Knock knock

The sound of a door being banged up. The occupant got up, annoyed by the continuous disturbance that was happening throughout the day.

"Yeah, what?" An irritating voice came out from the woman who still wore pajamas in daylight.

Asran held his fist from knocking and stood in front of the door looking at his neighbor.

"Hi, can I use your computer for a while," said Asran.

Sofia stared at the sight of this man, trying to remember who he was.

"Ah, the neighbor. Huh..." Sofia sighed shaking her head. This day was really an unfortunate day for her.

"You know neighbor, there's this thing call boundary and I know we neighbor should lend a helping hand but..." before Sofia could even finish her words, Asran walked inside in a nonchalant manner.

"Thank you, neighbor," said Asran as he passed by Sofia.

She watched the figure of this man who walked by her with a dumbfounded expression.

In all of her life, she had never seen such a shameless and brazen man before. Sofia even did a favor for his family, saving them from a gang of loanshark.

She closed the door and went to the fridge for a drink. Just seeing Asran sitting on her couch in leisure made her head hurts.

Asran opened up the laptop on the coffee table and was impressed by the loading speed. He felt a sense of nostalgia remembering his first laptop, back then he was eighteen and it was a gift for him getting into college.

"Don't go into my private files, you wouldn't like what I'm into," said Sofia as she sat down next Asran keeping an eye to this neighbor of her.

Asran ignored her words and opened up Goggles. He typed numerous things from portal, another dimension, superhumans and anything else that was closely related.

"Oh, you're into portal or something? I hope you're not one of those fanatics about evol. Damn, I really hate those freaks," Sofia was annoyed just by mentioning the word evol.

"What's an evol?" Asran didn't spin around and questioned her.

Sofia stared at Asran trying to figure out what's going inside the head of this man. Yet that serious look on him really made her falter a bit.

"I'm hoping you're not playing a joke on me. I'm lacking sleep and a bit of sensitive right now, pray that I don't punch you out of annoyance," said Sofia and she wasn't messing around.

There was silence between them, it lasted a few seconds before Asran broke the silence.

"I was in a coma for the last ten years, and yes I don't know a thing about the current world right now. Just a while ago, some woman in armor almost chop my head off because of being near with this portal, and for once I would like to know why the hell am I close to dying because of a stupid portal," Asran explained with a stoic look on his face.

Sofia looked at him for a while as she chugged down the last drip of her drink. It's cold barley tea by the way.

"I heard about you from rumors, never thought you managed to wake up," Sofia got up and went to the fridge and filled up her mug.

While walking back to the couch she grabbed a bag of chips. She plopped down on the couch and started munching down.

Asran waited patiently and was not bothered by her actions.

"So... where should I start," asked Sofia as the sound of chips being munched filled up the entire apartment.

"From the beginning," answered Asran.

---

He spent almost an hour listening to Sofia. Half of it was information while the other half was Sofia ranting of how much hate she had for those people called Evol.

At least Asran had the general information regarding what had happened for the last ten years. Even he couldn't believe it after listening to Sofia. But after considering how even him coming back to earth was absurd, he accepted the fact that had happened.

"Hey, you want anything? I'm ordering take out, pizza sounds good right," Sofia was the laid back type of person and didn't mind the company of Asran, although she was annoyed by him at first.

"No thank you, my mother is coming back. She will be worry if I'm not there," said Asran.

He opened the door to the apartment and left without leaving a glance behind.

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Sofia only noticed him left after hearing the sound of the door being closed.

"Sheesh, for someone who had been sleeping for the last ten years he really lacks manner. Well who cares, more pizza for me then," said Sofia.

---

Asran sat on the sofa while deep within his own thought. There was a lot to process, but his thought process was still the same as he was once known as Bai Long.

"Evol, the next step of evolution of humans. Hmph," Asran scoffed at that thought as he had never believed that human was a product of evolution.

"No wonder I felt that foreign energy coming from those people, it seems something is tampering with humans and calling it as evolution," said Asran.

He remembered what Sofia told him. The portal started to appear ten years ago and the aftermath of it being left unattended made the whole world experienced an unimaginable horror.

The term Portal Break became the nightmare of all people throughout the whole world.

Portal Break, an incident that released countless monsters into the world. Blood was shed and many lives were lost.

The fight between monsters and humans was leaning towards the monsters as human weapons were rendered incapable of doing anything to these monsters.

Bullets, missiles, explosives and nukes, everything was useless as if something was protecting these monsters.

Yet in a moment of turmoil, heroes rose up for the challenge. Courageous men and women all over the world who were gifted brought a stop to the invasion of these monsters.

In the end, came the rise of humans known as Evol, a shorter term for evolve human. It was a random turn of event and over the course of the whole ten years, the numbers of this evol are rising.

All in order to combat the rising number of emerging portals appearing throughout the whole world.

"So those people I met are known as evol huh," Asran recalled the faces of those people.

"If I wasn't mistaken, Sofia told me that the guild responsible around this area are known as Lost Frontier. Debt must be pay and I won't forget it," Asran couldn't forget how humiliating it was to pretend like a weakling and that indeed tarnished his pride.

"Nevermind, at least now I know how to progress in my cultivation without risking my life force," said Asran.

He waited alone within the silent apartment. He didn't even bother turning on the television. Asran intention was elsewhere.

The clock struck eight-thirty and his mother was still not home.

'Does she really work till this late?' Thought Asran.

'Hmm, I should have ask mother about the time,' while he was lost in thought, his stomach grumbled out of nowhere.

"Ah, having a weak body really is tiresome. I guess I really need to pay attention to eating as of now," Asran got up and left the apartment.

Knock knock

"Haish, who is it now? I'm just about to eat, that freaking delivery takes too long and I'm freaking hungry," the fork in her hand started to bend in the shape of a U.

She opened the door and saw who it was, her mouth gap wide open in disbelief.

"Oh, the pizza is here already. Let's eat," said Asran as he stepped inside without a care.

"You should be grateful I didn't kick your ass," whispered Sofia silently. She was careful not to let that Asran hear her.

For someone who was easy to be annoyed, she was quite patient dealing with the likes of Asran. She closed the door and walked back with an ire face.

Both of them shared a pizza together in silence. There was no talking except for munching and a person chugging her mug.

"Man, eating with you is really boring. Don't you know how to talk or something. Geez," Sofia grabbed the remote and turned on the television as she couldn't stand the silence.

Sofia who was not interested at first changed the channel a few times before she laid eyes upon the screen.

"Hey," she grabbed the long sleeve of Asran.

"What? I'm eating here," said Asran.

"Look at the screen, it's your mother," to the mention of his mother, Asran was quick to glance.

"Mother."