Chapter Ten: Origins, the Dark Frontier
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Uncertain how much time had passed.
Michen finally woke up.
He slowly climbed to his feet.
His entire body ached fiercely, as if it might shatter.
Behind him stood a towering ancient tree.
It exuded a strong sense of security.
Fortunately, no monsters had appeared during his unconsciousness.
Otherwise, he would have long since become a meal for some beast.
He patted his cheek.
Though he had no idea how he survived that terrifying monster’s attack, the fact remained—he was still alive.
And that was enough.
He instinctively touched his neck, feeling a slight sting.
Perhaps a side effect of depleted magical energy.
His head swam dizzily.
At that moment, a status window popped up.
[Strength D-, Constitution D, Agility E+, Spirit C]
His attributes had improved across the board.
Though pleasantly surprised, his body and mind were utterly exhausted, and with his longsword damaged, it was clear he could no longer fight.
Anyway, he had obtained the Taki Tama Branch and completed the mission.
There was no reason to linger in the secret realm any longer.
Michen immediately activated the Escape Stone.
This time, the Escape Stone successfully powered up.
Its surface patterns emitted a radiant spectrum of colors, numbers rapidly counting down.
Three, two, one.
With a whoosh!
A pillar of multicolored light descended.
The space shifted abruptly.
When he opened his eyes again,
he found himself inside a warehouse within the amusement park.
The air was thick with dust, a strangely comforting scent.
He never imagined he would exit the secret realm alive.
Michen sighed in relief.
He pushed open the warehouse door.
The sky was entering dusk.
Time within the secret realm flowed roughly in sync with reality.
As Michen prepared to move forward,
a bright beam from a flashlight appeared nearby.
“I knew I heard something!”
“Didn’t expect you to still be alive!”
It was Jiutou Li’s voice.
Michen smiled wearily. “Barely hanging on.”
“But at least the commission is finally done.”
Jiutou Li was somewhat surprised that Michen completed the task alone.
He had assumed Michen, like other hunters, had given up halfway.
“Heh, I told you, you’re a strange one.”
“You’ve been in the realm for five days. Hungry? I just made some food and drinks!”
Five days?
Could that much time have passed already...?
Michen had no recollection.
Back in Jiutou Li’s home,
to Michen's surprise, the place was unusually tidy and clean.
Books and documents were stacked in corners, whiteboards filled with chaotic, indecipherable formulas.
Jiutou Li took a kettle off the stove.
“Here, some hot tea to warm your stomach.”
“Thanks.”
It was less tea and more like dried herbs and leaves.
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But Michen was not picky.
As long as it was drinkable.
Sipping the warm brew eased some of his fatigue.
He seemed to recall something.
“Oh, your compass.”
Michen pulled out the Crisis Compass from his pack.
It was completely broken now; the tiny copper needle had twisted into a tangled mess, as if distorted by some force.
He felt a twinge of guilt for damaging the compass.
“Sorry, I didn’t expect that rumor to be true...”
“You saw that monster!” Jiutou Li’s voice nearly roared.
Michen hadn’t anticipated such a strong reaction.
If he said he not only encountered but fought that monster, no one would believe it—they’d think he’d lost his mind.
To avoid unnecessary explanations,
Michen simply nodded in affirmation, implying he only saw the monster.
“I knew my intuition was right!”
Jiutou Li grew extremely excited upon hearing this.
So excited, he didn’t even notice spilling some wine on the floor.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Michen explained: the Crisis Compass started wildly ringing, then a massive shadow appeared—a dragon-like monster.
He immediately activated the Escape Stone and left the realm.
Jiutou Li pondered deeply.
“Black Dragon...”
He muttered, rummaging through boxes.
“Wait here.”
He pulled out a thick old book from beneath a pile of documents.
The parchment was yellowed with age.
Jiutou Li flipped to a page.
“Is it something like this?”
The illustration showed a black wyvern.
The ink was messy, large swaths painted in black obscuring details except for a few dark red lines—just enough to suggest features.
Michen recalled the monster’s appearance.
It was so enormous he couldn’t make out details, only feeling as if darkness swallowed the entire world.
But he remembered the dark red markings flickering on its huge body.
“It looks somewhat similar...”
He nodded.
“Then what exactly is this monster?”
“That’s not a monster,” Jiutou Li replied.
“Some things can’t be explained in a few words.”
He stood, walking to the back of the house, opening a secret door.
“Come with me.”
Following Jiutou Li into the basement,
Michen discovered the house’s hidden depths.
Screens on the walls flickered with complex data; a large processor hummed day and night, analyzing magical fluctuations generated by the secret realm.
No wonder Jiutou Li lived here.
He wasn’t an ordinary worker—he was a secret realm scholar.
Since the secret realms appeared on Earth, humans never stopped researching them.
Secret realm scholars were a group who, lacking the combat strength of hunters, believed in human wisdom and used science to uncover the truth behind the realms.
Jiutou Li pulled glasses from his pocket.
Once on, the disheveled, wine-loving uncle looked somewhat scholarly.
He opened the screen before him.
Displayed was a tangled, maze-like image resembling an anthill.
“You know the anthill model, right?”
Michen nodded.
This was a widely discussed theoretical model of secret realm structure in recent years.
Due to controversy and lack of conclusive data, academia largely viewed it as the delusion of madmen.
The model proposed that—
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Secret realms do not exist outside the space we inhabit; nor are the realms independent.
Instead, they are like anthills buried deep within the earth,
embedded within the universe we occupy.
Realms originally belonging to different dimensions are connected under certain forces.
In other words,
secret realms are linked to Earth and also interconnected with each other.
“What does that have to do with that monster?” Michen asked.
“Everything,” Jiutou Li said, taking a sip from his bottle.
A satellite image of Earth’s Antarctic region appeared on the screen.
The pristine white land was engulfed by a black vortex, as if Earth had been bitten.
[Dark Frontier]
One of the three earliest secret realms to appear on Earth.
Michen recognized it immediately.
It was considered the most terrifying and dangerous secret realm.
Its difficulty ranked SSS.
To this day, no hunter who ventured inside has ever returned.
What lies within that realm remains unknown.
“The monster you saw likely came from the Dark Frontier,” Jiutou Li stated calmly.
But his words struck like thunder in Michen’s heart.
“Isn’t it said no one has ever returned from that realm?”
Michen challenged.
Jiutou Li sneered, “Who says you have to enter a realm to obtain its secrets?”
“Kid hunter, scholars have many more methods than you imagine.”
“That monster’s name is [Claw of Slaughter Chaos – Laitin]. What you saw in the Poison Moon Forest might have been only its projection.”
“Projection?” Michen was puzzled.
Could it be that he fought only a projection of the monster?
He was skeptical.
Jiutou Li, unaware of Michen’s actual battle, pressed on.
“As everyone knows, monsters rely on the realms to exist, but in the oldest and most dangerous realms, the relationship is likely reversed.”
“The monsters created the secret realms!”
“These godlike powerful monsters maintain the realms’ existence while infusing their power into others.”
“It is by this power that originally independent realms slowly developed into an anthill-like structure.”
Perhaps under the influence of alcohol or scholarly zeal,
Jiutou Li grew more and more impassioned.
No wonder scholars were called arrogant—
their thoughts and imagination leapt wildly.
Though touching some truths, how much was mere fanciful delirium?
Such research was best left to secret realm scholars.
Jiutou Li thanked Michen for the valuable information and said he would overlook the broken compass.
But he warned Michen to keep silent, never revealing he had seen that terrifying monster.
Michen had no intention of speaking.
It was no demand at all.
After thanking Jiutou Li for the warm tea, he bid farewell.
Outside, night had fully fallen.
Dark clouds covered the sky.
After spending so much time in the secret realm,
Michen felt somewhat unsettled by a moonless night.
Jiutou Li’s motorcycle was parked by the roadside, covered with a tarp to protect it from leaves and dust.
The engine roared to life, heat rippling.
A beam of light cut through the darkness.
On the vast road, a low rumble echoed.
Michen sped off toward Junyang City.