Chapter 285: Falling materials
"Those boxes should be Falling Materials. It's said that some items that don't fall to the deepest layers of the Abyss after a Falling event transform into Falling Materials. This material is extremely precious and supposedly has some special function, but I don't actually know what it does. This information seems to be quite valuable - before I came in, someone approached me promising to trade large amounts of resources for Falling Materials."
Ethan didn't actually know what Falling Materials looked like either. The person who told him this information only said that Falling Materials appeared as very strange-looking objects.
Looking at the perfectly normal green plastic box in Lin Ye's hand, Ethan felt there probably wouldn't be anything stranger appearing here.
"Is the Falling Material the box itself or what's inside? Why are the colors and materials different?"
Lin Ye had no intention of opening the box here. This was a passage connecting to the deepest layers of the Abyss - compared to the absolutely safe Shelter, even a fool would know which option to choose.
"I don't know. I'm not even sure if this is Falling Material. The other party only said that Falling Materials look very strange."
Ethan had no intention of deceiving Lin Ye. Anyone who could create this kind of platform must have extremely high mental energy. No one would be foolish enough to try to deceive a powerful individual with such high mental energy.
"Alright, hopefully it's not trash."
Lin Ye cast his hook again and caught a water-blue glass box.
Xia La struggled to climb back onto the platform. She didn't understand why Lin Ye made her climb back by herself, but she was smart enough to know that Lin Ye must have had a reason for doing this. It couldn't really be that he just couldn't be bothered to help her, could it?
Watching Lin Ye who was completely focused on fishing for boxes, Xia La suddenly felt uncertain.
"...Hey, did that plant just move a bit closer to us?"
Richard asked in panic as he stared at the hundreds-of-meters-tall Giant Plant not far away.
"Obviously. Didn't you notice I've been controlling the platform to move away from it this whole time? Don't worry about it. You just need to help push the platform upward. Leave the rest to me."
Lin Ye had noticed the giant object approaching them long ago. The reason he didn't mention it was because he was afraid it would affect the others' mental state. After all, not everyone could remain calm in the face of danger.
"I'm going to accelerate. You two assist me. It's only a few hundred meters - we'll charge straight through."
Ethan didn't plan to leave everything to Lin Ye. He wasn't useless like Richard.
"Are you sure? I can't hold on for long."
Richard lay flat on the platform, struggling to maintain stability.
"Okay!"
Xia La shouted loudly while holding onto the handrail.
Her condition was much worse than Richard's, but she was prepared to risk it.
Without wasting words, Ethan directly used his full spiritual energy to push the platform, causing it to rapidly climb upward.
Richard and Xia La also pushed the platform from both sides. The powerful thrust directly broke free from gravity's pull, pushing them upward at high speed.
The Giant Plant accelerated its approach, with numerous branches extending forward, attempting to trap the ascending platform.
While controlling the flesh to forcibly hold together the nearly collapsing platform, Lin Ye gripped the Cross-shaped Greatsword with both hands, injecting blood and compressed spiritual energy into it.
Synthesize, Alienate, Cut, Shape!
Crimson light flames erupted from the tip of the Cross-shaped Greatsword, forming a twisted, ferocious giant energy blood blade.
Lin Ye swung the energy blood blade with all his strength, directly obliterating all approaching branches. The blood blade exploded before the Giant Plant, with the violent energy directly blasting the Giant Plant bare.
The platform rapidly climbed upward while the Giant Plant fell downward, forced to watch as the platform gradually moved away.
Due to the rapid changes in gravity, Xia La was thrown off the platform. Lin Ye cast his Fishhook, pulling Xia La back onto the platform.
"The platform's interior has completely shattered. I can only hold on for 10 more seconds. After 10 seconds, I'll actively destroy the platform. Parts of the platform will push us toward that building up above. After that, you'll be on your own."
Although most of the spiritual energy consumed by that earlier sword strike came from the environment, it still consumed some of Lin Ye's internal spiritual energy. Combined with constantly maintaining platform stability, his current condition was quite poor.
"Do you need our help?"
Ethan could tell Lin Ye's condition wasn't great.
"No need."
The countdown ended. Lin Ye destroyed the platform, and parts of it pushed them toward the large building above.
Lin Ye smoothly landed on the steps in front of the building's entrance. Richard and Ethan were thrown into the building's second and third floor corridors respectively. Xia La was thrown outside the building, but before she started falling, Lin Ye used his Fishhook to pull her back.
"Thank you. What kind of building is this? Why is there no Floating Island beneath this building?"
Xia La keenly noticed the problem.
"Don't know. It looks a bit like an art gallery. The Floating Island might have shattered. Wait for me here. I'll go up to take a look first. We need to climb to the rooftop quickly and look for other Floating Islands."
Lin Ye wanted to climb directly along the exterior wall to the rooftop, but suddenly heard Richard's cries for help from the second floor.
Of course he wouldn't go rescue him. Richard was a seventh-tier spiritual energy user while he was only second-tier. If anyone should be saving anyone, it should be Richard saving him.
Lin Ye quickly climbed along the exterior wall to the second floor, but found no one there. The glass that Richard had smashed through was also gone. Through the windows, he could only see an empty corridor and some closed black doors.
The upper floors were similar - Ethan had also disappeared.
The building had five floors total. Just as Lin Ye climbed onto the roof, he saw a white worm over ten meters long covered with Eyeballs. All those eyes turned toward Lin Ye.
Lin Ye instantly had a premonition of death. He hurriedly jumped from the roof back to the steps. The long worm didn't pursue him.
At this moment, Lin Ye suddenly realized that Xia La was gone.
'She wouldn't rashly leave the steps. That means something caused her to leave the steps.'
'Of course, there's another possibility - the one who left wasn't Xia La, but me who climbed onto the roof. I disappeared just like those two, except I didn't notice anything abnormal.'
Lin Ye looked around. There were no other Floating Islands around the building. The nearest Floating Island was hundreds of meters away from the building. They were trapped.
'I'll have to make another platform. But before that, I need to find a power source for the platform.'
Lin Ye pushed open the building's main door and entered the interior.
Inside the door was an extremely luxurious hall. On the walls of the hall hung many paintings of different sizes.
From the vaulted ceiling hung a two-meter-long crystal chandelier. Inside the crystal chandelier was a purple crystal box.
Lin Ye cast his Fishhook, attempting to hook the box out, but was blocked by the spiritual energy shield outside the chandelier.
"Huh?"
Lin Ye cast another hook while using his mental energy to sense that thin yet exceptionally resilient spiritual energy shield. The structure of this spiritual energy shield was slightly different from other spiritual energy shields.
After casting several hooks in succession, Lin Ye still couldn't break through that spiritual energy shield. The chandelier seemed to be connected to some kind of charging device that continuously supplied energy to that spiritual energy shield.