By midnight, Zhang Kai's warehouse fell silent. After dispatching his crew, Michael stood alone in the flickering light of the loading dock, surveying the fruits of his labor: three tractor-trailers and a van, their trailers brimming with 53 distinct types of cargo totaling over 130 tons. The vehicles groaned under the weight, their frames buckling precariously. A feat unheard of for this smuggler-turned-kingpin, who had spent years ferrying contraband through the portal.
The cold hit him like a gut-punch the moment he stepped through the portal into the wasteland. One moment, he'd been sweating buckets in the sweltering warehouse; now, his bare chest prickled with gooseflesh as icy air clawed at his lungs. From furnace to freezer in thirty seconds, he thought, shivering violently. He'd have to sprint back to the vehicle—no time for a jacket.
Slamming the van into park, he yanked the handbrake, then bolted. Three frantic dashes later, he'd unloaded a military greatcoat from a storage crate. Wrapping himself in its moth-eaten fabric, he caught his reflection in the van's side mirror: cheeks flushed crimson, lips blue-tinged, a spectral figure against the snow-laden horizon.
The temperature's plummeted again, he realized.
The "secret base"—a ramshackle hangar cobbled together from scavenged steel—shook in the wind. Its walls groaned under the weight of snowdrifts, yet it remained the only sanctuary for Michael's clandestine operations. Tonight, guards patrolled its perimeter with rifles slung over frostbitten shoulders, their breath crystallizing in the air.
A thunderous knock echoed through the hangar.
"Lord Harry Potter! It's John!" bellowed a minotaur's voice, distorted by the fur-lined hood of his parka.
Michael hurried to the entrance, where a dozen figures stood huddled against the storm. Their white plastic raincoats sagged under the weight of snow, faces half-hidden beneath hoods. One minotaur's horns scraped against the hangar's ceiling as he ducked inside, his breath forming clouds that quickly dissolved.
"How's the wall?" Michael asked, tossing a thermos of baijiu to the creature.
"Barely holding," the minotaur rasped, uncorking the bottle with clawed hands. "Scavengers are turning feral. We've had to shoot three raiders this week alone."
Michael's jaw tightened. The wasteland's descent into savagery accelerated with each passing winter. He thumbed through his notebook, scribbling:
Portal Crossing: Modern Realm Midnight → Wasteland 03:20
The next morning, a new guard would arrive. Michael couldn't risk exposure. From now on, crossings would occur in the pre-dawn hours, when the hangar's lone security guard—half-asleep at his desk—would mistake the portal's glow for a hallucination.
As the hangar emptied, Michael surveyed the cargo: stacks of thermal blankets, crates of vodka, and helmets too narrow for minotaurs' curved horns. He chuckled darkly. Civilization's trinkets mean nothing here. Survival is the only currency.
Outside, snow fell in blinding sheets, burying the world in a shroud of white. Somewhere beyond the horizon, a blizzard raged—and with it, the promise of new conquests.