Chapter 084: The Predicament of the Heavenly Pit

Su Xiaoke pulled out a hairpin from her head and, after inspecting the damaged particle disruptor, busied herself dismantling delicate components from her personal information terminal and installing them onto the disruptor. She instructed Drumstick to take apart a mess of gadgets from the patrol vehicle, cobbling together a peculiar, makeshift device. Since the metal frame of the disruptor had shattered in the explosion, she simply yanked the elastic band from her own hair, wrapping it around and tying it up in a haphazard fashion, leaving everyone sweating nervously at the sight.

As a support staff member with neither combat nor self-defense abilities, she had never been expected to risk herself by joining the investigation in person. But she had come along to monitor Bai Yuxi’s physical data during battle, only to be drawn unexpectedly into this perilous crisis. Thanks to her teammates’ valiant protection, she had managed to survive in this treacherous environment up to now.

Yet, to everyone’s surprise, the prodigy displayed the full force of her scholarly prowess even under such circumstances. Lacking proper tools and parts, she used a hairpin and an elastic band to repair a particle disruptor—a device that should by all rights be considered precision equipment!

“The core components are intact. I’ve replaced the damaged parts. It should work for now, but to restart it…” Using the patrol car’s battery for power, Su Xiaoke attempted to restart the disruptor, pressing the switches several times, but no beam appeared. Disappointed, she shook her head. “I’m afraid we’ll need at least two level-10 X crystals to power it!”

Everyone was stunned. High-level X crystals were exceedingly rare, almost impossible to find even on the paranormal world’s black market. Now trapped within the barrier, where could they possibly procure two crystals of level 10 or above?

“I have a level-6 M crystal. Would that count as above level 10?” Bai Yuxi quickly produced the X crystal he’d obtained from that level-6 humanoid monster.

“It certainly would!” Su Xiaoke examined it and nodded. “But a level-6 M crystal is equivalent to a level-24 E crystal. Using it for the disruptor is pretty extravagant.”

“With our lives hanging by a thread, who cares about extravagance?” Willy was hopping around, scratching his head anxiously. “But is one crystal enough?”

“We can make a temporary ‘splitter’ device!” Su Xiaoke replied, dismantling her already gutted information terminal further, extracting two low-level E crystals to assemble a so-called “splitter.”

Yet, after all this delay, the earth at the bottom of the sinkhole finally collapsed, as a swarm of plasma toads dug an exit. Bai Yuxi, Drumstick, and Willy, still capable of fighting, rushed back to the mouth of the pit to suppress the escaping toads.

With Bai Yuxi present, keeping at bay the toads forced to emerge only a few at a time by the narrow opening, the situation remained manageable. The trouble was, no one knew how many toads lurked underground, and the entrance was steadily growing wider, gradually overwhelming Bai Yuxi as he struggled to keep up.

Each of Bai Yuxi’s punches sent the toads erupting from the bottom of the pit flying back down, yet many managed to climb up the crater’s slope from corners he couldn’t cover.

“Are you done yet?” Drumstick and Willy found themselves running frantically around the pit’s edge, barely able to hold their position. Willy, nearly at his wit’s end, shouted desperately to Su Xiaoke and her group: “We can’t hold out much longer!”

“Just hang on for ten more minutes… no, five!” Even the most resourceful genius couldn’t conjure a power splitter out of thin air. Su Xiaoke could only make do with the parts she had, working feverishly to achieve her goal, sweat beading on her elegant forehead.

“Five minutes?” Willy glanced at the crater wall, where countless chunks of earth were rising and shifting—signs that innumerable plasma toads, bypassing Bai Yuxi’s blockade, were tunneling outward in every direction. Nearly in tears, Willy cried, “I can’t do it!”

Before he finished, more than ten plasma toads suddenly burst through the soil!

“Careful!” Bai Yuxi, instinctively swinging a punch at one, felt a jolt of electricity run across his scalp and, by reflex, pulled back and leapt away, shouting a warning to Drumstick and Willy, who were battling the toads.

In midair, the plasma toad swelled up like a balloon, its bumpy skin crackling with dense arcs of electricity before exploding with a bang, splattering plasma in every direction!

“Damn it! These blasted frogs can self-destruct?!”

Willy shrieked, leaping away from the toad swelling up before him. Drumstick, less nimble, could only raise his wooden shield, trying to cover as much of his body as possible. Yet the plasma from the self-destructing toads was hard to dodge. Even with the shield’s insulation blocking some, plenty splattered onto his unprotected legs and feet.

The droplets of plasma, like a corrosive poison, clung to Drumstick’s super-active shield, releasing electric arcs that eroded the shield and drained his internal reserves.

Shocked, Drumstick retreated, no longer daring to approach the self-destructing toads.

But that brief hesitation allowed even more plasma toads to break through the soil and appear in the sinkhole, overwhelming their defenses completely.

“What do we do now?” Forced back by the swarm, the three looked over their shoulders in panic. Su Xiaoke clearly couldn’t assemble the splitter device quickly enough.

The two girls beside Su Xiaoke, Xia Youyou and Maya, showed despair in their eyes.

Only Jason, gravely wounded and unconscious, lay there obliviously, “happily” unaware of anything.

Though they knew that, having fallen into the quagmire of the paranormal world, it was only a matter of time before people like them—paranormal operatives—would face such a day: either dying at the hands of enemy limit-breakers, or devoured by supernatural creatures. None of them expected that day to come so soon.

After all, apart from their awakened powers as “limit-breakers,” the members of Squad Seven were, at heart, just a group of young students.