132: Chapter 132 Crossing the Abyss

The storm churned within the abyss.

Lin Ye stood on the edge of the cliff, his right arm held level.

The Black Rock Plaza on the opposite bank was half-obscured by white mist.

Zhao Mengmeng stood behind him to the right, her crossbow held in reverse, the mechanism of her Wind-Chasing Claw cocked.

She stared at the churning black abyss beneath her feet, her throat feeling parched.

"Brother Lin, is it too late for me to regret this now?"

"Too late, the ticket's already bought." Lin Ye didn't look back, his gaze locked onto the wind currents of the abyss.

"Can you get a refund for this piece-of-junk vehicle?"

"Jump first, we'll talk later."

Near the cliff face, Challengers of all nationalities were staring at the two of them.

On the USA's high ground, a burly white man gripped his bone spear, his gaze nailed to the equipment on Lin Ye's right arm.

The sole remaining survivor from France was still slumped on the ice, face ashen.

At the India camp, two Challengers were lying prone behind an icy rock diagonally to the rear.

The tall, thin man clutched a bone bow, his eyes fixed on the animal skins and backpacks of the two from Great Xia.

The Giant Tower was right before their eyes; no one wanted to let a competitor seize the advantage of the entrance.

Lin Ye's left eye opened momentarily.

Within his retina, the crimson currents in the abyss shredded each other, then swirled back at high speed in mid-air.

Several green rifts representing paths of survival interwove among them, their positions and angles changing every second with the gale.

The first survival point appeared.

Thirty-two meters to the front right, on the back side of a suspended ice pillar.

The window of opportunity was less than two seconds.

"Jump."

Lin Ye tensed his right arm.

The first anchor fired, biting precisely into a rock crevice diagonally below the cliff face.

The second anchor split the wind, nailing diagonally into the base of the suspended ice pillar.

The Nano-wire pulled taut, emitting a sharp, short whistle.

Lin Ye controlled the main line tightly with his right hand, while his left hand gripped Zhao Mengmeng's windproof harness firmly, taking her with him as he rushed straight off the cliff.

The gale hit their faces.

The two were enveloped by the crosswinds of the abyss, their thick storm-bear skins flapping violently.

Borrowing the tension of the main line, Lin Ye's body swung fiercely outward, following the lifting arc of the air currents.

A lateral hurricane surged up, violently pushing the two toward the first suspended ice pillar.

Zhao Mengmeng's entire body was flung outward by inertia.

Beneath her was nothing but white mist and the bottomless black abyss.

"Steady!" Lin Ye roared.

Zhao Mengmeng suddenly contracted her waist and abdomen, the metal mechanism of her Wind-Chasing Claw on her right arm hooking into the armor belt at Lin Ye's side.

Using the hard pulling force of the buckle, she forcefully dragged her shifted center of gravity back.

They arrived at the first ice pillar.

The base of the ice pillar was only half-waist thick, covered in cracks, standing suspended in the middle of the abyss.

Lin Ye's combat boot tapped the side of the ice pillar, and the Dark Weaver's second set of anchors retracted forcefully in relay.

The two used the momentum to catapult toward the depths of the abyss.

At the very same instant they jumped.

On the cliff top behind them, a bowstring vibrated.

The tall, thin man from India released his fingers.

A bone arrow cut through the snow.

The arrow tip was not aimed at Lin Ye. Lin Ye's two changes in direction were too fast; the bow and arrow couldn't track his trajectory at all.

The arrowhead was locked onto Zhao Mengmeng's back, who was on the edge of the tail-swinging suspension.

The man curled his lips, staring fixedly at mid-air.

The sound of wind breaking reached his ears.

Suspended in the air, Zhao Mengmeng was completely unable to turn around.

Lin Ye did not look back.

His left hand drew the damaged Fire Axe, using the power of his waist and abdomen to throw it violently behind him, following the wind direction.

The axe body tumbled in the storm.

Bang!

The broad back of the axe precisely smashed the bone arrow in mid-air, scattering wood fragments everywhere.

The Fire Axe's momentum remained undiminished, borrowing the swirling air currents to slash violently back toward the edge of the cliff top.

Boom!

The blade edge smashed heavily into the protruding ice beneath the tall, thin man's feet.

This piece of ice rock had long been hollowed out by the cliff winds and could not withstand such a violent blow.

The sound of ice cracking exploded.

The entire rock face collapsed.

The man from India stepped into empty air, his hands grabbing wildly, only clawing at a handful of snow dust.

A shrill scream pierced the long wind.

He plummeted straight into the black abyss along with the broken ice.

The other Challenger from India nearby scrambled back into a crevice behind them.

His face pressed against the ice, he didn't even dare to breathe.

The Great Xia Live Stream chat was flooded with bullet comments.

[Shooting cold arrows? Die, you bastard!]

[Completing a physical counter-kill without even looking back! Now that's what I call skill!]

[Come out and bark, India! Weren't you quite good at being sneaky just now?]

The India Livestream chat was filled with wails of despair.

[Impossible! Does he have eyes in the back of his head!?]

[How could the Fire Axe just happen to smash through the ice layer like that!?]

Above the abyss, Lin Ye grabbed the main line firmly again with his left hand.

The second green rift appeared.

A full half-second earlier than predicted.

The wind layer below erupted violently.

The second ice pillar, acting as the load-bearing springboard, was slashed and shattered by a back-flowing bottom wind.

Millions of ice crystals exploded, filling the sky.

The forward anchor lost its grip.

The tension of the Nano-wire was suddenly lost.

Zhao Mengmeng's body sank, weighed down by her backpack, falling half a meter toward the abyss below.

"Lin Ye!"

Lin Ye's right arm muscles bulged, and the newly formed scabs on the web of his hand split open again.

The gears of the Dark Weaver bracer ground against each other, emitting a dry, dying sound.

His left eye opened instantly.

Dense red zones filled his retina.

The original route was already sealed off.

At a ninety-degree angle to the left, three green rifts flashed in succession.

The first was fleeting.

The second was extremely narrow.

The third was rolling inward along the outer edge of the ice wall.

There was only one chance left to force a change in course.

Lin Ye swept his right arm outward.

Swish! Swish! Swish!

Three spare anchors fired in rapid succession.

The first pierced deep into the inverted ice spikes on the left.

The second grazed the crosswind and nailed into a broken rock tooth in mid-air.

The third flew over their heads, folding back to bite firmly into a protruding black rock ridge high above.

The metal mechanism locked.

Lin Ye decisively released the old main line that had lost its tension.

The sensation of weightlessness came to an abrupt end.

All three sets of new lines retracted violently at the same time.

The two bodies completed a stiff, extreme hard turn in mid-air.

A ninety-degree change of direction.

Zhao Mengmeng felt her internal organs being flung up to her throat; she hung sideways beside Lin Ye, the storm-bear skin swirling wildly in the wind.

All the Challengers on the cliff top froze.

The bone spear that the burly man from the USA had intended to use to take advantage of the situation quietly dropped.

He had been waiting for Lin Ye to fall into the bottomless pit.

Yet this man from Great Xia had pulled off a ninety-degree right-angle turn in the eye of the storm that defied the laws of physics.

"What a fucking monster," his companion cursed in a low voice.

A shrill, long howl tore through the lower levels of the abyss.

Zhao Mengmeng had just stabilized her body using the harness when she caught a glimpse of a black shadow deep within the white mist.

An Ice-Armored Flying Beast was rushing into the sky along the air currents at high speed.

With a four-meter wingspan, its armor was made of thin ice.

Dark cyan slime dripped from its maw, which was filled with barbs.

It had locked its eyes on the new living targets in the sky.

"Mengmeng!"

"Leave it to me!"

Zhao Mengmeng tightened her waist and abdomen, forcefully pulling herself straight using the armor belt.

With a backhanded pull, she fiercely brought the crossbow up in front of her.

The flying beast had already swooped into the ten-meter limit range.

Zhao Mengmeng faced the direction of the flying beast's roaring wind and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Swish! Swish! Swish!

Three wooden arrows shot out in succession.

The first arrow was deflected by the air current, grazing the flying beast's bone armor and exploding into ice shards.

The second arrow pierced into its open upper jawbone, the arrow shaft snapping on the spot.

The third arrow was perfectly aimed; following the gap of its raised head, it drove straight through its throat.

The scream was cut short by the wooden arrow.

The flying beast tumbled crazily in mid-air, diving headfirst back into the surging white mist below.

The Great Xia Live Stream boiled over again.

[Zhao Mengmeng's three shots were legendary!]

[Perfect coordination! A desperate counter-kill!]

The falling flying beast disrupted the airflow in the final segment.

The Black Rock Plaza on the opposite bank was just forty meters away.

Lin Ye's left eye opened for a split second.

Only one last path of survival remained.

The back-flowing wind pressure below would surge upward violently in three seconds.

If they missed these few seconds, the crosscutting wind blades would smash them to death right there on the near cliff face.

"Hold on tight."

"Are we jumping this time?" Zhao Mengmeng tightened the buckle of her Wind-Chasing Claw.

"We're smashing through."

Lin Ye released the two laterally fixed secondary lines, leaving only the main line.

The back-flowing wind erupted as expected.

Their bodies were lifted by the lower air currents, and their gliding speed climbed.

The edge of the Black Rock Plaza on the opposite bank expanded violently in their field of vision.

Lin Ye fired the last anchor.

It drove deep into a rock crevice on the outer edge of the plaza.

The winch retracted to its limit.

The barely visible Nano-wire pulled taut with a piercing screech.

The two were dragged straight toward the black rock by the terrifying pulling force of the bracer.

Bang!

Lin Ye was the first to slam into the surface of the plaza's outer edge.

His shoulders and back scraped heavily against the uneven stone surface, the thick storm-bear skin carving out two deep, pale gouges.

Zhao Mengmeng followed closely behind, slamming down.

Her body rolled on the ground to dissipate the force, sliding three meters before she could barely steady herself.

A few pieces of dried meat bounced out of her backpack opening; she backhanded them and pressed them firmly in her palm.

Lin Ye released the mechanism and stood up, bracing himself on the black rock with one knee.

Blood beads dripped from his bracer, instantly frosting over.

Behind him, the raging waves of the bottomless abyss were still roaring.

He did not look back to see those people on the opposite bank who were blocked by the chasm.

He turned and moved forward.

At the end of the Black Rock Plaza, a massive, ancient Giant Tower pierced straight into the clouds.