Just as any opening to the unknown, each new portal being discovered was like a gacha game of chance where the incoming otherworldly creatures could be friendly, neutral or hostile. For the most cases, hostility was the norm.
By the natural laws of the universe, the strong loved to dominate on the weak. For thousands of years, humans had been fighting civil wars against their own kind under the guise of different nations and ideologies. But now, somehow a common enemy had melted down the collective consciousness of the global forces.
One such 'alien' race were the Gargonians, given that name by the humans due to their weird language that contained "gar", "gon", "gor", "guh" sounds. Unlike anything seen or discovered by humans before, the Gargonians were humanoid but didn't resemble any other creature that could be easily described by a single word. Superficial scrutiny out of the way, the Gargonians were known for making some of the most mysterious machinery. They didn't primarily build any torture rooms or prisons, but their leader was figured out to be a tyrant based on how the commoners were treated like servants to their throne.
China and Korea had decided to send in a band of investigator agents to strike a diplomatic deal with them, despite the Gargonians showing no interest in meddling with human matters. All they wanted was to explore and build their own research centers inside deep caves. The Himalayas seemed to be a perfect spot. Sadly for the human agents, they never returned back to their bases.
Taking it as an act of aggression, the Koreans sent in their most promising team of adventurers, led by Jinju Wan of class type 'demon hunter' and a rank of 89 'A', to scout out the area where the diplomats were last seen and possibly invade the Gargonians' own home world and fight off their leader. In a rapidly changing society of multiple intelligent lifeforms, Earth had stopped most of its human-to-human conflicts, by gearing up for battles against other sentient species across galaxies.
This wasn't the first time such an incident had occurred. At this high rate of development for the humans, they required as many valuable resources and materials that they could get their hands on. Many such 'adventurer' expeditions had been successful in the past, bridging the gap between two worlds. Some countries launched spaceships loaded with genetically-enhanced super soldiers to conquer new planets and populate solar system-wide networks. Whilst others stayed on land and investigated portals and doorways remotely from the convenience and logistic supplies of their own home planet.
But little had been known about the true skills and abilities of these Gargonian mind reavers, for they could mess around with the unshielded human brains, causing them to hallucinate, or even forget memories at will.
When Jinju Wan and his team appeared at the Ichin Serko area (a name granted to the underground base set up by the Gargonians after their portal accidentally brought them into solid rock under the mountains instead of over them), they found it abandoned already. Perhaps the Gargonians had already forecasted their arrival? Or worse, that the Gargonians had developed invisibility.
They had searched through the caves and found the gateway connecting this small patch of China to a different kingdom on another side, but the powerful enchantments and natural forces inside were too much for any of them to handle.
How far had they progressed inside the Gargonian world? Jinju had no clue. Did they win? Did they see an actual Gargonian up close in-person? No memory was being fetched by his brain yet.
Ugh… What in the name of God were those things? Why didn't the elves inform us about them earlier?
Jinju felt relieved that atleast a few chunks of his memories were slowly flooding back to him, even if he still couldn't recall any of the names of his loyal comrades who had dared to take the risk with him.
If that ice mage is really speaking the truth and simply not trying to scare me, then I guess I should be worried.
He slowly stepped through the misty tunnel he was currently crossing.
Whoever carved out these paths straight of solid rock must have technologies far more terrifying than these magnetic shackles and collapsing rooms.
No human nor water propulsion could corrode these hollows as elaborately as guided by Gargonian hands, or tentacles to be precise.
Why hadn't the ceiling fallen on me while I was asleep? Was I really knocked out that badly? How come a span of one month passed so quickly? To me it seemed like an instant, hardly a minute since I got… that bright light, that's the last thing I remember.
Questions hovered like honeybees treating his head as their hive.
It took him all these years of effort to climb up the ranks from the initial H-rank he had received from the adventurer benchmark. Ranks were assigned based on monthly or weekly performances from activities, news coverages, fame, etc. Likewise, the numbers were limited to the top 10 heroes worldwide having a rank of S, the top 100 being in A, 1000 for B, and so on. Ofcourse, not every hero or adventurer was registered officially by the Board of Earthly Regents Council (BERC). This let curious minds stick out their tongues with greed, wondering if somewhere out there, there might exist certain individuals with powers beyond S-rank – waiting to be scouted out by BERC to be given formal ranks or be eaten up by a 'guild' business organization hoping to utilize talents for profit and competition.
Now, out of all the possible moments of time, Jinju began unwrapping his doubts. Was it really worth it? To be a hero or adventurer? A demon hunter? Did it bring him joy or comfort, or only burdened him with the social responsibility to help the poor and defend the weak?
Footsteps took flight and bounced off the neatly chewed up stony walls of his surroundings. His vision couldn't really assist in seeing what was ahead of him.
This mist… so foggy and thick. Where is it coming from? Dust particles? No… it cannot be. The craftsmanship that went into building these underground settlements are too clean. Something else is at work here. Something foul.
He exited out of a tunnel and found himself looking at a much wider area, like a central courtyard or an atrium that had multiple staircases leading to many more branches of doors and tunnels. A giant machine of an unknown purpose remained hanging from the ceiling, restrained from being attracted by Earth's gravity by a series of floating magnetic orbs holding it into position.
What the? What is THAT!
He gazed up at the unusual collection of alien metals, pipes, wires, magical runes and spheres, having not even a pinch of clue about why this machine existed here in the first place.
The misty aerosol density had decreased in quantity here, but still lingered within the other tunnels leading out of this interior chamber.
Taking a deep breath, and then exhaling with greater pressure, the demon hunter cleared up his lungs from the mysterious mist that he had passively let into his body. Could it have any side effects? Atleast it didn't inflict any pain or scent to be detected.
Jinju ignored the literal elephant in the room and steered his wrist-locked body towards the mouth of the stairs he was about to climb.
Where did those ice mages go? Up these stairs? Or any of these tunnels? ….. I hate this feeling. Of not knowing what's up ahead. What do I need to do? Where do I go?
Looking up, he couldn't really see an end to the stairs. Was he traveling in the direction?
Tunnels led out of this vast atrium at every few full revolution of the staircase. But he was unsure if any of them would lead him out to an exit. Even though many frequent visitors to this location treated it as the famous Gargonian Mountain Pass, it was still an unofficial uncharted area restricted to people who atleast had a D-rank rating on the BERC registry. Even so, the region attributed as the Mountain Pass was only about 10% of the surface level zone of the whole Ichin Serko place. Right now, Jinju was down here, miles beneath the actual Mountain Pass, alone, in a weakened state of health that wouldn't even allow him to qualify for an H-rank (lowest) anymore.
He used to be one of the top talents of BERC in Korea, one of the only 15 A-rankers, with many of them receiving contracts to work in China too. Only 1 S-Ranker existed in Korea, tied with Japan's 1, and falling short of USA holding 3 and China owning 5. Due to BERC's rules, the S-rank category was only offered to the top 10 most powerful human 'heroes' who had dedicated their lives in being the risk-takers of venturing into portals, jumping into danger and rescuing those in need from any kind of disaster.
And now… If the people who had cheered him on for the years of work he had passed while climbing the ladder of ranks and progressing through past missions could see Jinju Wan, the most promising demon hunter of Korea, in his current state of being lost and trapped in his own world let alone any other demon's castle or malicious entity's dimension…
Am I really Jinju? What if that Hon man was right? Maybe I'm not me anymore. Just a clone perhaps? What if the real Jinju was dead already? … How could I even verify? Am I real? Am I dreaming?
A pebble rolled away from his feet as he continued his ascent towards the logical direction where the surface level could be: up. It slipped over the edge and hurtled down towards the machine resting near the bottom of the circular cavity of the spiral stairs.
He heard a mechanical whirr in the air that he knew wasn't there before. He stopped in his current stair step, curious to look towards the direction of the sound.
Before he could even blink, his A-rank trained ears picked up on the Doppler effect of the sound source, sending reflex signals to his leg muscles.
!!!
The floating machine was flying up towards his direction.
ns216.73.216.39da2
and then Add to home screen.