Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Runaway Train

"Woo woo woo, clang clang—"

On the railway surrounded by pristine snowy mountains, the whistle of the old-fashioned train echoed from afar, reverberating faintly over the snow-laden peaks.

A long steel cable hung down from a summit, spanning a hundred meters in height, its other end anchored to the mountainside across the valley, directly above the tracks below.

"This should feel a bit like swinging," Kyle shrugged, standing at the edge of the high peak, gripping the iron ring mechanism attached to the cable.

Steve cautioned, "Be careful. If we miss the ten-second window, the train will hit us dead on."

"Alright, I'll time it right," Bucky nodded. Unlike the super soldier, he lacked extraordinary physical prowess and carried energy weapons as his means of combat.

"Guys, ready!"

Fury, peering through binoculars, saw the enemy train appear below on the tracks and raised his voice, "It's moving fast, get ready—"

"Three, two, one, go!"

Fury's command had barely left his lips before Kyle leapt from the summit, sliding swiftly down the cable with the iron ring, Steve and Bucky close behind.

Whoosh!

Snow-laden winds whipped against Kyle, clad in black combat gear, as he cut through the blizzard.

He watched the train engine speed by beneath him, then released his grip, landing lightly atop the train’s central carriage.

Thump thump!

Steve and Bucky landed in turn, the train hurtling along, oblivious to their presence, the chasm beside the tracks plunging hundreds of meters down—a dizzying sight.

"Kyle, what's your plan?" Steve asked, knowing Kyle’s habits well; despite his rank as a major, he always preferred solo action in missions like these.

"Simple. I'll enter from the middle carriage and draw the guards' attention. You two push forward to the front and capture the target alive in the driver's cabin." Kyle spoke briskly and, not waiting for Steve's reply, swiftly climbed down the side of the carriage and forced his way inside.

Kyle had barely entered the train carriage when the warning alarms blared, energy weapons crackled, and the agonized cries of enemy soldiers echoed within.

Bucky shook his head atop the train, "Always the same—straightforward and brutal."

"Let's move," Steve, accustomed to it, gestured forward and kept low, using the roof as a passage toward the front carriages.

Inside the central carriage, beneath glaring lights.

Five heavily armed German guards lay cold and lifeless across the floor; some had their hands severed, others were cut clean in half, the luckier ones impaled through the heart.

Several energy weapons, glowing blue and smeared with blood, lay scattered. Most guards hadn't even managed to use these advanced arms before their lives were snuffed out.

Drip—

Kyle, expressionless and cold, gripped a bloodied longsword in his left hand, while his right vibranium bracer still smoked. His leather boots stepped slowly into the sticky crimson pool.

He glanced at the stacked supplies, then looked up, sensing something—toward the surveillance camera in the corner, its red light blinking weakly.

"Noticed me, have you?" Kyle's lips curled in a cold smile. He stooped, picked up a blue-glowing energy pistol from the floor, aimed, and pulled the trigger—a small blue laser shot out, reducing the camera to dust.

On the other end of the surveillance equipment—in the train’s main cabin.

A bald, bespectacled middle-aged professor and the train driver both showed raw, soul-deep terror in their eyes.

"The executioner is really here! We’re doomed, doomed... The guards can't stop him," the driver’s tongue seemed frozen, his trembling voice barely coherent.

Major Kyle of the U.S. Army was not only renowned across America but equally infamous in Germany.

His reputation was built atop thousands of German soldiers’ corpses. The German military hated him to the core, even considering carpet-bombing front-line positions to destroy him.

He haunted the German psyche like a nightmare; even the bravest, most iron-willed soldiers felt fear at the mere mention of "Kyle" before battle.

"Shut up! Send more guards to hold this main cabin!" The bald professor slapped the driver and, staring at the static-ridden monitor, his eyes behind the lenses flickered with madness. He muttered, "Good, just in time! Even if I die today, I'll drag you down to hell with me!"

After destroying the surveillance camera, Kyle scanned the carriage, beginning to loot supplies by extracting cards.

He preferred solo operations for two reasons: he carried too many secrets about the cards to risk exposure—even to Steve. And only when fighting alone could he seize high-quality enemy supplies and convert them into cards.

Especially with Germany’s Hydra organization developing new energy weapons, their military supplies often reached blue item card quality.

Rechargeable Laser Rifle, Enhanced Energy Pistol, Gem Energy Residue...

Everything within three meters appeared as extractable blue item cards before Kyle’s eyes.

"A whole crate of gem energy residue," Kyle blinked in delight—an unexpected windfall. Such a crate would yield nearly twenty-five blue item cards. Sometimes, even storming a base wouldn’t net half that amount as raw energy materials.

"Steve and Bucky should be able to take out the guards in the driver's cabin easily," Kyle murmured, while his mind worked without pause, extracting gem energy blocks from the crate at a rate of one every three seconds, storing them in his card space.

Over a minute passed without a single enemy guard interrupting his extraction rhythm.

Kyle finished, stood up, and suddenly the train shook violently, nearly knocking him off his feet.

"What’s happening?" Kyle frowned, quickly opening the carriage door and peering toward the train’s front.

He saw a massive breach torn open in the front carriage, thick smoke billowing from the driver’s cabin, flashes of crimson fire visible inside.

More importantly, the steel train was accelerating rapidly, soon exceeding its speed limit, sparks flying from the wheels as they ground against the tracks.