“Wow, you all have worked fast, haven’t you~”
Thomas whistles in amazement at the amount of progress that had happened around the rift in Laurence Academy of the Gifted.
What was originally just one of several open fields in the school for physical classes or festivals, had very quickly been occupied by the Protectorate and defense forces shortly after the rift had appeared. Giant iron walls were used to seal around the portal and automated guns constantly faced inwards.
In the past few days however, roads in from the back of the school grounds had be laid, and several portable buildings had been erected while more permanent fixtures were already under construction. Construction vehicles where constantly operating while mages and heroes provided assistance with spellcraft and superpowers.
There was even a landing zone for transport carriers to arrive and depart from, usually carrying supplies excavated from inside the gate by the Protectorate’s heroes. There was even a checkpoint setup at the barricade around the rift where those came back from the other side would have themselves and their items inspected, ensured that their permits were valid and they weren’t carrying any unknown pathogens.
Heavy investment was made here, and it was very obvious that the ever growing base was intended to stay.
All kinds of people were present, from staff wielding mages to sword swinging warriors, and all kinds in between. A quick glance through his soul gaze told Thomas there were even a few non humans walking about.
They were either dragging their gains, relaxing, or having a look at the supplies the Protectorate were bartering.
Anthony Reeves parked the vehicle behind a portable building along side a range of other vehicles before alighting.
“Follow me, and don’t cause any trouble,” He casually commented once Thomas and Senna also climbed out of the car, leading them towards a small temporary unit prepared for administration purposes.
Inside, he sat behind a desk and extracted a high tech compass with a gold tipped needle along with a pile of documents.
“This is the device which will point us towards the power source of the rift.”
“Us?” Senna asked in annoyance.
“Yes. To ensure that nothing goes amiss, I will be accompanying you two?”
“Why would I allow that?”
“When you are fighting off a monster, who’s going to protect Thomas who has currently lost all his powers?”
“…”
The corner of Captain Reeves mouth twitched into a momentary smirk at forcing Senna into a logical corner, a slight that was not missed by the fae.
“I am more than enough.”
“You don’t know what the condition inside is like.”
“Even ten of you wouldn’t equate to a single finger of mine.”
“How obnoxious.”
“It’s simply the truth.”
Thomas sat back in his chair and watched the two bicker with an amused expression on his face. He could tell Senna was getting closer to simply attacking the police captain and pivoted the conversation.
“What are those documents.”
“…These are information packets on the monsters that have been found inside the portal, and the reason why we need to act as soon as possible.”
Anthony Reeves slid over the papers and showed images of a range of monsters before continuing to explain.
“The monsters inside come in all shapes and forms. There have been your standard variety of vampires werewolves, albeit without the ability to communicate like those we know of, and other creatures that are carnivorous hunters, but there are plenty we have no information on.”
“Of course,” Thomas spoke in a matter-of-factually tone, “It is purgatory. It is where all the twisted or otherwise impure souls go after death. That we can interact with them physically is the true wonder.”
“…Correct, that is our conjecture as well. The rift has a strange trait of transforming the physical into the metaphysical, creating a two-way bridge between the realms. Even though my knowledge in the esoteric arts is not shallow, the method in which this occurs is beyond my comprehension.”
“So, it’s just killing some monsters again? Humans have been doing that for millennia.”
“The problem is that there are species we have neither seen nor heard of before, not even a mention in the most abstract and ancient historical records or mythos. We suspect these are creatures the evolved within Purgatory itself.”
“You can’t fight them because you don’t have enough information on them. How do you think humans learned information on monsters in the first place?”
“The issue is that evolution is occurring in a realm where it is survival of the fittest at its peak. This means that a significant number of these creatures are so far beyond us that we can’t possibly hope to put up resistance against. Thankfully, they are all too large to be able to come through the gate if they tried, but the gate is increasing in size every day because of the power source is still active.”
Thomas pinched his chin in thought and asked, “There is so much you don’t know. How do you know there aren’t those that are more… small form factor.”
“Don’t be a jinx.”
Senna pinched his hip and rolled her eyes in exasperation, not that she was genuinely concerned. She held enough confidence in her strength that she wasn’t afraid of whatever could possibly come through the gate.
“Fine, fine, let’s see them.”
Thomas and Senna then sat through a crash course on the various monsters inside the rift and what the Protectorate had learned. Once they had caught up on everything, the trio departed for the rift where the inspectors nodded to the police captain and issued them three entry passes in the form of bracelets without any questions.
As the only expected non-combatant, Thomas was in charge of being the guide, holding the compass and Senna’s snacks.
He did however borrow a modern spear with an in-built molecular vibration module to increase its cutting power, a technique that allowed weaker humans to carve through tough monster hides.
Thomas rose his brows in surprise as they all stepped through the giant tear in space and officially entered Purgatory, looking down at his hands and body in wonder.
“What, is something the matter?” Captain Reeves asked curiously.
“No, it’s just a bit… never mind. It’s difficult to explain.”
Purgatory was like an inside out world. There was a sun, or sun-like object, directly in the center of purgatory, and the entire world wrapped around it. Thomas and the others could see the world wrapping all the way around, as if they were standing on the inside surface of a ball.
Of course, the farthest reaches were so far away it was like viewing the Earth from space – no distinct features could be seen.
The temperature inside Purgatory was a bit cooler than the outside world, but there was a thick stench of nature and beasts that constantly roamed about. For someone like Senna, whose nose was particularly sensitive, it was an additional source of information that flowed into her, albeit an overly chaotic one that disrupted her senses more so than helped.
“I assume the sun never sets?” Thomas asked whimsically while gazing up at glowing white ball of fire with squinted eyes.
“There is no night cycle here, obviously. It’s a place where nothing ever sleeps.” Captain Reeves confirmed while resting his hand on his sword and peering around.
The humans had already in the process of building a station here in purgatory. Heavy equipment were tearing down the forestry and clearing land, whilst defensive fortifications had been set up and several resource facilities for inspecting goods and dismantling monster corpses.
There were also some temporary research facilities that were still growing in size and only partially functional, but that would change very rapidly at the pace they were going.
“Our initial thoughts were that the sun here gives off anti-gravity, pushing objects away from it, but the floating isles that can be seen prove otherwise. Perhaps it is just some natural ore or other power affecting them, but the government haven’t been able to access any of them to take samples.”
Anthony Reeves sighed while focusing his gaze on some large islands in the far distance that seemed to simply float in the void, unaffected by any form of gravity.
“You can’t just bring in some planes?”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Senna rebutted, “The portal is still too small for such a large vehicles to pass through.”
Captain Reeves scratched his chin and verbally added, “The typical mana drive engines don’t function properly in here, but there was an attempt at launching a more vintage plane. The higher up you go, the greater the gravity. The plane barely cleared the treetops before it couldn’t create enough lift to climb any higher. Even I could only fly up about three hundred feet before I couldn’t go any higher.”
“Oh, we have some good news!” Thomas suddenly spoke up as he took out a pair of compasses.
The police captain looked at him with a puzzled expression before asking, “What is that second compass?”
“Locked onto a child that went missing a month ago. Your a bit late to the party, drug addict, this isn’t the first time the rift into Purgatory has opened~”
“Is it just me,” Senna leaned against Thomas as she peer over the pair of compasses in his hands, “or are they pointing in the same direction.”
“At the very least, it’s quite close. Let’s go for a walk and find out~”
“You really have no sense of fear, do you?” Captain Reeves sighed while walking beside Thomas, his vivid green eyes scanning through the trees not far away. “Even though you are currently powerless.”
“Death is not something to be afraid of, but what’s the point in telling that to cultivators who are so perversely fixated on living forever~ Besides, I can’t die~”
“Would you like to test that?”
“Would you?” Senna’s voice dropped to an extremely frosty tone that was thickly laced with killing intent.
There were no bugs in purgatory, but there were lots of small, blood sucking monsters that would leech onto or parasitize others.
Dead leaves and twigs crunched under the trios feet as they made their way through the virgin forest that had obvious signs of beasts. Claw marks in trees, indicating territory at some point, snapped branches, even some felled trees from some unknown creature.
“Incoming…” Captain Reeves warned the others under his breath, his spiritual sense picking up the movement of monsters around them.
The police captain drew his sword whilst bringing out several others from his storage ring that would float around him under the control of his qi arts.
Senna also picked up their sounds, her ears twitched as she focused on locating them. All the monsters in Purgatory evolved to be stealthy, so they were good at hiding until it was time to ambush.
Before Anthony could attack, Senna finished locating them all and kicked up a pile of dirt where she vanished at a speed faster than could be tracked by the naked eye. She appeared next to a tree and struck the trunk with her palm.
Rather than wood splintering, a large burst of violet blood sprayed out everywhere as the five foot bipedal creature that had camouflaged itself with the trunk practically burst into pieces.
It’s skin was covered in bark, which appeared to have been worn at a glance, but the creatures actually grew it themselves somehow. That bark would shift in texture and color, allowing them to perfectly blend in with trees in the area.
“Bark goblins, huh?” Thomas ‘whew’d while looking at the bloody remains from Senna’s attack. “I have to say, your people have terrible naming skills. Why not barghans?”
“What the hell is that? It’s the researchers who come up with names. Bark goblin is easy to remember and recognize, get over it.”
“Sigh, several centuries go by and all creativity is lost.”
“How old exactly are you?”
“Young’un, don’t do drugs~”
“…”
The police captain rolled his eyes and sent his flying swords out to attack with a few hand signals. The guardless swords flashed through their air like steel bolts of lightning, forming a net and carving through the foliage and hidden bark goblins.
The remainder of the monsters sensed they were in danger and began to flee, but that simply further broke their camouflage. Senna was like death incarnate, her glowing crimson eyes flicking back and forth as she moved faster than any of them could react. A single strike from her palm or fist was enough to extinguish life, a swing of her arm enough to decapitate.
*Shreiii* *SHREIKKK*
The bark goblins cried out in panic whilst trying to escape, but it was futile.
“Do we take back their bodies?”
Monsters often had strange and esoteric properties, which could be used in rituals, spellcraft, cultivation arts. Mages with alchemical knowledge could refine these properties and turn them into weapons, while cultivators could do similar refinement with their own arts. They both had different outcomes and were often heavily debated as to which method was better.
This meant that corpses of monsters often held value. This wasn’t only monsters, but the use of humans and protected supernatural creatures was an illegal practice that would land one in the most severe prisons.
“The bark armor hasn’t been found to have any useful properties yet, nor does their blood, bones or muscles. They don’t look very… appetizing either. Although, they’re apparently pretty good fertilizer.”
“…You could have just said they were garbage.”
All kinds of mystical and mysterious plants grew throughout purgatory, while the landscape was equally mysterious with deep crevices that seemed bottomless and jagged mountain ridges with jutting stones as sharp as razor blades.
Gravity also fluctuated in a way that was usually very minuscule and difficult to discern, but would occasionally have very abrupt change that would throw everyone, monsters included, off balance. Thomas and the others even passed through one space where the forest had grown in a strange twisted manner which was the result from local gravity fluctuating with regular waves of low gravity pulses.
The trio traveled for nearly 10 hours and came across all kinds of strange things. The jungle would sometimes move as if alive, or just the plants themselves would try to attack or deceive them. Hallucinogenic fog filled some areas, and seemingly rare and mysterious plants would create a sense of desire in any who looked at them. Other times it would open into a vast plains of flowers that gave off a large scent of danger despite its seemingly harmless or beautiful landscape.
Despite that, they rarely stopped to collect these items as they already had a goal for this expedition, although Thomas did harvest a small plant with luminescent blue flowers as a souvenir.
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