For years, humans had been studying disaster zones in an attempt to better understand them and, more importantly, improve their response to their sudden and unpredictable appearances.
Although these efforts failed to yield any breakthrough that could prevent disaster zones from forming, they did manage to uncover several crucial truths.
Chief among them was the discovery that, despite their wildly different environments, nearly all disaster zones followed the same core patterns, as mentioned below.
1) The environment inside areas within the coverage of disaster zones would always rapidly turn into a hellish landscape that was extremely hostile to humans and almost impossible for a normal person to survive in.
2) Every disaster zone was surrounded by an invisible and unbreakable barrier. This barrier allowed entry but denied exit to humans.
It was shaped in such a way that you couldn't go over, under, or through it if you were trapped behind it.
However, it didn't restrict the movements of monsters.
That was why, when Damien first encountered a Blood Drinker, he had tried to make himself feel hopeful by thinking it must have come from some other disaster zone. At that time, he didn't have the luxury to crush his own morale by considering the possibility that the school he was in had already fallen within the coverage of a disaster zone.
3) Every disaster zone possessed a "source," which fueled its existence, meaning that once it was destroyed, the disaster zone would dissipate, and the barrier trapping people inside it would cease to exist.
Typically, the source of a disaster zone was the strongest and most intelligent monster inside it.
4) As long as the source of a disaster zone remained intact, monsters would keep spawning at random locations within its coverage, appearing in waves. Because of that, even in the least dangerous types of disaster zones, the safety provided by reinforced shelters was never absolute.
That was why, under unpredictable extraterrestrial disaster response laws, ordinary civilians were officially declared deceased if they remained trapped inside a disaster zone for more than a week.
All of this information was public knowledge and was taught as part of the standard school curriculum.
____
Long before today, Damien had learned all he could know about disaster zones.
So when a massive group of Blood Drinkers appeared before him out of thin air, it didn't confuse him.
It only made him curse his dumb luck.
Never in his wildest dreams could he have thought he would experience something that was only theorised to be possible right after being trapped in a disaster zone for the very first time!
He felt like crying, but there was no time to shed tears because he had already become the target of the entire swarm of Blood Drinkers.
Gulp!
Damien's adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed.
He was like a bundle of nerves as dozens of feral, bloodthirsty gazes pricked his skin like needles.
His panic worsened as the enemies closed in on him.
'I can't possibly survive the danger I am in with what I have. No choice then.I must blindly head into the unknown and hope everything goes well.'
Damien's gaze turned resolute. He seemed to have made up his mind about something. Putting the only rune in his possession to use, he activated the gate.
With his current strength, Damien couldn't outrun or defeat the swarm, meaning he was in a situation where he would die in seconds if he didn't immediately escape to the Primordial Lands.
He didn't know what he would come across there, but it would at least delay his death for some time. If, in that time, he managed to grow stronger than he was, then maybe, just maybe, he might be able to deal with the swarm and survive when he returned.
Everything came to a crawl. Even Damien's heartbeat and thought process slowed to a standstill as the Gate inside his mind opened with the ringing of bells.
Behind the Gate, an endless darkness swirled. The darkness gave birth to a powerful suction force that pulled on Damien's consciousness.
His consciousness sank inward before moving through the Gate.
Suddenly, he found himself in lukewarm water, being dragged against the flow of a powerful and raging current by a strange and powerful force, which was also protecting him from being swept away and drowned.
Where the hell was he?
Damien wondered as he looked around.
Honestly, he was in a situation where looking around was the only productive thing he could do.
The sky was an inky black canvas with not a single star in sight. Below it, a crystal-clear sea stretched as far as the eye could see. Countless colourful pearls of many shapes and sizes moved freely within it. Although their movements seemed random at first, they never collided or crossed paths.
Overall, it was an magnificent sight, beyond his understanding.
'Maybe I will be able to interpret what I am seeing when I gain a better understanding of my role as the master of the gate,' Damien thought as the strange force pulled him towards a rapidly spinning black pearl in the sea.
The more it spun, the whiter it became.
When it was half white and half black, Damien reached it.
Then, everything went dark.