Xiang Yi rushed to the cockpit.
The autopilot trajectory showed that the spaceship had two minutes at most before it crashed completely.
He noted the time and tried to adjust the position of the planet's 3D surface map.
He adjusted the map until it showed the edge of the city below.
"Found it."
Xiang Yi's finger tapped on the projection, just behind the city walls. There was a lake there.
In one minute and five seconds, the ship would pass over this lake. At that moment, the altitude difference between the ship and the lake's surface would be only about forty meters.
'Heh, only about thirteen stories high...'
But factoring in the ship's own velocity, the force of his impact would be... 'Hmm...'
Xiang Yi didn't feel like calculating the force of impact or his odds of survival anymore. He just wanted to figure out the exact moment to jump from the ship and leave the rest to fate.
His total Spiritual Power wasn't enough to control an entire spaceship, and there wasn't enough time to manually detach modules like he had with the temperature control unit. Besides, he didn't even know how.
Rather than wait for the impact, betting that he wouldn't be seriously injured or knocked unconscious and could somehow escape the crash site surrounded by countless people, he preferred to jump.
There were many factors to consider for the jump.
Due to inertia, he would have to jump slightly early to land precisely in the lake.
He needed to calculate his fall time, which required the planet's gravitational acceleration.
Conveniently, the ship's terrain projection displayed the local planet's gravitational acceleration. It was slightly less than Earth's.
This was good news. At least the height required for a fatal fall would be a little greater here.
Then there was the ship's speed.
This speed would affect the amount of air resistance his body would encounter after leaving the ship. It would affect the distance of his diagonal trajectory due to inertia. It would also, incidentally, affect his actual speed upon landing—a variable that would determine how gruesome his death would be.
After a series of thoughts and calculations, he determined the precise time to jump: fifty-two seconds from now.
Xiang Yi couldn't make precise calculations for other factors like atmospheric density, but the lake was large enough that a small margin of error was acceptable.
The real question was how to survive a jump from a spaceship this high up.
Something suddenly occurred to Xiang Yi. He rushed out of the cockpit and ran to a small, separate room inside the ship.
This was where the ship's protective suits were stored. A suit might help cushion the impact of his fall, even if just a little.
There was no guarantee it would work, but wearing one was better than not wearing one.
Xiang Yi managed to put on a second protective suit over the first one. As for the helmet, there was no way to wear another one on top of the original.
Thirty seconds remained until the ship reached the designated position.
Xiang Yi immediately rushed back behind the cockpit and opened the side hatch.
The moment the hatch opened, the torrential rain drenched his suit's faceplate, and the powerful wind pressure nearly swept him out.
It was impossible to maintain a stable descent from this position. Jumping directly from here meant zero chance of survival.
The hatch closed again.
Eighteen seconds remained until the scheduled time.
And Xiang Yi had one last option.
At the ship's tail, the hatch of the lower port-side cargo bay was opened once more.
The gap created by the damaged hatch below the cargo bay was still there, with large pieces of mechanical wreckage stuck in the opening.
Wind and rain were being sucked into the ship through the gap, soaking a large section of the cargo bay wall.
If Xiang Yi chose to jump through the gap, he could maintain a vertical fall. It would be far easier to control his body against vertical winds than against horizontal ones.
Ten seconds left.
Xiang Yi lay flat on the edge of the gap, hugging the lower wall of the cargo bay, and peeked his head down.
He saw the city ahead of the ship.
It was a massive, brilliantly lit city protected by walls, stretching as far as the eye could see.
In the air over the city center, amidst towering skyscrapers, a giant airship was slowly cruising by. It resembled a twentieth-century zeppelin, but its structure was clearly far more advanced.
A huge screen on the side of its streamlined body was playing an advertisement for a game called *Primordial Armor*.
On the screen, a group of energetic young people dominated the game world, vying for supremacy among the stars.
Meanwhile, Xiang Yi remained lying at the cargo bay's bottom hatch, constantly monitoring the ship's altitude, terrified that some external force might suddenly cause it to deviate from its course.
He didn't pay much attention to the scene above the city. As long as that airship didn't crash into him, he couldn't care less about it.
His naked eye could now make out the city walls through the downpour, as well as the vast, desolate, and dark land behind them.
There were almost no visible structures near the walls, just a small building surrounded by a large barbed-wire fence. Inside the fenced area, there seemed to be a small hill.
Xiang Yi's gaze searched the area near the hill, and he soon spotted his target near the building and the hill.
The lake—the destination the ship was about to pass over.
Xiang Yi silently counted down in his mind.
This was the only chance he would ever get.
If he failed...
He would die.
The very instant the timing was perfect...
Xiang Yi rolled forward, slipped through the cargo bay's gap, and plunged from the ship, keeping his legs pointed downward.
The violent storm completely obscured his vision and senses.
Even with the protective suits, he felt a sense of suffocation.
He couldn't see anything, couldn't feel anything. Only an indescribable fear enveloped him.
This fear didn't come from within himself, but from the planet that seemed so incredibly dark in his eyes.
Even though he hadn't activated his Spiritual Energy, time in his mind seemed to stretch on for an eternity.
Just as Xiang Yi thought the darkness would never end...
He landed precisely in the lake.
Only two seconds had passed.
SPLASH—
The downpour couldn't muffle the violent surge of water in the lake.
Coughing, Xiang Yi swam at the bottom of the pitch-black lake. His faceplate was splattered with blood, and his legs were completely numb from taking the brunt of the impact.
He could feel that the wound where the rebar had pierced him had ruptured and was now bleeding profusely inside his suit.
The pain almost completely enveloped him, tempting him to just give up and embrace eternal peace.
But he continued to struggle, paddling through the water with only his arms.
His rapid breathing filled his lungs and mouth with the metallic taste of blood.
He still didn't give up. He remained calm and quickly shed the outer suit, which was already waterlogged. At the same time, he activated the intact oxygen tank on his inner suit, causing it to pressurize and gradually lift him from the lakebed to the surface.
After managing to make out the direction of the shore through his crimson-tinted vision, Xiang Yi paddled his way to the bank.
The bank was covered in dense, man-high reeds. He barely managed to pull himself up before collapsing into the soft grass and taking off his cracked, blood-stained helmet.
After coughing up a little more blood, he wiped the rain and gore from his face and muttered to the sky.
"I'm still alive."
As the words left his mouth, in the distance, the spaceship seemed to crash into a building in the city center.
A pillar of fire lit up half the city, making it as bright as day.