A strong downpour rain flushed the soil around two figures, wind brushed through the trees causing it to tremble. A figure clad in full black mist stood amidst the storm, beneath him was an unconscious man laying face first on the mud.
In front of them was a white door-shaped portal that stood at a height of two meters.
Around them, loud explosions filled the air, the ground and air continued to erupt violently as powerful spells were casted and thrown at the two figures. Fortunately, the thick dense patch of trees blocked the view of their pursuers.
In a desperate attempt to kill the two, those people hunting them resorted to recklessly casting spells in every direction - no longer concerned with any damage that they could cause.
With so many spells thrown at their direction, few of them had managed to stray right towards them.
Every time a spell was going at their direction, the black figure would stretch out its hand towards the spell and clench it, this caused the ball of energy hurled at their path to explode prematurely before contact.
Clothed in black and red garments with lightly plated armor, the pursuers were able to get the location of the duo from discerning the prematurely exploding spells.
However, before they could narrow down the distance between them, the black figure had dragged the unconscious boy through the portal which later disappeared faster than one could blink.
"Damn it! The patriarch will kill us if we don't find them!"
"Quick, lockdown the entire planet and launch a galaxy-wide manhunt!"
"The safety of our necks rely on whether we can capture those two or not.." With a commanding yet evidently trembling tone, one of the persuers gnashed his teeth in anger.
Without wasting another second, his comrades rushed to do their roles and did what they had just been commanded to.
The leader of the group looked into the pitch black sky that shone with bright lights, space battleships blasted radars and signals throughout the solar system trying locate the duo but to no avail.
"Cadence Signoria, no matter how talented you are, I don't understand how you could have escaped our persuit."
***
In a different planet, two realms lower.
An unconscious boy had recently woken up from a deep slumber, his face planted on the floor as he struggled to lift his head up. After regaining bits of his strength, he went into a seated position albeit with great difficulty.
His usually strong arms could barely lift a feather, the legs that could walk thousands upon thousands of miles could only walk ten meters at a time before giving up.
The black haired boy took deep breaths as he looked at his surroundings.
After passing through the portal the unconscious boy arrived in a hidden alleyway, far from the bustling and bloodied streets. Surprisingly, his body had no visible wounds and he was as flexible as one could be, but why is it that his body is extremely weak.
"Am I cursed or something?"
He looked at both of his hands questioning why he was having a difficult time moving every part of his body. Was this all a dream? But it felt way too real, I mean he could feel the ground, he could breath in air.
While he contemplated for a few seconds, the space in front of him fluctuated, out of nowhere a black orb suddenly appeared just above his right hand. Although panicked, he couldn't move an inch as his body had a hard time with quick movements.
Cadence glared at the orb with a confused expression, wondering what could happen next.
"What is this thing? Did I create this?"
And without further notice, the black orb started absorbing the energy around it. As if it was a vacuum, it sucked energy at a rapid pace and once it accumulated a great amount of energy, the orb transferred it to Cadence.
The refreshing flush of energy made him feel renewed, his frail and weak body regained bits of its former strength, though not much, at the very least he could now handle quick movements without feeling like he was falling apart.
He suddenly remembered that mana was the fuel of the body, it was an energy source that gave it strength and structure. Mana was the driving force of power, it helped people push the limits of what was humanly possible, giving people abilities such as skills and greater overall strength.
Cadence closed his eyes and started relaxing his body, through controlled breathing he activated the core of both his body and soul.
Inside the body, there is a core and beside it is the individual's soul. The core stores mana and distributes it throughout the body. It acted as the connection of both the body and soul to the outside world where mana can flow through both spaces.
After half an hour of absorbing mana, Cadence once again opened his eyes and stood upright. His body was now stronger, but compared to his past self, he was but a shadow, a shell that could not be compared to the greatness of its predecessor.
Currently he was but an ordinary person, with strength barely at the first tier, which was nothing compared to his previous strength at the fifth tier.
He raised his hands forward and tried to cast a skill, but due to the lack of requirements, in this case, his weak body and low mana accumulation disabled him from using his old skills.
"I'm screwed, I really am back to tier one!"
His mind was hit with panic as he began to try and repeatedly cast any of his skills, however, to his surprise he could only cast a simple speed boost and strength enhancement skill at most.
A disgruntled expression then escaped from his face, unable to accept the situation.
"How am I suppose to even escape from the main branch if I'm back to tier one?!"
"And come to think of it, where am I? Why is this place so run down." Though his surroundings were filled with pure metal structures that towered a few stories tall, compared to the planet he lived in, this place could be considered as a remote village, worthy of no praise.
"And the energy, why do I feel like I went to the first realm?" And that's where it hit him.
"Am I really in the first realm? How did I travel from the third realm to the first realm without passing a realm gate?!" His mind became even more clustered with thoughts and questions.
But after a short while, realizing that he couldn't answer these questions alone, he made up his mind and decided to go for a walk. Since he was now in the first realm, he wouldn't need to deal with anyone trying to hunt him down. For now.
"First things first, I need to find out where I am."
For the past few hours, Cadence occupied himself by walking around the place. Currently, he was now living inside a small stronghold, exactly east of the main Citadel of the planet.
Garde stronghold housed a population hovering just above 50,000.
As one of the many stronghold built around the Citadel, Garde stronghold became the first buffer that protected the Citadel from monster waves that happened quite often, every few months or so.
These monster waves were hordes of different types of monsters that came to attack the humans. The most notorious one of these monsters were called the inhabitants.
The inhabitants were humanoids with long arms and legs, a face that resembled a mutated human coupled with sharp teeth. They stood at a towering height of three meters and displayed immense amount of physical strength and speed.
"Can't believe I'm actually stepping foot into a resource planet."
The planet Cadence was on was considered a resource planet. These types of planets had an abundance of resources, intergalactic empires would then create their own expeditionary forces to mine them and harness their energy.
This planet was huge, it was as larger than ten Earths combined and currently, the forces of humanity controlled only one percent of the entire planet's surface.
'This expeditionary force has been here for over a century yet they've controlled only one percent of the entire planet?'
Normally it shouldn't take that long in order to subdue a whole planet, however this one barely made progress even after a whole century had passed.
Cadence paid this thought no mind as there were countless possible reasons, such as powerful monsters that couldn't be easily subdued causing a standstill.
While he continued to walk even further, his stomach started to grumble, it had been awhile since he had eaten and his body was clearly yearning for nutrients.
Previously, when he was still a tier five being, eating was not a necessity since he could use his mana as a food source for the body, but now that he was back to tier one, he didn't have the necessary capabilities to convert mana into energy for the body.
"How am I suppose to buy any food, when I don't even have anything on me? I don't even have armor on."
Other than his clothes, the boy had no belongings that held any value so how was he supposed to buy food?
He was so used to being pampered so much and not needing to work a day in his life that all he ever knew was the path of strength, money had never been a problem that he thought he would ever have and now, it was the main problem that he was facing.
As he pondered for awhile, he came across a bulletin board that sparked his interest.