Erin had undergone the same feeling Fex did when she went through the portal and was also teleported a few inches off the ground. Landing not-so-gracefully on her stomach, she quickly got up and dusted a few dead leaves off her body.
At least her sword was teleported with her, so she grabbed it and looked around. It was then she realized that she was in a dark forest with no light whatsoever. She could see in the dark just fine, but the real issue was where she teleported.
The world was cold, quiet, with only the tiniest bit of light coming from the stars and its two moons. A chilly breeze rattled the trees around her, the only audible sound in the otherwise silent forest.
Erin wasn't quite sure what to feel. She had just risked her life to save Quinn, someone whom she barely knew— no, didn't know— before she got the system. The two had argued, bickered, and didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things, yet… she didn't regret it.
'I should tell Quinn that I'm okay,' Erin thought, 'I'm lucky I didn't end up on a dalki planet.'
{Erin} Don't worry about me, Quinn, I'm fine.
{Erin} Don't jump in after me.
When she sent that message, she had a feeling that Quinn might risk his life just to save her, despite being weaker, if the assembly incident was anything to go by.
That was when she heard the crunching of leaves behind her. Immediately, she turned around, holding her sword tightly. Scanning the forest, Erin noticed a pale humanoid figure far between the trees.
She squinted her eyes, trying to figure out who— or what— it was. Maybe it was another human?
It was possible that she could've lucked out and encountered a traveler. Sometimes, travelers came to red portal planets to acquire rare and powerful beast crystals. After all, that was why they were often marked as such, because the beasts were too dangerous to live around.
Erin took a single step towards the figure, using her inspect skill just in case.
[Inspect]
[Name: Palewalker]
[Intermediate Tier beast]
[HP ???]
The figure Erin saw was not a human, but a beast. The palewalker slowly turned around, allowing her to see more of its features.
Its body was segmented like a bug's. The arms and legs were long, in a deep dark brown as if they were dipped in ink. Its face had large, bulging yellow eyes and a long proboscis in place of a human mouth. Its claws only had 3 fingers, the same as its feet.
At that moment, she froze, her breath caught in her throat.
Erin was genuinely on another world, completely alone, and without the power she had grown so familiar with.
In the past, her parents would hire a team of strong ability users to hunt beasts on other planets, and sometimes they would take her with them. Due to how rare the ice ability was, there wasn't anyone who could freeze a beast, instantly neutralizing it, aside from her.
That was a different time. Now, Erin was alone and abilityless. There were no combat medics around with healing abilities, and her only beast weapon was her sword. There was no one there to act as support. Erin was completely on her own.
While Erin was recovering from shock, the palewalker spotted her. It bent down to all fours and started crawling like a spider at speeds faster than Erin expected.
It lunged towards her, but she managed to stab it midair, causing black blood to drip down her sword. It clawed at her with its long, clawed fingers, managing to scratch her arms, and drawing blood.
[-8 HP]
[17/25 HP]
Her entire body shuddered, but she had to snap out of it. It was because she was alone that she had to take care of herself.
She flung her sword down, slamming the palewalker into the ground, and yanked it out. While the beast was recoiling from the pain, she flash stepped around it.
The palewalker, however, was just as fast and turned around in time to slash at her arms.
[-5 HP]
[12/25 HP]
Despite the pain, Erin dug her sword into its neck. Blood gushing out of its wound.
The palewalker's proboscis suddenly shot into Erin's arm, and she felt it siphoning her blood. Immediately, she could see its wounds partially close up.
[- 3 HP]
[9/25 HP]
With her free hand, she flung a bloodswipe at it, slicing the proboscis in half.
[-1 HP]
[8/25 HP]
The beast let out a loud screech, causing Erin to instinctively cover her heightened ears, making her lose her grip on her sword. The ear-splitting sound rang through her head, stunning her long enough for the palewalker to lunge at her.
It landed on top of her body, claws raised, but Erin rolled over, pinning it down beneath her. Swiftly, she grabbed the sword still stuck in its neck, and sliced the rest of the way through, decapitating it.
The body fell limp, and Erin rolled off of it, sighing in exhaustion.
[Intermediate tier beast Palewalker has been defeated]
[1000 EXP gained]
[First Intermediate Tier Beast killed]
[5000 EXP gained]
[First time killing Palewalker]
[2000 EXP gained]
Suddenly, several notifications went off in her mind about her leveling up, but that loud screech from earlier meant she couldn't stay for long. It would no doubt attract other beasts, which would be quite the issue considering one was trouble enough.
Looking at the palewalker, there was one last thing to do: grab its crystal. Using her sword, she carved it out, holding it in her hand.
Suddenly, she got a prompt in her system.
[Would you like to store the crystal in your system storage?]
[Yes]
[No]
Not wanting to waste time, she just selected yes. The crystal then disappeared from her hand, as if it had never existed.
After scanning her surroundings, she began climbing the tallest tree she saw. When she was above the thick foliage, she saw an abandoned city in the distance. Usually, whenever humanity went to colonize new planets, they would at least bring a portal leading back to Earth just in case there was danger.
Erin jumped down and began running in the direction of the city.
If there was a way for her to get out of this death planet, then it had to be a portal there.
—
Fex had been on this planet once before; it was the place where he was meant to complete a test of defeating 10 advanced tier beasts. With the crystals, he would have been able to make a ring that allowed him to walk in sunlight for 3 hours at a time without being affected.
When he first arrived, and came across the advanced tier beast in question, it had been a brutal battle, one that nearly cost him his life.
Not wanting to die, but still wanting to make his sun-blocking ring, he cheated, hiring a bunch of travelers to get the crystals for him. To this day, no one knew of his secret, and he wanted to keep it that way. If anyone found out, then it would bring great shame not only to him, but more importantly his family.
Fex arrived at the entrance of the abandoned city. The walls were crumbling, and the buildings themselves were in no better condition. This was someplace Fex hadn't been before.
He jumped on top of a single-storied building and panned around to see if he could see or smell Erin. However, the way human portals worked was far different than the ones he was used to. They had set the teleporter to randomly locate him within a set area, so she wasn't nearby.
Fex tried to recall what that one human teacher told him about red portal planets, how there was a different teleportation radius for the different portal types.
'Was it a 10 mile radius for a red portal planet? 20 miles?'
He didn't think to remember it at the time since it didn't seem important then.
'I should find her soon,' Fex thought, 'I did promise to bring her back.'
Suddenly, he heard a loud screech from a distance. Looking around, he wasn't able to spot the source of it, so he craned his neck toward the sky. Then, he felt a cold sweat envelop his body. It wasn't the source of the screech itself; it was something far worse.
Flying above was a beast with wings that were 2 meters long, and had a bat-like appearance. It had a stretched-out maw with teeth that were sharp and unnatural, large triangular ears, and a long, pointy nose that stood straight up. It overlooked the abandoned city like a hawk, looking for its next unfortunate victim.
It was an advanced tier beast capable of sending invisible supersonic waves capable of destroying buildings in an instant. It made these attacks at a frequency not even vampires could detect, except by their ruptured organs after the fact, and was similarly just as silent of a flier. This, along with its naturally dark habitat, meant that you couldn't notice it until it was too late.
It was also the beast that Fex had nearly died to.