Chapter 75.3: Beast Tide
Because Toya hadn’t owned proper cold-weather clothing before, he had never been able to leave the house.
He hadn’t attended the family meetings.
He had never even ridden a snowfield train to exchange goods.
To him, the change in his parents was astonishingly sudden.
Not long ago, they had been saying,
“They’re definitely snow bandits. We have to stay on our guard.”
Now, they wore carefree, happy smiles as they declared that they had completely become part of the Little Blue Sea Nation.
And yet…
His parents really were happier than they had ever been.
They no longer spent every day with furrowed brows.
Instead, they enthusiastically discussed when they should move to the central district and what kind of jobs they could look for once they reached the Divine Kingdom.
They even began planning Toya’s future.
“My child, you’ll never have to worry about survival again. It turns out that your ability to repair objects and build machines has a special name in the Divine Kingdom. Better yet, you can use that skill to earn points.”
Toya’s eyes had lit up when he heard those words.
He longed to be acknowledged.
While every other member of his family supported themselves by fighting snow beasts…
He alone could only remain shut inside the house, tinkering with the little gadgets that none of his relatives could understand.
He heard his parents proudly tell him,
“The Divine Envoys have a name for your talent: Mechanical Repair and Manufacturing.”
“Toya, one of the Divine Envoys said there are many people in the Divine Kingdom just like you. They don’t have to leave the Divine Kingdom to fight, yet they still contribute to it and earn points through their own skills. My child, once we enter the Divine Kingdom, you’ll be able to live just like them.”
Toya was nothing more than an ordinary native of Dazzling Star.
Yet, at that moment, he felt a sense of anticipation and joy unlike anything he had ever experienced.
There were…
A lot of people just like him?
People who also loved studying these “strange little gadgets”?
People whose minds were likewise filled with circuits, mechanisms, and machines?
For the first time in his life, Toya looked forward to the day he would enter the Divine Kingdom.
But…
This area had been relatively safe for quite some time.
So why were there now three enormous snow beasts outside his family’s home?
They were tearing at the front door with their teeth.
Toya could hear the grating squeal of the reinforced steel door he had personally modified.
It was the sound of thick metal bending under the beasts’ relentless jaws.
His parents were powerful hunters.
Their home was a Tier 3 building, and Toya had reinforced every inch of it.
Once, in the middle of the night, a Burrowing Assault Rabbit had tried to tunnel inside.
After digging for ages, all it had managed to scrape off was a thin layer of the outer wall.
But now…
These snow beasts had deformed that sturdy steel door with frightening ease.
Toya’s entire body trembled uncontrollably.
He had never fought a snow beast.
In fact, until this year, he had never even stepped outside his home.
Even after his parents had exchanged points for a cold-weather suit not long ago, all he had done was put it on and, under their watchful eyes, walk a few laps around the house.
Toya, calm down.
He desperately tried to steady himself.
But the shaking wouldn’t stop.
The signal flare… Right… The signal flare…
With trembling hands, he dragged over the signal flare he had prepared, lit it, hurriedly opened the window, and threw it outside.
A plume of crimson smoke quickly rose into the sky.
Listening to the relentless bang… bang… bang… against the door, Toya tightened his grip around a long spike.
He was so frail that simply holding the weapon felt unbearably heavy.
Craaak…
Craaak…
A thin beam of light shone through the steel door where the beasts had finally bitten through it.
Toya could already see their sharp fangs…
And their blood-red eyes.
Craaak…
The tiny hole rapidly widened.
One of the snow beasts shoved its entire head through the ruined doorway, staring straight at Toya as drool dripped onto the carpet inside the house.
It was the rug his older sister had given their parents as a gift just last month.
Toya tried to charge forward with the spike.
Only then did he realize…
…that at some point his legs had already given way beneath him.
He was sitting collapsed on the floor.
He struggled to stand.
But his legs seemed to be fighting against him.
Every time he managed to get up, he immediately fell again.
At last…
Toya forced himself to his feet.
His legs trembled violently as he gripped the spike with both hands and staggered forward.
Don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid.
He kept shouting those words to himself.
Yet the instant he swung…
His eyes squeezed shut on their own.
The spike cut through empty air.
Toya collapsed to the floor once more.
His whole body shook uncontrollably.
His mind went blank.
He wanted nothing more than to curse his own uselessness.
He could already picture himself…
Being swallowed whole by the snow beast.
But after waiting more than ten seconds…
Nothing happened.
His eyes red with panic, Toya slowly looked up.
Only the gaping hole in the steel door remained.
The snow beast…
…was gone.
Whoosh!
Another head suddenly poked through the opening.
This time, however…
It wasn’t a snow beast’s.
It belonged to a person.
Song Xi quickly looked Toya over from head to toe.
“You okay?”
After asking, she watched the young man shake so violently that he looked like a bobblehead.
It was obvious he wasn’t capable of answering.
So Song Xi inspected him herself.
No wounds.
“Mhm! You’re fine then.”
“Stay inside for a while. The door’s broken now. If you’ve got cold-weather gear, put it on. If you don’t, get under the blankets and keep warm. Don’t let yourself freeze.”
After giving those rapid instructions, Song Xi immediately withdrew her head through the hole in the door.
Toya was still trembling, but he could hear the mysterious person—who had appeared just as suddenly as she had left—shouting outside.
“Calling it now! This one’s mine!”
“Roar!!”
“It doesn’t have a tail! Stab it from behind!”
“The eyes! Aim for the eyes!”
“ROOOAR!!!”
“Go, go, go! Cut it off! Don’t let it escape!”
“Woohoo!!!”
Still shaking, his legs weak as jelly, Toya crawled beneath his blankets.
Listening to the voices outside, his panic gradually subsided.
He had no idea how much time had passed before everything suddenly fell silent.
Knock. Knock.
A gentle knock came at the door.
Toya flinched violently and instinctively burrowed deeper into the blankets.
“Hello, little guy. The snow beasts have all been dealt with. Would you like to come out and take a look?”
The people of Dazzling Star were already shorter than those of Blue Sea, and Toya was especially thin and frail. Song Xi had assumed he was only thirteen or fourteen.
Even if she’d known he was actually sixteen, though, someone that age still counted as a kid by Blue Sea standards.
Thinking he was fairly young, she became a little more patient.
“Did your family ever tell you about us? We’re from the Little Blue Sea Nation. That means you’re one of our citizens too. I’m the president, so you have to listen to me. Open the door so we can check whether you’re hurt. We’ll leave once your family comes back.”
The door had already been destroyed.
The home’s heating system almost certainly wasn’t working anymore.
She was worried the kid inside might freeze to death.
Song Xi poked her head through the hole in the door again.
“Kid, if you don’t open up, I’m coming through this hole.”
“I-I’m coming right away.”
Toya had actually wanted to get out of bed earlier.
But his body had been so cold and weak that it had taken him a long time just to regain control of his limbs.
He answered in a shaky voice, hurriedly climbed out of bed, and, with trembling hands, unlocked the damaged door.
The moment Song Xi stepped inside, she behaved like a bandit raiding a house.
Her eyes immediately locked onto a set of insulated winter clothing hanging on the wall.
Without a word, she took it down and started helping Toya put it on herself.
Toya’s face flushed bright red.
He wanted to say, “I can do it myself,” but his throat refused to cooperate. All he could do was let her help him into the insulated coat.
The moment he put it on, the color returned to his deathly pale face.
Only then, through the wide-open doorway, did he notice the three snow beasts lying dead outside.
Beyond them stood a train of snow-beast-drawn sleds—a long caravan roughly thirty meters in length and two meters wide, covered by a wooden roof.
“Hey! Tell me, when do the adults in your family usually come back?”
Song Xi asked him twice. Seeing the child simply stare blankly outside without saying a word or moving an inch, she began to suspect the fright had left him completely numb.
After a moment’s thought, she turned to Wang Moning and held out her hand.
“Let me borrow your precious treasure.”
Wang Moning hesitated, reluctant to part with it. But she’d once been through something similar herself, and she couldn’t help sympathizing with the terrified child. Carefully, she handed Song Xi the little ice sculpture of the Creator God that she always carried with her.
She had carved it herself during breaks on their journey!
Ever since she had this little statue to keep her company, she wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore.
Song Xi gently placed the ice sculpture into Toya’s hands.
The frigid temperature inside the cabin kept it perfectly intact, with no sign of melting.
“Don’t be afraid.”
She patted Toya on the head.
“Our God will protect you.”
Toya looked up at her, then down at the little sculpture in his hands.
It depicted the same deity as the wooden carving his parents had once brought home—a gentle smile on the divine face, as though embracing everything in the world with boundless compassion.
“…Is God… really real?”
Song Xi thumped her chest confidently, wearing an expression that practically said, If you don’t believe me, who else would you believe?
“Of course our God is real!”
“It was our God who sent us here to save you!”
—Actually, that wasn’t true.
They had simply been nearby, leading a group of soldiers to wipe out a dozen or so Tier-2 snow beasts. They were happily looting the corpses when they suddenly spotted the red distress flare rising into the sky.
When one of their own citizens sent out a distress signal, the three leaders naturally gathered their soldiers, boarded the snow train, and raced across the snowy wilderness to the rescue.
But Song Xi had her own way of looking at things.
Our God is omniscient. Every good thing that happens in this world is a gift from Our God!
It was under the Creator God’s blessing that Dark Star came to be, that the Blue Sea Civilization was born, and that Song Xi herself existed.
So if they had saved this child, then it must have been the Creator God’s will!
Hehe, flawless logic!
Song Xi did her best to comfort the frightened child. And in Blue Sea, the greatest comfort anyone could think of was to involve the Creator God.
She urged him, “Go on, thank Our God. Once you do, Our God will continue watching over you.”
Encouraged by Song Xi’s unwavering confidence, Toya looked at the little statue in his hands and softly whispered,
“Thank you, great God.”
…
Meanwhile, Cheng Qisheng was at home, putting a newly delivered batch of ice cream into the freezer while casually watching Blue Sea’s battle against the Skywing Dragons.
She suddenly paused.
She had sensed the formation of a new faith chain.
Normally, every new faith chain began as a dull, matte thread. Only after someone had lived in the Safe City for some time would a portion of those new believers’ faith chains gradually become luminous, signifying that they had awakened as ability users.
But this brand-new faith chain had appeared already glowing.
And not just glowing—it was dazzlingly bright.
What’s going on?
Had this new believer already become an ability user before ever placing his faith in me?
Curious, Cheng Qisheng directed part of her attention toward the new believer, Toya.
By then, the trio had already led him out of the house. Noticing his fascination with the snow train, Song Xi was enthusiastically introducing it to him, her face brimming with pride.
In truth, there wasn’t much to explain.
A snow train was simply a team of snow beasts pulling a series of sled cars.
The only special feature was the roof built over the sleds, which provided a bit of shelter from the wind and snow.
“But it’s really fast!”
Toya gazed silently at the long train stretching out before him.
Toya was still a little afraid of the snow beast standing at the front of the train.
Yet, for some reason, although it still looked exactly like a snow beast, his instincts no longer saw it that way.
To him, it was the locomotive.
A sudden thought surfaced in his mind.
I can make it better.
“I… I can make it stronger,” he murmured.
His voice was so soft it was almost inaudible.
But Song Xi had exceptionally sharp ears.
“Oh? Really? You’re that amazing?”
She was delighted. The frightened child was finally willing to talk normally.
Imitating the way her own parents always encouraged her, she praised him without a second thought.
“That’s great! Do you want to give it a try?”
Toya hadn’t expected such an enthusiastic response. He turned his head toward the steel door that several soldiers were examining.
“But I’ll need some materials. Could you have them bring that door over?”
Most people would have asked why.
Isn’t the door supposed to be repaired? What do you need it for?
Cheng Qisheng was already prepared. If Song Xi asked anything along those lines, she intended to send down a divine message telling her to simply go along with Toya and see what this new believer was trying to do.
Instead, Song Xi agreed without the slightest hesitation.
“Sure!”
Since she considered herself to be humoring a child, she generously spared the soldiers the heavy lifting—though, in truth, none of the people from Dazzling Star could match her strength anyway.
She strode over, effortlessly removed the steel door from its hinges, carried it back, and held it out to him.
“Here. The door.”
She was only one sentence away from adding, ‘Go ahead and play with it.’
Standing nearby, Wang Moning couldn’t help thinking that if the door were propped against the side of the train, it really would make a neat little slide.
The high school student found herself oddly tempted.
If it actually turns into a slide, I’m definitely giving it a try!
But Toya didn’t ask Song Xi to lean the door against the train.
Instead, he had her place it on top of one of the train cars.
Truthfully, even he didn’t understand why so many ideas kept appearing in his head.
It was as if, despite never having seen a train before in his life, he instinctively knew it should be larger, should have more control consoles, and should be much more stable than it was now.
It was just like before. He had never seen a record player, yet he had repaired one purely by instinct.
More often than not, Toya felt completely out of place among his own family. But his parents had always told him that this was called Mechanical Repair and Manufacturing, one of the most common specialties among the Divine Envoys.
And now, the people who had saved him claimed that they, too, came from the Divine Kingdom.
The Divine Kingdom…
‘In that land blessed by the Creator God… there must be many people just like me.’
The thought filled Toya with anticipation.
He slowly raised his trembling hands.
Then, steeling himself, he pressed them against the snow beast serving as the train’s engine.
The next instant, before the stunned eyes of President Song, Marshal Shen, and Pope Wang, the steel door… melted.
The crude wooden train—little more than a collection of sled cars—began to change, as though guided by an invisible giant hand.
Its frame expanded.
Its shape warped and shifted.
Molten steel flowed across its surface, coating the exterior.
Even the snow beast under Song Xi’s control was enveloped in a thin layer of liquid metal. Wherever the steel passed, its beastly form rapidly transformed, as though countless invisible hammers were forging it again and again, until it was reshaped into the unmistakable form of a locomotive.
At last—
A brand-new metal train stood before them.
Its entire body radiated a cold, understated sheen, looking as though it had just rolled out of a factory.
The lines of the train were crisp and clean, its metallic surface gleaming faintly. There wasn’t a single visible seam anywhere on its body; every inch was flawlessly engineered with meticulous precision.
The makeshift passenger cars had transformed as well.
Each carriage was now tightly connected to the next. The wheels, once prone to breaking, were spotless and free of rust, firmly mounted beneath the chassis.
But the most unbelievable change was the snow beast.
It had become a locomotive in every sense of the word.
Its body had taken on a streamlined, rounded nose. A large windshield now occupied the front—
Where had the glass even come from?
—and below it sat two perfectly round headlights.
Through the windshield, they could see the driver’s seat inside.
It, too, was made entirely of metal, firmly welded to the floor, with a simple yet elegant design.
Judging by its appearance alone, no one would have questioned it if they were told this train had been meticulously manufactured in a pre-apocalypse factory.
Song Xi’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
Tentatively, she opened the cab door and climbed inside.
The driver’s compartment contained a complete control console.
There was a throttle lever, a brake lever, and a master control switch.
Song Xi had never driven a train before.
But she had plenty of courage.
She sat down and casually pushed one of the levers.
The train… actually started moving.
Without any fuel.
Without any external power source.
Well, not exactly.
It did have a power source.
That Tier-2 snow beast had evidently become the train’s sole engine.
Song Xi immediately hit the brakes, hardly daring to believe such an incredible thing was possible.
“Our God!!!”
The God she was calling was just as astonished.
Blinking in disbelief, Cheng Qisheng thought,
A living train…
A perfectly healthy, perfectly useful snow beast…
…had just been transformed into a cold, metal locomotive that was somehow even more useful?!
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thanks for the chapters!!!