Michael studied the photograph once two hours had passed and disappeared with a flash of light and reappeared where a small platoon of soldiers stood. Runic sigils had been painted onto their armor and weapons.
"Looks like the man of the hour has arrived."
Michael could sense him before he saw him, and a smile immediately appeared on his face. He'd recognize a body he'd built anywhere.
"How are you doing Blackwood, your body been treating you well?"
He smiled, "Thanks to you it has. I'm not sure exactly what you did, but now they've been letting me continue doing what I do best, so thank you for that."
"Good to hear."
"Now that the pleasantries are out of the way I'll need to catch you up on the situation. First off, the foundation has already sent a team through the portal, but we lost contact with them about an hour ago. They found signs of human sacrifice taking place and they seemed to think something was stalking them in there, hence why I requested that you be sent here."
Michael grinned, "Well I'm here to help, but can I ask why the MTF team is getting sent with us? Honestly, shouldn't we be enough?"
The man chuckled, "Well I'd usually agree with you, but these men have been studying the rituals taking place in there for several months and are an asset that we shouldn't underestimate."
"Fair enough."
"There's also several unknown entities on the way to the portal, but they don't seem to be hostile. At least not when they're left alone."
"Good to know. Should we get going then?"
"Before that I'm going to request that you protect the men that are being sent in there to the best of your abilities. They're good people."
"Well, I'll do my best, but other dimensions are dangerous business. The only reason I've lived this long is because I lucked into getting a regenerative ability."
"I understand. I've led hundreds of expeditions, and there's a good chance that this one will have losses. I only ask that you help reduce the casualties."
Michael smiled, "Sure thing. Anyways, why don't you go ahead and introduce me to the men that are definitely not getting paid enough to follow me through any portals."
Blackwood smiled, "Sure thing."
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Michael followed Blackwood into a large, tented area where the majority of the MTF soldiers sat. They were all checking their gear, which almost all had glowing symbols drawn into them. It was most likely Blackwood's work.
"Alright men, this here is Michael, and he will be your lifeline throughout this mission. He is the firepower while I'll be the support and logistics. The rest of you only need to focus on ending any ongoing rituals and providing additional firepower when needed. Is that clear?"
"Sir, yes sir!".
"Good, finish checking your gear and then we're heading out."
Several minutes later Michael and the small procession of men began to move towards the shopping mall, where he could definitely hear movement inside.
Michael immediately halted the team and ordered one of the several dozen bolts he had hovering around him to be sent into the darkness of the building.
Fleshy eyes covered the projectile, and they had no difficulty cutting through the darkness of the building. At least for the most part. Some of the darkness was clearly unnatural, but that wasn't all that unexpected.
Golden eyes watched from the darkness of the many stores. They shined through the dark similar to those of a cat, and just like Blackwood had said they didn't move from their spots in the slightest. They simply watched as the bolt passed through the main hall, and after some time Michael was relatively confident the main path was clear.
"Let's go."
The team carefully began to move through the mall, careful to avoid anywhere that had those golden eyes.
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He kept expecting something to jump out of the darkness towards them, but the farther he went the surer he became that nothing would. Nothing had even attempted to leave the darkness; his bolts would have seen if they had.
But that wasn't what Michael was truly focused on, that would have to be the fact that they'd already been moving for roughly two miles, and he was pretty sure this building wasn't even a quarter that long.
He cursed under his breath. Just how many infinite stores are out there? One already seemed like a lot. Two was just overdoing it.
Luckily the portal wasn't too deep inside. The other team had already mapped the area, making the process rather simple, but when he finally came upon it, he couldn't help but cringe.
Just by instinct he could tell that this portal was absolutely terrible in terms of quality. He didn't know why he was so sure of this, but dear god was this thing sad to look at. It was like a three-year old's art project.
Well, honestly, he did have a pretty good hypothesis as to why his body had an opinion on the quality of the portal considering he got sucked through a new one every other week or so.
Nevertheless, he went ahead and sent a bolt through and was relatively surprised when he felt it appear on the other side unharmed.
"Well that's good at least."
Michael studied the portal for several more moments before finally muttering "fuck it" and stepping through.
The feeling was strange, it was similar to when he traveled between dimensions but more rough. Like the person who'd made the portal barely had any idea what they were doing and only got it working by the skin of their teeth.
And when he got to the other side he was greeted by a sprawling landscape with patches of forest littering the land. The sun shone high in the sky and there were some mountains off in the distance. It was kind of pretty in a weird way, but Michael's attention was quickly drawn to something else.
That would be the runic symbols covering the ground that were surrounded by a ring of blood. Empty glass bottles were strewn about inside the circle, and the grass inside seemed to have been burned by something. A stone pedestal sat a short distance away from the ring and was covered in blood. A machete covered in dry blood laid beside it.
It looked like the site of many sacrifices, and although he couldn't find any bodies, he was pretty sure it was all human blood. It had a certain smell to it.
But that wasn't the only problem, the bolt he'd sent through before him was different, more specifically it was about twenty minutes older than it should be. Which meant time was moving faster in here and he hadn't even been able to tell from the outside.
Michael muttered to himself, "Goddamnit."
Slowly the soldiers came through the portal, each one appearing a few minutes after the last, despite them claiming to have all entered at almost the same time.
At the moment he couldn't sense any flesh nearby, but that didn't mean there wasn't anything dangerous. An alarming number of monsters simply didn't have flesh.
His bolts stopped idling and began to fly off in random directions. Getting a good lay of the land would be important.
They soared over vast fields and forests before without warning they began to implode prematurely. They weren't hitting anything; they simply went off midair. Which was concerning.
"There's invisible stuff up in the air messing with my bolts. Any idea what that is Blackwood?"
"This dimension is unstable. I barely trust the ground beneath our feet. Anything too far past that would have to be unreliable."
"Good to know."
Michael was about to send off some more bolts, this time closer to the ground when he heard something from the tree line.
Immediately he spun around and aimed his crossbow towards the source of the noise, where a strange creature was standing. Its body was similar to that of a bear, although it was smoother. Like something more akin to stone.
It didn't have a head. Instead it had glowing symbols that hovered idly where the missing body part should have been.
But that wasn't the end, because now he could hear dozens, no, hundreds of creatures moving around in the forest. It was like they'd popped out of thin air. Which in all honesty they probably had.
Michael quickly pointed away from the forest, "Alright everybody, I'm gonna need you to head in that direction right now. Blackwood, do your best to make sure they don't all die."
With that Michael stepped towards the bear, intent on getting rid of the threat, and in the next instant teleported beside it and felt his flesh rip from his body and several bones in his body break. Small pieces of his flesh littered the field and upon closer examination his left hand was still back where he'd teleported from.
"Fucking shit!"
Almost immediately Keith started laughing. "I can't believe you actually did that. Holy hell this is hilarious! Were you not listening? This place is unstable, trying to teleport is just asking for something like that to happen!"
The bear's paw descended towards Michael who barely managed to get his mace up in time to block, but when the two met Michal's arm didn't falter in the slightest.
Michael cocked his head to the side before grinning in understanding.
The beast was strong, sure, but compared to the things he'd fought up to this point it really only had the strength of a normal bear.
With that he swung his mace and shattered the beast into pieces upon the forest floor.
Michael's bones began to rapidly mend themselves back together as he glared towards Keith, "When we get back I'm gonna find a portapotty and toss you in."
Almost immediately the mask stopped chuckling, "You wouldn't dare."
Michael didn't respond, he simply grabbed his disembodied hand and placed it against the stump where his skin rapidly began to reknit it into place.
With that he moved towards the forest where the beasts approached. They probably would've given the team some trouble, but for him? No, this would be easy.
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A dozen or so minutes later Michael stood in the clearing surrounded by splintered trees and the corpses of monsters. They hadn't put up much of a fight, but they had succeeded in separating him from the team. He didn't know if that was intentional, but he wasn't going to let them take advantage of it.
Michael sprinted through the debris towards where he'd left the team, when he suddenly heard the sound of someone dumping their mag into something.
"Well that can't be good."