of terrifying entities flew around those towers.
And their train was hanging statically, floating above the abyss of nothingness, held by nonsensical gravity.
Location text appeared in the corner of the screen, ancient writing that for some reason their brains automatically translated.
[CURRENT LOCATION]
1st Layer of The Abyss: "The Rotten Cradle"
Monster Population: Uncountable.
Human Survival Chance: 0.0001%
Kavian laughed softly. The hollow laugh of a scientist realizing his experiment had failed totally.
"We aren't trapped inside a tunnel..." whispered Kavian, staring at the horror screen. "We have been transported. This entire train... is a food package that has just been delivered to their dining table."
The communication radio that had been dead suddenly turned on with static crackling.
"...anyone... help... this is Carriage 10... back door breached... something big entered... help..."
The voice was a human scream. From the rearmost carriage.
The tutorial isn't over. Dessert is just about to be served.