On the other side

The man was still in the center of the room, kneeling and concentrating in silence, a concentration that was interrupted by Nathan and the growls outside the room.

The man opened his eyes and glared angrily at Nathan, then raised his arms before they turned back into snakes.

"What do you think you're doing?!"

Nathan heard the hissing of the snakes, and without a second thought he removed himself from the doorway just before several calamities entered the room and met the snakes head on.

The man gritted his teeth and grimaced in annoyance at the sight of the calamities, then attacked them trying to hold them back but never moved from the center of the circle.

"Damn you!"

Nathan opened his eyelids slightly realizing that the effect was beginning to wear off, then he watched as the man faced the calamities coming one by one through the small door.

No matter how many calamities came, and he killed, the man did not remove himself from the center of the circle.

"Ughh!"

As strong as the man was in comparison to the calamities, without moving it would be very difficult for him to defeat them... but no matter how many of them reached him, the man did not deign to move.

Nathan did not understand the man's tenacity, he did not understand it when he saw how his body was pushed to the ground by the calamities.

He did not understand it when the calamities began to bite his skinny body and began to devour him alive.

He didn't understand it even as his screams began to echo through the room.

And he understood it less when those screams of pain turned into maniacal laughter.

"HAHAHAHAHA! It doesn't matter anymore, you all can die!"

Then, the red circle on the ground began to glow dangerously, and Nathan who was still inside the circle, felt all his essence being sucked out in a single instant, leaving him completely dry like the corpses he had seen before. Then, without being able to react or understand anything, his body fell to the ground, staring at the fate he shared with the calamities before dying.

Seconds later Nathan was free from the discomfort of this death and quickly stepped out of the circle, sticking to the wall of the room. He then watched as the calamities inside the circle began to dry up in rapid motion before their bodies fell limp to the floor.

"What?!"

It was then that he was forced to cover his face as a strong blizzard attacked him, causing him to feel chills all over his body.

The entire temperature in the room began to drop dangerously low and seconds later Nathan felt as if he was in the middle of a snowstorm.

Slowly, he removed his arm and uncovered his face, then he saw a large portal in the center of the room and snow-capped mountains beyond it.

Somehow, before he died, the skinny man had opened a portal to an unknown place.

Nathan frowned and could not stop shivering because of the blizzard that was blowing through the portal. Then he swallowed without understanding what he was seeing.

Unlike the rifts, which had an endless darkness inside and nothing could be seen through them, Nathan could not relate the portal in front of him to a rift.

Not only was the portal large enough for a truck to pass through, but what was seen through it was too real to be an illusion.

'N-Nathan' Amelia whispered with clear fear in her voice.

Hugging his body to hold in the cold, Nathan replied without taking his eyes off the portal.

'W-What?'

'Close that portal!'

Nathan's eyes widened in disbelief as he listened to Amelia.

'Are you serious?! I don't even know what's going on!'

'That doesn't matter right now, look!'

Hearing Amelia's nervous tone, Nathan finally opened his eyes fully as he felt the numbness in his muscles had passed, then he was speechless.

'W-who?'

On the other side of the portal, hundreds of thousands of people were marching through the snowstorm like a great army. Although it was hard to make out through the snowstorm, Nathan could see them thanks to the torches they carried, illuminating them as red dots in the icy snow.

There was a distance of a few hundred meters between the portal and the front ranks of the army. Sitting there with his back against the wall, no matter how cold and tired Nathan felt, he realized that if he did not get out of there or do something, he would die.

Reaching inside his coat with his frozen hands and trembling fingers, Nathan lifted a black orb and without thinking began to flow all his essence into it.

'Shit, shit, shit!'

As he charged the black orb with essence, Nathan felt something looking at him through the portal, then he met ice blue eyes through the darkness.

Increasing the flow of essence into the orb, Nathan began to sweat even though his body was frozen. Seeing those eyes, the marching army, and the amount of essence the orb still had to be filled, Nathan began to regret it.

'I should never have accepted that damn proposal!'

Then, knowing he wouldn't make it in time, he didn't mind running dry of essence and began to fill the black orb even faster.

The essence was like water, it kept flowing like a stream along the boundaries of the river. Those same boundaries were Nathan's arm.

His veins swelled dangerously and, unable to withstand the pressure of so much essence, they began to burst, causing his blood to spill down his arm. But Nathan did not care about this and simply continued to fill the orb.

About to reach his limit, Nathan realized that he would not be able to fill the orb, so he took a risk and stopped supplying it with essence and lifted it into the air, before slamming it down hard on the ground.

The orb cracked at the first blow, then Nathan began to feel the essence inside it begin to seep out.

 Knowing that he had triggered a time bomb, Nathan waited until he had reached the limit, seeing how the army was getting closer and those blue eyes began to emit a murderous intent, as if he had realized what Nathan was planning.

With his body aching, frozen and numb, Nathan held on and then launched the orb.

The black orb crossed the portal, then flew through the air for a couple of meters, when a figure appeared in the snowstorm and, wielding a large white sword, cut the orb in two.

The essence contained in the orb was released and a great explosion occurred on the other side of the portal, causing all the snow to rise up, filling everything with white.

Nathan did not want to know the outcome of the explosion, so with the help of his katana he got up and quickly left the room, went down the stairs and disappeared.

Behind the portal, everything was still covered with snow, which also crossed into the room. It was then that through the great white cloud, a foot landed on the wooden floor of the room, creating an echo that evaporated the snow in a radius around him.