Chapter 1: Chapter 1-Portal

*RING* *RING* *RING*

The sound of an alarm clock echoed in the whole room as the eyes of the young man sleeping on the bed slowly opened. His unfocused gaze fell on the clock as he yawned audibly.

"Hnng..." With a lazy groan, he moved his hand blindly to the side and turned off the clock as he tossed and turned in his bed tiredly. The time was 9 AM in the morning, and the day was the 16th of July. It was the middle of the summer in Seoul and the weather was extremely humid and hot.

"I need to go to work..." Murmuring under his breath, Talon finally moved his body and stood up from his bed. His body swayed left and right for a moment before he finally balanced himself and started walking toward the bathroom.

Standing in front of the mirror, he stared at his own reflection. Talon was a rather average-looking young man. The type to walk past him and never even look at him However, he possessed two captivating black eyes that seemed to have a mysterious charm to them. His hair was short, black and messy.

Blinking slowly, he turned the faucet on and let the water run as he washed his face. Then, he took a sniff of his shirt.

Immediately a frown appeared on his face. "I smell like rotten fish..."

A few minutes later, he came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist as he dried his hair with another. From an outsider's point of view, the young man possessed a rather well-toned body. It wasn't overly athletic nor completely soft, the result of many years working part-time jobs here and there to earn a living.

Since it was the summer vacation and he didn't have to attend classes, he spent the break working multiple jobs to gather as much money as possible for his family. After all, sending him to Seoul to study and live alone was never the easiest financial choice they had to make. His mother and father only had him as their sole child so they worked their bodies off to make sure Talon would never feel like he lacked anything in his life.

Walking to his wardrobe, he picked up fresh new clothes and tossed the others in the basket.

Then, he walked to the kitchen and made a simple cup of coffee before drinking it all to wake his sleepy brain up.

"Fuuh, ok, time to go to work. Let's make this another great day!" Looking at his old phone's screen, it was 9:40 AM which meant he had around 20 minutes to reach his destination.

'Plenty of time.'

Smiling slightly, he walked toward the door of his room, ready to leave. At that moment, something happened.

Without any prior warning, the loud sound of glass bursting filled Talon's ears as he saw a silhouette flash in front of him brusquely. The mysterious figure smashed against the ground before it rolled and hit the table, destroying it completely along with the wooden floor.

Talon found himself completely shell-shocked as his eyes slowly looked down, trailing the dents left in the wood as he slowly moved till his eyes fell on the unconscious person laying right on top of the remains of his table.

"..."

Talon's pupils kept staring at the figure who was clearly a woman or at least feminine enough to be a woman.

His completely confused mind tried to understand where, how, and why this girl appeared in his room, out of the window... On the fourth floor!

'Did she fly over from somewhere?!'

It obviously didn't make any sense. However, what didn't make even more sense was the girl herself.

She was unbelievably gorgeous. So gorgeous in fact that Talon almost thought she was an angel that descended from the sky.

'Or is she?'

Screams for help mixed with the terrorizing sounds of the earthquakes filled Talon's eyes as he navigated his way through the collapsing building. His heart was racing wildly and the adrenaline was rushing through his body endlessly.

His mind stopped working long ago as he tried to ignore the blood and terrifying sounds all around him. His eyes only focused on one thing and one thing only, to escape.

Luckily, a few minutes later, Talon found himself running toward the exit door of the apartment complex. The girl on his shoulder was still completely out of it and didn't seem to be intending to wake up even under the current circumstances.

'Yes! The exit!' Talon felt a rush of excitement seeing the exit as he increased his speed. He was never more grateful for his strong physique. However, as he was about to leave the building, the destruction finally caught up to the main structure of the apartment complex.

With a loud bang, the whole place started collapsing as huge rocks and wooden planks rained down on Talon like a giant torrent.

"Holy fuck!!!" Cursing loudly, Talon's instincts kicked in. He was barely a few meters away but with his speed and the fact that he was carrying a human being on his shoulder, he couldn't make it.

But, he had another idea that instantly manifested in his head. So, without any time to hesitate, he quickly grabbed the girl with two hands and then using all his strength, he threw her forward.

The momentum of the throw sent the girl flying as she exited the building and fell on the stairs before stopping a few steps down.

'This should work or I'm dead!!' With clenched teeth, he immediately threw himself forward. At the same time, a gigantic rock fell down right on the entrance.

"HNNNG!!!" Using his forearms, he rolled on the ground.

*BOOOM*

The rock fell right on the door, destroying it completely as the rest of the building crumbled afterward. A giant cloud of debris and dust filled the air.

"Hah... Hah... Cough, cough!! Ugh!!" Coughing his lungs out because Talon inhaled a huge amount of oxygen. His heart was still racing wildly as he looked back at the remains of the building.

"I survived... Hah... Hah..." The feeling of relief from uttering those words was akin to a refreshing breeze on his body. He didn't believe that he made it while many others ended up buried under the rubble.

Talon wasn't in the mind nor the sense to recall those images as he was still trying to understand what the hell just happened. A girl appeared inside his room out of nowhere who looked so beautiful she might as well be a goddess and then three earthquakes so strong that they turned the building into dust hit him one after the other.

Everything started and ended in less than three minutes. No one would be able to make sense of anything in that short period of time. It all felt too ridiculous and outlandishly unexpected.

However, what Talon didn't know was that this wasn't the end.

*ZNNNNNNNN*

Suddenly, a ringing sound caught his attention and made him look up in the air only to be met with a sight straight out of fiction.

An unimaginably gigantic cosmic gate was floating in the air as it spun around. Its black, tentacle-like edges similar to a fictional imagination of a black hole's event horizon slowly rotated and moved everywhere, creating a ringing sound.

"What... in the actual hell..." Talon's eyes blinked in shock as he watched that huge entity, the size of a full continent, cover their sky and hide the sun. It was so eerily beautiful and terrifying that he found no words to describe it.

However, his attention on that gate didn't last long as another set of noisy sounds reached him. Shifting his gaze down, Talon was met with a scene ultimately insane.

A sight that completely changed everything.

(A//N: Hey everyone :) This is my new book here. I hope you will enjoy this ride with me. Don't forget to add it to your library and support it with PS. I'm going to add goals that we can achieve for extra chaps xD! I'm relying on you and hopefully, this adventure will be something you will enjoy as I have endless ideas for it!)