4 Stronghold!

"Damn it! I wasn't able to take the sword from the Armored Rat a while back. I did not even look at its level, but it shouldn't have been that high anyway." Miles thought of the monster artifact as he made his run.

Monster artifacts were weapons that monsters used and were created by unknown techniques. Their ranking and strength changed based on the quality of the material and the technique used.

Miles regretted not taking the rat's sword. He had been so busy gathering materials that he did not take anything else. It might have been valuable. He might have even sold it for a high price.

He dispelled that thought as the cries of the beasts grew louder and louder. Monsters were approaching their location one after another.

"Roar!"

"Roar!"

Miles had no time to dally around. He looked at two men and decided to leave them behind. They had tried to rob him, so he had no mercy for them. He looked through their belongings but did not find anything valuable so he left with hurried steps with visible marks on his body from this encounter..

What he had failed to notice was a person standing on another hill watching him from afar.

Becoming one with the shadows of the trees, with swift yet cautious moves, he left the forest. He looked up and basked under the sun for a whole minute before taking the path to the stronghold. He could see massive birds flying ahead . They looked tiny, but they were as big as large aircrafts. Small animals with no powers to speak of were watching him walk on the dirt road, waiting for an opening to devour his flesh. Unfortunately for them, Miles wasn't weak despite all the blood on him.

It was then that Coin's voice came out from his earpiece "I am running low on battery. I can charge an orb once again, after that the electricity will run out." Coin reported

"It's okay buddy. I don't think we are gonna need to fight again today." Miles said to his companion.

It had been almost a week since they left the stronghold where they came from. Ever since then, they had no way to charge Coin's electric battery.

Electric batteries were a necessity for all humans wanting to come to Portal World. The orb weapons and armors looted from monsters could only be used through electricity discharged by AI wristwatches. Luckily for Miles, he didn't encounter too many enemies before he fought against many armored rats and a psychic rat, otherwise, he would have died without his Orb Dagger.

Miles was born after the gigantic portal had been sealed, and technology had then advanced.

When the portal first appeared, the dark maw pinned in the sky scared people to their death. But entering it was a scene described endlessly.

Painters used their blood to draw it as soon as they experienced it. But now, it was almost impossible to experience that step. That step takes one from a world to another.

One second, one would be in an aircraft standing in front of a giant maw looking ominous like the gates of hell, but as soon as one passes through that thin membrane, he would be in a vastly different world.

Miles watched one of the earliest recordings of the military walking inside the portal world through the gate pinned in the sky. He was mesmerized by the beauty of that world as soon as he saw it through the screen. He always wanted to experience it with his flesh, but it was almost impossible as it was also deadly.

The portal in the sky was the monsters' gateway to invade Earth. Before it closed, the monsters poured out of that abyss endlessly. When the human race entered it for the first time, they were awed by what laid before their eyes. No words could describe the beauty of Portal World.

However, humans have witnessed the deadliness of these beasts. Normally, monsters in the portal world wouldn't act unified, except among their races. There were few and far between stuck with their herds. And those were mostly the weakest of the bunch. But behind that endless darkness, thousands of monsters of all kinds were waiting. They were organized and ready to be deployed to Earth as soon as the door was open once again. Luckily humans were quick to react and left as soon as they laid their eyes on them.

Nowadays, people could only enter the Portal World through Dimensional Devices. Dimensional Devices were also an invention patented by the Mother AI. Through creating bridges between two planes, humans could teleport to strongholds to the Portal World. The only downside was that once one entered the Portal world, the dimensional device would send that person to a random stronghold in the G-Circle. And that person could only teleport to the same stronghold which he left, or enter the same one.

Miles did not know the reason why it was random because he wasn't proficient in spatial laws in the first place. Thus, he didn't think long over it.

After walking close to two hours, he arrived at the nearest stronghold. They were the only infrastructure humans had in the portal world.

Miles would look at the giant structure with awe whenever he saw it. The metal and concrete structure was as tall as a small mountain. There were tens of thousands of people living inside it. Every person had a room of their own.

There were also many other living facilities constructed. There were swimming pools, entertainment centres and similar rooms. But the most eye-catching things are the giant ballistas pinned on the walls around the stronghold. There were special arrows nocked at the ballisters. They were alloy arrows created through complicated techniques. By mostly mixing monster cores with other metals. Humanity was able to create weapons that can barely hurt monsters depending on the cores' tier.

Miles looked at the stronghold's gates with excitement in his eyes. He was only a few steps away from trading the core from the psychic rat with cash.

He was struggling financially lately and needed a lot of money. The psychic core he gained was godsent.

He passed through the majestic steel gate and walked inside towards the direction of the trade center.

Before he could take another step, he was stopped by a sudden shriek.

"It's him!"