Entering The Red Portal

Daniel knew the voice either belonged to Belen or Beira, and the fury in her tone told him that he would die a miserable death if they managed to catch him.

But it was at that moment that he saw the portal he had come through begin to close, then he heard the goddess below.

"Yama…!"

Then he heard Yama yell in horror.

"No!"

Then the portal vanished completely cutting him off from whatever was happening on the other side of the portal.

[Do you think they are safe?] Daniel asked still disturbed by how Yama had yelled just before the portal closed up.

[For one, they are all demigods; and for someone like Yama, he obviously already planned a way to help them escape.]

A voice sounded within Daniel's mind, and it belonged to the consciousness of the old monk he met at the palace entrance.

[Moreover, the worst that could happen is that their bodies would be destroyed, and their souls would be sent into the cycle of reincarnation.]

The monk tried to placate the disturbed Daniel who simply nodded and steered the boat in the direction of the golden portal in the distance.

[Reincarnation and the Yellow Springs are systems in which Yama knows many of its loopholes; so, don't worry too much about them.] He added as Daniel nodded and heave a relieved sigh.

He knew the old monk was right but felt having one's body destroyed would definitely hurt a lot, and he felt bad for being the source of the three demigods' pain.

Daniel also knew there was nothing he could do about their plight; after all, he neither had the brains nor brawns, thus, he could only swear an oath within himself.

Whilst thinking about the three demigods whom he had now decided to call his masters, Daniel continued to steer the shuttle towards the three portals that were hovering closely together.

The one on the left was whitish, with the one on the right being reddish and the last one being the golden portal, sitting betwixt its brothers.

Daniel had just positioned the shuttle on the path of the golden portal when the monk's voice resounded in his mind.

[Watch out!] He bellowed, but the warning crawled in comparison to the speed of the incoming danger.

On the one hand, Daniel was still deep in his thought when the warning came, thus, he reacted a little bit too late.

On the other hand, he was very lucky that the shuttle's defenses activated themselves the moment they detected the incoming danger, lighting up the many ancient runes that were etched onto it one after the other.

The moment all the runes came alive, they released a mysterious glow that created an energy barrier that encapsulated Daniel and himself.

Psi!

The sound of a sharp object splitting the air apart was all Daniel heard before he watched a massive golden arrow with ancient runes all over it smash into the shuttle's defensive barrier.

Kaboom!

An earth-shattering explosion bloomed to life within the area, sending massive shockwaves that rippled across the yellow springs, shredding thousands of unsuspecting and unfortunate souls to bits.

The boat shook violently as Daniel felt his consciousness threaten to leave his body; though he hadn't been directly hit, the kinetic energy hidden within the attack of an angry elder god was a devastating force to be reckoned with.

'Was this the reason why Yama had yelled?' Daniel thought to himself as his vision blurred; a situation that was made worse by his shuttle which was now spinning out of control.

The boat's trajectory was instantly altered the moment the arrow hit it and shattered its barrier as it was sent hurtling straight into the path of a red-colored portal that was about ten times larger than the ones Daniel had seen earlier.

Daniel recovered at the exact moment when the boat shot into the portal.

'Holy smokes!'

'Shit!'

That was the only thing that crossed the minds of the old monk and the mortal before they vanished into the red portal.

The moment Daniel regained consciousness; the first thing that occurred to him was that he could now think again.

Though the portal was just like any other gateway where one could step into it and appear on the other side instantly; that still didn't stop Daniel from feeling a hundred years older by the time he came to.

He could tell not even a second had passed between the time he entered the portal and exited it, but within that brief second, he had watched all the memories of his past life flash before him more than five times over; a feeling that made his consciousness blurry once again.

The pain he was getting from his consciousness being strained intensified but compared to that of the training he received in his past life and those he endured during their trials within the 'Realm of All Beginnings', it was nothing unbearable.

Furthermore, his soul body had been strengthened by the energies of multiple existences, and all these factors had somewhat fortified his mind, so his mind could now handle pain much better than back when he was still in the military.

The only issue was simply the fact that the causes of his current plight had happened simultaneously, and he had never experienced what it meant to be on the other end of the two mysterious forces, thus, he was caught off-guard.

Hua!

Daniel felt a bone-piercing cold wash over him the moment he arrived on the other side of the massive red portal. It felt like every natural and weather condition had changed.

Furthermore, there was an extremely vibrant life energy present in the air, as he felt the energy in the environment around him change.

Golden light burst out of Daniel's soul body, which was now gold in color, forming some sort of barrier around him, as he felt himself falling at blinding speed, whilst everything within his view kept magnifying rapidly.

But that was until he saw the figure of what seemed to be the body of a handsome little kid lying on the ground with a bleeding forehead.