Into The Portal: Monster Invasion

“Look at all these beauties.” Val walked towards the pile of orbs while rubbing her hands together. Although her tone sounded as if she liked the shiny orbs, the only missing thing to complete her greedy appearance was a pair of dollar signs on her eyes.

“Sorry to burst your bubble, princess, but all these are already signed.” Maya brutally exclaimed. As she put it, most of the orbs were already marked with an energy sign, and thus were unusable.

Miles took a look at them and counted more than 100 orbs, out of all, around 90 were used, thus only 11 were non-used. 8 of them were in Grunt-Rank and had no use for them. Could only be sold for quick cash in Unity, and the rest of the three were in the middle tier. One was a sword with the wind element, the second one was an axe with a poison element and the third one was actually an armor with the gravity element.

“Only three, unlucky.” Alex clicked his tongue in annoyance.

“I have an offer.” Miles started as he looked at the others.

“You want us to take the three orbs in exchange you will get all the 90-something used orbs for something only you know, am I right?” Val chirped in before he could continue. Miles looked at her in horrification.

“She knows you well.” Alex laughed. Maya too giggled, while Miles shook his head.

“It's fine with me. Those orbs are useless to us anyway, except if you want to blow them off of course.” Maya gave her approval, and Alex and Val also nodded. Miles didn’t have a plan but a theory. Merging orbs allowed him to create something unique, so he wanted to test if by merging he could remove the imprint of other people from the orbs.

Although he didn’t have any means of merging now that he had spent all the Elemental Minerals, he was still working on an alternative way.

“Alright then, I will claim them on my way back.” Miles nodded. “How about these three, how are you going to distribute them?”

“I don’t need any armor. The one you made is good enough for me.” Alex started.

“The one I have is also quite good. I also got used to it, so Maya can have it if she wants.” Val added.

“Alright then. I will take the armor, thanks, guys.” Maya took the orb and let her energy seep into it.

“Wind or Poison?” Val asked as she pointed at the rest of the two orbs.

“I will take the wind if it's okay for you.” Alex took the orb as he weighed it in his hand.

“I will sell either anyway.” Val shrugged as she took the last one.

“Alright, since we dealt with this, let’s go to the King,” Miles called them out as he started to walk. The creation of tokens would take some time, so King asked them to claim them on their way back. Miles and others had no problem with it, so they accepted it.

“Do you know anything about the Invisible Knight?” Miles asked after they met with the King. The monkey looked at them and thought about what he meant. Miles’s mastery over the language wasn’t that good yet, so despite understanding when monsters spoke, he couldn’t always convey his meanings. For example, in human language, the monster was invisible and thus named as such, but in monster language, the word had different connotations.

It took for a while for the King to understand which monster Miles meant but when it did, a visible shiver passed through its aged body. Miles was surprised to see this.

“I suggest you give up. The area you are going to is dangerous.” The King said while looking straight into his eyes.

“The area?” Miles asked as he picked the meaning behind its sentence. “Not the monster?”

“Invisible Knight, as you named it, not that troublesome. With a zone, you can kill it quickly. But that area is what we call the Phantom World.” The King emphasized the last bit.

“In there, there are creatures out of your wits. You, humans, know nothing about mysterious abilities we monsters can have.”

“What do you mean?” Miles asked in surprise. Humans had advanced to the C-Circle and had been battling in Portal World for decades. He didn’t think there were things out of human’s scope now.

“What do you know about the Mystic Branch of energy?” The King asked as he saw Miles was unbelieving. “Nothing? Not surprised. You think it is just a branch with unexplainable things but you are wrong. Mystic Branch has rules and laws just like the other three, but you can’t make sense of it that is all. Though, out of all humans, you should know some at least.”

“What do you mean?” Miles asked in bewilderment. His guess was it was because he was able to speak the monster language, thus had the chance to speak with different monsters who possessed the primary mystic branch and had the chance to explain to him. It made sense, after all, Miles could be the only person who could speak this language although probably there were a few others who could speak.

“The thing is, the Phantom World is filled with monsters primed at Mystic Branch. Their abilities and ultimates are all out of your wits. They are things your human brain can’t make sense of. Thus, you will die without knowing how, if you go there. So take my word for it. Give up on this mission.”