Noah arrived at the police station and saw that everyone was already there waiting for him. He saw Eleanor up ahead and walked up to her. “Is everyone here?”

“Ah Noah, yes, I’ve done a headcount and everyone is here and accounted for.” She replied.

“Good. Let’s get this show on the road, then!” Saying that, he summoned five large portals the size of three people side by side and amplified his voice. “Okay, everyone, slowly walk into the portals thr… uh… two at a time!”

“…”

No one stepped forward as they all collectively stared at the portals suspiciously.

“Is… is it safe?” A mother with her two kids beside her asked.

“Completely!” Noah beamed at her. But seeing as his reply wasn’t enough to persuade her, he went up to one of the portals and popped his head in. He called for the men who delivered the various necessities from before who were already in the artifact and asked them to come out.

Upon seeing multiple people coming out of the portal, a boy no more than the age of twelve stepped forward and was the first to enter.

Everyone watched as the boy popped in and out of the portal as if he was playing and relaxed a bit. It didn’t take long for the next couple of people to enter the portals and act as an impetus for everyone else to flood into the artifact.

A couple of minutes later, everyone had settled down in the mini world and the only people outside were Noah, Mark, Sophie, Eleanor, John and Lily with the boars.

Noah was wondering something and decided to ask Eleanor. “Who was the first boy that went in?”

Eleanor consulted her clipboard and said. “Sean Estrada, twelve years old, with an uncommon mage type class. He’s uhm… he’s been orphaned because of the previous disaster.”

“That’s… unfortunate.” He sighed. “Keep an eye on him. We’re going to need more brave kids like him in the future.”

“No problem. We’ve already been in talks about some of the families adopting the orphans. It’s received quite the support, so hopefully we can keep an eye on all of them.”

“Good. You guys can go in now.” He turned his head toward Lily and said. “You too Lily, we’re going to sprint towards home base at the fastest speed we can manage so we can help the people settle in sooner.”

“But…”

“No buts, young lady.”

Lily sighed and obeyed. She urged Emeri and the piglets to march into the portal, all while throwing glares at Noah as she did so.

When Noah saw that she finally entered the artifact, he couldn’t help but sigh. “She’s only seven years old, right? I can’t imagine what she’ll be like when she becomes a teen.”

“A teen with massive, high-level boars.” Mark added.

“A super teen… yikes. I pray for all the parents still alive in the world.”

“Speaking of, what kind of gods did you meet? Was there anyone from our own myths and religions?”

“Nah. None that I recognize anyway. Though I’ve never really been the religious type, so who knows? They did shed some light on this whole thing, though, so that’s good.”

The others who were about to enter the portal looked over and stretched their necks to listen in. Eleanor herself stopped walking and moved closer to Noah and Mark.

“Don’t worry, Eleanor, we’ll have a meeting as soon as we arrive at our base. I’ll fill you in on all the stuff I learned then.”

The older woman had a thoughtful look on her face for a few seconds and acquiesced. She entered the portal along with the others and left Noah and Mark alone.

Noah nodded and said. “Now that that’s done, let’s get going.”

With that, Noah cast his movement enhancement spells on the both of them and they shot off.

A day and a half later, Noah just finished killing a corrupted rabbit and was analyzing it with his skill.

Rabbit – lvl 16(Corrupted)

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“Hmmm. Nothing new with the description. But there are definitely a lot more of them.”

“That was number fifty, wasn’t it? There sure are a lot of them lately.” Mark looked in the direction of the valley and furrowed his brows. “And this close to the valley too.”

“Yeah. We’re gonna have to find whatever is corrupting them sooner rather than later.” Noah said, still focused on the corrupted rabbit’s corpse.

“Well, let’s just get to the apartment building for now so we can let everybody settle in.”

“Yeah.”

Just then, they heard a loud roar come from the valley and decided to hurry and investigate.

When they got there, though, they were met with a strange sight. Hundreds of obviously corrupted beasts surrounded the apartment building in a wide circle, cornering a whole bunch of relatively normal looking animals that decided to hide inside the building.

Noah voiced his confusion and said. “Weird. Why aren’t they attacking?”

“Probably the territorial aura, or whatever, from Talal?”

“Hmmm. Probably. Anyway, let’s take care of this before they damage anything.” Noah started gathering his mana to conjure some fire bombs, but then Mark stopped him.

“Why don’t we let the others handle this? Those corrupted beasts don’t look very strong. It should be some good experience for them.”

Noah thought about it for a second and agreed. “You’ve got a point. I’ll pop in and tell them about it.”

And with a blink, Noah disappeared from his position for a few minutes before a portal opened up and spit out all the remaining combat capable people.

All seventy-five of them looked around at the corrupted beasts and got ready. Noah and Mark cast all their buff spells on them and stepped off to the side. They would only step up if any of them were in any danger, but it wasn’t needed in the end.

It was a massacre.

The beasts didn’t know what hit them and died easily to the weapons of the militia. Interestingly, they did find something out. Corrupted beasts provided more experience than normal ones at the same level. The only reason they never noticed was because they were just too high-level for it to matter.

Now that it was done, and they were so close to the building, though, none of them wanted to go back into the artifact. There wasn’t really anything in there after all, just plants and a weird sun.

After he cast his movement spell buffs on everyone, they sprinted toward the building and discovered that the animals that made it a hiding place were actually made up mostly of now-evolved former domesticated animals. There were birds, cats, chickens and even some rats, but weirdly enough, they were all following behind one cat in particular.

It was a ragdoll cat with a mostly white coat of fur and a hint of black on its face, except it was at least three times the size of a normal cat.

It stepped forward and Mark went up to meet it. He activated his skill, [Animal Telepathy] and they both went silent for a few minutes as they conversed.

When it was over, Mark filled them in on the details. And as it turned out, the cat’s name was Mallows. She was the would-be leader of the gathered animals. They had banded together after the apocalypse and had been group hunting other beasts and invaders for food.

This went on for weeks until they encountered a nest of corrupted beasts surrounding a tear in space that was spewing out demonic miasma. Most of the corrupted beasts that surrounded them before were actually part of their group but were turned when they tried to eradicate the nest.

“Mallows said that they’re willing to live and hunt with us if we agreed to get the owner of the aura to provide them shelter.” Mark chuckled and said. “Man, if you told me a few weeks ago that I’d be talking with a cat after the apocalypse, I would’ve laughed at you.”

“Yeah. We live in some weird times.” Noah chuckled in response. “Anyway, what did you say?”

“Agreed to it, of course. We’re gonna need all the help we can get with defense and all that.”

“Nice. And who knows? Maybe some of them will agree to be bound to Lily.”

“I actually didn’t think of that. That’d definitely do her some good.”

“Exactly my thoughts.”

“Mrooow?”

Mallows went up to them and nodded at Mark.

“Seems like she’s got all her friends on the same page.”

“Good. I’ll let the people know and get them out of the artifact now. Let Mallows know and have her friends prepare.”

“Got it.”

With that, Noah disappeared again and popped back into the artifact. He told everyone to prepare to exit, and that there were larger than normal animals outside that were friendly.

Then, five portals like before materialized side by side in the parking lot, where over a thousand people walked out in wonder, still a bit mesmerized by the whole portal thing.

When Mallows saw Lily walk out of the portal with the boars, though, she rushed her and almost tackled her to the ground. The cat was only stopped by Mark who thought that she was on the attack.

“What’s up with you?” Mark held the massive cat by the nape of its neck and asked.

“Friend?” The cat replied through their telepathy and looked at Lily with warm eyes, making Mark squint in confusion.

He turned to Lily and asked if she knew a cat named Mallows, and surprisingly, she did.

“But why ask me about that, big brother?”

Mark just pointed at the cat the size of a leopard in his hand and said. “This little cat’s name is Mallows and says that you’re her friend.”

“Huh?”

Lily stared hard at the cat and could definitely see the resemblance between it and her aunt’s cat. But she was confused. That cat had run away from home over a year ago and never came back. What were the odds that she would meet that same cat all the way out here and at this time?

“Mallows? Is that really you?” Lily asked, her voice filled with disbelief.

“Meow!” Mallows flailed about and tried to futilely free herself from Mark’s grasp. Mark was much stronger than her, though, so she eventually gave up and just looked at Mark with pleading eyes.

“Okay, okay!” He said, as he let go of the massive cat. “Don’t look at me like I’m the villain here or something. I just thought you were going to attack Lily for some reason.”

The cat just scoffed and looked away from him, as if to say that he was stupid for even suggesting that, before excitedly licking Lily’s face and purring.

“Jeez…” Mark just shook his head and went over to where the people were looking warily at the large rats. It was time to get everyone settled in.