"Physical strengthening... I just hope he can land alive." Chen Jing murmured.
...
Inside the pit.
About a quarter of the surviving Hunters chose to prematurely shut down their buffer thrusters, while the remaining ones anxiously watched the precariously shaking channel walls, continuously praying that the carbonized puppet remnants could hold on a little longer.
One Hunter, who wore a cross necklace around his neck, even closed his eyes and repeatedly made the sign of the cross with his right hand over his chest, muttering some incomprehensible words like "Hallelujah, Amenos," which instantly heightened the tension in the passage.
At that moment, part of the channel wall suddenly burst open, forming a large hole, and a massive hand formed from countless joined remnants reached out from within the hole, grabbing the Hunter who was making the sign of the cross before swiftly retracting into the hole.
The prayers were cut short, and after half a second of silence in the team’s communication channel, several Hunters began shouting, "Quick! Quickly shut down these damn buffer thrusters!"
Cheng Ming glanced at the disintegrating channel wall near him, considering whether he should also shut down his thrusters, when suddenly, he heard the voice of the mysterious girl in his mind: "Get everyone to join hands, form a circle."
"Then what?" Cheng Ming was stunned for a moment, asking.
"Shut down the thrusters, fall together, and just before hitting the ground, reopen the buffer thrusters at maximum output to offset the fall."
"Will this really work?" Cheng Ming asked.
"It should work!" Chen Jing’s voice came through the communication channel, "Although the exoskeleton will endure extremely high compression the moment the thrusters are restarted, the core spine of the Breaker was made from specialized alloys developed by Dubhe Tower. We just simulated it with computers, and the probability of the spine breaking is only sixteen percent!"
"Huh?" Cheng Ming glanced at the control panel on his PAD, bewildered. He distinctly remembered turning off the communication channel while talking to the mysterious girl, yet it was now active, with nearby Hunters approaching him.
"Let’s try your method! Treat a dead horse like a living one!" one Hunter said to Cheng Ming.
Only then did Cheng Ming realize that the mysterious girl might have "borrowed" his words to convey the plan to the command center and other Hunters, without him noticing.
"The only issue with this plan is the thruster’s instantaneous power may not suffice to completely counter the impact of the fall, but it’s much better than free falling directly!" Chen Jing continued, "Additionally, the Breaker’s standard equipment includes quick-inflating cushions to somewhat offset the impact."
"No more talking, hurry up and operate!" a Hunter urged.
The remaining Hunters quickly formed a circle in the air, connecting their power exoskeletons with auxiliary mechanical arms, and under the command center’s instruction, shut down the thrusters, turned their vector nozzles upward with fifteen percent power for half a second to make up for the lost time while speaking.
Hunters forming the circle started to accelerate downwards.
The thrusters shut down, and the vector nozzles pivoted back downward, with every Hunter, including Cheng Ming, staring at the AR screen inside their helmets, showing not just the distance to the pit bottom but a rapidly decreasing numeral.
When this numeral hit zero, it meant the thrusters had to be restarted.
Cheng Ming took a deep breath, and before he could exhale it from his chest, the number had already reached zero.
Faintly, Cheng Ming seemed to hear a soft laugh from the mysterious girl.
All Hunters’ thrusters simultaneously restarted, the scorching tail flames so intense that they could feel a burning sensation through a layer of protective suit and armor plating on their backsides. The terrifying force slammed from both directions, the core spine of the power exoskeleton started to groan under the load...
The most agonizing part was for the Hunters encased within the exoskeleton; the feeling that their guts were about to burst could hardly be described in words—this was with the exoskeleton’s protection, without which, directly strapping the thrusters to their backs would have likely resulted in them being reduced to lumps of meat paste.
With a series of "puff puff" sounds, the inflatable cushions inside the exoskeleton deployed, and the Hunters finally landed on the pit bottom.
For the first time, Cheng Ming thought that the feeling of being grounded was so delightful.
Meanwhile, inside the command center.
"Strange..." The technician stared at the data on the screen, "So strange..."
"What’s strange?" Chen Jing asked.
"When the thrusters restarted, all exoskeleton thruster outputs exceeded nearly three times the design threshold, and because of this, everyone survived... but logically, these thrusters would be ready to explode once reaching one hundred fifty percent of the rated threshold... all at three hundred percent with no damage... this is beyond what random chance could explain."
"Perhaps, someone among them has the ability to influence the thruster," Bai Lingqiu said, "Either way, surviving is a good thing."
...
Hunters at the pit bottom began discarding their power exoskeletons and protective suits, while some were unable to remove them due to severe injuries sustained upon landing, with multiple broken bones and completely lost mobility.
Their power exoskeletons were thoroughly wrecked upon landing, apart from an injection of pain reliever, nothing else could be done for them.
Cheng Ming asked those who could still move to pull the injured to one corner, then began observing the surroundings.
The pit bottom was far more spacious than they had imagined, completely unlike a mine that had collapsed several times.
"It seems that the bizarre creature has transformed the pit bottom into its lair." Through the images transmitted from the Hunters’ cameras, Chen Jing and others saw the pit bottom scene, Bai Lingqiu remarked.
"This might be a good thing." Chen Jing nodded, "At least they have sufficient space to move freely."
Cheng Ming shone his flashlight onto the ground, finding several sets of severely damaged exoskeletons mixed with unidentified meat pulp that formed disfigured heaps—notably, those individuals also restarted their thrusters and cushions upon landing, but to no avail, as the hundreds of kilograms directly crushed through the cushions, slamming the fragile bodies into the ground.
In a slightly further location, Cheng Ming discovered remnants of two exoskeletons, but no bodies inside, only scattered blood droplets leading deeper into the cave.
"It seems someone did survive..." Staring at the screen image, Cheng Jing suddenly frowned, "But why didn’t they wait for Cheng Ming’s group? It doesn’t make sense... The cavity area is temporarily safe; even if the channel collapses, it won’t affect those already landed... By the way, can we still contact these Hunters?"
"No contact, strong interference with communication equipment, we can only use the large signal amplifiers built into the exoskeletons to communicate with the task force." The technician explained.
The signal amplifiers mentioned by the technician weigh twenty kilograms, and only six out of the twenty-eight exoskeletons had this equipment; those who free fell beforehand had two amplifiers, but both were wrecked upon landing... and even if they weren’t, no one would willingly remove such a heavy piece of equipment and carry it manually...