Desperate Moment! System Activation?

The blade tore through the wind, carrying a foul stench of rust and blood as it rushed straight at him.

The touch of death was cold, so thick it seemed ready to freeze the air and clog every pore on Chen Ye's body. He could even see the tiny chips along the blade's edge, as well as his own face—twisted by fear—reflected in One-Eye's murky eye.

It was over.

To die in a foreign land right after transmigrating—there probably wasn't a more absurd script than this.

No defying fate. No thirty years east of the river.

Only being cut in two.

Chen Ye's mind went blank. He gave up struggling and instinctively closed his eyes.

Farewell, this damned world.

However, in the thousandth of a second before the blade severed his carotid artery—

[Ding!]

A crisp, cold Electronic Sound exploded in the deepest depths of his consciousness without warning. It did not belong to this world, yet it was as clear as if it were pressed against his eardrum.

Chen Ye's body jolted.

A hallucination? The final dream before death?

[Host's Will to Survive has reached the threshold...]

[Final protocol triggered... Binding soul...]

[Binding successful.]

[God-Tier Spacetime Summoning System officially activated.]

The string of mechanical prompts was utterly emotionless, yet it thundered through his dead-silent soul like the most stirring war drums!

A system!

His Golden Finger had arrived!

The wild ecstasy of surviving a calamity erupted from the depths of his frozen heart like underground magma, instantly sweeping through his Limbs and Bones and burning away that Piercing Chill and fear!

I don't have to die!

Hahahaha! I don't have to die!

Chen Ye almost threw back his head and laughed madly. Turning the tables in a desperate situation—wasn't this the script of a protagonist chosen by fate?!

"System! Hurry! Summon someone! Summon the strongest one for me!"

He roared in his mind with all his mental strength. "Gojo Satoru, Saitama, Sun Wukong... anyone will do! Just blast these pieces of trash in front of me into dust!"

He could already imagine it: an invincible figure descending from the sky and crushing those ugly pirates into pulp with a flick of a finger. Then he would spit viciously at that pile of flesh and blood!

Yet the miracle he imagined never came.

That deadly curved blade still sliced toward his neck with a howling wind, without slowing in the slightest!

What's going on?!

The joy in Chen Ye's heart froze in an instant.

[Warning: System's initial energy is 0.]

[Warning: Unable to execute any summoning commands.]

The cold prompt was like a bucket of polar Ice Water dumped over his head, chilling him to the bone.

Zero energy?

Unable to summon?

Chen Ye's mind buzzed, and he was completely dumbfounded.

"...Are you screwing with me?" He could hardly believe his own "ears."

"You activated, only to tell me you have no energy? What's the difference between giving me a fully loaded supercar without a single drop of gas?!"

[Host, please obtain energy as soon as possible to unlock the summoning function.]

The system's voice remained flat, without a trace of emotion.

Obtain energy? I'm about to be chopped to death! Where am I supposed to get energy for you?!

Chen Ye felt as though someone had yanked him ruthlessly down from the clouds and smashed him into a bottomless abyss.

This feeling was ten thousand times more painful than never having hope at all.

It gave you the brightest Stars in the world, then crushed them to pieces with its own hands the next second.

"Fuck..."

A furious, grief-stricken curse screamed soundlessly in his heart.

This goddamn system is here specifically to mess with my head, isn't it?!

By now, the blade was infinitely close.

The sinister chill had already prickled the skin of his neck with fine goosebumps. One-Eye's savage grin grew infinitely larger in his vision.

The shadow of death engulfed him completely once more—and for the last time.

This time, there would be no miracle.

Massive unwillingness and despair clenched around his heart like an invisible hand.

But at the final moment, his instinct to survive overwhelmed everything.

Chen Ye's body made one final, unthinking response—he suddenly threw himself backward!

"Swish!"

The rusted blade missed by a hair's breadth, slicing past the tip of his nose! The fierce wind from the blade even cut a faint bloody line across the bridge of his nose.

"Hm?" One-Eye froze for a moment, then his savage grin widened.

So what if he dodged? Behind him was a bottomless abyss!

Chen Ye completely lost his balance, his heel stepping on loose gravel at the Cliff Edge.

"Crack—"

The ground vanished beneath his feet!

The sensation of weightlessness seized his entire body in an instant! Like a kite with its string cut, he toppled irreversibly toward the bottom of the cliff!

The wind howled madly beside his ears.

The world rapidly receded before his eyes. The last image frozen in his vision was the pirates' stunned yet mocking faces, and the azure sky shattered into fragments.

"Am I... going to fall to my death?"

The thought surfaced calmly in his mind. Compared to being beheaded with one strike, it seemed... not much different.

He gave up struggling and let his body tumble through the air, plunging toward the unknown shrouded in dense fog.

The wind surging up from the bottom of the cliff carried an overpowering fishy sea stench, whipping his clothes until they flapped wildly.

"Boss, he fell!"

"From that height, he's definitely been smashed into meat paste!"

"Damn it! He got off easy!"

One-Eye spat, then disappeared into the forest with his underlings, cursing as he went.

Silence returned to the Cliff Edge.

Falling. An endless fall.

Chen Ye felt as though his soul had been flung from his body, his consciousness gradually blurring amid the rapid descent.

In his mind, that cold Mechanical Voice continued dutifully reporting:

[Warning: Host's vital signs are rapidly deteriorating... 10%... 9%...]

[System energy: 0. Unable to activate any protective procedures.]

"You're so noisy..." he muttered weakly. "Can't you let me... die in peace for a moment..."

Just as his consciousness was about to sink into eternal darkness—

A shadow so enormous it defied imagination flashed through the rolling fog below!

It looked like a... moving Mountain Range!

Then—

Splash!!! With an earth-shattering crash, Chen Ye's body slammed like a Cannonball into a cold, soft, strangely elastic "Water Surface."