RHWHEG – Chapter 76 Sawing Wood

Under an extreme burst of kinetic energy, the front end of the heavy motorcycle burst into flames. The headlight exploded, and half the front of the bike was violently torn away. Yu Qunqing chose to end the game at that moment. He was still some distance from the 3,000-meter finish line, but the game had no braking function. All he could do was rely on his reflexes to pause the game, then let the vehicle’s inertia send it straight upward.

Yu Qunqing felt as if his body had been swept up by a hurricane. His entire form grew light, along with all the equipment bound to him, as if invisible bamboo dragonflies had been attached to everything.

His drifting speed began to slow. With frozen fingers, Yu Qunqing hooked onto a rope among his equipment and whipped it hard toward the enormous pillar before him.

At the end of the rope was a blade pressed out in the repair shop. Ordinary metal striking the long leg of the Eight-Legged Frostfall was no different from smashing an egg against a rock. In the instant it made contact, Yu Qunqing unleashed his ability—blue arcs of electricity burst from his fingertips. Finally, with the help of the wind, he firmly embedded two blades into the massive column. One was connected to the rope on Yu Qunqing’s body; the other was tied to the rest of the equipment. Yu Qunqing himself was also tethered to the equipment by fixed ropes. He quickly untied himself to avoid being strangled by the heavy gear, yet he still felt a deadly pulling force transmitted through the ropes.

The ropes snapped taut, stretching to their limit before recoiling slightly. The other equipment swung back and forth like a pendulum. Yu Qunqing barely managed to cling to the pillar, looking down at the tiny city below. The heavy motorcycle had already completed its mission—once it reached the apex, it shattered instantly and fell like a meteor. Thankfully, no one was around to accuse him of high-altitude littering.

Yu Qunqing glanced downward again as waves of chill pressed in from all sides.

“So… even at this height, I’m afraid of heights too,” he muttered to distract himself, then called out to the system. “Open Traveling Meow Meow. Let me listen to some music.”

The system’s blue screen immediately displayed the relevant interface. The Klein bottle was still out playing; the cat villa was empty, but the game’s background music continued. The pleasant melody rang clearly in Yu Qunqing’s mind.

The music calmed him considerably. He stretched out, doing his best to hook the ropes of the other equipment. The Eight-Legged Frostfall’s legs were long and straight; Yu Qunqing was only managing to stand by relying on the ice spikes condensed on their surface. Any overly large movement risked slipping.

High above the ground, surrounded by danger, Yu Qunqing pulled out a well-oiled chainsaw and a bar of chocolate. He strapped everything else to his back and discarded the backpack. The fewer heavy objects in midair, the better—otherwise the equipment he brought could become a hammer smashing back into him. So he threw things away one by one.

After confirming that the blade above him was embedded firmly and that his footing was relatively stable, Yu Qunqing began the second step of his plan—cutting the leg.

He pulled the starter cord, pressed the switch, and the chainsaw roared to life. As it spun, it flashed with a diamond-like gleam, having been “sharpened” beforehand with more than a dozen special disaster stones.

Carefully controlling the output of his lightning ability, the chainsaw was finally upgraded to a level capable of cutting through one leg of the Eight-Legged Frostfall.

“Bzzzz—”

Electric light sprayed everywhere, like arc welding.

“Whoosh—boom—”

Cold winds surged. From fifty meters away, the thick fur on the Eight-Legged Frostfall’s main body was clearly visible.

“Clink, clink—”

The comfortable game soundtrack drowned out these noises.

Yu Qunqing worked silently, a little bored, carrying out his high-altitude operation.

This step of the plan was the least dangerous. According to information from his previous life, the Eight-Legged Frostfall had no brain—only a sparse neural network.

So, while it hadn’t woken up yet, cutting off its leg wouldn’t provoke any reaction!

Once it woke up with eight legs turned into seven, its movements would surely be less agile. The safety margin for defeating this colossal disaster in this life would rise dramatically.

Yu Qunqing had prepared for so long precisely to weaken this behemoth’s combat power in advance.

After cutting a half-meter-wide notch, he felt cold and exhausted and had to stop to rest.

Once the cut reached a full meter in width, he carefully repositioned the blade above his head, shifted sideways, and continued the next meter of work.

One leg of the Eight-Legged Frostfall had a diameter of over thirty meters, with a total circumference exceeding ninety meters. Yu Qunqing didn’t need to cut all of it, but the process was still extremely tedious. Combined with the cold constantly eroding his willpower, he called out to the system to pass the time. The system played a mixed playlist from different games, while subtly hinting that if he spent money, he could enjoy 3D surround live effects.

Yu Qunqing bought one track. It was indeed addictive.

By now, he had sawn through over twenty meters.

He paused, looked down at the city a few more times, confirmed that the direction of his cut was roughly correct, and then continued calmly in the role of lumberjack.

The main body of the Eight-Legged Frostfall loomed above him, its twisted fur rolling like waves of wheat. The nearest vent gradually expanded. Yu Qunqing began to feel warmth spreading through his body and sped up his movements.

At over forty meters in, the cursed column was finally cut halfway through. Yu Qunqing no longer felt cold at all. One of the vents was inhaling cold air, condensing it into gray mist before blasting it out like a shell. At the same time, the ice spikes beneath his feet were close to melting.

Yu Qunqing had made many plans before coming up here, but accidents always outnumbered expectations. Speeding up was his only option. He increased the output of his ability, nearly draining all the energy in his body.

For once, the system sensed a survival crisis. If Yu Qunqing died, it would die too. It shrank into a ball, proactively switching to background power-saving mode to leave Yu Qunqing a bit more energy.

The system had been raised on Yu Qunqing’s “blue rules.” The lightning-element ability Yu Qunqing had left was all residue the system had already consumed. That was why it was always hard for Yu Qunqing to level up—his ability level depended entirely on how much the system spat back out. The system only coughed up a LV2 because it had overeaten other disaster stones.

Recently, it had indeed been eating well, so it grudgingly squeezed out a bit of energy.

“You’ll have to pay it back!” the system said with extreme reluctance. Reversing its growth went against its instincts.

Yu Qunqing complained, “Your game even has a loan system.”

As soon as he spoke, a familiar surge of energy flowed in—something reminiscent of his previous life. He was a high-dimensional painter, and the blue pigment in his hands could be applied anywhere on the canvas.

The progress of the “Sawing Wood” operation accelerated significantly.

When Yu Qunqing finally completed most of a semicircular cut, he tossed away the chainsaw. With both hands free, he grabbed the bow from his back, drew the string, and aimed at the shadow beneath the Eight-Legged Frostfall. The arrow shot forth like a battering ram. The magnesium strip burning on the arrowhead erupted with astonishing brightness, dazzlingly conspicuous in the shadowed area beneath the monster.

This light precisely conveyed the message Yu Qunqing intended. What followed was the final step of the entire plan—one that relied completely on his teammates.

“I see the light!”

“I’ve fixed the anchor point—” Sun Min’s voice echoed across the ruins of the Fourth Ring.

Hearing this, Dong Changxin immediately slapped a cone-shaped mass as tall as a building beside him. To create this “bullet,” and to fully utilize every gram of weight Dong Changxin could bear, Sun Min had spared no effort. Today, the results finally showed.

After continuous training, Dong Changxin’s “Conical Transposition” could now carry three tons. The farther the distance, the greater the speed—and naturally, the greater the power. At the same time, it consumed several times more of Dong Changxin’s ability.

The first bullet spun out, smashing like a heavy hammer into the anchor nailed at the base of the column. The sharp sonic boom nearly burst eardrums.

Dong Changxin exhaled a long breath of white air, exhausting his ability as he prepared the next bullet!

“Felling a tree” by cutting it all the way through would be far too labor-intensive. So Yu Qunqing cut through two-thirds from above, and the rest would be torn apart using leverage to rip the long leg free.

Standing above, he could clearly feel the violent vibrations. Dense cracks appeared in the section that hadn’t been fully sawn through.

The second bullet arrived in the blink of an eye!

Standing around the Second Ring, She Lulang and Lin Luyi looked up at the towering column.

“If that thing slams down, it’ll trigger an earthquake, right?” Lin Luyi gaped. “And Yu Qunqing—he’ll have to jump down from over three thousand meters…”

“And then I’ll catch him,” She Lulang said softly.

The entire plan was as simple and clear as instructions for putting an elephant into a refrigerator. All the danger was hidden in the details. Only by trusting each other could they survive.

Inside the community, everyone was scrambling to implement disaster-avoidance measures.

The loudspeakers blared: “Attention all residents—Yu {*Xi%^} Squad, all members, attention! Next, we will face a violent earthquake, ruin collapse, and—hot water rain! Please enter the disaster-avoidance zones in groups!”

The second bullet detonated with a thunderous roar. The towering column finally began to tilt. Dragged by gravity, a massive fissure split open along its length, and it irreversibly toppled toward the city center.

Yu Qunqing untied the ropes from his body. Light and unburdened, he enjoyed the freedom of free fall at high altitude. The Eight-Legged Frostfall’s main body, occupying most of his vision, grew farther and farther away as he plunged through blade-like gales.

The Eight-Legged Frostfall’s body leaned to one side until it reached a new balance point. From afar, it looked as if half an egg had fallen from the sky.

The more than three-kilometer-long column toppled toward the city center. The first thing to melt was the ice layer on its upper portion.

The transparent, filthy gray ice melted into water. Countless light droplets drifted upward. As the column moved at high speed, friction generated massive heat, directly evaporating most of the ice and forcing out gray mist. The remaining droplets instantly became scalding hot.

From the residents’ perspective, the column’s downward trajectory seemed slow. But considering its sheer weight and volume, the speed was nothing short of terrifying.

Like a giant’s finger, the column pressed slowly into the ground, effortlessly pulverizing all ruins it touched. Then the earth shook violently. Hardened steel and concrete exploded outward like floods and crashing waves.

The community’s residents all hid on the upper floors of residential buildings. Through the windows, they saw a torrent of scrap metal over ten meters high surge in, easily leaping over the community’s three-meter-high walls and submerging the lower floors—yet they couldn’t help clicking their tongues in awe.

Iron fragments carried by the gale hammered against the glass like nails. Fortunately, the community’s buildings were exceptionally sturdy, keeping everyone safe.

“That’s amazing!” Instead of panic, the residents shouted in delight. “That great disaster really can be defeated!”

“It’s so big—its disaster stone must be huge too. Feeding it to our community would definitely fill it up,” some residents said, fully adopting the disaster-community mindset.

“It fell over near the Second Ring…” The Fourth Ring Chamber of Commerce members thought of something else entirely.

“Its leg is hollow, right? Then wouldn’t that mean we could go straight to the Fourth Ring from there? If we had a few more vehicles, wouldn’t travel be much easier?”

“We could go do business in the Fourth Ring!”

The residents who overheard them all wore ghost-seeing expressions.

Turning a great disaster’s leg into a passageway this quickly—isn’t that a bit disrespectful?

Because of gravity, the column slammed into the ground, carving out a deep crater. Jiangbei City’s underground pipelines were intricately interconnected, with many hollow spaces, so the column smashed downward, bursting pipe after pipe.

Finally, it came to rest about twenty meters underground—coincidentally merging with Jiangbei City’s most robust subway line, Line 13.

A new route had been opened.

“Crash—splash—”

Tons of scalding skywater poured down, splashing against the ruins in a final burst, clearing away some of the dust—like the first sweet rain of spring.

Everything progressed smoothly according to plan. However, Yu Qunqing was still “flying” in the sky. He activated his last item, a simple parachute, slightly slowing his descent. But if he continued to fall at this rate, he’d be lucky not to end up half-paralyzed.

Above him, all eight vents of the Eight-Legged Frostfall were wide open, gray air masses gathering, ready to launch.