The Author's POV

Black market.

"Make sure you keep a good watch of the gates. I have a bad feeling about this."

Thomas muttered something under his breath as he stepped on the cigarette that he had just flicked out of his hand. At the moment, he was situated in a large room that was crammed with monitors.

He was currently perched on the second level, holding onto nothing but a metal railing, and below him were hundreds of workers who were diligently looking through the many monitors that displayed varying images of portals.

"I hope the reports aren't wrong…"

Thomas bit his nails out of nervousness.

In a message that he had received not too long ago from an unknown sender, he was informed that there was a chance that the dungeons would overload the moment that the cease-fire between the Union and the Monolith would be lifted.

If that were really the case, then dungeon seekers would end up in deep trouble as they managed hundreds of different dungeons.

They simply did not have the manpower to manage all the dungeons that could possibly overload at any given time.

Thankfully, the dungeons were located far away from the main headquarters.

Thomas would have already packed up his things and left if it hadn't been for that circumstance. If the dungeons had been located inside, the black market almost certainly would have come to an end.

Fortunately, they weren't.

"How long until the truce ends?"

Thomas asked, his voice unable to mask the anxiety within.

"Ten seconds."

A voice replied from below, and the room became incredibly tense.

"9"

The countdown started.

"8"

"7"

"6"

"5"

Thomas's palms began to perspire as he tightened his hold on the metal handrails, and his grip became increasingly more forceful.

When he tried to swallow a mouthful of saliva, he realized that he couldn't as it felt as though something was stuck in his throat.

The countdown continued.

"4"

"3"

"2"

"1"

"0"

When the countdown reached zero, the room went completely silent, and no one spoke a word while their eyes were all fixed on the monitors that were located at the front of the room.

Time slowly passed, and the portals that were displayed on the monitors remained still.

As everyone in the room kept their attention focused on the monitors, the level of tension within the space reached an all-time high. With the fact that everybody was holding their breath, there was no sound at all, not even the sound of people breathing.

'Was the information wrong?'

Around the minute mark, Thomas started to wonder if the information that he had been given was reliable.

Although it was 'anonymous' in reality, almost everyone knew that it was from the current alliance leader.

Kevin Voss.

'No, for someone who has managed to make all the other top rankers of the world bow their heads toward him, there's no doubt that he is capable, th—'

"What's going on!?"

"Screen down! Screen down!"

He wasn't even able to finish his thoughts before one of the monitors suddenly turned black.

Tak— Tak—

"My screen is also down!"

"Screen down"

Over thirty screens went blank within the span of time it took one person to finish a glass of water, and the entire space took on an expression of stunned panic as a result.

People stood up and ran around the room in an effort to get a better look at the portals or make contact with the individuals who were tasked with protecting them.

"Did you manage to get in contact with someone? Is there any response?!"

Naturally, Thomas was one of those people who was running around the location in an attempt to gain a better understanding of the situation.

There were over thirty different cameras that malfunctioned, and more were still breaking down every minute.

It was abundantly clear that the information was accurate and that it was exactly as Thomas had feared it would be.

The dungeons were overloading.

"Load the backup cameras! Get the drones up so that we can get a better view! Quick! Quick!"

Thomas kept barking orders as he jumped down the railing and shoved one of the workers to the side.

As he stared at the empty monitor in front of him, he pulled out the keyboard and began typing all kinds of different codes. Soon after, green text began to fill the monitor screens in front of him.

Tak—

It didn't take him more than a minute to fill the entire page with green text, and when he finally managed to press the "enter" button, the text began to move at an increasingly rapid pace.

It wasn't long before the screen began to flash and images began to appear.

"Dear god…"

The instant that Thomas was able to get a visual on the screen, his hands began to shake, and his mouth fell open in shock.

Next to him, an increasing number of screens began to display similar images, in which tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of monsters frantically ran out of the portal, slaying anything that was in their path.

Ecosystems were wiped out along with the landscapes and trees that were uprooted in the process.

What was happening was nothing short of the start of the apocalypse.

***

Whoo— Whoo—

The piercing wail of the sirens reverberated throughout the entire city of Ashton, which was at this point completely devoid of any inhabitants.

There was not a single soul in the city, and the city was eerily quiet.

The same events transpired in each of the other cities that were part of the human domain. Whether it was Dromeda city, Park city, or any of the other great cities, they all displayed the same kinds of scenes.

In fact, the cities weren't actually completely deserted.

People were seen walking around the streets, some of them clad in heavy metal armour, while others sported black suits, sun glasses, and carried papers in their hands.

They were agents of the Central Government and people who had volunteered to stay behind in order to maintain the city's safety.

"Only those with a rank of <C> or higher, as decreed by the alliance's leader, are permitted to remain on the streets. Please evacuate to the bunkers if your rank is lower than <C>."

A voice that was uninterestingly monotonous reverberated. It was the property of a man with a long, snub-nosed face, black hair reaching his shoulders, and brown eyes.

He was currently lounging about on a little chair, with one arm propped up against the table so that it supported the side of his face.

In front of him was a miniature clipboard on which a number of guidelines had been written.

Two people approached the man with the long nose and stood in front of him with eager expressions on their faces.

"What if I want to help out with miscellaneous stuff? I'm sure I can be of use. Even if I'm not strong, I'm very capable when it comes to that type of stuff."

"Me too. We will have you know that we're both Lock graduates. We definitely know what we're doing."

The man with the long nose let out a sigh as he lowered the clipper that he was holding.

The manner in which he carried himself made it abundantly clear that he was unhappy to be in this location. Having said that, the moment he heard the words "Lock graduates," he couldn't bring himself to let them go, and considering their age, it wasn't exactly fair to say that they weren't talented.

Thus, he decided to hear them out.

"Alright then, what are your names?"

"Ram Johnson, and Leo Smith."

Ram answered. He had lost a significant amount of weight in comparison to when he was at the lock, and his body was now at a point where it could be described as being quite muscular.

This made him appear to be quite attractive, as evidenced by the fact that the gazes of some of the people in the vicinity were lingering over his body.

"Ram, and Leon? Okay."

The man with the long nose wrote their names down on the clipper and then pointed toward the rear where a large tent stood.

"Since you guys still don't meet the criteria, you'll have to hang out with us agents; it's all good, though; we were running low on hands, so you guys came at the perfect time."

The man with the long nose stood up and proceeded to the interior of the tent, where he gave Ram and Leo a couple of tasks, to which they both nodded their heads in agreement and attended to.

"Just take note and register what's inside of all of these boxes. There's important artifacts that we will later give out to the towers when the situation calls for it. All of them cost a pretty penny, so be careful with them."

"Understood."

"Sure."

After giving a nod of approval, the man with the long nose exited the tent, leaving Ram and Leon to fend for themselves.

The two of them stood there in silence for a while, and then Leon spoke up.

"I guess we should start working."

"Yeah?"

Ram responded with a slight nod before moving toward one of the boxes, opening it, and looking through its contents.

Ram was taken aback when he first opened the box and discovered a variety of priceless artifacts contained within.

When his eyes fell on them, he couldn't help but voice his thoughts out loud.

"Don't you think it's a bit irresponsible of them to leave the two of us to handle everything? Aren't they afraid we're spies?"

"Maybe?"

Leo responded while he rummaged through the box in front of him and cautiously removed the artifacts that were kept inside.

"To be honest, they probably have some sort of way to tell if we're spies or not. I'm not entirely sure of how, but I don't think they're that careless."

"Oh, I see…"

Ram nodded, quietly getting back to work. For the next ten minutes, neither one of the two talked. It was then that Ram out one of the boxes away and looked at Leon.

"Say, have you gotten in touch with Ren?"

"Ren?"

After a brief pause, Leon set the box down. He shook his head as he raised his head to look at the small lamp that was placed at the very top of the tent.

"He's one of the strongest people in the human domain right now. He's probably too busy to meet with us."

"Haha, yeah. He's probably way too busy handling all the important stuff. I can already imagine him cursing out loud at all the work he has to do."

"He probably is."

After laughing, Ram turned his attention back to the boxes and continued to look at them. When he was on the verge of moving to the next box, the room began to shake, and Leon and Ram exchanged glances with each other.

Rumble—

They immediately stopped whatever it was that they were doing and dashed outside of the tent, where they found the man with the long nose from earlier.

"What's going on? Did something happen?"

They immediately began to question him, but when they did so and received no response, the two of them raised their heads to the sky.

It was at that moment that they saw a large pillar of light shoot toward the sky in the distance, piercing right through it and sending out powerful pulses of energy into the air.

Cra…crack!

Those who were there were taken aback when they heard a cracking sound and noticed that the tear in the sky had begun to grow.

This was the beginning of the end.