Crossing the portal, the group encountered a strange situation for the first time. Instead of being in a fixed place like a cave, a forest, or a desert, this time they were in a moving place.

Noah walked through the portal and felt the floor under his foot

/ feet start to move. It wasn't moving from one place to another, but moving up and down, as if the base was experiencing unevenness.

Looking around, he understood why he felt that way. It was due to the strange structure around them; they were inside a moving train.

When the last person walked through the portal, everyone was shocked by what they saw around them. In Rank E Fortresses there had been no such things. The monsters they had to deal with were too primitive to even build heavily fortified cities, but they already knew that there was a very low chance that there was a Fortress of a more advanced civilization among the Rank D Fortresses.

But the possibility was so low that even invading Rank D Fortresses for a few years, a Blessed person wouldn't necessarily find monsters that were so evolved as to show real intelligence, so the group didn't think they would be

"lucky

" enough to fall into a Fortress like this one.

The advantage of humans over monsters was often not even because of their physical prowess or more powerful spells that they possessed, but because of the greater intelligence and the higher and more coordinated communication that enabled them to gain an advantage against the monsters they faced. But in a Fortress like this, this advantage would not necessarily affect things as much. At least their group had a synergy like no other group they knew had, so they could be more relaxed when dealing with monsters; that advantage, thankfully, would be preserved.

Jasper had been a little concerned when he saw what the Fortress looked like, thinking how troublesome it would be to draw the attention of these monsters who not only responded with instincts, but also thought and made logical decisions. That was until he remembered that in this Fortress he wouldn't be the only one who would do this, since Noah would also help him, or rather, Noah would have to be the first to do this so Jasper could observe Noah's actions and incorporate them into the strategy he would use, since both of their methods were very different. While Jasper had to run towards the monsters and use his top speed to escape and his high agility to dodge projectiles, Noah moved instantly, which often made Jasper's eyes flash green with envy.

Noah glanced around the strange train they were on, and noticed that even though it was a train, the technology used on it was centuries behind the kind produced by humans. Just by the large amount of smoke that was being produced outside, probably going against literally all nature conservation laws, it was possible to say that even if the monsters that controlled this train were not stupid like the monsters they normally faced, they were also not as advanced as humanity had now become in their world.

This was not to say that Noah believed that all humans were very evolved, since while he was a Blessed Rank F, he had witnessed so much stupidity committed by humans that he sometimes even wondered if he really was the same species as those people.

Having stabilized and located a better position inside the train, the group went into formation. But, different from the formation they did in Rank E Fortresses, where Noah would be in the rear with the magicians and Jasper would be alone, this time Noah would be with Jasper while the rear had one wizard less than normal.

Noah had initially been called on to the team to fill a vacancy for a Blessed member of the group who died, and this person actually had the same role as Jasper on the team, so they were not so alien to this formation.

The train was poorly lit from the inside, apparently not even having an electric light. Noah supposed that whoever built this train actually didn't even have any knowledge of electrical power, so they used this big coal-powered train. At that moment, Noah was very grateful for the history video lessons he had watched while looking for possible useful content to know when he was going to invade Rank F Fortresses.

Because of the low lighting, the only light that illuminated the interior of the train was the light coming from the sun's rays through the glass windows and showing slightly the way for them to walk. As much as this was a primitive train, it was quite wide, allowing even 10 people to walk side by side inside the train without them feeling cramped, but another feature was that they just had a linear path to follow. Unlike forested Fortresses where they could choose the direction and ignore various monsters, in this Fortress that was not possible. They only had one way to go, and to proceed, they would probably have to kill all the monsters they encountered.

But this didn't disappear Noah at all, who urgently needed monsters to kill and earn exp to level up. He was only hoping internally that these monsters they encountered were not going to somehow crowd one of the coaches, which would make the invasion of this Fortress much more problematic since they would not be able to deal with the monsters gradually.

As they progressed, the first car that was filled with several empty chairs had come to an end. Noah, being the team's scout, went in front of the whole group and opened the door that led to the second car.

This second car was very different from the previous car they were in. In this car, instead of comfortable chairs for passengers to sit on, there were in fact several metal boxes stacked in a very disorganized way, which made the view of the end of the car completely obstructed. This was a bad sign when it came to how much information they had about the monsters they would have to deal with inside the car, but it was also a good sign that the monsters would not have sight and knowledge of them - that is, they could deal with the monsters in small groups and not turn this into a full-scale battle.

But still, there was something in Noah's mind that told him something was wrong. The more they walked along the train, the stranger he felt, because it didn't look like they were dealing with monsters, but rather that their enemies were something else, something he couldn't figure out what it was without seeing.

The group moved slowly. Noah was currently at 392 exp points out of the 400 points he needed to level up, so the only thing he wanted was for some monster to appear soon. He was very anxious to know what skill he would receive when leveling up, but to his frustration, even walking among the boxes for a few minutes, their group was unable to find a single monster.

But there was something else they hadn't been able to find either, and that thing was the edge of the car. At first they thought this was just a big car, a car of the train slightly larger than the previous car that was already quite big by human standards, but this car they were currently on seemed to have no end. They walked among the boxes for over 15 minutes and no end to the car appeared, which started to worry the group that, until now, did not even know what kind of opponent they were dealing with.

At some point they thought of trying to climb on top of the boxes so they could see the end of the car, but all the stacks of metal boxes went from floor to ceiling, leaving no room for anyone to look over and try to find a direction to go. They tried destroying the boxes, but even the Blessed nickname BigBull, with the great strength of a bull that he possessed, could not move the boxes just

/ more than a few centimeters. The more they walked through this slightly claustrophobic place, the more their anticipation and concern increased.

This was one of the biggest risks when dealing with monsters smarter than beasts that followed their own instincts, because just like humans, even though they were weaker physically, the tactics they applied to deal with enemies were more dangerous in another way. And as they imagined, now they had fallen directly into the trap of these monsters they were dealing with, and it was up to them alone to find a way out of this situation alive.

Suddenly, the strangeness they were feeling as they walked between the boxes for this seemingly infinite boxcar was replaced by a sense of danger as soon as they noticed the long mark of blood that was drawn along an intersecting path between the boxes. This brought the group into an impasse where they would have to make a decision.

Noah, who was at the front of the group, turned to the rest of the Blessed to ask,

"What should we do? This bloody line clearly demonstrates that we will find something to fight if we follow it, and possibly even find a way out. Ignoring this blood trail is the same thing as choosing safety and not wanting to meet with the possible Rank D monster that caused this trail of blood from his prey.

"

Hearing what Noah said, some Blessed ones who were not very confident when entering the Rank D Fortress considered ignoring the blood and trying to find a way out of the car by avoiding it for their safety.

But at that moment, Marcel thought differently from the others.

"We must follow the blood, otherwise we'll continue to walk aimlessly between these boxes, perhaps staying in this maze endlessly, where we might even end up starving to death or something. Following the blood trail will at least guarantee us to find a monster and a possible way out. After all, we didn't come here in search of a picnic in the park, but in search of blood, in search of monsters to kill and rewards to acquire!

"

Marcel's speech truly influenced the team's decision a lot, and as Noah had already noticed, Marcel was truly a good leader.

"And there we go,

" Noah said quietly as he looked at the blood trail on the floor that was apparently made by a creature that was being dragged with a large open wound.

Please read the author notes down here! :3 ↓↓↓