Chapter 10: Clash in the Dark
The dimmed lighting created a false tranquility. The observation car seemed covered with a layer of gray gauze, shadows writhing and stretching in every corner. Samuel Jones sat alone in that deliberately created vulnerable circle of light, every subtle muscle tension clearly visible—he was the bait deliberately placed at the eye of the storm.
Charles held his breath, staring intently from behind the decorative column's shadow. Lily Tang's hand gripping his arm was sweating coldly, minute trembling transmitting through the fabric. He could hear his own heartbeat pounding—though here, that might just be an illusion brought by extreme tension.
Time crawled by second by second.
Irina Petrova was like a statue, vanishing into the shadow of the car's farthest corner, almost merging with the darkness. Kenneth Ryder's position was even more clever—he used the high back of a sofa to create a visual blind spot, revealing only a pair of eyes still sharp in the dimness. Anya Sharma's datapad screen was deliberately adjusted to the lowest brightness, the faint glow illuminating her focused face, fingers hovering over virtual keys, ready to trigger the simple monitoring points she'd set up. Carmen Ortiz's position was near the connecting door, able to observe most of the observation car while also monitoring activity in the compartment area.
Pierre Chan sat restlessly near the exit. Sophia Rossi still lazily swirled her wine glass, but Charles noticed her gaze was no longer drifting—it locked onto targets like a predator, occasionally sweeping extremely rapidly past Samuel and... that still-closed door of Leon Schmidt.
Something had changed.
The air filled with an extremely subtle, high-frequency hum, almost below the auditory threshold, yet making hearts feel as if gripped. On Anya's datapad, an indicator representing abnormal energy fluctuation quietly climbed, but she couldn't pinpoint the source precisely—the fluctuation seemed to come from all directions, yet seemed nowhere at all.
Suddenly!
Samuel Jones convulsed violently, both hands clutching his head, emitting a suppressed, extremely painful moan! His body shook violently, eyeballs rolling upward, face rapidly losing color!
The killer had struck! Not a physical attack, but some kind of direct assault on consciousness!
"Now!" Irina Petrova shouted lowly, first to burst from the shadows, but her target wasn't Samuel—she lunged directly at a decorative ventilation grate on the car ceiling that Sophia had noticed earlier!
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Almost simultaneously, Kenneth Ryder also moved, springing out like a cheetah, his target the shadow beneath Samuel's seat!
Anya Sharma struck her datapad hard!
Hummm—!
An even stronger, directionally emitted energy pulse spread from Anya's datapad as its center, instantly interfering with that omnipresent high-frequency hum!
Samuel Jones's convulsions abruptly stopped. He gasped heavily, collapsing in his seat, face deathly pale, drenched in sweat, but his eyes regained clarity, carrying the shock and rage of someone who'd survived a disaster.
Irina's hand had already reached into the ventilation grate, forcefully pulling down a fingernail-sized, nearly transparent attachment! The thing flickered with faint light at her fingertips for a few moments before going dark.
And Kenneth Ryder rolled out from under the seat, also holding a small, spider-like mechanical construct, its metal legs still twitching slightly.
"Energy injectors! And neural interference probes!" Anya rapidly analyzed the residual signals, her tone carrying shock. "Mixed attack! Direct targeting of the consciousness core!"
The killer had not only used sophisticated hacking techniques but also deployed illegal devices targeting nerves and consciousness! This indicated the killer was extremely dangerous!
Everyone's gazes instantly turned to Sophia Rossi! She had previously held suspicious equipment, and her position...
However, Sophia looked genuinely bewildered, even instinctively raising both hands: "It wasn't me! This time it really wasn't me!" Her surprise didn't look feigned.
Just at this moment—
"BANG!!"
A loud crash came from the rear!
Leon Schmidt's compartment door was violently burst open from inside!
A tall figure stumbled out, heavily falling onto the corridor carpet—it was Leon Schmidt!
He looked disheveled, with a scrape on his temple, breathing rapidly, but his eyes were cold as ice. In his hand he tightly gripped a damaged device sparking with faint electrical fire, similar in model to the spider-like probe Kenneth had found.
He struggled to lift his head, his gaze sweeping over the shocked crowd, finally settling on Samuel Jones and Charles Du, his voice hoarse and urgent:
"Interference source... more than one! The killer... has an accomplice!"
Before his words finished—
The car's lights began flickering madly again! This time, accompanied by a piercing, metal-tearing noise!
Darkness didn't completely fall, but in the violently flickering light and shadow, everyone saw that inside Leon Schmidt's burst-open door, his compartment walls were covered with various temporarily rigged, illegally coded instruments flashing with light. One large screen was rapidly scrolling the car's structural diagram and several energy marker points!
Leon Schmidt wasn't simply a passenger at all! He'd been inside conducting some massive, illegal monitoring and even countermeasure operations!
And his mention of "accomplice" meant there was more than one killer!
The lights stabilized again, but every face showed even greater shock and fear.
The trap had caught the killer's tools but seemed to have drawn out an even larger, more dangerous conspiracy.
Who was Leon Schmidt?
Was he fighting against the killer, or did he have another agenda?
Who was the "accomplice" he mentioned?
The third "night" served as a "peaceful night." The killer's target seemed to have failed, but the truth had become even more confusing. The waters ran far deeper than anyone had imagined.
