Chapter 59: Chapter 30 "Please Hold My Fingertips"_2
Under the azure sky, the fierce beast-like train head spewed out long white vapors, followed by the long and lofty whistle of the steam horn.
On the sea surface, the black behemoths revealed partial dorsal fins and tentacles above the waves, cutting through the white foam as they charged toward the high-speed steel dragon.
Inside the Furnace Train's head, the massive sixteen-cylinder engine lifted and fell like a pile driver, compressing countless golden-red particles before extracting and igniting them in a burst. The essence of the Dragon Sequence's magic power particles was infused into the gigantic core at the center. They were sent swirling at high speed through the complex, branding iron-like network of veins and pipelines, before being injected into the outbound conduits, flowing toward the carriages like blood through veins.
The howling and powerful Dragon Sequence particles sped through the conduits. Where these particles reached, the outer layer of the car's scale armor lit up with golden veins. Then, the surface of the scales gradually coated with color, as if bracing for an impact.
After that,
amid the roaring high-speed rush, rows of carriage tops lifted in the gale, revealing the twin dark gun barrels beneath the scale armor. Under the constant monitoring and calibration of the fire-control radar, the gun barrels began to aim at the mutant sea beasts attacking them.
On the narrow screens within the twin gun barrels, lines of captions flashed.
[Aijieka Particle charging…]
[Conduit preheating, choosing mode: Brilliance Mode β-class]
The base of the turret began to gather golden-red particles, which then spread along the barrel, with the internal filament arrays gradually lighting up.
[Quadrant Instrument aiming initiated, beginning target assignment...]
[Targets assigned, beginning to aim...]
The gun barrels moved slowly, being adjusted step by step to aim at the attacking black sea beasts under the rotation and tuning of the base dial.
[Lock-on successful, fire!]
The golden-red stream of particles abruptly cut across the sea surface, dazzling and blinding even in daylight. The highly compressed strong stream of particles flashed by, and a vast spray of water and mist rose from the sea, where the sea beasts charging at the train now bore several horrific charred cavities.
These instantly slain sea beasts slowed down, gliding forward a little due to inertia, then slowly sinking into the deep blue and pitch-black ocean. The few sea beasts that were too distant to be affected also halted, observing their dead kin ahead, issuing low mournful sounds, and then slowly disappearing at the edge of the sea.
"Start reporting the situation."
Inside the train's massive cockpit, the train captain frowned at the many segmented screens in front of him and loudly inquired through the intercom.
"Radar and Quadrant Instrument search complete, 47 approaching sea beasts have been eliminated, 41 destroyed. The remaining six, due to their distance, were not included in the lock-on range and escaped turret fire. Currently, those six sea beasts are departing into the distance, and the wave emissions from their Transcendent Cores are also gradually weakening."
"Good."
The train captain nodded slightly, hung up the communication terminal, and then sat down.
Seeing that the captain's expression was still stern, his assistant next to him couldn't help but cautiously lean in to ask.
"Do you think?"
"The outcome of the attack doesn't surprise me; this Furnace Train produced by Prison Bull Heavy Industry is designed to counter sea beast attacks. What's embarrassing is the fact that it took until the beasts were only one kilometer away for them to be detected."
"If we hadn't handled it well today, we would have had a mark against us within the corporation, hmph!"
"This is a train carrying negotiation representatives! At present, there are still millions of Autonomous Units in a standoff between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and three Starship fleets hover menacingly in space. If there were an accident, you and I would be straight off to a military court."
"This, when traveling at high speeds, there is a certain delay and distortion in the observation and sensing of the surroundings... it's unavoidable..." the assistant said as he wiped the sweat beading on his forehead.
"Ha, you must have taken a pretty penny in kickbacks from Venus Workshop, speaking on their behalf at a time like this." The train captain glanced at his assistant.
"This, actually the quality of their observational scanners is quite decent, perhaps it's the vibrating running environment of the Furnace Train that hinders its performance. You know how the Dragon Sequence particles aren't too friendly to these precision instruments," the assistant continued to try and explain.
"Enough, I don't want to hear any more of this." The train captain waved his hand dismissively.
"Call them up; after arrival, have them switch it to a new one. Next time I come to inspect, if everything is up to standard, I won't pursue these issues further,"
The man stood up and slapped his deputy's shoulder hard twice, almost causing him to lose his balance. The deputy dared not retaliate, only watching as the train conductor walked away.
Afterwards, the deputy hurriedly left the cockpit, while the other crew members began whispering amongst themselves.
"Haha, that's really funny. I've been annoyed with him for a while; he finally tripped up, huh."
"That's for sure; the train conductor used to be from the military, not many in the corporation can withstand the oppressive force from Sequence 6 of the Dragon Sequence, just him, haha."
"Stop laughing, he's not some ordinary employee like us. I heard his uncle is a high-ranking company executive. Otherwise, how would he have the chance to handle the purchasing rights for such internal device replacements?"
...
Even amidst the chaos of war, greed and corruption still spread within the Federation. The reformers were not much cleaner than the Conservative Faction. In fact, that's precisely why many Star Domains were unwilling to support the reformers; so-called reforms simply shifted benefits from one group of people to another.
As a result, many Star Domains experienced uprisings and turmoil. They loathed the Federation's governance and no longer believed in any promises from those in power. These people aspired for independence from the Federation, and the disintegration of the Federation seemed to be a preferable option.
This was an era of decay and rot, no longer were there awe-inspiring, blood-stirring oaths, only pleasures used to numb the increasingly vacant spiritual world.
...
The scene continuously shifted, the female protagonist named Tearsa followed her brother to the enemy camp. Along the way, she witnessed the ugliness and conspiracy from both sides of the war and felt deep disappointment in both. In such a state of mind, she encountered a painter from the enemy camp.
The painter had been sent to the front lines to paint for the higher-ups. Despite the ongoing war, many wealthy people thought that the magnificent war would offer views quite different from the ordinary—beauty bursting from iron and fire, blood and steel, surely something rare—, so they hired him with their money to capture these poignant scenes as the eyes of the rich.
"Why not take photos?" Tearsa asked the man.
"Photos can indeed record the scene, but painting is different. It lies between illusion and reality and can portray the emotions within the scene in a supreme way. This kind of beauty is rare and it's what those bigwigs like to see,"
"Oh, they like it so much, why don't they come to the front lines themselves?" Tearsa sat next to the painter, observing as he sketched, while countless shells and beams of light penetrated the ground in the far distance, amidst the clamor of battle.
"That's because they deem their lives to be more important," the painter said helplessly, shaking his head and looking at the innocent and beautiful girl beside him.
"So, your life isn't important?" Tearsa gently raised her wrist, her fingertips caressing the stubbled chin of the man, her eyes seemingly brimming with tears.
"I'm a painter, this is my means of livelihood, nothing more," he shook his head, no longer looking at the young girl beside him, afraid he would never be able to escape those eyes again.
"But you could pursue another dream, like taking me away from this troubling world. I would marry you, and you could boldly paint many pictures for me, many..." Her words sounded like those of a siren from myths, causing the painter to hesitate and his mind to waver.
"Hehe, I was just kidding," Tearsa stood up, looking towards the distant battlefield.
"I'm leaving tomorrow. The negotiations failed, and my brother, the ambassador, will soon return, and I will go back with him."
"So, what do you plan to do?" She turned her back to the painter, her voice trailing off, her hand on her waist, her fingertips gently swaying.
"I think..." For a moment, the painter also seemed to have realized something.
"I think I want to grasp your fingertips and head to a distant world..."
The film slowly entered its conclusion, with the two escaping on a small spaceship from the war-torn Star Domain, heading to a distant and unknown place.
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ps: When you say watching a movie, it really writes a movie 0 0/