Chapter 85

As he rolled into the bottomless black hole, Zhang Tie quickly pulled the dagger from the wolf that had bitten his calf and swiftly stabbed it again, delivering four quick stabs to the wolf’s chest and abdomen in a matter of seconds. Only then did he feel the wolf’s jaws loosen their grip on his leg.

At that moment, he forgot about the pain in his leg and instead lifted his head, straining to see the shrinking opening of the hole above him...

This was a bottomless black hole with a diameter of over three meters, one of the deep holes left by the gold-devouring giant pythons in the Wild Wolf Valley. This hole was Zhang Tie’s only hope for survival.

With seven wolves in hot pursuit, Zhang Tie’s chances of survival hinged on two points. The first was whether he could jump into the hole before the wolves caught up with him. He barely managed to do so, using all his strength to run to the edge of the hole just as the wolves were about to catch him. Though injured, he managed to roll into the hole. The second point was a matter of luck: if the hole was a straight, vertical shaft, and the vertical drop was more than thirty meters, he would be dead upon impact. Even if he turned into a pile of meat, it would be better than becoming wolf droppings.

Zhang Tie was gambling with his life. First, he bet that the gold-devouring pythons wouldn’t have dug a hole like a well, and that the cave would have some bends or slopes less than ninety degrees, giving him a chance to survive. Second, he bet that the wolves wouldn’t follow him into the hole.

He won the second bet. The wolves, upon seeing Zhang Tie and the wolf roll into the terrifying hole, only lingered at the entrance for a while and did not follow. Thus, Zhang Tie’s fate now depended on the first point—whether the first bend in the hole would appear before the distance that would kill him upon impact.

Falling at an extremely fast speed with the wolf, the darkness inside the hole quickly enveloped them, and the light from the entrance no longer reached them.

The free fall of man and wolf continued inside the hole...

Even in the face of life and death, Zhang Tie’s mind remained terrifyingly calm. He was afraid of death, but his brain functioned like a cold, precise machine, devoid of emotion, calculating and outputting values... His mind was not focused on life and death, but on right and wrong...

At that moment, as Zhang Tie looked up at the hole’s entrance, he instantly judged the distance to the entrance in less than a second. It was just over ten meters but less than fifteen meters, meaning he had been falling for more than one second but less than two seconds. A formula for the displacement of a free-falling object over equal time intervals—2n-1—flashed through his mind. On the Kunang continent, the distance a free-falling object travels in the first second is approximately five meters. Using this formula, Zhang Tie quickly calculated his safe falling time: 5 meters in the first second, 15 meters in the second second, 25 meters in the third second, and 35 meters in the fourth second. Beyond four seconds, it didn’t matter if there were bends or slopes less than ninety degrees; at that height, he would be severely injured or dead upon impact, and there would be no hope after that.

Would he be the first to die in this trial? I’m still a virgin, damn it!

With this thought, Zhang Tie used his feet to hold the wild wolf beneath him as a buffer and tightly gripped the mining pick in his hands...

The next three seconds would decide Zhang Tie’s fate. For some, three seconds might seem quick, but for Zhang Tie, who was highly focused, these three seconds felt like thirty seconds.

As it turned out, fate did not abandon Zhang Tie. Just as he was falling between the third and fourth seconds, precisely after the third second, the life-saving bend finally appeared. The hole, which had been a vertical ninety-degree drop from the entrance, now eased to a slope between seventy and eighty degrees. Of course, Zhang Tie didn’t measure it, but as he felt the wolf beneath him scrape against something, he instinctively swung the mining pick in his hands, embedding it into the rock. The sparks from the pick’s friction with the rock instantly illuminated Zhang Tie’s determined and survival-driven face. The pain in his shoulders and hands was almost unbearable, but his rapid descent suddenly slowed. He then felt his legs hit the wall of the cave, and the momentum of his fall turned him into a rolling ball of flesh against the steep wall. He rolled several 360-degree turns, gritting his teeth. He couldn’t see anything, but he relied on instinct. When he felt the pick loosen, he swung it again, embedding it into the wall. Loosen—swing, loosen—swing, he used the sparks to slow his descent as much as possible...

After an unknown amount of time in the darkness, with his body scraping and rolling, a final, massive jolt came, and Zhang Tie’s consciousness plunged into darkness.

When Zhang Tie’s consciousness fell into a coma, on the ground, the news of a black-haired mining trainee being killed by seven wild wolves about 3.5 kilometers from the Wild Wolf Castle caused chaos among many people.

...

The news was first brought back to the Wild Wolf Castle by the students who witnessed Zhang Tie’s final few seconds of "heroism," and the entire castle was stirred.

...

“Did you hear that the one killed by the wolves was a boy...”

“Yes, but I heard this boy was very brave. He killed three wolves before he died!”

“What about his companions? His training team? How could such a brave boy face those beasts alone?”

“This boy didn’t form a team. I heard he was a black-haired miner.”

“What a pity...”

Inside the inner castle of the Wild Wolf Castle, two girls were chatting as they passed by a room where many girls were staying. Neither of them noticed that when one of the girls mentioned the "black-haired miner" killed by the wolves, a girl lying quietly on a bed in the least noticeable corner of the room suddenly stiffened. The dry food in her hand fell to the ground, and with it, her tears. She then lowered her head, hugging her knees tightly, curling herself into the smallest possible ball, and completely hiding in the shadows of the room.

“Pandora, can you stop hiding in the corner and scaring people? If you like the corner so much, why don’t you move your bed even further away from us, or just don’t live here at all? That way, we won’t have to be around a woman who always brings bad luck...”

“Yeah, why are we so unlucky to be assigned to live with this disaster? I almost got bitten by a venomous snake when I went out to look for wild vegetables the other day...” Two girls walked into the room and, seeing the shadow in the corner, harshly criticized the person without any concern for the impact of their words.

Hearing such criticism, Pandora in the corner remained silent, only reaching out from the shadows to pick up the dry food that had fallen to the ground, covered in her tears, and silently continued to eat...

...

The other members of the Airplane Brotherhood only realized something was wrong when Zhang Tie didn’t return for dinner. After waiting for a long time and still not seeing him, they felt something was amiss. Leaving two people to guard the base, Barry, Light, Doug, and Baghdad set out from the treehouse. Doug carried the terrifying crossbow, and following Light’s suggestion, they lit torches and followed the usual path Zhang Tie took to the mine. About halfway there, a few hundred meters from the grassland where Zhang Tie had encountered the seven wolves, they saw flickering torchlight ahead, indicating that many people had gathered there. The four of them exchanged glances and ran over, stopping a trainee student outside the crowd to ask what was happening and why so many people had gathered there in the dark.

“Didn’t you hear the news?” the boy asked Barry, puzzled.

“What news?”

“Earlier, a mining trainee was killed by seven wild wolves here. The guy was pretty tough; he killed three wolves before he died...”

Hearing this, Barry and the others turned pale. Considering Zhang Tie’s strength, they doubted he could have killed three wolves. Barry, still holding out a slim hope, asked with a trembling voice, “Do you know the name of the miner?”

“I heard they’ve already confirmed it at the castle. The miner was a student of the Hua clan, named Zhang Tie!”

“Big Head...” Doug let out a wolf-like howl and rushed toward the densest part of the crowd, where the most torches were lit, thinking that Zhang Tie’s body must be in a terrible state.

When the four, with red eyes, rushed to the center of the crowd, they were stunned. The accident site was protected by a group of students wearing red armbands and holding torches, and ordinary people couldn’t enter. Through the crowd, they could only see a terrifying black hole and two dead wolves on the ground. Several teachers were discussing something, but Zhang Tie was nowhere to be seen.

“Zhang Tie, where is Zhang Tie? He’s our brother, we need to see him...” Barry shouted...

“Don’t shout. I heard that Zhang Tie and a wolf rolled into the hole together. Captain Collin and some teachers are now discussing whether to go down and search for him...” a student responsible for maintaining order and protecting the scene reminded them.

Zhang Tie had fallen into the hole. Looking at the terrifying black hole, Barry and Doug’s eyes flickered with a glimmer of hope...

“Teacher Jerome...” Seeing a teacher approach, many of the students on duty greeted him. The teacher nodded to the surrounding students and then entered the restricted area, where several teachers from the temporary supervision committee and Captain Collin were discussing...

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