Ren Yi followed Dr. Lin onto the subway train.
He had noticed something unusual about this train while they were still on the platform.
Not a single light was on inside the carriages. From the outside, it looked like a row of airtight black boxes; at first glance, it appeared to be an empty train.
Under the fluorescent lights of the platform, the train's windows only showed the harsh glare of reflected light and their own reflections. Even his perception was firmly blocked by the platform screen doors.
It wasn't until he stepped inside the carriage that the invisible barrier to his senses suddenly vanished, allowing his perception to spread throughout the train.
Then, Ren Yi's movements faltered.
This was not an empty train.
The carriage was deathly silent, yet on the long, parallel benches on both sides, rows of people sat in perfect order.
They were packed tightly together, shoulder to shoulder, exactly filling every single seat without leaving a gap.
The platform lights filtered through the windows, casting dappled shadows over them and illuminating faces with eyes tightly shut and heads hanging low.
Their necks were completely limp, their chins nearly touching their chests. This was why Ren Yi hadn't noticed a single soul from outside the train.
For a moment, Ren Yi thought these people were dead, but then he caught sight of their chests slightly rising and falling, proving they were still breathing.
This train seemed to be transporting a cargo of soulless shells.
Ren Yi took two steps forward and suddenly felt the surrounding air grow stagnant.
It wasn't a physical stagnation. After sensing it for a moment, a strange realization dawned on him.
He was unable to take any proactive, subjective action to harm these "shells," including the use of his abilities.
Is this... a Restriction Rule?
This feeling was similar to the "do not move for a certain period" rule in the previous Escape Room Instance, or the "mind your identity" rule in the Lu Family Courtyard.
However, those Restriction Rules certainly hadn't been issued by the Alliance.
All Restriction Rules had only one source: the enemy world's will.
For a second, Ren Yi thought he had accidentally stumbled into some other Anomaly's Instance. But when he opened the Anomaly Web to check, the screen was clean, with no relevant prompts.
But since being "kidnapped" by Azure in the Three Cities World and hearing the conversation between Dr. Lin and his brother just now, Ren Yi felt that the so-called "system prompts" given by the Anomaly Web weren't entirely trustworthy either.
Now, even when the enemy world's will had appeared, the Anomaly Web still had no reaction.
Big boss, are you really reliable?
Just then, Dr. Lin had already swaggered over to a row of seats.
He spoke nonchalantly to the passenger sitting at the very end.
"Ahem, excuse me, sir. It seems you're sitting in the priority seating."
"Respecting the elderly and loving the young is a traditional virtue in every world. We have a child here, and a patient. Do you think you could do us a favor and give up your seat?"
Naturally, the passenger with the bowed head gave no response.
Dr. Lin wasn't embarrassed; he simply continued to himself, "I'll count to three. If you don't say anything, I'll take that as a yes."
"Three, two, one... thank you for your virtue!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he immediately took action, manually yanking three passengers from the adjacent seats like they were sacks of grain. With three thuds, they were dumped onto the floor.
He brushed off non-existent dust from his hands, turned around, and made an elegant "after you" gesture toward Ren Yi and Ren Man.
Ren Yi stared blankly at Dr. Lin's series of maneuvers.
But it was true; asking someone to give up a seat shouldn't count as a subjective act of harm.
Ren Yi looked up at Ren Man and saw that his brother also wore a look of bewildered confusion.
Ultimately, he decided to follow Dr. Lin's lead and obediently sat in one of the vacated seats.
The doors slid shut with a soft hiss, and the train began to accelerate, the carriage jolting slightly.
The unconscious "shells" on the seats swayed gently with the rhythm of the jolts, their heads occasionally bumping against the back of the carriage. The originally eerie and terrifying scene took on a strangely comical air.
No, actually, they had been a bit funny from the start. As for why...
Ren Yi looked left and right, finally resting his gaze on the three passengers Dr. Lin had tossed to the floor, who were currently lying there like corpses.
The one on the far left—the passenger who had originally been in the priority seat—was the most "dazzling" of the three.
He was covered in several places by incredibly flashy dark red mechanical structures, which tightly encased his legs, arms, waist, chest, and the upper half of his face.
He looked exactly like an Armor Hero straight out of a special effects drama.
The one in the middle was the exact opposite. His face was pale and delicate, his features refined. He had long, jet-black hair tied in a bun and wore a moon-white robe with flowing sleeves, looking like a graceful young lord from ancient times.
As for the last one, he looked relatively miserable.
He was dressed quite modernly in a black jacket and jeans, but for some reason, he was covered in grime, with a streak of half-dried blood at the corner of his mouth.
At a glance, Ren Yi could see many dense, variously sized wounds on his body that looked like they had been sliced by sharp objects.
Coupled with his tightly shut eyes and expressionless face, with only his chest still rising and falling, one could only say this brother was succeeding brilliantly at cosplaying a corpse.
Of course, none of that was the main point.
The point was that these three—an Armor Hero, a dandy lord, and a battle-worn Participant...
None of them looked like they could possibly come from the same world.
Ren Yi glanced further down the carriage. The view was a colorful, kaleidoscopic mess, making the terrifying scene of a train full of husks feel somewhat abstract.
However, the carriages near them were the most chaotic. In the carriages further away, the "people's" art style was at least somewhat consistent, looking like they were from the same era.
Ren Yi fought to keep his expression from twisting and looked at Ren Man, hoping for some reaction from his brother.
But Ren Man had returned to that state of dazed eyes staring straight ahead, maintaining a perfect facade of being completely unfazed.
So Ren Yi could only turn to stare at Dr. Lin, his eyes conveying the question: "What is going on?"
"Relax," Dr. Lin glanced at him and slowly made a calming gesture with his hand. "It's just an Instance transport vehicle."
"We're just hitching a ride. It's a small matter, a small matter."
Rate on N.U.
