Demon Gate

As he walked down the busy street, Neo took notice of his surroundings. The people were going about their day happily with smiles on their faces as children ran up and down the streets playing a game of tag.

The hawkers that were selling items and foodstuffs were constantly calling out to passersby to take a look at their wares and Neo couldn't help but think to himself, 'In my previous lifetimes, this was really hard to see.'

To him, this wasn't 'normal' at all. He was used to seeing the people in a completely depressed and distressed state so what he was seeing right now was something he thought was refreshing and very welcoming.

Compared to the gloominess he was used to, this was a beautiful change of pace, but something was bothering him. There was this weird sensation in the air that was constantly prickling at his neck and it made this wonderful stroll somewhat uncomfortable.

'This sensation… It's like–'

Before Neo could continue with that thought, he heard people screaming in the distance and immediately dashed towards in the direction where the screams came from.

When he arrived where the screaming originated from, it was actually at a large city square and in the middle of the square there was something there that he was quite familiar with.

"As I thought, that ominous feeling was demonic energy and it was coming from this Demon Gate!"

Neo didn't know this, but in the new timeline he was living in right now, someone had developed a machine that prevented demonic energy from intruding inside a specific area that said machine was protecting

The appearance of a demon gate in the middle of a populated city was completely unprecedented since the development of this machine.

Neo didn't find it strange though because in his previous lives, such a thing was quite normal. The demon gate wasn't stable yet so this was a chance for him.

"Before it becomes stable and the demonic beings start pouring out, let's close it!"

Neo tried pulling out his sword out of reflex but noticed that it wasn't holstered on his hip.

"Ah!"

His weapons were considered holy relics so they were kept at the nearby Chapel for safekeeping in order to preserve their 'holiness', but he hadn't visited the place yet to retrieve them because he had been sidetracked by the peaceful atmosphere of the city which was new to him.

"...I can't put this off. I'll just go in barehanded!"

The regular citizens were running away from the square so Neo was quite noticeable as he was the only one running towards the demon gate. A few people took notice of this and when they saw him run straight up to the gate, they tried yelling at him to get away.

Obviously, Neo was oblivious to their cries and just observed the gate silently. It wasn't exactly like a gate but more of a crack in the fabric of space. The crack had a twisted image of what appeared to be the world that it led to.

"At the rate it's stabilizing…it'll take a quarter of an hour before monsters start pouring out of it. I have to do this quickly," Neo said to himself after he used the holy energy inside of him to scan the demon gate.

The city guard was already moving to the square as fast as they could and the Captain that was leading them noticed that Neo was standing in front of the demon gate. Just as he was about to yell at him to get away, Neo did what everyone else thought was unthinkable–he entered the gate.

Once he was inside, Neo looked around the broken world that the gate led him to. A few monsters had already gathered in front of the demon gate and they immediately lunged at him when he appeared.

At the moment, Neo was without a weapon, but this didn't mean that he couldn't fight. In his previous life, he had befriended the Martial King and learned from him the Demon Devouring Martial Movement–a unique martial art that was created for the sole reason of destroying demons.

Even though he was unarmed, Neo met with the monsters head on and began blasting them away or killing them on the spot with his techniques. The energy level of the demon gate was relatively low so the monsters inside of it were weak so he didn't have trouble taking care of them.

"Thankfully, it's only a low level demon gate. If the energy level was a bit higher, I wouldn't be able to pull this off…"

Even though Neo had learned martial arts from the Martial King, he was still fundamentally a swordsman so he wasn't confident in taking down higher level monsters with just his martial arts.

Also, his body wasn't suitable for the Martial King's martial arts so the techniques he performed put a strain on him and quickly depleted his stamina.

Neo dealt with the monsters with the martial arts he learned and proceeded to go deeper into the demon gate's broken world.

Demon gates led to pocket dimensions that had pieces of broken worlds inside of it and were infested with creatures that are known to the people of Edels'herah as demons, but Neo and the Goddess referred to these creatures as the Fallen.

The Fallen were separated into different ranks and levels. The higher their level, the more twisted their appearance was and the more twisted the pocket dimension they came from.

In order to close a demon gate, one had to find the gate's core and destroy it. Neo was only confident in destroying this gate because it was emitting energy that could only house low-level Fallen and since it had low-level energy, the space inside of it would definitely be small.

If the gate was high-leveled, the pocket dimension inside of it would be considerably big and the Fallen it housed would be much higher-leveled as well. Destroying such a gate would take days, but luckily, the time inside of a demon gate flowed much differently compared to the time outside of it.

A few days inside of the demon gate would only amount to a few minutes outside of it. However, this didn't mean the people inside of the demon gate could just dilly-dally. Once the gate's entrance stabilized, the monsters inside of it could start pouring out into Edels'herah and wreak havoc over there.

Neo encountered a few mid-level Fallen inside the gate who led the low-level Fallen and their appearance inside of a low-level demon gate surprised him.

"Mid-level Fallen…I'll have to exert myself even more to kill them and without my weapon, facing them head on would be a little too much for me…" Neo said to himself. He looked around and thought that it was best if he ambushed them instead.

"I'll take out the leaders, the mid-level Fallen. After that, the weaker ones should be a piece of cake."

He hid himself in the nearby shrubbery that was twisted into an abominable form. It was practically unsuitable to call it 'shrubbery' anymore but it did its job keeping him away from his enemies' eyes.

The mid-level Fallen gathered all of the low-level Fallen in the area that hadn't already been killed by Neo and seemed to be preparing for their breakout once the demon gate stabilized.

Noticing that the turbulent energy within the dimensional pocket watering down, Neo frowned as he thought, 'I don't have much time left…I should make my move immediately!'

Neo thought that it was best if he made a move right away before any more Fallen arrived. If there were too many of them, it'd be hard for him to destroy the few mid-level Fallen that were leading the group.

"The dimensional core should also be with one of those mid-level Fallen. After I kill them, the demon gate should start collapsing."

Neo began climbing atop one of the twisted trees nearby and when he got to a good location, he immediately descended on the head of one of the mid-level Fallen with a technique from the Demon Devouring Martial Movement called Devouring Edge, intending to stomp it to death.

With a loud crack and boom, Neo crushed the mid-level Fallen under his feet. Destroying the ground around him with the technique and kicking up dirt and debris everywhere.

The shockwave from his sudden descent knocked the other Fallen off their feet and he took advantage of their stunned state to immediately charge towards the other mid-level Fallen.

There were 3 of them and with him immediately dealing with one of them, there were now 2 left. The mid-level Fallen he dashed towards tried putting up their guard, but with its posture broken from the shockwave, Neo weaved under his guard as his hand thrust towards the monster's heart like a venomous snake.

His aura-covered hand pierced into the Fallen's thick monster skin and dug deep into its body. When Neo's aura made contact with the monster's beating heart, he immediately changed his hand that was imitating the shape of a spear's blade into a tiger's claw and pulled the monster's heart out of its body.

"GRAAaaaahhhhhh…"

The monster let loose a pained roar that faded into silence as it drew its dying breath after having its heart ripped out. Neo crushed the monster heart in his hand before turning to face the final mid-level Fallen that he had been aiming for.

The last Fallen had already recovered from the initial shock of Neo's surprise attack. It glared at him for a moment before it started to roar in anger. It charged towards him in the next instance and Neo got into a defensive stance as he roused his fighting energy, wrapping his body in a thin layer of golden-colored aura to meet the monster's charge head-on.

"Haahh!!!"

Neo let loose a guttural roar as he firmly grabbed onto the charging monster's head. He was pushed back a few meters until he found his footing and stopped the monster's charge from pushing him back any further.

He then used the monster's momentum as leverage as he firmly planted himself into the ground and lifted the monster high into the air. He then waved it around a bit before powerfully slamming it back into the ground with a roar.

"RAAHHHHH!!!"

The slam caused the ground to crack apart, but Neo wasn't finished yet. While still holding onto the monster's head, he lurched to the side and with his foot as a pivot, swung the monster's large body in a sweeping motion towards the other Fallen that was in the area, smashing them away. Either killing them on the spot or incapacitating them.

Since he didn't have a weapon, Neo thought that it was a good idea to use his opponent's body as one. He used the Fallen in his grasp to smash around the other Fallen in the area until he completely decimated all of his enemies.

At the end of his rampage, Neo finally killed the Fallen he had been using as a club and pulled out the demon gate's core that was inside of its stomach.

He sat himself down for a moment to catch his breath as he said to himself, "It has been a while, but I'm feeling more exhausted than usual from using Sun's martial arts…"

After resting for a bit, Neo stood up and used his holy energy to crush the demon gate core in his hand.

The pocket dimension started collapsing and he quickly rushed towards the exit. Thankfully, he left behind a marker using his energy so he quickly found it and jumped right through.