My Abyss Survival Diary

Chapter 118 The Game Changer Descends from the Sky (Part 2)

The iron door to the Iron Wing Confession Room was smashed open by Andrei using his metal right arm.

The hydraulic system amplified the force of the punch to hundreds of kilograms. After three punches, the door snapped open, and the entire iron door collapsed inward with a crash.

The confessional had been emptied out; the weapons and ammunition on the shelves had long been moved away, leaving only hay and empty wooden crates on the floor.

Andrei walked around the counter, pushed open the iron door leading to the warehouse, and found what he was looking for in the deepest part of a corner piled with clutter.

His junk was still there, and he pulled a jetpack out of it.

It has a bulky appearance, with a matte gray outer shell as standard for the Imperial Air Force, and several scratches and dents on the surface. A small part of the cooling grille on the port side is deformed.

It was designed to be hung on the back of the steam armor, generating high-temperature steam jets through the catalytic reaction of fuel, providing the armor with short-term vertical lift.

These are equipment left behind by the Angel Legion during the Great Crusade. Back then, that airborne force suffered heavy losses in the abyss, and much of their equipment was scattered across various levels. Very few of these items have been preserved intact to this day.

"Standard equipment of the Angel Legion." Mr. Bell crouched down, tapping the backpack's exterior with his knuckles, producing a dull thud. "Are you sure this thing still works?"

"Not sure." Andrei turned his backpack over to check the fuel inlet at the bottom. The sealing ring at the inlet was old and hardened, and had no elasticity when pressed with a finger. "There's less than a third of fuel left in the fuel tank. The sealing ring needs to be replaced, and the igniter in the catalytic converter may need to be readjusted. Did you understand what I just said?"

"I don't understand a single word." Mr. Bell grinned, pushing his bear-head hat back. "Just tell me how much strength it takes."

"Very big."

"That's enough."

Over the next two hours, the two men performed a crude and extremely rough repair in the confessional.

Andrei pulled out a box of spare sealing rings from the bottom shelf. He pried out the old, worn-out sealing rings with his dagger, pressed the new ones in, and pressed the edges of the joints three times with his fingers to make sure there were no gaps.

Mr. Bell retrieved a crowbar from the clutter and pried the deformed radiator grille on the port side back into place. Each time the crowbar pried, the metal grille let out a reluctant groan. Mr. Bell gritted his teeth, the veins on his neck bulging. Under his brute force, the crowbar bent slightly, and the radiator grille was finally repaired to a barely usable state.

The backpacks weren't too heavy, but with the combined weight of the two adult men, fuel consumption would be much faster than the standard load.

"There isn't enough fuel for ground testing," Andrei concluded after calculations.

"What do you mean?"

"It means we only have one chance. We won't do the test; we'll just jump down into the huge hole." Andrei swallowed nervously.

"This is insane!" Mr. Bell chuckled. "But I love it."

They made their final preparations at the edge of the great cavity.

A fierce wind swept up from the second layer of the abyss, carrying the damp smell of humus and a faint stench of blood, making Andrei's monk's robes flutter wildly.

Andre tied himself to Mr. Bell with a climbing rope, doing so carefully that he pulled each knot twice to make sure it wouldn't come loose.

Mr. Bell was heavier and stronger than him, and according to Andrei's calculations, the heavier one at the back would make the center of gravity more stable. He secured the jetpack to Mr. Bell's back, with the fuel line curving down from above his shoulders.

Andrei held the control handle himself, controlling the timing of the jets, while Mr. Bell behind him bore the thrust – a reasonable division of labor.

After the inspection was completed, Andrei lowered his head and looked at the edge of the abyss at his feet. A few small pebbles were knocked off by the tips of his boots and fell into the darkness. It took a long, long time before the first echo of the collision was heard.

"Ready?" Mr. Bell's voice came from behind, his hoarse, rough voice almost blown away by the wind in the shaft.

Andrei took a deep breath, his nostrils filled with a damp, rotten-sweet smell of cold air, and opened his eyes. "Ready!"

"Then let's jump."

The two people took a step forward at the same time.

"Ahhhhh!"

In the first second of the fall, Andrei felt his stomach rise to his throat.

The wind rushed in from all directions, impacting his body simultaneously from every possible angle. The wind howled wildly in his ears. He couldn't hear Mr. Bell's breathing, nor his own heartbeat. He could only hear the sharp, continuous howl that seemed to crack his skull from the inside!

His eyes were squinted shut by the wind, and tears flew from the corners of his eyes, drawing two barely visible arcs in the darkness. His monk's robe was torn and rolled backward by the airflow.

The free fall lasted longer than Andrei had predicted.

He silently counted down the seconds, his fingers gripping the control handle tightly. He needed to find the precise window to launch just before the speed reached the backpack's maximum thrust limit. The rock wall hurtled past him at high speed.

The eardrum swelled outwards, and it felt like two needles were being pierced deep into the ear canal at the same time, making the entire cranial cavity buzz.

Andrei opened his mouth in an attempt to balance the pressure, but to no avail.

These are symptoms of decompression sickness. As the altitude drops rapidly, the air pressure changes drastically, and the pressure inside and outside the eardrums cannot be balanced. His eyelids begin to swell, his fingertips begin to feel numb, and he feels waves of dizziness deep in his brain.

It's now!

He pressed the control handle.

The jetpacks emitted a muffled burst of heat behind them.

The mixed gas is ignited in the reaction chamber, the temperature jumps sharply, and steam gushes out from the nozzle!

A tremendous upward force surged from Mr. Bell's back throughout both of their bodies, and the speed of their descent noticeably slowed within seconds.

Andrei could feel the climbing ropes digging deep into his chest and abdomen; Mr. Bell's weight, combined with the push from his backpack, stretched all the ropes to their limits.

However, the thrust was not stable enough, and the backpack emitted a hissing sound that rose and fell, like a giant beast being strangled and roaring intermittently.

High-temperature steam leaked from the side of the backpack, condensing into wisps of white mist in the darkness before being quickly torn apart by the airflow.

Andrei gritted his teeth and gripped the control handle tightly. He could feel the backpack trembling; every part was straining to its limit.

We are doing everything we can to keep it running.

"Quick! Parachute!" he shouted, his voice breaking into fragmented syllables in the wind.

Mr. Bell reached behind his back, found the parachute's pull ring, and pulled hard.

Pfft! The parachutes opened above them.

The enormous canopy was made of high-temperature resistant fabric, the standard material used by the Imperial Air Force, and looked like a white flower that had suddenly bloomed in the dark.

The descent speed dropped sharply again, the climbing rope redistributed the tension, and Andrei felt a sharp pain in his chest. After a long and agonizing ordeal, the ground finally appeared below his sight.

The faint light from the spores on the dome illuminated Andrei's face, his eyes still wet with tears stirred by the wind.

The joy of surviving the ordeal didn't last long; he suddenly saw the fortress.

What the hell is that?

It hovered in mid-air on the second floor, its massive steel silhouette appearing dark and heavy in the spore's dim light.

Why is there a fortress on the second level? It looks like—it seems to be Imperial technology?