novelraw Chapter 283: The Slick-Skin Devil
Chapter 283: The Slick-Skin Devil
The train journey was long and monotonous.
After leaving New York State and entering Pennsylvania, the "Coal State" composed of rolling hills and dense forests, the scenery outside the window transformed into a monotonous sea of deep green.
Traces of the civilized world rapidly faded, replaced by a primitive desolation belonging to the North American continent.
Lin Jie quickly adapted to this solitary journey.
During the day, he would spend a great deal of time reading the files provided by Morgan, which contained UMA sighting reports and folk legends from the Appalachian Mountains region.
At night, Lin Jie would perform basic physical training and mental meditation in the swaying carriage, keeping himself in peak condition at all times.
The cargo imprisoned in the Spiritual Inertia Cargo Container had fallen back into silence after its initial frenzy.
Only at midnight each day, when the train's whistle pierced the wilderness's silence, would it emit a few dull, unwilling thuds, as if responding to some ancient call.
Lin Jie gradually discerned its activity patterns and grew increasingly curious about this unknown companion.
On the third day of the journey, as the train entered the remote and rugged mountainous region of West Virginia, the strings of vigilance in Lin Jie's mind began to tighten.According to the map's markings, they had officially entered an area labeled as "high-risk" in the files.
This was the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, the primary activity range of the UMA codenamed "Slick-Skin Devil."
The file's description of the Slick-Skin Devil was full of contradictions.
All sighting reports came from lumberjacks who ventured deep into the mountains and forests, spending their days with axes and saws.
In their accounts, it was a ghostly, slender monster.
It had no fixed form, moved without a sound, and was most adept at hiding behind any tree.
No matter which angle you looked from, you could never see its front, only catching a fleeting glimpse of a shadow in your peripheral vision, as dry as tree bark.
It would use some unknown spiderweb-like trap to prey on those who became separated in the forest.
The prey it targeted would ultimately vanish without a trace, leaving behind only a puddle of half-digested organs emitting a pungent, sour odor.
"A top-tier predator skilled in ambush and camouflage."
Lin Jie wrote this preliminary profile of the UMA in his investigation notes.
He had a strong premonition that the elaborate trap laid by the North American branch, the big fish lurking in the shadows, was precisely this rail-riding ghost that existed only in the drunken boasts of lumberjacks.
Night fell.
Tonight's moonlight was exceptionally dim.
Thick clouds, like soaked cotton batting, completely obscured the sky.
The train's lonely searchlight became the only source of light in this boundless darkness, casting the two infinitely extending cold steel rails ahead in a ghastly white.
The train was cautiously navigating at a slow speed through a narrow valley flanked by cliffs and dense forests.
The trees on both sides cast clawing, menacing shadows in the flickering light of the searchlight.
Lin Jie was not asleep.
He sat at the table, cleaning [Serene Heart].
The analyzer Evelyn had given him was placed in the most conspicuous position.
Suddenly, a faint "bzzzt" sound.
The analyzer's needle, which had been stationary at zero, made an extremely slight deflection to the right.
Lin Jie's movements froze.
It's here.
He stood up, took small steps to the carriage window, and pulled the thick curtain open a tiny crack to look outside.
Outside, there were only the rapidly receding dark silhouettes of trees and a thin layer of white mist that had risen at some unknown time.
The mist was faint, clinging to the ground, like flowing stream water.
Under the train's searchlight, it took on an eerie, milky texture.
Everything seemed perfectly normal.
But Lin Jie's brain, tempered by countless life-and-death trials, detected a whiff of deadly dissonance from this seemingly ordinary scene.
—This mist was not flowing.
Logically, the airflow generated by the train's high speed should disperse ordinary mist.
But this thin mist before him clung stubbornly to both sides of the tracks as if alive, utterly unmoved by the train's roaring passage.
"This isn't mist!" Lin Jie whispered, his pupils contracting.
He finally saw the true nature of that layer of white "mist."
It was an unimaginably vast net composed of countless translucent filaments, finer than spider silk yet possessing a strange resilience!
This giant net hung down from the cliffs on both sides of the valley, spanning the entire width of the railway, almost merging with the surrounding darkness.
Only under the searchlight's beam did it reflect that deceptive, mist-like glimmer.
"Stop!!!"
Lin Jie roared towards the driver's cab at the front of the train!
But it was already too late.
At the same moment his shout rang out, the train's locomotive plowed headfirst into that seemingly fragile, yet exceptionally tough, giant net!
"SCREEEEEEEECH—!!!!"
A sharp, ear-piercing screech of metal friction echoed through the entire valley, like fingernails scraping a blackboard.
The massive kinetic energy collided directly and brutally with the terrifying resilience of the giant net!
Lin Jie felt the carriage beneath his feet lurch violently upward, then slam down hard!
The immense inertia nearly sent him flying.
He desperately grabbed the edge of the table to barely steady himself.
Inside the carriage, everything was thrown into disarray by the violent jolting and impact.
Cans and bottled water from the storage cabinet scattered across the floor.
Finally, after sliding forward nearly a hundred meters, stretching the giant net to a horrifying limit, the entire train was forced to a stop with a heart-stopping shudder.
Panicked shouts came from the driver's cab.
"God Almighty! What the hell is that?!"
"The brakes failed! What did we hit?!"
Lin Jie ignored their panic.
He quickly scrambled up from the floor and rushed first to the massive Spiritual Inertia Cargo Container.
The container remained intact.
But several fine cracks had appeared on its surface from the violent impact.
Faint wisps of spiritual energy were seeping out from those cracks.
And outside the carriage, the silent dark forest was undergoing a terrifying "awakening" due to the leakage of this aura.
Lin Jie could hear several raspy, "rustling" sounds rapidly closing in on their trapped train from all directions.
He immediately rushed to the window and looked out.
This time, he saw the true forms of those ghosts.
In the flickering light of the searchlight, tall, slender black figures, their forms so dry and twisted they resembled branches, slowly emerged from the shadows of the dense forest on both sides.
They stood at least three meters tall, but their bodies were impossibly narrow, looking no thicker than a sheet of paper.
They had no fixed form; their bodies could bend and fold like rubber, adopting bizarre postures to perfectly hide behind any tree.
They were like the shadows of trees given life.
Slick-Skin Devils!
"No wonder the previous escort missions all failed. Two fists can't fight off four hands, let alone this many attacking together," Lin Jie understood, his mind aching.
The North American branch had severely underestimated this UMA's threat level!
This wasn't some solitary Alert-class predator; it was a Town-class species with a social structure and the ability to coordinate hunts!
And he, along with the cargo behind him that continuously emitted an alluring scent, were this species' sole prey tonight.
"Sir! We need to get out of here! The locomotive is tangled up, we can't move!"
The engineer's desperate, tearful shout came from the driver's cab.
"Waiting here means certain death," Lin Jie made a quick decision.
He rushed to the table, grabbed [Serene Heart] and the analyzer Evelyn had given him.
Then he rushed to the other side of the carriage and violently yanked open the door leading to the wilderness.
"You two, stay in the driver's cab, lock the door, and don't come out no matter what happens!" Lin Jie commanded loudly towards the driver's cab.
He took a deep breath, leaped out, and plunged into the dark wilderness watched by numerous pairs of greedy eyes.
He was going to make himself a more conspicuous and enticing bait than that carriage.