Black Smoke.
Outside Udon Town, there was a half-finished railway track. A train was stoking the fire with coal on the tracks, preparing to depart. Thick smoke billowed from the chimney of the locomotive.
However, the train was headed toward a dead end; the railway abruptly stopped a few hundred meters ahead.
Seeing the train bound for Song City stoking its fire, the residents of Udon Town hurriedly sped up their loading. They transported the refined steel using small carts and loaded it onto the freight cars.
Zhang Pei stood atop a freight car, directing the loading operations.
Ci Yue felt puzzled. “The railway clearly ends up ahead. How is the train going to move?”
Xing Luo smiled gently. “This is a patent exclusive to us Northeasterners. You’ll find out soon enough.”
With that, Xing Luo led Ci Yue into the carriage.
Inside, the carriage was filled with mechanical instruments that Ci Yue couldn’t understand. Although these devices seemed technologically primitive, they appeared to serve significant purposes.
“Ci Yue, fasten your seatbelt. There will be intense vibrations ahead,” Xing Luo warned.
Ci Yue didn’t dare doubt her and complied. She looked out the window; the townsfolk were standing far away from the train.
“Xing Luo! When will you come back here?” Zhang Pei knocked on the window and shouted loudly from outside.
“After everything is over,” Xing Luo replied with a meaningful tone.
The train began to move forward slowly.
“Where are we going?” Ci Yue asked anxiously.
“Song City, our capital.”
Xing Luo adjusted the dizzying array of mechanical controls from her seat. The red signal lights flashed continuously, making Ci Yue nervous.
“Cough, cough, Ci Yue, brace yourself mentally—don’t get sick. But since you’re an S-rank Magic Girl, it shouldn’t be a big problem, maybe just a little dizziness.”
The train’s speed increased steadily, approaching the end of the railway track.
Ssssss—
Ci Yue heard a strange sound. After it faded, the light outside went out, plunging everything into darkness, as if the train had entered a pitch-black tunnel where one couldn’t even see their own hands.
The interior lights flickered on, but the dim glow could not pierce the wall-like darkness outside the windows.
But it wasn’t over yet. Ci Yue felt herself gradually losing weightlessness—just like the time Rin Xing had teleported her.
The train was entering a Space Tunnel.
When the scenery returned outside the window, the train began to shake violently.
A tremendous pressure squeezed the train forward, and Ci Yue fought hard to resist the overload, unable to spare attention for the bizarre sights flashing by.
This invisible force lasted about ten seconds, and the train’s motion within the folded space gradually steadied, as if it had settled onto a predetermined track.
“How do you feel, Ci Yue?” Xing Luo asked, already accustomed to the sensation and unaffected.
“Not bad, I guess……”
***
Outside the window, a blue glow spread. Amid the lights, vague shapes of other artificial objects could be made out.
It seemed the Northeasterners had mastered space-warping technology and could operate in higher-dimensional space…
“We’re almost there.”
There was a clattering sound from beneath the floor. The floating train reconnected with solid tracks, slowing down, and then exited the tunnel.
Ci Yue didn’t see exactly how they came out; in the blink of an eye, they returned to the normal space and entered a genuine, tangible tunnel.
The train stopped at an underground platform, where many workers were already waiting to unload.
“This is Song City. From now on, follow my orders exactly and don’t wander around,” Xing Luo became serious and took out a pair of handcuffs, cuffing Ci Yue’s wrists.
“The Heart of Magic isn’t on me, so even if I wanted to run, I can’t. You don’t have to worry…”
After Xing Luo showed her identification and passed the checkpoint, they officially arrived in Song City.
Ci Yue had never seen such an enormous underground structure. Neither the Yanling Defense Line’s Underground Fortress nor the Jing’an City’s underground command center could compare.
The city was three hundred meters tall and spanned ten kilometers in diameter, with hundreds of load-bearing pillars standing throughout.
On these pillars hung livable buildings—these buildings clung to the pillars like branches to a tree trunk, extending and intersecting in midair.
The streets were crowded with people of all kinds: old and young, men and women, though most were young.
The lights and illumination never ceased here, full of life. Undoubtedly, this was a true Underground City.
“Amazing. Northeasterners still have so many survivors… How did you manage to build this city?” Ci Yue asked.
“That’s thanks to our predecessors, the First Generation Magic Girls of the Northeast. Twenty years ago, they established order, restarted production, and saved countless survivors. Without them, we wouldn’t be here today.”
Xing Luo and Ci Yue walked down the streets, passing people who looked at them with reverence. Here, Magic Girls were always respected.
“How many survivors do you have? Given the size of this city, you must have no fewer than one hundred thousand.”
“More than that. According to the latest Population Census, Song City already has three hundred thousand.”
“To support so many people and maintain such a large-scale Underground City, how do you manage?”
“That question… never mind, I’ll tell you. We tamed the Beasts over a decade ago. They’re a very special existence—they don’t consume anything but can provide us with endless labor and energy.”
“The vast underground space was all made possible thanks to the Beasts. Besides, we have two more cities like this.”
“We have two more?”
“Exactly. That’s a million people! The mainland hasn’t even discovered you—what a miracle. How did you manage that?”
“Hmph.” Xing Luo didn’t want to talk about that topic.
“Ah, Senior Xing Luo! You’ve finally returned!”
Above them, a Magic Girl in military uniform landed.
“Hmm, this one behind me is in your hands now,” Xing Luo said, uncuffing Ci Yue.
Ci Yue was confused.
“Xing Luo, what’s going on?”
The military-clad Magic Girl suddenly restrained Ci Yue with her hands behind her back. Before Ci Yue could ask further, a hood was pulled over her head, and she was escorted away.
“Take good care of her,” Xing Luo said to the girl as a parting remark.
“Hey, hey, hey! Where are you taking me?”
Blindfolded by the hood, Ci Yue couldn’t see the way and was roughly pushed along by the girl, unsure of where she was going.
“Little sister, who are you? Can we stop and talk?”
Ci Yue was speechless at the girl’s rough attitude. Xing Luo and Zhang Pei had treated her well before; why was it so different here…?
“You’re our enemy. I won’t tell you any information!” the military girl said sternly.
Ci Yue was locked inside a cell, with the military girl standing guard outside.
“You’re not allowed to speak!”
“Alright.”