Looking back, although he hadn't sensed malice or murderous intent, the man gave Huai Shi an extraordinarily strange feeling. His demeanor seemed serious and earnest, but there was something inexplicably insincere about it.
Some unique trait was squirming beneath his smile, almost spilling out.
Meeting such a person before entering Hell, Huai Shi didn't believe it to be a coincidence.
But Sublimators are often peculiar.
So he couldn't be sure.
After some thought, he stood up to wake Andrea.
If it were merely his misperception, she would only lose a few hours of sleep. If he was right, however, they would have an extra layer of security in case of danger.
After listening to Huai Shi's analysis, although Andrea felt it might not be necessary, she was already awake and decided not to go back to sleep.
After washing her face, she accompanied Huai Shi from four in the morning until nine o'clock.
Still, nothing happened.
Andrea didn't seem angry or dissatisfied, but Huai Shi grew increasingly embarrassed.
Just as he was about to persuade Andrea to go back to sleep, the Professor paused in her page-turning and looked up.
"You're right."
She shook her head and sighed softly. "Something's coming."
No sooner had she finished speaking than a dense, broken sound arose from the roof of the train car.
It was like droplets striking the iron roof.
Rain?
Huai Shi and Andrea, however, both frowned simultaneously.
They had not yet left the Middle-East Region for a Hell dive. In the Middle East's eternal Sea of Fire, never mind rainwater, even sewage was a resource scarce enough to serve as currency.
How could it possibly be so abundant as to fall as rain from the sky?
Quickly, those faint tapping sounds became clearer and more deliberate, as if countless limbs were drumming on the top of the carriage, a flood of them rapidly spreading across the body of the train.
Then, dangling by thin threads, creatures suddenly crashed against the windows, casting hand-sized shadows in the fiery light from outside.
They were spiders.
Panicked students shrieked, their faces quickly paling.
The palm-sized spiders scuttled nimbly across the windows, dragging huge egg sacs. Their vibrant colors did nothing to endear them; they only appeared grotesque and nauseating.
Now, as the number of spiders rapidly increased, so too did the fear.
Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands… The entire train was rapidly covered by the colorful spiders, which relentlessly tried to seep in.
Numerous crimson compound eyes opened. Separated by the windows, they gazed at the wary faces inside.
And then they spat venom.
SIZZLE!!!!!
That wasn't the sound of glass corroding from the venom, but rather the sizzle of pork belly tossed onto a scorching hotplate!
Flame is tangible.
But when the temperature instantly surged to several hundred degrees, heating the air into a Burning Wind potent enough to scorch flesh and bone, it remained shapeless and invisible.
Andrea swiftly wrote an equation in the air, and the light at her fingertip flickered out.
Once that invisible law escaped her control, it began to propagate and expand on its own, spreading in all directions.
Incorporating volume and space, defining vectors and scale, then inputting the source… ultimately, the result was derived.
Combining thermodynamics and aerodynamics, using the Blood of the Red Dragon to draw heat from the molten lava beneath the tracks, a terrifying thermal current instantly enveloped the entire train.
Yet, despite the inferno outside, the temperature inside the train, separated by the windows, did not change at all. The air conditioning still functioned normally, creating the illusion that everything beyond the glass was merely a phantom.
Twisted currents of superheated air enveloped the train. In the blink of an eye, the high-temperature gale incinerated the writhing, crawling spiders, reducing them to ashes.
They collapsed rapidly.
Before being completely incinerated, they shattered into fragile, paper-like fragments that swiftly browned, crumbled, and turned into pitch-black ashes.
At this moment, it was as if an invisible cloak of fire enveloped the entire train, forming an unseen barrier. Anything daring to venture within three meters of the carriage would be instantly and viciously burnt to ash.
Even steel and stone were no exception.
"...Andrea?"
Atop the train, a crouching figure muttered softly, "The Heretic from the Thermodynamics Classroom, the Red Dragon, huh? Heh, is Ivory Tower in such a hurry?"
Quin was clad in an exceptionally eye-catching raincoat studded with numerous small mirrors, making him gleam. Beneath the raincoat, however, the extreme temperatures struggled to penetrate.
Not a single hair on his head was lost.
The Screen of the Sandbar.
A relic discovered in some Hell of eternal high temperatures. Incapable of resisting any rainfall, but exceptionally good against heat.
Right now, his hands were ceaselessly folding colorful paper pieces. They fell from his fingertips like rainwater into his embrace, quickly wriggling to life as thumb-sized spiders that crawled rapidly under his raincoat.
In the fiery light, his figure suddenly turned illusory and vanished.
At the same time, an alarm sounded inside the carriage.
"Intruder inside."
Raymond's voice came over the radio, "The cargo hold is securely locked down, no need to worry—I'll leave the rest to you."
Meanwhile, rustling sounds already arose from the air conditioning ducts, spreading like a flood from behind the carriage's interior panels.
Hidden beneath the invisible raincoat, Quin smiled pleasantly, waving his hand in the darkness.
Millions of spiders let out shrill hisses. Their sharp, chitinous limbs emerged from the air vents as they dragged their swollen abdomens, eagerly lunging towards the 'food' below.
The time for Gluttony had arrived!
Then, they saw pairs of eyes as crimson as their own.
They had been waiting for a long while.
"CAW—"
In the brief silence, from the luggage racks of the carriage, countless mist-like Ravens flapped their wings, unable to hide their excited cawing.
Indeed, the time for Gluttony… had arrived.