9: Chapter 9 Yunhai's Life Hangs by a Thread

"Boom!" A deafening explosion came from deep within the ground.

Before Lin Ye's brain could even react, his body's instincts had already taken the lead.

With force in his legs, he lunged forward.

"Crack!" Gravel and dust shot into the sky.

The spot where he had just been lying was ripped wide open by a fissure.

Half a second later, and he would have been down there catching the wind.

The earth trembled, making it impossible to even stand steady.

This is... the entire Floating Island is collapsing.

Can't stop! Run!

Lin Ye sprang up from the ground and bolted, the items in his backpack clattering loudly.

Behind him was the roar of the world falling apart.

Glancing out of the corner of his eye, the stone forest where he had spent the night was collapsing and sinking.

...Blue Star, Disaster Prevention Administration, Command Center.

Alarms blared throughout the entire hall.

"Report! A large-scale geological collapse has occurred in the outermost Floating Island cluster of the Void Sea!"

A staff member sprang up from their seat, their voice cracking.

Director Wei Tiejun braced himself against the command console and looked up, staring at the giant screen.

"Extent of the disaster?"

"Still calculating. Currently, at least 133 Level 1 Floating Islands have been confirmed to have geological fissures, involving Challengers from multiple countries!"

In an instant, everyone's gaze converged on the giant screen.

The large screen was split into dozens of segments, each one shaking violently.

The ground cracked and dust flew everywhere.

"How many of our people are affected?"

"Five! They are..."

The staff member tapped a few keys, moving the relevant Great Xia Live Stream feeds to the top of the screen.

"063 Chang Wei, 066 Lin Ye, 075 Zhou Yingying, 081 Wang Xinyu, 089 Du..."

"Beep—" Before the words were finished, one of the screens suddenly went black.

"081 Wang Xinyu, confirmed... fallen to his death!"

The entire Command Center fell into a deathly silence.

Director Wei Tiejun's jaw muscles tightened: "Continue the report!"

"As for other countries, the USA has already lost 2 people to falls, Camel Country has 3, Island Country has 1... The data is still updating!"

Another screen went black.

"USA, Jason Brown... fallen to his death!"

...USA Livestream.

A white man, muscular as an ox, was being forced to the edge of a Floating Island.

Behind him, the entire island was shattering and sinking.

He pulled out his issued starter rope and swung the grappling hook toward another small Floating Island opposite him.

The grappling hook successfully caught on the rock wall over there.

He gripped the rope and swung out.

However, a turbulent current caused by the collapse surged into the sky, sending rocks flying everywhere.

"Snap!" The rope was severed by a piece of debris.

He opened his mouth wide, but before he could even let out a scream, he plummeted straight into the Cloud Sea.

The livestream went to a black screen.

All that remained were a group of bewildered overseas keyboard warriors, left in total disarray.

...In Lin Ye's livestream.

Countless viewers watched the dusty figure sprinting, their hearts in their throats.

The Floating Island behind him was peeling away chunk by chunk, falling into the Cloud Sea.

[Run! Run, Brother Eye-Gouger!]

[This is a fucking apocalypse! The whole island is gone!]

[It's over... there are cliffs on all sides, where is he supposed to run?]

[How could he possibly dodge this!]

Xu Mingyuan's face was pale, his lips trembling.

"This scale of... natural power exceeds the limits of human response."

Meanwhile, Commentator Chen Guofeng and Su Qinglan didn't speak, merely staring intensely at the screen.

At this moment, any commentary seemed pale and powerless.

...Lin Ye was sprinting.

The Floating Island beneath his feet was falling apart, rocks constantly peeling away and dropping into the Cloud Sea.

The ground rose and then collapsed, gravel splashing everywhere.

Every violent tremor forced him to change his escape route.

Can't stop. Stopping means death.

He looked up; to the northwest, a Level 2 Floating Island hung high above.

That was the only path to survival.

But there was a gap of nearly a hundred meters between them, plus a vertical height difference of several dozen meters.

The Wind-Chasing Claw's cable was only 100 meters in total. Would it reach?

"Boom!" A loud noise came from beneath his feet; the piece of ground he was on tilted upward, the angle of inclination growing steeper and steeper.

Lin Ye crouched down and grabbed onto a fissure in the ground.

No time to hesitate. He used all four limbs, scrambling desperately toward the upturned side.

His knees struck the gravel, and blood seeped out. He paid no mind, just gritted his teeth and climbed upward.

Four meters. Two meters. Finally, he climbed to the highest point of this upturned rock.

He steadied himself against the rock wall and stood up.

Above his head, a rock the size of a car was falling from above him.

That's it.

Lin Ye pushed off with all his might, launching himself high into the air.

The rock beneath him shattered into dozens of fragments, falling toward the Cloud Sea.

The wind whistled in his ears. He raised his right arm, aiming the Wind-Chasing Claw at that rock.

"Bang!" The three-pronged hook shot out, dug into the rock, and clamped on tightly.

The cable retracted, and a massive pulling force yanked him up, sending a tearing sensation through the bones of his right shoulder.

"Damn!" He groaned, using his left hand to grab the arm guard to distribute the strain.

His feet landed on the rock's surface. The rock was sinking, but it had bought him a few precious seconds.

Lin Ye looked up. From here to the cliff of the Level 2 Floating Island, it was an estimated fifty or sixty meters. That was enough.

He raised his right arm again, preparing to fire once more.

"Bang!" The rock beneath his feet shook violently. Another rock fragment slammed into it from the side.

With the massive impact, both rocks shattered simultaneously.

Lin Ye stepped into empty air, his body losing support, and plummeted toward the Cloud Sea below.

...Disaster Prevention Administration, Command Center. Everyone held their breath; some had even turned their heads away.

Director Wei Tiejun's fists were clenched so tight they creaked, his nails digging into his palms.

On the screen, Lin Ye's figure was falling, with the sky full of debris from the disintegrating Level 1 Floating Island behind him.

City H, Lin Ye's home. Li Mei covered her mouth, her knees giving way, and she collapsed directly to her knees in front of the TV.

The water cup on the coffee table was knocked over, spilling water all over the floor.

Great Xia's western frontier, a certain outpost. Lin Changshan had just returned from patrol, his military boots still stained with frozen soil.

He stood at the entrance of the duty room, clutching an old-model mobile phone in his hand. On the screen was his son's livestream.

His comrades stood around him in a circle, not daring to let out a breath.

...Falling. A sense of weightlessness enveloped his entire body.

The wind rushed up from below; his field of vision was filled with tumbling gravel and white clouds.

Fear, of course, was present. But the desire to survive also kept his brain exceptionally clear.

Can't worry about that much now. Time to gamble!

Eye of Destiny, activate!

The world in his left eye became tinted with color. Amidst the tumbling, he forced his attention to lock onto one direction: that Level 2 Floating Island.

His vision was obstructed by gravel and air currents; he couldn't make anything out... but his left eye saw it!

Lower down on the cliff wall, a thick green band of light hung down from the edge. It was a vine.

The green was exceptionally bright, safe, and sturdy. The distance was about fifty meters or so above.

That's it! Target locked.

A sharp pain shot through his left eye, and he immediately closed his Eye of Destiny.

Lin Ye gritted his teeth, struggling to adjust his posture in mid-air.

He lifted his struggling right arm, aiming the Wind-Chasing Claw in that direction.

"Boom!" The hook shot out.

It broke through the air currents, and guided by the faint airflow, it flew toward the target.

The three claws opened. Closed. Biting into that vine.

The cable pulled taut. His body was yanked to a sudden halt, and he swung out into the air.

His right shoulder was almost on the verge of dislocating from its joint, the lining of his sleeve digging tightly into his skin.

Lin Ye hung in mid-air, his right arm suspended by the cable, his left hand gripping the arm guard.

The wreckage of the entire Level 1 Floating Island dragged clouds of dust as it fell into the Cloud Sea, the kicked-up mist surging tens of meters high.

His body rotated slowly. Beneath his feet was the boundless Cloud Sea, and above his head was the cliff wall of the Level 2 Floating Island.

In the Great Xia Live Stream, there was silence for three seconds. Then—the comments exploded like a volcano.