133: Chapter 133 Standoff Before the Giant Tower

The Nano-wire retracted from above the abyss, strand by strand.

The ice powder it brought back struck the armguard's casing with a crisp, fine sound.

Zhao Mengmeng lay prone on the black rock ground, half her body numb, her backpack pressing down on her chest, making it hard to breathe.

Lin Ye grabbed her by the back of her collar with one hand and hauled her up from the ground.

Zhao Mengmeng's legs were still trembling, but she remained stubborn.

"I'm leaving a bad review for this ride. The driver is risking their life, and the passenger is too."

Lin Ye kicked the few scattered pieces of dried meat back to her feet.

"It's good enough that you're off the ride; don't be picky about the seat."

Zhao Mengmeng scooped up the dried meat and stuffed it back into her bag.

Her gaze crossed over Lin Ye's shoulder, casting toward the abyss behind them.

The Challengers on the opposite bank were still at the cliff's edge.

Separated by the rolling white mist, dozens of gazes pierced through the abyss, locking directly onto the two of them.

Greed, wariness, anger, and the agitation caused by the successful forced crossing.

"They can't get across, right?" Zhao Mengmeng asked in a low voice.

Lin Ye didn't answer.

He pulled Zhao Mengmeng and retreated rapidly.

They circled into the shadow of a massive stone stele on the edge of the black rock plaza.

The stele was nearly ten meters high, covered in ice, with its lower half deeply embedded in the black rock foundation.

Lin Ye leaned against the cold stele and touched the launch port of the Dark Weaver.

The anchor slot was one-third full.

The Nano-wire had been fully retracted, but the high-frequency engine casing inside the armguard was already scorching hot.

Zhao Mengmeng crouched on the other side.

The crossbow rested on her knees, its bolt aimed at the edge of the abyss.

She wiped the ice shards off her face, her voice hoarse.

"That grandson from India who shot the sneak arrow earlier, I really want to put two bolts into his ancestral grave."

"He's already gone down."

"Too good for him."

Lin Ye peeked out with half his vision, looking toward the Giant Tower.

The black rock plaza was enormous and circular in shape.

The ground was paved with dark blue-black stone bricks, the gaps filled with hard, perennial ice.

In the distance, dozens of broken metal columns stood, slanted into the plaza.

At the far end of the plaza.

The main gate at the base of the Giant Tower stood tall in the wind and snow.

The gate was dozens of meters high, its bronze-colored metal surface etched with intricate patterns.

On either side of the gate crouched a massive stone sculpture of an exotic beast.

Layers of ice sealed the stone bodies, revealing only the vague outlines of their heads and the bone spines on their backs.

Lin Ye closed his right eye.

His Left Eye snapped open.

The moment his retina touched the Giant Tower, his eyeball felt like it was being pricked by needles.

In front of the Giant Tower's main gate.

A patch of dark red light occupied the space between the ground and the door pillars.

The red light spread out in a flat plane, covering a vast area.

The edges were interwoven with dense linear patterns.

Less than half a second.

Lin Ye closed his Left Eye.

The veins under the skin of his temples bulged and tightened.

Zhao Mengmeng caught the subtle change in his expression and lowered her voice.

"Is there a problem in front of the gate?"

"We can't be reckless."

"How reckless?"

"Whoever rushes in first, will be attending their own funeral."

Zhao Mengmeng immediately shut her mouth.

Inside the Great Xia Live Stream, the barrage was still rolling frantically.

[ I didn't dare blink the whole time, afraid that if I did, they'd be gone. ]

[ Something's wrong with the entrance of this Giant Tower too; even Brother Eye doesn't dare to go up directly. ]

[ Don't rush, let those people from foreign networks who are eager to die scout the way. ]

[ That big guy from the USA on the other side is still watching. Watching what? Even if he keeps watching, Brother Eye will still get there first! ]

The USA livestream was already in an uproar.

[ Blake, you can't let the Great Xia people have the Giant Tower all to themselves! ]

[ He has a way to get across! He's been observing the wind shear for a long time! ]

[ The Great Xia people rely on equipment, we rely on strength! ]

[ Shut up, wasn't it fast enough how those people from France died just now? ]

On the cliff edge of the opposite bank.

The white, burly man from the USA crouched beside the corpse of an exotic beast.

He was nearly two meters tall, with broad shoulders and a thick back; his exposed arms were covered in old frostbite scars.

Before entering the Void Sea, he was a champion of the USA extreme obstacle race and came from a military high-altitude cold-weather training camp.

Living until now was certainly not by luck.

He stared at the trajectory Lin Ye had used to cross, his brain frantically deducing the position of the back-flowing wind.

The Great Xia person used an anchor and wire to borrow the wind.

He didn't.

But he had other chips.

The burly man pulled out a short knife and forcefully carved out the widest ribs from the chests of two exotic beasts.

He used tough beast tendons to bind the ribs to the outsides of his arms, violently spreading out that extremely wide beast-skin cloak.

He was going to make wings.

His companion's face turned pale.

"If you fall, you won't even be able to find your bones."

The burly man cursed.

"If I don't get across, my life will be snatched away by that bunch of Great Xia people."

The Giant Tower was right before his eyes.

Entering first meant the top-tier resources.

He knew even better that the Great Xia man's storm bear skin and dried meat were all lifelines.

He would absolutely not stay on the opposite bank as a spectator.

The moment the back-flow appeared in the lower layer of the storm.

The burly man moved.

He sprinted, dragging the beast-skin cloak.

His heavy boots shattered the ice shell on the edge of the cliff, and he leaped out from the very outer rim.

He didn't charge straight to the opposite bank.

Instead, he lunged diagonally toward the left side of the abyss.

The back-flowing gale hit the open beast-skin from underneath.

The massive lift forcefully hoisted his two-hundred-plus-pound body.

In mid-air, like a giant bat facing the wind, he glided along the airflow toward a half-suspended ice platform.

Bang!

He slammed heavily onto the edge of the ice platform.

His right shoulder shattered ice crystals, and blood splattered out.

He scrambled to stabilize his center of gravity, kicked the ice surface until it cracked, and leaped again.

A second upward whirlwind cut in.

He used the momentum to go up again, his trajectory rising.

For the last dozen meters, the beast-skin couldn't withstand the wind pressure and ripped open in the middle with a tearing sound.

The lift was lost instantly, and his body plummeted rapidly.

The burly man roared.

He stretched out his arms.

His ten fingers, like iron hooks, clawed into the protruding stone edge of the black rock plaza on the opposite bank.

Most of his body hung over the black abyss.

The muscles in his arms bulged, veins popping out.

Hard-carrying the downward force, he dragged himself onto the plaza, inch by inch.

The burly man collapsed on the ground, gasping heavily.

Blood foam spilled from the corners of his mouth.

A light screen appeared beside him.

[ Nationality: USA ]

He raised his head, looked at Lin Ye in the shadow of the stele, and pulled out an extremely fierce smile.

The Great Xia Live Stream barrage exploded.

[ Damn, this big guy from the USA actually flew over! ]

[ He's got a tough life; he almost became a high-altitude projectile and still managed to crawl up. ]

[ Don't hype him up; he came over specifically for Brother Eye. ]

[ If he dares to reach out, Brother Eye will chop his hand off all the same. ]

Lin Ye watched the person from the USA land, his hand gripping the axe remaining steady as a rock.

Zhao Mengmeng gently raised the crossbow's muzzle.

"Shoot now?"

"The distance is far, the wind is chaotic, save the bolts."

"He's got his eyes on us."

"It's not just him."

Just as the words fell.

From below the cliff on the right side of the abyss, a dull chiseling sound came.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

No matter how loud the wind was, it couldn't cut through this cold, heavy rhythm.

Zhao Mengmeng leaned out to look.

A large hand, covered in frostbite and bloody wounds, reached out from the edge of the abyss.

Following that was a rough, heavy bone pickaxe.

A Challenger from Russia climbed up from the inside of the abyss cliff.

The light screen flickered.

[ Nationality: Russia ]

His beard was covered in frost.

Half his face was frozen blue and purple.

The skin on the back of his hands was torn, covered in bloody grooves from being cut by the ice wall.

He didn't borrow the wind.

He didn't use gliding.

He relied solely on a bone pickaxe, chiseling ice and gouging snow from the blind spot of the cliff, climbing inch by inch across this natural chasm of several hundred meters.

The crosswind sliced his flesh, and the toxic cold pierced his bones.

He carried through with pure endurance and ferocity.

The burly man from Russia climbed onto the plaza.

He knelt on one knee, his bone pickaxe slamming heavily onto the stone slab.

The Russia livestream was boiling with excitement.

[ Ivan! Stand up! ]

[ This is Russia! Using their hands to gouge through the abyss cliff! ]

[ The Great Xia people rely on equipment, the USA people can fly, we use chisels to open the path! ]

Ivan looked up at the Giant Tower.

His gaze swept over Lin Ye.

No provocation.

He just brushed the ice chips off his chest, dragged his bone pickaxe, and walked toward another black rock cover.

Immediately after.

The last remaining elite from France also moved.

Abandoning the previous deadly grappling rope.

He cut the rope into three sections.

Timing the few seconds of dead zone when the wind current weakened, he swung continuously and extremely between the overhanging cliffs.

During the first braking, the skin on his palms peeled off.

The second time, his lower leg slammed heavily into an ice pillar, his knee twisting and deforming.

During the third crosswind assault, he bit down hard on the auxiliary rope with his teeth, his mouth full of blood, only then avoiding falling into the abyss.

When he climbed onto the plaza.

The light screen lit up.

[ Nationality: France ]

The person from France collapsed on the ground, unable to stand up for a long time.

Two Challengers from United Kingdom arrived shortly after.

Using ice spikes as anchors, they tightly fastened the beast-tendon rope.

With the relay-pulling of their companions on the opposite bank, they slid down the middle ice beam and then climbed up the edge against the wind.

One of them vomited immediately upon landing, the filth freezing as it hit the ground.

On the opposite bank.

The last remaining Challenger from India didn't move.

Having seen with his own eyes his companion be chopped down into the abyss by Lin Ye's axe, his courage was shattered.

He lay prone behind the ice rock, not even daring to raise his head.

On the plaza.

The living people gathered more and more.

The burly man from the USA.

The burly man from Russia.

One person from France.

Two people from United Kingdom.

And two Challengers from small countries who had circled up from some dead-end path, covered in blood.

Lin Ye and Zhao Mengmeng were still the first group to arrive.

But the first-mover advantage was being wiped out.

None of those who could cross this abyss were weaklings.

They had carried through beast tides, avoided toxic miasma, and passed through ice storms.

Dragging bodies full of blood, they all gathered in front of the Giant Tower.

The plaza fell into dead silence.

The various groups of people occupied different ice rocks.

Separated from each other by thirty to fifty meters.

Bone spears, heavy pickaxes, crossbows, sharp short knives.

All were drawn in the shadows.

Zhao Mengmeng swallowed her saliva and cursed in a low voice.

"Well, the whole table of tough dishes has arrived."

Lin Ye stared at the wide open space in front of the gate, the tattered Fire Axe resting on his knees.

"Tough dishes, but no one dares to use their chopsticks yet."