There was a limited amount of time before he had to return to the camp, so it was a relief when Finn finally found an entrance to the tunnel system. Distance disappeared in a flash, his legs pumping until he was standing over a huge body of water.

  Submerged was an opening clearly made for a person to walk through, except it was underwater. Plus the water itself was frozen. Walking over the hard surface, he approached the stone gate.

  Finn took a knee on the lake, resting his palm on the ice and starting to emit heat. This application of his power was becoming easier, but his speed and output were low. Enough to melt a frozen lake; not enough to be of any real use in combat.

  Water sizzled, steamed and boiled at his touch. He let himself sink into the rapidly cooling water, not bothering to keep himself from getting wet since there was no point. As a result, he plunged into the darkness, away from the light of the clouded gray sky.

  His liquid territory expanded with increasing waves of heat. The pace at which the ice melted was decent, though still rather slow. He swam deeper, floating hair trailing his head like a dark tail.

  For oxygen absorption and holding his breath, his capacity was definitely beyond baseline now. But he still preferred to be able to keep inhaling air, and it was with that thought in mind that he sent converted kinetic energy into his fist to speed up the process.

  Punching underwater wasn’t normally effective, but now that he was artificially inducing more velocity on his movements, which allowed him to fight through the water resistance and land an absolutely devastating hit on the ice. It cracked all throughout before giving.

  Bubbles rushed past him as the ice shattered above, fragments drifting away in the water. The force of his punch had sent a tremor through the lake, and Finn felt the shockwave ripple through his body. He took a moment to let the water settle before pushing himself forward, swimming into the submerged passageway.

  The tunnel was dark, oppressively so. He couldn’t see a thing in this lightless pitch black. Not a problem for his power in the slightest, but still interesting. It was an obvious sign of neglect. The place had obviously been built by humans; he could tell by the structure, even if the signs and text of the platform built here were faded.

  At the end, there was a short flight of stairs he climbed before rising out of the darkness. Water dripped off his body, soaked hair plastered to his face, he stood there, drying himself up with more heat during a few moments of contemplation.

  Going by the fact that he could detect nothing besides a long set of tracks in a tunnel adjacent to the platform, he was clearly in an underground train station—one that had been abandoned for decades.

  The last and most important clue was the glass-metal box right next to where he walked in. A ticket stand. The last roll of tickets was faded, but the logo on them was clear as day. Simplistic hands clasping each other in a ring, surrounding a spotty two-dimensional circle meant to represent Earth.

  It confirmed his guess as to what could have been behind this.

  Long ago, shortly after Apexia’s founding of her city, the governing bodies around the world decided that with the threat of primebeasts temporarily staved off and civilization coming back into some form of order, treaties and laws needed to be made that applied to everyone in order to pave the way for more frequent cooperation between countries. Every nation who’d managed to survive the initial onslaught became a member. From there, an organization formed for the sake of peace and expedited threat responses for the collective interest of humanity. The Global Accords.

  Resource exchange and intercontinental travel was a massive part of that. But with the open seas and skies teeming with superpowered animals, another method was necessary. Teleportation was too infrequent, as there were no consistent, reliable machines capable of that, and depending on superhumans to do that didn’t make for a sustainable network. Everyone had been at a loss.

  Until the vital discovery was made that primebeasts appeared with vastly less frequency beneath the soil in and out of human civilization.

  That had been such a key piece of information that it, in addition to various layers of safety precautions, had led to the inception of the Transcontinental Underground Railway. To this day, it saw active use from Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America.

  South America had likewise enjoyed the benefit of being able to travel the world in the comfort of highly advanced trains decked out in plenty of luxuries. Over half a century, it had been this way. Then Seraphim rose to power, and claimed the entire continent to be her own.

  Considering they had been at war for so long, Finn knew there was no chance that the subterranean route entering South America had not been barred. If not by Seraphim personally, then by her army.

  Not to mention the land-shaking titanic-class that had shifted the landscape, there was no telling how it had affected the tunnels, if at all. The seismic shocks had been formidable, but the tunnels were built to not collapse under extreme stress.

  The air underground carried a distinct, stale scent, the kind that clung to abandoned places long after people had stopped walking their halls. Finn exhaled slowly, sending a pulse of heat through his body to drive away the lingering dampness. His clothes had dried unevenly, but an extra pulse took care of the discomfort.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Ahead of him was the rest of the platform, eerily empty. Age had eaten away at its structure, leaving cracks in the reinforced stone. Discarded pamphlets, curled at the edges and yellowed with time, littered the floor. He caught faded words like “Global Transit Initiative” and “Safe, Seamless, Secure.”

  He supposed that didn't work out, not here.

  Finn stepped past the ticket stand, approaching the tracks. The tunnel gaped before him, an unbroken void. No distant flicker of emergency lighting. No hum of a functioning rail system. Just silence.

  Yet, he could feel it—the deep, layered construction beneath his feet. Reinforced steel. Protective barriers designed to withstand pressure, impact, even potential sabotage. The Transcontinental Underground Railway wasn’t just another method of travel; it had been humanity’s answer to the overwhelming threat of primebeasts dominating the surface. It was built to last.

  But that didn’t mean it was still intact.

  Crouching, he pressed palm against the cold stone. He sent a slow pulse of heat through it, not to melt, there was no hope of that even with his highest temperatures. But to feel, testing for fractures, weak points, any signs of damage that could compromise the integrity of the tunnel ahead. The warmth radiated outward, sinking into the material before bouncing back with the information he needed.

  Still solid. No major breaches in the immediate area. That was a good sign.

  He rose, glancing up at the old digital screen hanging overhead. The display had long since stopped functioning, but he could make out the remnants of travel routes burned into the glass. Miami to Apexia, Neo-Tokyo to Los Angeles, Dakar to Rio Metropolitano.

  That last one caught his attention.

  Rio Metropolitano. One of the last known strongholds in South America before Seraphim’s complete takeover. If there were any traces of the old resistance still embedded in the region, Finn imagined they would have centered themselves somewhere near there.

  It didn't matter right now. He had no intentions of traveling that far south.

  After all, he was here to scout for a potential way to travel north without risk. Unfortunately, he got the impression that it wasn’t to be. It depended on how far the train track extending past the reaches of his senses really went.

  He exhaled, the warmth of his breath vanishing into the cold air. There was only one way to be sure.

  Finn stepped onto the tracks, his worn boots pressing lightly against the aged steel. The tunnel stretched ahead of him, an abyss swallowing everything beyond the first few meters. He moved forward, his footsteps echoing faintly against the curved walls.

  The silence down here was suffocating, pressing against his ears like a physical force. He wasn’t afraid of the dark—his powers ensured he never had to be—but there was something unsettling about walking through a place once meant to carry thousands, now reduced to nothing but hollow remnants of the past.

  His fingers traced along the stone wall as he walked, the rough texture beneath his fingertips telling him more than his eyes ever could. Every so often, he sent a controlled pulse of heat outward, feeling for instability in the tunnel’s structure. So far, nothing concerning.

  Then he upped the tempo, going from walking to jogging, and from jogging to running. He wanted to see what was left here and whether they could use this to cover a lot of distance between his current location and wherever the tunnels were blocked off.

  Having such predictable, even terrain under his feet was amazing. He’d gotten used to pushing through the snow for the past few months, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed having to do that. Being able to just run unobstructed was far better. It also increased the speed he was able to achieve without reinforcement.

  At length, he spotted something kilometers ahead. A long car, its sleek and futuristic shape contrasting the state of disrepair it was in. And when he came closer, the other cars it was attached to revealed themselves to him. It was the train. He hadn’t expected it to be so close, or in the middle of the track for that matter. He’d expected it would be parked somewhere, maybe. He wasn’t sure.

  Actually getting to the train itself took some time. Disregarding his kinetic energy releases, he ran probably more than twice as fast as an olympic sprinter. That wasn’t a bad level of speed by any means, evidenced by his effective scouting missions.

  But it was still nothing compared to the speed these types of trains were capable of reaching when they were functional. It wasn’t even a third of that, making the quick sprint take longer than he would like. He needed to find something that would allow him to cover more ground in a short time.

  In the frontmost car, the one he registered last, he saw a… pile. On the coat rack of the driver’s compartment. Dark gray leather, it looked like, cut into a collection of belts and tangled together, as if made to resemble an odd facsimile of a robe.

  What made it promising to him, and the reason he approached it, however, was the distortion around it. Not quite an aura. Slight, a remnant’s impression on reality. Similar to artifacts, but not the same.

  Thankfully, the doors were open. There was no need to try and smash through them. He did have to jump to get in, seeing as the doors had been made to receive people from platform height, rather than down on the track.

  He landed lightly inside the train car, boots pressing against dust-coated flooring. The air inside was stale, carrying the lingering scent of metal and age, like time had settled into the space and refused to leave.

  Finn straightened, his gaze locking onto the anomaly hanging from the coat rack. Up close, the distortion around it became more pronounced, a subtle warping that sent an uneasy ripple through his senses. It wasn’t moving, wasn’t emitting any energy, but something about it felt off. Like it didn’t belong here.

  And there was no dust on it. None. Not a speck.

  Observing it in more detail, he noticed a method to the madness. The weaving was chaotic, but there was a pattern there, an underlying logic he didn’t comprehend. And the belts themselves looked brand new. No signs of wear, cracking or stiffness.

  Carefully, he raised a hand, drawing closer…

  It shot out at his throat, untangling in a monstrous leap to strangle him with ferocious intent. His hands found the dark leather and he fought with all his might to remove it.

  Patreon currently has 20 advance chapters. Click here if you want to read ahead.