Miles had finally drawn the little white furball out.
With dilated pupils looking at it, the psychic rat couldn’t believe that it had been tricked.
It smelled human blood before surfacing, making certain that the human was dead before it approached it. Unfortunately, it was not the case.
The psychic rat did not wriggle too long and died in a few seconds.
Dealing with these kinds of beasts in Portal World is truly troublesome, even for Miles.
Portal World is a world within a portal. It is in a separate dimension than Earth, and Miles had traveled here to hunt these monsters.
From the old records, Miles had learned that the first portal opened to Earth was as big as a skyscraper and as wide as a lake. Through it, monsters poured out to threaten everything in existence.
At first, humans did not know what this giant dark maw was. It was only later that it came to be known as portals. Not long after, beasts of all shapes and sizes poured out from the abyss.
The monsters were stronger than anything humans had encountered before. Their skin and scales could resist against their strongest weapons. Humanity had no feasible means of counter-attack against them until a later new type of weapon made of alloys came to exist.
Miles sat on the ground, remembering the old books he read about the portal world and looked at the wounds all over his body. He had to let rats injure him to force the psychic rat out. If he wasn’t injured enough and feigned death, the psychic rat would have bolted right away.
He took a rest while being attentive to his surroundings. The last thing he wanted was for any armored rats or any other monster stronger than rats nearby.
In Portal World, monsters were abundant and there were millions of different kinds with different abilities in different areas. When they first invaded Earth, the lack of information tied humans' hands as much as lack of weapons did. But what caused the most damage to humanity wasn’t the threats coming from the outside, but it was internal strife among major ruling parties.
Long before the portal appeared, three parties fought over hegemony. All of the planet’s resources were sucked dry because of their greed. Earth was about to collapse in on itself.
Humanity had no way to save their home, thus they had no other choice but leave the planet.
The bloodbath and war continued as they fought over what limited resources were still left. They were brandishing their weapons at each other’s throat when the great calamity had fallen over them causing their uncivilized war to cease to exist.
When the monsters threatened every single life on Earth,the three ruling parties had no other choice but to gather under one banner and create a science center compromising the greatest minds of each faction.
Through their research, they deduced the vulnerabilities of these beasts and the remedies for a variety of diseases that had ravaged the human world. Alongside tank piercing bullets, laser weapons were the only weaponry that could hurt the monsters that invaded the Earth, invented in this very science center because of collaborative work of the ruling parties.
Humanity had a new hope, and endless vigor to open a path through the battlefield even with this little spark. But it was what came after that truly allowed the humans to win the war.
When the first titan beast was killed, a piece of the orb was found in its brain.
At first, people did not know what this mysterious orb was meant for or how important it was to humanity. But after endless experiments, they figured out its functions. By supplying them with electricity, the orbs could change their shapes to pre-recorded items.
Scientists could not crack the orb’s composition but theorized its constituents to be some kind of memory alloys. These memory alloys could take the shape of an item, be it a sword or an armor. They could adjust their size to suit the needs of their holders. They were magical-like weapons that could be found in the brains of the monsters, but they were stronger than any weapon humans could create.
By using these orb weapons, humans fought back against the beasts and pushed them back to the portal world. The more they killed, the more orbs they found and got stronger through blood and sweat.
Not long after, Miles stood up from where he was sitting and collected the orbs from the beasts he slaughtered. He cut open their heads and removed the orbs and cores from their brain.
"Five Low-tier Elementless Cores from regular Armored Rats, a Low-tier Armor Orb from the mutated Armored Rat and a Low-tier Psychic Core from the Psychic Rat" Coin reported after scanning the bloody orbs Miles looted from the dead bodies.
"One rare psychic core. We hit the jackpot this time, buddy!" Miles smiled with these gains, especially the psychic core. Its element was highly worthy.
Orbs and cores were the lifeline of the beasts living in this world. How they formed or how they worked were still unknown, but humans could make use of little of their potential.
There were many applications to use them. They could be used in medicine to create serums that helped humans grow stronger. But orbs and cores also had their differences. For instance, the two elementless cores in regular Armored Rats’ brains had no ability to speak of, thus they only had limited use.
On the other hand, the psychic core Miles had acquired from the Psychic Rat has unlimited utility. The most common use is the making of AI Wristwatches. AIs Wristwatches created by psychic cores have a telepathic function. By recording their users' brainwave they can convey and receive messages telepathically. But Coin’s hardware was regular, so it could only talk through an earpiece. That is why Miles was looking for a Psychic Rat as psychic cores were worth a lot of money.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“How about the data of the beasts? Have you got anything from them?"
"Unfortunately, this part of the Portal World is too remote. I don't think we can find anything related to what we are looking for." Coin answered, showing the beasts’ gene reports.
‘Psychic Rats and Armored Rats are most commonly found in the outskirts of the Rat Kingdom in the G-Circle portal area despite being rare. G-Circle area is the lowest levelled area with low level beasts. Nevertheless, they are still monsters with the ability to easily kill humans with their superior bodies. The monster cores Miles obtained were all lowest tier for the same reason they were all located in the G-Circle area of Portal World...'
Portal World, from out to inside separated into several layers through the distribution of the monsters occupied it. The outermost area, G-Circle accommodated only the weakest monster of Grunt-Rank. Grunt-Rank monsters could be seen anywhere on Portal World, but G-Circle only had Grunt-Rank monsters but no higher ranked monsters such as Frenzy or Evil Rank monster. The hierarchy in Portal World, to monsters especially, was something sacred that cannot be broken. Humans decided to name the circles with the initials of the monster ranks as they discovered.
As far as humanity knew, there were 5 ranks of monsters located designated circles, starting with Grunt Rank, followed by Frenzy, Evil, Devil and Chaos ranks. No human ever ventured further than that yet, thus the rest of the Portal World was unknown to humanity as of now.
Monster rankings were also divided into four sub-ranks. Namely, low, middle, high, pinnacle.
The orbs and cores Miles found were lowest of the lowest, Grunt-Rank low-tier. Unable to get anything else from the area, Miles could only shrug helplessly after he was done collecting his spoils of battle. Hunger and fatigue was taking over him after this long battle. He was beaten and tired.
For a week now, he had only fed on dried and canned foods, and slept on treetops. He achieved what he came for, but he was exhausted nonetheless.
He grabbed a gauze that had been soaked in a strange-smelling ointment. It was one of the must-to-have-before-entering-to-portal-world items sold in strongholds. He covered his wounds with the gauze and winced in pain. He was used to it by now, so he was able to ignore most and managed to keep the scream in his mouth.
Before he could leave the battlefield, he was stopped by a sudden cry.
“Halt!”
Miles looked at the source of the voice and sighed with disappointment. Even in this age of information and knowledge, there were still stupid people.
One of the main taboos in the forest was to make a loud sound where creatures are abundant.
Miles was hiding and running as much as he could to avoid a large number of beasts. Still, he had no choice but to fight against several of them. Now that this idiot had shouted, it would not take long for monsters to swarm their location.
Miles did not say anything and instead observed the person approaching him.
“This part of the forest belongs to the Tian Faction. By hunting here, you agree to deliver half of your spoils to us.” The man said to him with an ugly grin on his face.
"What?!" Miles was perplexed by this.
It was then that another man appeared behind him. Because they were standing behind a hill, the guy was not in his line of vision.
The man in front of him then said with a threatening tone, “Tian Ling, you know who he is, right?”
Miles's pupils contracted when he heard the name, Tian Ling. Tian Ling was the youngest grandson of General Tian Ying, one of the three generals of The Unity. He had great influence over the sole nation on Earth.
The Unity was created after the monsters had been pushed away. The remaining superpowers of the world decided to put together their resources and manpower to unite. Thus, the name Unity. It had three generals from three ruling parties before the monster invasion. One of them was Miles’s grandfather, Cruel Heart Cross.
Because of his choices, Miles left his family name behind, so he wasn’t as influential as Tian Ling.
As the youngest grandson of the general, Tian Ling could indeed name a part of the Portal World as his. Because in Portal World, Unity Laws are null and void. But it also meant Miles could do whatever he wanted too.
“Since when do people own the land in this world?” Miles asked while looking around to see if there were anyone else hiding. “I came in and fought with my blood and sweat. I received no help nor advantage from your Tian Faction. Why do I have to pay you anything?”
“Cut the crap! You are going to pay because we ask you to!” One of the men said angrily.
It has been more than a year since they had been stationed in this forest, and no one ever rejected it when they used the name of Tian. Now that they had come upon some unlucky bastard, they wouldn’t let him go.
“What if I refuse?” Miles said to stall the time. He could already hear the roars of the beasts. It wouldn’t take long for them to arrive.
"I ran a face recognition on them and learned their powers." Coin's voice came just in time. It wasn't common for AIs to do face recognition search. It was only able to do so because Coin was more advanced than any regular AIs.
It was at this moment that Coin had finished facial recognition on the two men and had acquired their information.
"What are their powers?" Miles asked as he cautiously backed away with eyes on the two of them.
"The one on the left can use Wind Blades, and the one on the right can use the Earth Dome." Coin had summarized their abilities.
All elemental powers have equal potential, but some were superior. There was no distinct ranking to separate them, but people could still branch them depending on their conception.
"Hmm." Miles nodded and started to strategize the fight.
He was at quite a disadvantage. It was two against one.
He wasn’t fighting against monsters but men. There was also some disparity between them.
'All I have to do is dodge their attacks and approach them. The forest is dense with trees but the hill will further slow my approach. It would take three seconds to arrive and two seconds for them to attack. I have to slow them down.' Miles thought.
“Alright, I cannot fight against the two of you in my injured state.” Miles said and raised both his hands with items on both. He held the psychic core on one hand, and the armor orb on the other. With an improvised plan, he began to slowly walk towards them.
'Wind Blades can travel no more than 5 meters, and Earth Dome can only be created 3 meters further from the user. I will get in close proximity to the wind user, and let the other dude trap us together first.’
“Stop right there!” The wind user said to Miles when he was three meters away from them. He had entered their attack range.
“How can I hand over these items without approaching?” Miles said without stopping.
“I said stop!” The wind user shouted once again and a condensed grey ball of air started forming in his palm. The wind whipped at their clothes and hair. The other man also readied his hand.