"When will we be able to enter the gate, Henry?" Nox asked, trying to keep his voice steady despite the growing sense of unease that had been building in his chest all morning.
"Well, we used a gate suppressing artifact to seal it and prevent anyone from going in unauthorized. It should appear in a couple of seconds,"
Henry replied, checking his equipment one final time with the practiced efficiency of someone who had done this routine countless times before.
Then Nox heard it.
The sound hit him like a physical blow, an eerie noise that resembled a cello being played horribly out of tune, each note scraped across the strings in ways that made his teeth ache. But underneath that musical discord was something far worse—a sound like the scream of a dying human, raw and desperate and filled with agony that seemed to pierce straight through his skull and lodge itself in the deepest parts of his brain.
The portal materialized before them, a swirling vortex of absolute black that stretched five hundred meters wide. The darkness within it seemed to move with a life of its own, writhing and pulsing like some massive living thing that hungered for whatever it could consume. Looking at it felt like staring into the void itself, and Nox had the disturbing sensation that the void was staring back.
"What?!" Nox startled and took an involuntary step backward, his body reacting instinctively to the overwhelming sense of wrongness that emanated from the gate.
"Huh, what's wrong?" Henry looked at Nox with obvious puzzlement, his expression showing genuine confusion at his partner's reaction.
"Is this sound normal?" Nox asked, his voice slightly strained as the discordant screaming continued to assault his ears.
"What sound?" Henry asked, tilting his head as if trying to hear whatever Nox was hearing.
"Huh, you don't hear it?" Nox stared at Henry in disbelief. The cacophony was so loud and disturbing that it seemed impossible anyone could miss it.
Henry furrowed his brow and looked at Nox with growing concern.
"No... It's nothing."
Nox decided that whatever was happening might be related to his special constitution, the same thing that had allowed him to see through illusions and perceive things others couldn't. Better to keep this information to himself rather than raise questions he couldn't answer.
"Hey, system," Nox called out in his mind, desperate for some kind of explanation or guidance.
There was no response. Not even the slightest acknowledgment of his mental call.
At a time like this you decide to play silent, huh? he thought with growing frustration.
This was not good. He had a very bad feeling about what they were walking into, made worse by the system's conspicuous absence when he needed information the most.
Can I back out now? Nox thought desperately, but even as the idea crossed his mind, he knew it wasn't really an option.
"Haaa, it looks like another hard job is about to begin. If not for the twenty million dollar fine, I wouldn't even come near this thing," Henry said with a resigned sigh, apparently misinterpreting Nox's hesitation as simple pre-mission nerves.
"Huh, there's a fine?" Nox asked, latching onto this new piece of information with the desperate hope that it might provide some way out of the situation.
"Of course. The guild purchased the gate, after all. If it breaks, the guild will be held responsible by the Hunter Bureau. The fine is in eight figures," Henry explained matter-of-factly.
Fuck me, Nox thought with growing despair. Even if he could somehow convince them to abort the mission, the financial consequences would be catastrophic for everyone involved.
"Well, as the gate is open now, let's go in." Henry began walking toward the swirling portal of darkness with the confident stride of someone who had done this many times before.
Nox reluctantly followed, his every instinct screaming at him to run in the opposite direction.
"Hey Henry, is the color of the gate determined by their rank?"
"Yes, the more intimidating the color, the harder it gets," Henry replied without looking back.
"Huh."
Yeah, all black befitting of S-rank difficulty,Nox Thought
"Yes, as you can see, the purple gate is S-rank," Henry said, his voice carrying the casual tone of someone making routine conversation.
"Huh? What?" Nox's blood ran cold as Henry's words registered.
Purple gate? But the portal in front of them was clearly black, not purple. The discrepancy sent alarm bells ringing through his mind.
It was too late. His feet were already stepping into the gate, the darkness reaching up to engulf him like liquid shadow with a hunger all its own.
"Well, at least it's not a black one," Henry's voice drifted back to him
That was the last thing Nox heard before the gate swallowed him whole, pulling him into a dimension of absolute darkness where the screaming sounds grew louder and more numerous, as if he was being dragged into some cosmic torture chamber where reality itself was being slowly murdered.
"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"