Chapter 70: The Portal Will Close

"It's not the same! Don't forget, you guys opened the space portal using the Angel Descent Formation before. The conditions and situation are totally different this time!" Galadra shook her head, reminding me. But then she looked confused. "Strange! Usually, even if Liana wanted to use her magic power to start a specific function of the Cycle of Rebirth, it should only take a little magic. Could the truth about this portal actually be..."

"Oh yeah, it's been so long I almost forgot about that!" Suddenly, Galadra seemed to realize something. She clapped her hands excitedly and shouted, "This explains where those humans came from!"

"Forgot what?" I stared at her suspiciously, not understanding what she meant. By "those humans", did she mean the people from Earth?

"Uh... nothing!" Galadra, that jerk, wasn't being straight with me. She turned her back and started keeping secrets. "There are some things you shouldn't know now. When the time is right in the future, you'll understand naturally!"

"Hey, how can you do this at such an important time!" I was annoyed and wanted to ask more. But she coughed and seriously warned me:

"Originally, this space portal was only supposed to stay open for less than a month. But when the empire's army carelessly used forbidden spell near the portal last time, it affected how long it stays open! Now it seems the time has more than doubled, but it can only be extended to about two months. That means there's not much time left!"

"What! The portal has a time limit?" This change was too big. I couldn't take it at first.

It's no wonder the portal seemed so stable lately. Nothing unusual happened, and they say its size didn't change at all! Earth kept sending things through, and no one really thought the portal might disappear on its own one day!

"For a while, the energy keeping the portal open came from the Cycle of Rebirth. The Cycle's projection disappeared, but elements were still being sent through. You just can't see the connection between the two dimensions with your eyes! Of course, I can't let the earth element from the Cycle of Rebirth keep flowing out for free forever, so I've cut off the connection between them now!" 

Looking at the busy crowd below, Galadra's next words were clear without explaining further. "As long as nothing else happens, the portal will start getting smaller soon. It should finally disappear in about a month! If I'm not wrong, you probably have a lot to do during this time, right?"

"Okay..." When she reminded me, I couldn't help sighing. It looks like I'll be very busy later.

First, this is very important and bad news for Earth's army! If the portal disappears, it means they'll completely lose their supplies if they want to stay in this world. This is clearly unacceptable!

So I must tell Wayne Peng and the others to leave quickly. Of course, even if I don't say anything, the Earth people should realize this soon themselves.

"Huh, why did you come back?" When I landed on the ground in Sifur city and pushed into the happy, cheering crowd, Gwendolyn found me right away. She pulled me aside and asked in surprise.

"About that..." I told her everything that happened. As for how to tell the Earth people, I'll leave that tricky job to the Elder to pass on slowly!

Then...

Time was short, so I hurried back to the light elf village. After Serena led the First Legion away, the village suddenly felt very empty and quiet.

"You're finally back! You were gone for so long!" I saw Adrian standing alone in the village square waiting for me before I even landed. As soon as he saw me, he ran over and asked, "I just heard Chief Karati say there was trouble with bandits in Sifur city. I was worried and wanted to go find you, but I couldn't get there in time... But those bandits shouldn't be a problem for someone as skilled as you, right? You're really okay?"

"Of course I'm okay!" Seeing how worried he looked, I almost laughed. I grabbed his hand and flew up into the air again. "But some things did happen. I'll tell you all about it later. Right now, I need you to come with me somewhere!"

"Where?" Adrian was confused. Even with how smart he is, he couldn't understand what I meant by this sudden move.

"You'll see when we get there!" I decided to keep it a secret for now. I held him and spread my wings, flying quickly towards the Earth base.

...

A month later, when we came back to where the two sides had fought, the Earth base had grown much bigger again. It was now five or six times its original size!

But most of this big area wasn't really the core of the base. The base itself hadn't expanded much. The rest was from the refugee area growing bigger!

More and more people came looking for help. The refugee area the Earth army set up couldn't handle all the new people. Finally, they had to stop taking in local people.

But when the local people were turned away, they didn't want to leave. They gathered in groups near the base. Some wanted protection, others wanted to trade with the Earth army. Some even built simple houses and started living there!

The Earth army didn't want to chase them away, since they were being friendly. Plus, having the people there was actually very helpful for some things the Earth people needed.

As more people stayed, these houses around the base slowly became a small village. More and more empire people opened shops to trade. This attracted even more people who came from far away to buy things from another world. Some traders even came from other countries outside the empire!

"If the Earth people suddenly disappear, will this place keep growing? What will it be like then..." Looking at all the people - there must be tens of thousands now! - I felt a bit sad. I couldn't help talking to myself.

"The Earth people will disappear? What do you mean? Are they leaving this world?" Adrian asked in surprise. He quickly looked down at the base.

But the Earth base looked normal. He watched carefully for a long time but didn't see anything unusual.

"Of course they won't leave right away, but that time will come soon!" I shook my head and answered. Without saying more, I cast an invisibility spell on both of us, completely hiding us from sight.

"Huh?" Using this kind of magic now made Adrian understand what I was planning. "Are you trying to sneak in?"

"Not just sneaking in!" I thought for a moment and decided to just tell him the answer. Sneaking into the base was only the first step. The portal entrance in the center of the base was our real goal.

"Galadra came back. She told me the portal will start closing in a month. So we need to go to Earth and bring Cyra and Nicola back before the portal closes completely!"

Those two had been missing for a long time. Especially Nicola - she still hadn't shown up! The only possibility left was that they both ended up on Earth.

"Are you sure the Earth people won't find us?" Even though we were invisible, Adrian was still worried about sneaking in like this.

"How could they? Earth people can't use magic. They can't even sense elements. How could they possibly find us?" I answered very confidently. As soon as I finished speaking, I flew towards the center of the base without hesitating. But soon after we got close, I was proven completely wrong!

Suddenly, a sharp alarm sounded above the base. Several armed helicopters quickly took off and flew towards us.

No way! This is crazy! Do the Earth people really have a way to find us even when we're invisible?

Just as I was shocked, the helicopters only flew past us nearby. They didn't stop but kept going further away. Even though the strong wind from the helicopters passing by made us very dizzy, we could tell they hadn't really found where we were.

"Could it be because of radar?" After thinking about it, this was probably the only explanation. But this problem didn't stop us from continuing with the plan.

The rest went very smoothly! Adrian and I landed easily at the center of the Earth base. In front of us was a huge door made of steel!

We both knew the portal connecting the two worlds was behind that door! Just as we were thinking hard about how to get in, the big door suddenly opened by itself.

It turned out it was time for Earth to send supplies through. Transport trucks appeared out of nowhere in the empty space in front of the portal. Then they slowly drove out into the base behind us.

"Let's go!" I held Adrian's hand tightly. I knew this was our chance and we couldn't miss it. We quickly went through the portal entrance before the big door closed.

On the other side of the portal was my old home - Earth!