136: Chapter 136 Gear Abyss

The booming sound of the massive bronze door closing rolled through the tower a dozen times before finally dying down.

The wind and snow outside vanished.

Darkness bore down upon them.

It was pitch black, so dark that one could not see their own hand, and even the sound of breathing was amplified infinitely.

Zhao Mengmeng pressed her back tightly against Lin Ye, holding the crossbow level with both hands.

"Brother Lin, is the ground under my feet solid?"

Lin Ye did not answer.

He gently rotated his right boot half a turn on the ground.

The sensation transmitted back through the sole of his boot was neither stone slab nor soil.

It was a suspended metal beam.

The surface was cold and smooth, with a width just enough for two combat boots side by side.

"Don't stay silent, this pitch-black darkness is creepy," Zhao Mengmeng said, her speech rapid.

"Don't move."

Lin Ye reached into the side pocket of his backpack and pulled out a piece of dry wood.

It was a dead branch brought from the Violent Bear's nest, its tip coated in a layer of solidified bear fat.

He aimed the back of his Bone Blade at the flint and scraped it heavily.

Sparks flew.

The bear fat was licked by tongues of fire, and a dark red flame suddenly flared up.

Lin Ye shielded the flame with his palm, and the light quickly stabilized, illuminating several meters around them.

Zhao Mengmeng looked down.

Her gaze fell along the edge of her boots.

There was no ground beneath their feet at all.

They were standing on a narrow, suspended metal beam extending outwards.

Below the beam was a vast, boundless cavity.

Massive clusters of gears rotated slowly in the depths of the darkness.

Thick metal central shafts ran through from top to bottom.

Interlaced transmission chains spanned in all directions.

Some giant gears exceeded ten meters in diameter, their teeth as thick as heavy rock, grinding against each other in opposite directions.

Deeper below, dark red heat spots flickered intermittently within the mechanical gaps.

The torchlight projected downwards, instantly shattered by the sharp metal edges.

"Does this crappy tower send us straight into a meat grinder upon entry?!" Zhao Mengmeng cursed.

The other Challengers inside the tower also saw the abyss beneath their feet, thanks to the light.

Someone retreated in horror, their back slamming with a thud against the locked bronze door.

The Challenger from the small country whose backpack had been kicked broken by Blake clung desperately to the door crack.

"Open the door! Open it quickly!"

Screams echoed.

The massive bronze door remained motionless.

An extremely faint, high-frequency tremor emanated from the metal beam beneath everyone's feet.

The dull, heavy sound of gears meshing followed immediately after.

The screen in the Great Xia Live Stream lit up.

This violent mechanical abyss was thrust directly before the eyes of global viewers.

[Holy crap! The inside of the tower is empty?!]

[No ground beneath their feet! One wrong step and they're straight-up meat paste!]

[What kind of wasteland heavy industrial hell is this!]

[Brother Eye's reaction is incredible; if he hadn't lit the fire, these people would have fallen in the dark just now!]

At the edge of the firelight.

Pierre, the Challenger from France with the crippled leg, pushed himself up from the ground.

With blood foam at the corner of his mouth, his eyes were locked on a horizontal transmission rod ahead.

Every six seconds, the transmission rod would sweep out from the shadows on the left.

Pierre quickly wrapped the rope tightly around his wrist twice.

He threw it out.

The noose accurately caught the end of the transmission rod.

The rod pulled him directly off the metal beam.

Pierre hung in mid-air, his crippled leg tracing a stiff arc as he swung defiantly across the darkness.

"That cripple really has guts!" Zhao Mengmeng lowered her voice.

Pierre released the noose in mid-air, his body slamming toward a ten-meter giant gear below.

He gripped the back of the gear tightly with one hand, forcing his body to slide to a stop against the metal surface.

The teeth rotating in the opposite direction at the bottom brushed past the soles of his boots.

Stabbing his short blade violently into the gear gap, he used the leverage to drag himself onto the central plane of the gear.

Lin Ye watched the Frenchman's landing spot, his gaze calm as water.

He was counting seconds.

The first group rotates clockwise, one revolution every twelve seconds.

The second group reverses and lifts, a twenty-one-second cycle.

The third group is slow-speed transmission, and the middle section will briefly stagger with the upper chain.

Seemingly chaotic, but actually precise.

Blake moved.

His right shoulder, which had split open when he pushed the door, was dripping blood.

He hoisted his bone spear and strode across the narrow beam.

Zhao Mengmeng suddenly raised the crossbow level.

Blake ignored the crossbow bolt.

He stomped heavily on the metal beam with both feet, his massive body leaping toward a rising gear on the right.

The bone spear swept horizontally, the tip scraping heavily against the metal pillar beside him.

Blinding sparks exploded.

Illuminating the side of his face as he turned his head.

"Watch slowly, Great Xia people."

Zhao Mengmeng pressed her thumb hard against the trigger: "Can I put a hole in him?"

"Save the bolt."

Lin Ye pressed down on her crossbow arm with one hand.

"He's in a hurry to open the way, let him go first."

Blake stood firm at the high point of the gear, his thumb pointing down, and he gestured heavily.

Lin Ye shoved the torch into Zhao Mengmeng's hand.

"Hold it steady, light the way ahead, don't shake it in my eyes."

"Understood."

Zhao Mengmeng held the fire with her left hand and gripped the Wind-Chasing Claw mechanism with her right.

Lin Ye raised his right arm.

The Dark Weaver launch slot mechanism opened fully.

His gaze locked onto a horizontal slow-speed shaft to his front left.

A nine-second load-bearing period.

The gap between the upper and lower gears had only a lethal two-second window.

The sound of bearing friction slid past twice in succession.

"Still not going?" Zhao Mengmeng's voice was tense.

"Wait."

Click.

A dull sound of metal grating emerged.

Lin Ye pressed his right arm down sharply.

Swish!

Two anchor points shot out, nailing firmly into the slow-speed shaft and the side wall protrusion.

The third one shot out in the opposite direction, biting firmly into the end of the beam beneath their feet.

The Nano-wire instantly pulled taut into a straight line.

Lin Ye grabbed Zhao Mengmeng's windproof strap tightly with his left hand.

"Jump."

The two of them leaped from the metal beam simultaneously.

The firelight left a blurred trail in mid-air.

The giant gears at the bottom roared as they reversed.

The sharp metal teeth swept wildly past the outer edges of their combat boots.

The Dark Weaver winch retracted at high speed.

Lin Ye carried Zhao Mengmeng as they slid rapidly down along the outer edge of the transmission shaft.

The first group of gears climbed to the highest point.

Lin Ye decisively cut the auxiliary line connection.

His combat boots landed heavily on the flat section of the gear.

Zhao Mengmeng landed half a step behind, bending her knees deeply to absorb the impact.

The giant gear beneath their feet was carrying them forward at high speed.

Ten meters away, another set of giant gears was about to mesh with it.

Lin Ye did not slow down.

Using the forward thrust of the gear, the second set of anchor points shot out again.

The two of them were like two black shadows, gliding continuously into the depths of the machinery.

On the metal beam at the starting point.

Ivan saw Lin Ye's trajectory clearly.

He did not follow.

He swung the bone pickaxe with both hands, smashing it heavily into the gear gap of the slowly rotating wheel below.

The pickaxe tip jammed instantly.

The massive force fed back by the gear pulled him entirely off the beam, forcefully tossing him into mid-air.

Ivan roared, gripping a thick load-bearing iron chain above with one hand, and swung violently toward the inside.

The two from the United Kingdom were extremely conservative.

Using ice spikes as anchors, they fastened the animal tendons tightly.

They inched along the edge of the wall step by step.

The two Challengers from the small country left at the door were pale as paper.

The metal beam beneath their feet suddenly emitted a piercing hum.

The beam body that had originally extended began to retract into the wall.

The first Challenger from the small country screamed in a breakdown, throwing his body toward the nearest gear.

The timing was half a second too early.

His body slammed heavily onto the outside of the gear ring.

Under the pull of the massive centrifugal force, he slid along the smooth metal toward the meshing point of the two wheels.

A shrill scream had just broken through his throat.

Crack!

Metal ground over him with a roar.

The screams, along with the sound of bones shattering, were instantly ground into meat paste by the bottomless darkness.

Zhao Mengmeng watched helplessly as a mist of blood exploded in mid-air.

She clenched her teeth tightly.

Lin Ye's gaze did not flicker or avoid it.

He gripped the Fire Axe tightly, staring fixedly at the layered mechanical jungle ahead.