161: Chapter 161 Ten Seconds of Safety, Freebies in a Desperate Situation!

Jiang Feng pinched the edge of the foil lining with two fingers, his palm pressing directly against the boundary shimmering with a golden-brown light.

The moment he wrapped the soil of reshaping, Jiang Feng's scalp suddenly tingled.

A warm electric current surged from his fingertips to his palm, flowing upward against the blood vessels in his forearm.

This force bypassed the elbow and split into two paths: one rushing straight for his shoulder, and the other stabbing deep into his chest cavity.

The mutant tumor in his brain, which modern medicine was powerless against, resonated with this frequency as if it were connected to a high-voltage current.

Jiang Feng's breathing suddenly became heavy.

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He clenched his five fingers tightly, lifting the entire clump of soil of reshaping—along with its protective layer—off the natural stone platform!

The second the soil left the platform...

A sharp, deafening crack exploded from the bottom of the stone platform.

The sound wave was terrifyingly loud, bouncing back and forth in the enclosed underground space, making his eardrums ache.

Jiang Feng's heart tightened violently.

It wasn't just the stone platform that had shattered.

It was the entire load-bearing structure of the ore vein beneath the platform!

Without the suppression of the energy core, the geological balance that had been maintained for over two thousand years collapsed instantly, and a full self-destruct sequence was initiated.

The jagged rock layers hanging overhead creaked and groaned; in less than three seconds, six or seven cracks burst open.

Underground river water poured down through the cracks like a waterfall.

Turbid black water, mixed with rubble and sand, crashed down directly onto Jiang Feng's head.

The water columns slammed into the bluestone floor, instantly gouging out deep pits.

The bases of the four rock walls collapsed inward simultaneously, and massive chunks of rock were torn from the sides, striking the ground and sending up large, blinding white sparks.

Several boulders half the height of a man slid down the slope with a roar; they were incredibly fast and moved at such lethal angles that they completely blocked Jiang Feng's path of retreat.

The underground river water had already soaked Jiang Feng's shoulders.

The physical impact of the falling water weighed over a thousand pounds, crushing his knees and forcing them to strike the base of the stone platform with a heavy thud, leaving him in a pathetic kneeling position.

Jiang Feng dug his fingers into the clump of soil, refusing to let go even if it killed him.

His mind raced like a wound-up spring, calculating rapidly.

The rock layers overhead were collapsing.

The four stone walls were closing in.

The foundation beneath his feet was cracking.

In ten seconds at most, this thirty-square-meter underground space would be completely filled with tons of stagnant water and falling rocks.

When that happened, forget about taking the soil out; not even a complete shard of his bone would remain.

Jiang Feng narrowed his eyes, not hesitating for a moment.

He directly activated his trump card divine skill.

[Fated Prophecy]!

"Within the next ten seconds, a three-meter radius around the soil of reshaping will be in a state of absolute safety!"

[Ding! Fated Prophecy has been activated.]

[Causality level determination: Extremely high. Forcibly intervening in the natural physical collapse process.]

The system's blood-draining mechanism went into full gear, attempting to devour the host's life force like a starving ghost.

But Jiang Feng's base lifespan had just been reduced to zero.

[Warning: Host's base lifespan has reached zero.]

[Detected remaining lifespan: 150 days of origin lifespan (Locked state).]

[origin lifespan top-tier characteristic triggered: Immune to all system skill consumption and deductions!]

[Lifespan cost for this Fated Prophecy: 0 days.]

Kneeling by the stone platform, Jiang Feng smiled through the mud and water covering his head.

He had won the bet.

Base lifespan at zero, origin lifespan forcibly locked.

With this desperate combination, he had managed to exploit a loophole in the system's low-level settlement logic.

At zero cost, he had directly free-ridden on a top-tier causal law intervention!

But just because the system didn't deduct lifespan didn't mean that causal backlash didn't exist.

The physical reaction force from forcibly rewriting the laws of reality transformed into a solid, dull pain, slamming unreservedly into every nerve ending in Jiang Feng's body.

Jiang Feng bit his back teeth until he tasted blood, desperately enduring this lethal wave of pain.

Fortunately, he had only specified ten seconds; any longer and he likely would have passed out from the pain.

The prophecy took effect.

Three meters above his head, the rock layers that had been falling frantically and the pouring underground river water were held back in mid-air by an invisible, intangible barrier of law.

Tons of boulders were suspended in mid-air; Newton's coffin lid was pinned shut.

The water columns diverted frantically in all directions along the invisible curved surface, and not a single drop of muddy water could splash into this three-meter safety zone.

The ten-second countdown began to tick away.

Enduring the intense pain throughout his body, Jiang Feng forced himself up from his kneeling position.

He was soaked through, and his arms felt as heavy as lead.

If he wanted to live, he had to run back the way he came, to the bottom of the vertical shaft, and grab that life-saving thick hemp rope.

Only eight seconds left.

Jiang Feng bolted.

His feet slipped on the rolling ore and accumulated water on the ground.

His right ankle twisted severely, and a piercing pain shot straight to his skull.

He didn't even let out a groan; his thigh muscles tightened instantly, forcibly pulling his shifted center of gravity back as he continued his frantic run.

A deafening sound of collapse echoed behind him.

That was the death knell of the entire ore vein's bottom bedrock completely fracturing even deeper underground.

Jiang Feng burst through the invisible boundary of the three-meter safety zone.

The countdown ended.

The safety barrier was deactivated on time.

Tons of river water and boulders, which had been forcibly suspended for a full ten seconds, completely broke free from the shackles of causal law and crashed down with doubled gravitational acceleration!

The natural stone platform behind him was instantly crushed into powder.

Jiang Feng pushed all his strength into his legs, reaching his limit in a hundred-meter sprint as he fled frantically through the half-collapsed dark tunnel.

The beam of his headlamp cut back and forth ahead of him, and the path before his eyes was fracturing inch by inch.

The tunnel that had originally been dry was now filled with underground river water that reached past his ankles.

The freezing water carried a massive dragging force, severely slowing Jiang Feng's pace.

The rock layers overhead were still falling.

A stone the size of a fist slammed hard into Jiang Feng's shoulder, the impact making a dull thud against his bone.

He didn't stop for a second; his body only swayed for half a second before he pushed forward against the impact.

His left hand clutched his chest tightly.

Inside was the soil of reshaping he had traded his life for.

As long as this soil remained, he had the capital to overturn the terminal illness in his brain.

The passage grew narrower and narrower.

The pre-qin skeleton that had been holding the broken array disk was now crushed into fragments on the ground by falling rocks.

Jiang Feng stepped on and snapped a femur blocking his way, his soles grinding through mud mixed with bone shards as he turned sideways to squeeze into the narrowest rock crevice.

The stone walls on both sides of the gap were pressing together at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The harsh sound of rock layers grinding together completely drowned out the roar of the water.

Jiang Feng suddenly pulled in his shoulders and held his breath, squeezing through like a slippery loach just a second before the stone walls completely closed.

Emerging from the rock crevice, the view ahead opened up slightly.

He had reached the three-way junction from earlier.

By now, the other two dead ends had been completely filled by the backflow of turbid underground water. The violent current was now rushing toward Jiang Feng's position through the passage.

The water level rose extremely fast, reaching his calves in the blink of an eye.

Jiang Feng took large strides, wading through the water.

Only fifty meters remained until the bottom of the vertical shaft.

The beam of his high-powered flashlight swept ahead; the mist was thick, and visibility was terrifyingly low.

Jiang Feng relied entirely on muscle memory and survival instinct to maintain his balance.

His stamina had reached its critical limit during the earlier pain shock and the desperate sprint.

But he absolutely could not stop.

The last ten meters.

The outline of the vertical shaft finally appeared at the end of the light beam.

The rough engineering hemp rope hung alone over the water at the bottom of the shaft, swaying violently with the waves.

Jiang Feng gritted his teeth, squeezing the last bit of energy out of his thigh muscles, and threw himself forward.

Both hands tightly gripped the mud-slicked hemp rope.

He caught it.

He had managed to snatch his life back into his own hands.