Journey Of A Legend

Inside a small room, a black shadow suddenly grew wider and a second later, a man with a half-transparent body and a demon mask on his face came out.

After his body was fully out from the shadow, his body turned back to normal, while he took off the mask from his face and put it away.

"That was close yet again.", said Greg as he swept away the sweat from his forehead.

Sitting down on his bed, he let Alice out. While watching as she was jumping here and there, he asked, "Hey Alice. What happened back there? What was this thing about zone consuming and Universal Creature?"

In an instant, as he asked that, the familiar girlish voice sounded in his ear, "As you know, after a zone break, the core in it will evolve into a so-called Dimensional Creature. With them, humans can surpass their limits and broke through the sixth rank."

"Yeah, I knew that, but ranking up a creature like that is very risky no? I mean, they said that there is a very high chance that when the creature ranks up, it can overpower its owner, resulting in death."

"Yes, that's true."

"Then what is a Universal Creature?", asked Greg curiously.

After a small hesitation, Alice's quiet voice sounded in his ear, "Do you know where the creatures come from and what they really want?"

Hearing the unexpected question, Greg was a bit confused, but in the end started to think too, because this was a really good question.

He knew that the truth behind the zones sudden appearance is a huge mystery and there are a lot of assumptions.

There were some who thought creatures and zones came alive because of humanity's imagination, there were some who thought they are, as the name suggests, from different dimensions, and some who thought it's someone's experiment.

Of course, there is no telling the truth without solid evidence, so people just guessed.

Hearing Alice's question made Greg quite curious, so he shook his head and asked Alice to tell him.

"Humans thought that they were all alone in the vast universe and other lifeforms couldn't exist. They even thought that everything around them worked by physical laws and supernatural existence are only in fairy tales. However, everything they thought so far had been proven wrong after the appearance of the creatures from the dimensional zones."

"Yeah... That was kinda known so far even for me.", said Greg with a nod.

"But what do you think, where do all of the creatures come from? Were they summoned or they came from another dimension? No, all of these are false, the answer, however, is easy. They were already here even before humanity's appearance, but because you were so weak and primitive, the Higher Beings didn't care about you."

"Higher Beings?", asked Greg with a confused face.

"Yes. Beings with unfathomable power. Humans before them are just a speck of dust in a desert and a drop in the ocean. However, there was once a man, who could rival of those terrifying beings. He killed a lot of terrifying existence and also stole something he shouldn't have. And because of that, he was killed by the Higher Beings without mercy. No one knows what his identity was or where he came from, but they think he was one of the humans and this is why dimensional zones appear on the surface of this planet."

Hearing this, Greg was a bit shocked and said instantly, "So they want to kill everyone on earth, just because of revenge? If they hated him this much, why don't they come here personally? That would be much easier."

Listening to what Greg just said, Alice started to laugh.

"What?", asked Greg as he listened to her laugh.

"Haha! Do you think traveling to a place, which is millions of light-years away is as close as your neighbor? Feel yourself lucky, because if those creatures were that close, this planet wouldn't exist a long time ago. This is why they use their powers and technology to use the so-called rifts to create Dimensional zones here. However, to make one, they need three things."

Hearing this Greg started to listen carefully.

"First, they need an insane amount of energy to make a rift. After that, they need a core, which can keep the rift stable without it collapsing. But the core itself isn't powerful enough for that role, so what they need is a third thing. And that is a Universal Creature's essence."

Hearing this, Greg was confused.

"So... Universal Creatures are only useful to make dimensional zones? That's it?"

"Oh no, not at all. Besides of that, for humans, the Universal Creature's ranking process is much smoother than that of the Dimensional Creature's. There is no risk and no fear of death, while it can surpass even the sixth rank."

Hearing this, Greg was quite surprised. What he knew so far was that normal Soul Creatures can rank up smoothly, but can't break through the sixth rank. On the other hand, Dimensional Creatures could, but with a huge risk. It was like a ticking bomb, which could explode at any moment.

However, Universal Creatures were wholly different. They not only could rank up smoothly, without the risk of death, but can also surpass the rank, which humans and normal Soul Creatures can't.

"Amazing.", thought Greg and thought back the moment, where he consumed the zone and in an instant, a chill run down on his spine.

That feeling was almost like someone put micro bombs in every corner of his body and make them explode at the same time. Just the thought made his body tremble a bit.

"However this is my first time ever seeing an artifact, which is able to consume zones and theoretically create a Universal Creature. If it's true, that mask is valuable than I thought before.", said Alice in a quiet voice.

Greg nodded in agreement and thought, "Yeah, that mask is full of mystery."

***

[In the Soul Association]

*BAM!*

After walking into an office, Nick angrily slammed the door close, making the whole room tremble a bit.

Sitting down in his chair, Nick turned on his computer and started to browse between video recordings.

After watching hundreds of recordings one after another, Nick leaned back into his chair and watched a specific video.

On the screen, people were walking peacefully, when suddenly a crack started to form slowly in the middle of the air.

As it started to spread slowly, more and more people noticed it and in the end, everyone started to run away in fear.

As Nick watched the recording his face never showed even a bit of expression. He didn't blink even once, making his face look both scary and determined.

The video finally arrived at the point, where a little girl was about to be killed by a black spark, but suddenly a masked stranger appeared out of nowhere, protecting the kid with his power.

Nick watched as the man used some kind of strange power to make the crack smaller and smaller and in the end, it turned into a white ball, which vanished into the mask.

After that, the body of the man started to tremble, but a while later it stopped. Just as the man wanted to go away, Nick's power appeared, but a second later the recording turned snow-white, and when it turned back normal the man disappeared from sight.

Nick stopped the video and replayed it from time to time, looking for any clue who that man could be or what he used to escape from his power.

After hours of replaying, Nick turned off his computer and leaned back into his chair, while tapping slowly on his desk.

After thinking for a while, he looked at the phone on his side. After a small hesitation, he picked it up and called a number.

Seconds later, the line finally connected to the other side and a woman's calm voice sounded on the phone.

"Hello?"

"It's me, Nicholas. I need your help."

***

In the next morning, a video with the title of 'Demon, Hero or both?' appeared on the net making every people think it was some kind of joke, but after they clicked on it and watched what it was, people were flabbergasted in an instant.

In the video, a man with a half-transparent body and with a mask on his face, which represented a smiling demon, was standing behind a little girl protecting her from a terrifying attack, while behind him, huge cracks started to form slowly.

"Oh my lord. T-that's a dimensional zone?"

"Don't tell me..."

People were shocked by the fact that a zone appeared in a city, but as they continued to watch the video, their expression grew more and more dumbstruck.

When the video ended, because of the blinding white light that made the man disappear, everyone stayed speechless.

"He... He just stopped a zone to form only by his power alone? How?"

"Did you see how powerful he was? And that mask! So cool!"

"Who is he? Where is this city?"

People started to talk with curiosity and the video started to spread like wildfire, making the views on it reach hundreds of millions only after a week.

And just like that, the name of the Demon Hero slowly started to be known all around the world.