Avalon City

Dante was not prepared at all for what happened next. The moment he chose to ignore and continue, his phone began to process the command before suddenly freezing.

He only had time to furrow his brows and wonder what the hell was wrong before his phone screen virtually exploded in a purple-black light and swallowed him whole.

No sound was made as he was sucked in and he disappeared from his room without even causing a stir. His parents downstairs had no idea that their son was about to be thrust into a world of danger and opportunity!

...…..

"W-What the hell?" Dante shouted, his voice coming out distorted and slow while echoing on itself. He felt like he was being sucked through a straw, hurtling within a tunnel that looked no different from the animation he used for his app.

The next second, he was thrown out harshly onto the ground, hitting his head against a wall and concussing himself. He fell to his knees and retched slightly before hazily looking around.

He would have been better off refraining from doing so as the visual impact caused him to cover his eyes.

'So goddamn bright!'

The amount of neon light that infiltrated his retina in that one second was like a flash bang, even to a city boy like Dante. He could only rub his eyes painfully and let his squeamishness recede before raising his head once more.

Dante was naturally stunned by what he saw. He was currently in a relatively dirty alleyway, with highly futuristic trashcans that glowed with neon bar lights around the lids and around the edges.

Apart from him was a strange-looking cat that had one metallic eye that glowed with a red light and was staring at him with disbelief. In all its nine lives, it had yet to see such a thing happen.

Before either Dante or the cat could react, an alert was heard.

"ALERT! ALERT! Detected a mass breakout of unknown bacteria from Sector 86! Anyone nearby, please evacuate!"

A lovely female voice that sounded strangely synthetic spoke out from all around Dante, and he could tell that this warning sounded out from every display in the distance.

At this moment, Dante's mind cleared and he inferred many things.

Well, everyone complained about Gen Z and their destructive tendencies, as well as their weird social cues, but one strength they did have was adaptability… well moreso, than the average human at least.

Watch enough isekai anime, transformers movies, star wars, and star trek, and you'd also have the basic capabilities to quickly accept a situation like this.

"Either I've progressed in our timeline and gone to earth's future, died and entered another sci-fi-like world with an identical body and identity, traveled to another world with my original human body, or I've been sucked into a digital or quantum-like world through my phone," Dante muttered as he observed both exists of the alleyway carefully.

"Judging by the warning, I have brought alien bacteria from my timeline to this place, so option 2 is out. It's either option 1, 3, or 4 and I need to determine which one it is to decide the next move." Dante whispered as he glanced at the cat that was eyeing him up and down.

Looking at its red eye, Dante's heart felt a chill. Could the cat's synthetic eye be connected to a larger network, and thereby used to monitor him? So they might have footage of him appearing from nowhere?

Damn!

Dante fled.

He had no idea of the level of tech. It could be early cyberpunk which was like the game of the same name that was popular a while back, moderate sci-fi which was like that movie with the blue people, or top-level sci-fi like star wars or mass effect.

If it was early, he would be lucky. They shouldn't have laser weapons that could disintegrate him in one hit. Anything above early and he was done for. He was just a 21-year-old coder from earth, what advantage did he have here?

Well, he had - possibly - killer bacteria from earth, but they detected it within seconds, so they likely had ways to contain and decontaminate the place.

Dante reached the end of the alley and emerged on a relatively busy street. The people were still stunned from receiving such a weird and unique warning that they had yet to move, so Dante had time to inspect the area around him.

Dante's heart sank.

Flying cars that zoomed up ahead, people on hoverboards doing tricks and moving where they went, AI-driven robots of different models that walked or performed different activities, neon lights and buildings that had uniquely minimalistic designs, people using teleporters to move up and down…

And worst of all, alien races!

Different skin colors consisting of the entire color spectrum, humanoid, quadrupedal, scales, cat ears, wolf ears, insectoids, walking cephalopod…

You name it, they were present.

In fact, there was a distinct lack of 'pure human' like him, and the closest to it were the ones with animal features in different parts.

Once again, Dante was stunned. He didn't even live in an era where holographic technology was perfected, much less an era of Virtual Reality, so he had no cognitive failsafe for the extreme visual impact before him.

Movies and anime helped him accept the situation, but seeing things in 2 dimensions and seeing them in 3 dimensions was a whole different ballgame.

Funny enough, when he exited the alleyway, the nearest species around him were also stunned to see something they had likely never seen before.

However, their reaction was faster than Dante's.

"Oh my Sacred Light! Is that a pure-blooded human?!" A giant wolfman shouted in a deep bass voice.

"I-Impossible, what would one be doing here in Avalon City?" A female cat-woman gasped with dismay.

"I don't care, I'm going to be rich!" A Squid-like being that had its head area covered by a purple bowl-like helmet with water exclaimed through its device's speakers.

Immediately, the squid extended many tentacles toward Dante in an effort to capture him. The other aliens' eyes lit up as they seemed to have woken up from their stupor, and were replaced by a sort of mob-like madness as they charged at the young man.

"Don't touch him, he's mine!" A female giantess who was the size of a small building roared and swung her hand out, smashing many aliens aside.

"Ha, you are too weak to claim this prize!" A scaled man with a mouthful of yellow serrated teeth laughed as he pulled two guns from his trenchcoat and fired at the giantess' hands which were about to grab Dante.

The giantess screamed in pain as two laser beams with a reddish hue tore through her skin, leaving two gaping holes within. The moment the croc-man fired, another alert sounded as the synthetic voice spoke again.

"Alert, Alert! Detected use of lethal weaponry in a civilian area. Dispatching Bionic City Guards!"

The moment the alert was sounded, the faces of all the aliens around changed greatly. Many turned to escape while those closer to Dante seemed conflicted for a split second before their eyes became bloodshot. They continued to grab towards him and fought with each other brutally to drag him away.

As for Dante, he slowly backed away with a pale expression. As a proud Gen-Z upper middle-class lad, he hadn't even gotten into any situation where hundreds of people would be gunning for his life or body.

To suddenly experience that… he was naturally stunned. However, even if he had the sharp senses of an experienced person from earth, it would be useless, because these aliens, moved so fast and so nimbly that it was like he was in a ninja or wuxia movie.

There was even an extremely obese female with red skin that had green splotches on her body that moved faster than any athlete Dante had ever seen.

If it wasn't for the fact that they seemed to prioritize his safety and wholeness, as well as their constant disruption of each other's attempts to get forward, he would have likely been swooped away by now.

Looking at this scene, Dante only had one thought in his head.

"I need to get out of here. I need to go home asap. I need to return to earth!"

There was nothing but trouble for him here and he would be better of going back home. All thoughts of adventure and wonderment were beaten out of his mind by the reality that he was overwhelmed, poorly informed, outclassed, and in perpetual danger.

It seemed as if the heavens answered Dante's prayers as right before everyone's eyes, he simply disappeared with a 'pop' sound, like a bubble that had burst.

All that was left of Dante's short but eventful visit to the city of Avalon was the harmful bacteria, a crazy mob that was stupefied as well as incoming bionic guards who were cocking weapons at the crowd, ready to fire…