章節 101: Greece
A few hours later, Liam began dressing. He held the Mirrorheart Pendant in front of him, carefully looking at its incredibly detailed design.
After a moment of inspection, he slipped the pendant around his neck.
"Improved control over the Mirror Dimension and the ability to create mirror-like clones of myself," Liam recalled the Ancient One's words.
'If it weren't for large tears being limited, and the potential benefits they provide to my armor, I would've learned the Mirror Dimension first,' he thought. 'But for now, it can wait. Once I'm done in Greece, I'll focus on mastering it while setting up the foundation for my organization.'
With that, Liam created a portal before him. On the other side, the outskirts of a city appeared.
'According to the Globe, the tear is located in Crete,' Liam thought as he stepped through. 'Since it's a large tear, it's probably out in nature somewhere. If it were in the middle of a city, it would've made international headlines by now.'
The past few hours, he had taken a short nap and spent time researching recent cases of missing persons and unusual deaths.
"The island is around 3,000 square miles," he muttered. "There are numerous reports of missing people spread all over it."
Still, that didn't mean there weren't any strange situations.
"Several hikers near the mountains have disappeared since a few days ago, and local news stations are spreading ghost stories about a mass murderer or dangerous wild animals lurking there," Liam recalled. "Even a large search party sent into the mountains lost contact with most of its members."
He moved towards Rethymno, a city with a population of around 40,000. Other cities within a 20-mile radius ranged between 10,000 to 150,000 people.
"The local search group held ninety searchers spread out into the mountains," he noted. "A few made it back, reporting going back because of landslides, which was then assumed to be the cause of the disappearances—this was also part of the reason why it hasn't made national news yet."
He frowned. 'A coincidence? Maybe. But it could also be a creature creating those landslides. Or just something entirely different.'
As Liam walked through the streets of Rethymno, he noticed the tension in the air. People went about their business as usual, but there was a sense of unease. Sirens blared suddenly as police cars sped out of the city.
'Even the locals know that a landslide shouldn't be able to wipe out that many people without leaving any of them having the ability to call for help,' he thought. 'Time to head towards Mount Ida and find out what's really going on.'
This city wasn't actually the closest city to Mount Ida. Instead of it, a smaller town, Anogeia, was about 10 miles away from this city, with a population of around 2,000 people.
"I'll stop there on the way—just in case something's already happening," he decided, thinking about the police cars he had just seen.
After leaving the city, Liam picked up his pace and began running toward the nearby town.
It didn't take long before something caught his attention.
A cloud of bird-like creatures screeched loudly as they circled in the distance, accompanied by a growing, loud, rumble coming from the mountains.
"What the hell are those?" Liam muttered, kicking up his speed by another notch.
As he got closer, he saw two police cars being lifted into the air by the strange creatures. Two officers leapt from one car as it was being lifted into the air, only to be snatched midair by more of the winged beasts.
Summoning Incursio around him, Liam rushed over while raising a hand and firing off a bolt of Balthakk towards the creatures.
The energy flew through the sky at incredibly high speeds, burning through one of the birds holding up a police car. Liam redirected the bolt, killing the other two creatures, their head or torso melting because of the energy from the Bolt of Balthakk.
The first police car dropped to the ground, with an officer still alive inside. Without pausing, Liam turned his attention to the second car and the creatures flying away with the officers.
The officers trapped in the creatures' claws struggled desperately in midair, trying to break free. One of them even managed to draw a gun and fire at the creature. The bullets tore into its skin, causing small amounts of blood to splatter.
Despite getting shot, the creature did not release the officer. Instead, it let out a loud screech, summoning the other creature holding an officer in its claws to come over. The approaching beast used its free claw to swipe at the hand holding the gun.
Its razor-sharp claws drove straight into the officer's hand, causing him to scream because of the agony and drop the gun.
As The creature flew away again, it didn't simply let go. Instead, it ripped the officer's hand apart, splitting it roughly down the middle while tearing away several fingers with other parts of its claws.
As Liam sprinted past the fallen police car, he raised his hand and fired another Bolt of Balthakk. This time, the energy bolt pierced all the creatures carrying the second police car.
As the car fell out of the sky, Liam used it as a springboard, launching himself into the air towards the remaining two bird-man creatures. Holding Neontote in front of him, he drove the blade into the chest of the nearest beast.
He kicked off the first creature, pulling Neontote free just as a white rift materialized behind him. Liam disappeared as he fell into it and the rift closed behind him.
The rift reappeared above the last creature, and Liam jumped out, bringing Neontote down in a horizontal arc that sliced straight through the beast's neck.
His eyes fell on the falling officers. Reacting swiftly, he jumped from the creature's back and opened another white rift below him.
Another rift appeared on the ground, and Liam stepped out of it in time to catch the officers before they hit the earth.
One of them was bleeding a lot from his mangled hand—if it could even be called a hand anymore. The creature's claws had not only shredded his flesh, but also pulled bone fragments from the surrounding area. Causing pieces of bones to stick out of his hand at random places, far from where they belonged.
The wounded officer screamed in agony, while his colleague remained frozen in shock. And who could blame him?
Liam ripped off a strip from the man's shirt and wrapped it tightly around his wrist to temporarily stop the bleeding.
'I don't have time for this. Up ahead is a town with over two thousand people,' Liam thought grimly. 'If it's already this happening here.... I can't imagine what it will be like over there.'
Meanwhile, the rumbling in the distance grew louder. He had no idea what it was, but he knew it couldn't be good news.
"Hey!" He grabbed the uninjured officer, shaking him out of his schock.
When the man's eyes cleared a little, Liam pointed at the fallen cars and his wounded companion.
"Get him back to the city. Call for paramedics. Now."
Without waiting for a reply, Liam turned and sprinted toward Anogeia.
'An incident with this many victims will require a major memory wipe,' Liam thought, already turning back towards the road. 'I want to minimize casualties as much as possible. The people ahead will likely be in worse shape.'
While running, he recalling the creatures appearances.
They had long, bird-like wings with razor-sharp talons on the end of them and at their feet, but their torsos and heads were disturbingly human—outside for the few patches of fur covering their bodies.
'They look like harpies from the legends,' he thought. Liam had studied Greek mythology quite a lot at college in his previous life, always interested by the stories back then.
He sprinted at full speed for another two miles before the town came within eyesight.
When he arrived, he saw a sight he had half-expected—but even so, the horror of it sent a chill down his spine.
章節 102: Reality Of Dimensional Tears
He stood on a small hill overlooking the town. Buildings were ablaze on both sides, half of them completely destroyed and leveled to the ground. Crashed and burning cars were everywhere through the streets, their doors ripped off, and windows shattered.
Liam ran down the hill towards the town. Once he arrived, he began searching for any survivors he could find. But it was all in vain.
From the broken glass, doors, and wrecked buildings, he figured that the townspeople had all been taken. As he continued his search, he came across trails of blood, bloodied knives, wallets, and other scattered belongings, most likely dropped while they struggled.
After passing a car with its hood ripped off, he found what appeared to be an elementary school.
As he looked inside one of the classrooms while walking past the building. He saw nothing but blood, claw marks, and unfinished drawings on some desks.
'I have to hurry and keep going,' Liam thought after finding no signs of life anywhere in the town.
As he ran towards Mount Ida, the reality of the situation began to sink in.
For the first time, he truly understood how dangerous dimensional tears were for ordinary people—and how desperately the world needed an organization, not just for convenience but because there was no way to stop these events from happening worldwide on his own.
'Earlier, I kept brushing it off as something that could wait since I thought I could likely handle most of them myself,' Liam thought bitterly. 'But this...'
Just as he was about to leave the town, he detected a massive wave of thinly spread energy approached from the distance. Liam quickly climbed onto a nearby building to get a better view of what was happening.
'A landslide,' he realized. 'And it's not a natural one—dimensional energy is mixed into it. That must have been the loud rumbling I heard.'
In the distance, he saw a massive wave of rocks, earth, and trees storming down from Mount Ida. His eyes tracked the front of the wave as it was about to hit the town's buildings.
The landslide was about two or three miles in length, with a height of nearly 90 feet. It was more than enough to engulf the entire distance between the mountain and Anogeia, burying everything in its path and eventually Anogeia too.
Liam knew that if he wanted to reach Mount Ida without waiting for the wave to subside, he would have to act immediately.
Without hesitation, he opened a portal behind him and leaped through. Now that he was certain the tear was on top of the mountain, he could get closer using the portal.
As soon as he disappeared, the landslide struck the town, swallowing it whole. Buildings, cars, and everything else were obliterated and carried away with the destructive wave as it continued, slowly losing height as it moved past this town.
Liam jumped out of the portal a few miles to the left of the landslide and halfway up the mountain. He didn't want to go any closer since getting too close could cause the tear to grow even further.
He glanced back at the devastation below before turning and continuing his climb up the mountain. With Neontote drawn, he sprinted up. It wasn't long before loud screeches echoed from above.
'Harpies aren't supposed to be capable of creating landslides,' he thought. 'Something else must be up there along with them.'
As he continued going up, his eldritch sight picked up a dense concentration of energy at the mountain's peak.
'That's it,' he thought, accelerating to his top speed. Even when the terrain became too steep to run, he used his spear or created constructs for footing, throwing himself higher with each leap.
When he neared the top, the harpies flying in the sky began growing numbers. He moved carefully, hoping to avoid detection, but when he was about 500 feet from the flat area with the tear on top of the mountain, the harpies spotted him.
They stopped mid-flight, flapping their wings to hover in place. Then came the screeching—extremely high-pitched shrieks that made the rocks around Liam tremble as the creatures directed their sonic attacks towards him.
'What is this? Some kind of sound attack?' Liam wondered, continuing going up the mountain. He felt no effect, thanks to Incursio's protection.
When he showed no change to their sound attacks, the harpies that had seen him dove down, with their talons aimed towards him.
Liam raised his spear. As the harpies closed in, he swung in a clean horizontal arc.
Three harpies fell in a single strike, his weapon cleaving through limbs and torsos with ease. Blood and intestines splattered onto his armor as he charged up the mountain.
When he glanced at the sky again, harpies filled the sky after hearing the screams from their companions. Thousands of them darkened the sun, creating a thick, brown blur. Yet strangely, they held their positions, not attacking just yet.
At last, Liam reached the summit. The sight before him was nothing short of horrifying.
A massive stone figure stood ahead, its mouth wide open towards the sky. Harpies swarmed around it, dropping screaming humans from their claws into the creature's mouth.
The mouth snapped shut, and the sickening crunch of bones filled the air. The screams faded into silence.
All the remaining harpies hovered in the sky, their eyes fixed on Liam, who now stood alone in his armor.
He scanned the harpies carefully but saw no more humans in their grasp. His fists clenched as he realized the truth—he was too late.
He turned his attention to the giant stone figure as he had some idea about what it was. Its body was entirely composed of rock, hardened earth, and veins of gold and silver. The creature stood at 150 feet in height and spanned 40 feet in width.
'If I'm right, this tear is linked to Petroklasta, the Mountain Shaper from Greek legends,' Liam thought. 'It would make sense if it was him or anything closely related to it.'
Beside the creature, a massive dimensional tear was glowing. Through it, Liam saw green mountains and a normal blue sky. Before he could study it further, a deep roar shook the air.
His gaze snapped back to the stone giant and the harpies, now gathering more tightly in formation. Two or three thousand of them hovered as if preparing for something.
The stone giant raised one massive arm and pointed at Liam.
After doing so, a small group of harpies flew down. The stone gaint was most likely sending this group to test Liam's strength.
'It has high intelligence.' Liam thought.
Liam switched Neontote into its other form and channeled a small bit of energy into the weapon, unleashing a low-temperature flame that engulfed the first wave of thirty harpies.
Blackened corpses flew through the smoke, slamming into the ground beside him, their body features charred beyond recognition.
The stone giant let out an even louder roar. In response, thousands of harpies opened their mouths and gathering energy. After doing so, they unleashed an extremely high-pitched sound attack, all aimed directly at Liam.
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