Carrying a toolbox, Lin Qi entered the first car.

The Knights inside the car gave Lin Qi a passing glance.

But who would suspect a repairman carrying a toolbox?

Lin Qi walked right through the first car, heading toward the rear of the train.

He encountered no resistance.

Everything was now in place. It was time to execute the final step of the plan: the escape.

He reached the last car of the train.

Deputy Engineer Liu Yi sat in the equipment room, completely unaware of Lin Qi’s arrival.

Lin Qi sat down in the first row of the rear car.

He calculated the time.

Fifteen minutes until the explosion. He needed to detach the rear car from the train in seven minutes.

As for whether the conductor in the engine car would notice?

That was up to Guang Ling.

Lin Qi had executed his part of the plan flawlessly. He had done all he could; the rest was out of his hands.

Seven minutes later, his Spiritual Tentacles extended and settled on the coupling between the cars.

The coupling’s structure looked familiar to Lin Qi. It was a Liu Group patent.

Lin Qi had studied it in his structural engineering classes before he even started working for the Liu Group.

He disconnected the coupling with ease. Car number eight—the last car—slowly detached from the train and began to slow down.

The Iron Curtain was traveling through an underground tunnel, and it was pitch-black outside.

Visually, it would be impossible to notice the rear car detaching. Detection would have to rely on feedback from the train’s operating system.

Lin Qi didn’t know if Guang Ling could block the signal, since most of the train’s components weren’t connected to any network.

But Lin Qi chose to trust Guang Ling’s plan.

Only when the car had slowed to a near stop did Liu Yi, who had been in the equipment room, notice something was wrong. He came out and saw Lin Qi sitting in the car.

"Old Jiang, what’s going on? Where are the other cars? Why did we uncouple?"

Panic filled Liu Yi’s face.

’The train left the two of us behind?’

’This is a major safety incident. Old Jiang might be fine, thanks to Si Chunqiu’s protection.’

’But I’m screwed,’ Liu Yi felt.

Lin Qi replied, "There was an issue with the train’s transmission system. I came back here to check on it, but I didn’t expect the coupling to fail as well."

"Don’t worry. It’s nothing serious, and we’re not in any danger. Let’s just figure out how to get back to the surface."

Still reveling in his own superb acting, Lin Qi went through the connecting gangway and stepped into the underground tunnel.

This was the first time Lin Qi had entered the underground tunnel system since arriving in Greenfield City.

The tunnel was remarkably spacious, and there were no tracks on the ground.

The Iron Curtain used electromagnetic levitation technology. No wonder Lin Qi hadn’t found any trace of it when he’d scanned the underground with his Spiritual Vision earlier.

Keeping his Spiritual Vision active, he estimated his current position.

Lin Qi easily found a path and, under Liu Yi’s bewildered gaze, walked off into the darkness.

Back in car number eight, Deputy Engineer Liu Yi did not follow Lin Qi. Instead, he paced anxiously inside the car.

He tried to use his smart device to access the network and contact the company to report the incident with car number eight.

But to his horror, he found he had no network connection.

Guang Ling, who was monitoring the network, had blocked all of Liu Yi’s signals.

All Liu Yi could do was wait helplessly in car number eight.

...

In the engine car, Si Chunqiu grew agitated as he listened to the unusual sounds, which were becoming more and more intense.

But aside from the noise, the train showed no other abnormalities. The control console still gave him perfect command of the train’s attitude.

’The cold fusion reactor is perfectly safe,’ Si Chunqiu told himself. ’There’s never been a major accident involving a cold fusion reactor. Old Jiang already checked it. It’s just a problem with the energy conversion system...’

Si Chunqiu had complete faith in Jiang Wenming.

The two of them didn’t just share the same hobbies.

Back when they were younger, Jiang Wenming had not yet been implanted with so many Prosthetic Bodies.

Young men with shared interests were bound to get into some overly passionate antics.

How could Si Chunqiu possibly suspect Jiang Wenming?

Unfortunately for him, Si Chunqiu had made two fatal mistakes.

First, the "passionate" topic Lin Qi had steered them toward had kept Si Chunqiu from reminiscing about their youthful indiscretions, and had him instead fantasizing about his "passionate exchange" after his shift.

Second, Si Chunqiu had put his faith in the Modi Group.

Just as Lin Qi had said, cold fusion reactors are incredibly safe. Their reactants are typically heavy elements, contained by quantum confinement.

But this was a Modi Group product!

This reactor actually contained enormous superconducting coils. The entire confinement field was magnetic!

At the center of the magnetic field, extreme heat powered the entire reactor.

This wasn’t cold fusion at all!

It was clearly thermonuclear fusion!

In principle, thermonuclear fusion technology had been developed for many years and was reliable enough.

Even a Modi Group product shouldn’t have failed so easily.

Unless, that is, someone violated the operating manual, performed a double-unlock on the reactor, and intentionally forced an improper operation.

Lin Qi had done all of these things!

Reactive material, exceeding the magnetic field’s containment limit, began to accumulate at its center.

The extreme temperature broke past its limits and began to destroy the superconducting coils.

The so-called "unusual sounds" were the sounds of the superconducting coils fracturing.

The reaction grew increasingly violent, until heat rivaling that of a man-made star erupted within the reactor.

Finally, the reactor could no longer withstand the intense heat. The housing ruptured, letting out a deafening roar.

This was the last sound Si Chunqiu and the four Tier Three Knights in the first car would ever hear.

’Did something just explode?’

’How very Modi.’

But the next second, a dazzling blue radiance burst forth, scattering billions of stabilizers.

A blazing white light swelled slowly outward.

The engine car, the first car, the second car...

Instantly vaporized!

The only saving grace was that the reactor had initiated its termination sequence in the final moment before the explosion.

This limited the blast’s power to a certain radius.

The true epicenter of the nuclear blast was only a little over a hundred meters wide.

After that, the shockwave took over.

The shockwave propagated throughout the entire underground tunnel system. The first thing to bear its brunt was car number eight, which had detached from the train but remained in the tunnel.

Liu Yi, still inside, took the full, direct force of the shockwave.

He lost consciousness in an instant.

The car was severely warped by the impact.

Next, the shockwave spread wildly through the underground tunnel system of Greenfield City.

Countless manhole covers from the tunnels were launched into the air, slamming against the Iron Curtain above.

A colossal BOOM echoed throughout Greenfield City.

Above the epicenter of the blast, a gap roughly a hundred meters wide had been torn open at a seam in the Iron Curtain.

The train had exploded precisely in the center of the seam between two panels of the Iron Curtain.

...

As for Lin Qi, he had reached the surface long before.

His chest felt tight.

He had avoided the epicenter of the blast and the direct impact of the shockwave, but Lin Qi was still too close to the Iron Curtain. He had inevitably been caught in the aftermath.

But Lin Qi quickly cast Rapid Growth on himself.

All his discomfort quickly faded, and Lin Qi was back to perfect health.