1 Chapter 1

Chapter 1

A sky so dark that not a single star can be seen or is there even a star in this sky? The surrounding was in ruins as craters wide enough to cover a whole city and deep enough to submerge one can be seen scattered all over the place. Large and small boulders scattered with corpses of strange creatures are everywhere. There are even bones so large that a single one can smash a metropolitan city.

An average-looking young man can be seen floating in the air while sitting cross-legged. He looks like he was sitting on some invisible platform that can't be seen, but he remained still for a very long time. His eyes were closed while slightly trembling, looking like they would open at any moment.

Although the young man looked like he was just sitting there like a normal person would if you ignore the fact that he is floating. The aura around him is something that a normal person would emit. A dense and divine aura surrounds the young man, enclosing him inside a sphere of the said aura.

As time passed by, the sphere surrounding the young man began to grow in size as it started affecting its surrounding. Huge chunks of land were pulled apart from the ground as it began to slowly rotate around the young man, matching the pace of the aura rotating around the young man.

The aura grows in density as it can now be felt from a distance, as a small circular tear in space can be seen appearing in front of the young man. The tear in space continued to grow in size but at an extremely slow-paced. An unknown amount of time passed and the tear in space has grown to a size of 3 meters in height and 2 meters in width.

The surrounding area was already on the brink of destruction and any moment now, the whole dimension will explode. Which will then create a large hole leading to the void, that will suck everything inside the dimension until nothing is left.

A change finally occurred on the young man's face as he opened his eyes and looked at the tear in space in front of him. Emotions appeared on his expressionless face as he stood up while looking at the tear in space. Although exhaustion was obvious on his face, a faint glimmer of happiness can be seen in his eyes.

He turned to look around his surrounding, marveling at the sight before him, and muttered, "This dimension cause me a lot of trouble but it had also made me who I am today. I still don't have any idea what purpose does it serve and I don't care. Being trapped in here for who knows how long, I want to go back! Even until the end, this dimension still caused me trouble, forcing me to use almost all of my strength just to open a portal leading out of here."

"And I did not expect it to collapse, guess a portal was never in its list huh?"

The young man said, turning to look at the place where he had spent most of his life. Even though he had suffered a lot of hardships in this place, this is also where he had grown to what he was today, knowing that this place will soon disappear into nothingness forever makes him sad.

"But only a little bit." With that, he stepped inside the portal and disappeared from this dimension. After that, the portal instantly closed as the whole place exploded into nothingness.

***

Phantasia, a world where 87% of its land was an unknown place full of danger and adventure. The humans of this world developed differently from their counterparts from other parallel worlds.

In those uncharted lands, dangerous monsters lurk while the humans live their life, right next to them. It was unknown why they have still not attacked humanity who only occupied 13% of the world. But one thing is for sure, humans and monsters have co-existed for over a thousand years already.

Even though there are records of monster hordes attacking cities, they will always go back to their territories, leaving the ruined cities in their return. And because of that, the humans were able to always survive and even develop, over the years.

Up until to this point where they have now started the era of world travel, where they set out to discover new things from uncharted lands. Giving birth to the new occupation, Adventurer.

Adventurers would travel to discover a habitable place in the uncharted lands. When they find a place where humans can live, they will then go back and report it at the Adventurers' Union, where they will send manpower to claim this land. A great reward and fame are awarded to the discover enticing a lot of hot-blooded youths to also become Adventurers.

Jason Rao [1] was one of these such youth. After he was able to somehow confess to the love of his life, and spend the most memorable night of his life. He was promised to give her the best life she could ever live for.

All he could offer was his cultivation level, which was considered to be high at that time. With his average level features, it was already a miracle how he was able to trick his lover. Someone who was supposed to be untouchable by people like him, risk her future just to be with him.

Because of that, Jason decided to be an Adventurer and explore the uncharted lands. Choosing to risk his life in exchange for a bright future with her. He did not hesitate in his choice, no until he realized how cruel the world outside is.

Robbed by his companions, chased by monsters to the point he questioned whether his decision was correct. And then stumbling upon a hidden dimension where he finds himself alone along with the astronomical number of monsters in the dimension.

The only reason he was able to live as because he was brought to a place where a barrier was placed, meant to protect him for over five years. During that time, he tried his hard to increase his strength by learning from the library he discovered at that place. His longing for his lover increased day by day until he had no idea whether if she was still alive or not.

Jason had spent over a thousand years in this dimension, he had no idea of the exact count. All he knew is that he does not age in this dimension but the same could not be said to his lover. He even lose hope at some point in time but the thought of disappointing the love of his life made him immediately regain his vigor and strive to leave this place.

Jason experience many life and death situations where he thought his life would end. He was amazed at himself and even wondered if he had always been like this, but he seems to have grown to be so powerful that he had exterminated all the monsters in this dimension. As he had reached the point where he had completely ascended to godhood, he was still stuck in this dimension no matter how strong he was.

So he turned his attention to the humongous library and started absorbing all the knowledge he could find. And he soon found a way out of this dimension. Jason had already become a god, based on his estimations so he did not need food. That is also the reason why he had killed all the monsters as they were only a bother to him.

Preparing for three years, he had finally created a portal that will lead him back to Phantasia. He embraced himself as he thought of what he might encounter in his return.

Learning the death of his lover or learning that she is now together with someone else?

***

Section 4, Viridian Forest

A dark blue portal appeared as it grows in size until it reached 4 meters in height and 2 meters in length. The surrounding monsters were startled by the appearance of this portal, some of the stronger ones sensed great danger from this portal as they hurriedly fled the area while the weaker ones curiously approached this portal, which ended up to them getting cut into pieces.

A minute later after its appearance, a young man step out of the portal. He has black hair in a somewhat messy hairstyle, a pair of black eyes that were as if they were the night itself. His face was expressionless as he surveyed his surrounding. The portal behind him had already closed, while the monster carcasses around him did not disgust him even one bit.

The young man was wearing a loose robe over his fitted clothes, which looks like a dragon scaled. He looked like a battle-ready warrior without his robe. The young man must have also noticed this as he changed his clothes into something much more commonly seen.

A pair of shirt and jeans, his shirt has the word YOLO printed at the front diagonally. He wears an all-black pair of shoes without any way of knowing its brand. Satisfied with his clothes, the young man disappeared as he soon reappeared in front of a medium-sized city.

"Hmmm...It looks like nothing much changed. But that should've been impossible unless..." The young man once again disappeared as he appeared in front of a young lady, who looks like she was heading to her work.

"Kyaaa!" She as surprised at his sudden appearance as she jumped back staring at him.

"Sorry for scaring you, miss. But can I ask you what's the current year?" The young man asked the young lady in front of him.

She answered him subconsciously, "Year 35712, January 5."

"Thank you." The young man answered as he disappeared once again, surprising the lady. She stared at the spot where he disappeared, looking at it for a few minutes before muttering under her breath, "I must have drunk too much last night. I'm still drunk even now."

The young man reappeared once again, this time he was floating above the city before him.

"Five years...I was actually gone for only five years. Could it be, the time inside that dimension is faster than the time here? If that's that case, that dimension is hella broken." Jason said to himself as he looked at the city below him.

His eyes moistened as he thought of the possibility of his lover to be still alive and waiting for him. He had no idea how he should face her, but he knows that he had to see her right now, his longing for her can't be kept inside of him any longer knowing that she might still be alive.

Jason scanned the whole city instantly, the cultivators inside who had reached the Transcended Realm all felt like someone just took a peek of their whole body. They all shuddered under its gaze as they all look around them looking for the culprit. Jason knew that it would cause such a reaction as he had only a small amount of Force inside of his body. This means he was not able to make use of some of his more advanced searching techniques and could only resort to using his most simple one.

He soon found whom he was looking for and was surprised that another one was found. Jason did not hesitate to teleport towards her, his vision changed as he soon finds himself in front of the woman whom he had been thinking for so long. The only reason why he was able to keep on moving forward from all of his sufferings.

"J-Jason?"

[1] Rao - From Sanskrit राज (raja) meaning "king".