original
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Pant... Pant...
'Why now of all times?' Oliver's mind raced as he ran down the street, his breath ragged with fear.
"This isn't happening... this can't be happening."
People were running chaotically through the streets. Their screams of terror blended with the loud sirens that warned of the incoming danger.
Oliver gripped the emergency bag filled with survival items tighter. Fear was the only thing keeping him moving. This wasn't supposed to happen in the base. The eastern section had been breached by monsters.
"Stay focused, Oliver. Just keep moving," he muttered to himself, fear driving his every step.
There had been no warning before the attack. Everyone was unprepared, and that had led to this scene of chaos.
As time passed, the sirens grew louder and louder, signaling that the monsters were getting closer. He could even hear their screeching somewhere nearby.
People were colliding with each other, desperate to escape.
Even those with superpowers were caught off guard. Instead of fighting, they were running for their lives. People with strong powers were rare. A guy with a superpower rushed past him so fast that he seemed like a blur.
'Justin... Justin, I hope you're okay,' Oliver thought as he ran. He had just been at Justin's house and was returning from there.
Then the monsters began attacking. Justin's house, on the outskirts of the eastern region of the base, was the first to bear the impact of the monster attack.
There was no time to think any further. He had to keep moving. His focus was on getting to the inner base, where the Public Security Bureau was located. He had to survive this nightmare.
While he was running for his life, a piece of debris came crashing down from above. He barely saw it and had no time to react before it hit his back, knocking him down.
"Ahhhh!" he screamed in agony as pain exploded in his body. He stumbled forward and crashed his head into the sidewalk.
Pain spread through his head as he hit the ground, along with the searing pain from the debris hitting his back. His vision was shaky.
'This is it. Am I really going to die just like this?'
"Ahhhh!" he grunted, forcing himself to sit up. His head throbbed with dull pain, and his back gave a sharp twinge. But at that moment, he felt another danger, like a predator was targeting him.
Slowly, in fear, he glanced over his shoulder.
"sh*t, it's looking straight at me," he muttered, unable to suppress the scream that escaped his mouth.
'No wonder the base was slow to give a warning—it was a flying monster that attacked.'
It was a massive creature with razor-sharp wings, soaring in the sky. Its dark eyes were locked on him as if mocking him. Its jaw parted, revealing rows of sharp teeth, ready to tear him apart. It was flying straight at him.
Oliver's heart skipped a beat. He tried to move, to get up and run, but the pain and fear paralyzed him. Panic took over, and the throbbing in his head worsened, as if something were hammering it continuously.
The monster was now only a hundred meters away.
His vision began to blur, and he struggled to focus. Then, just like that, the pain disappeared.
'Huh? What... everything stopped?'
He looked around him, and it seemed as though time had stopped. The monster, which had been seconds away from attacking, was now frozen mid-flight. Everything around him had slowed to a crawl, like the world had hit pause.
'This is my chance; I need to escape.' With that thought, he sprang into action and jumped up.
But just as he moved, his vision blurred again.
"What the—?" His words trailed off as it felt like his consciousness was being transported to a place far, far away—far from this place of chaos and destruction.
----
It felt like hours, but eventually, Oliver's vision returned.
'where is this?'
He was no longer on the street. He wasn't in the same place at all. He was inside a room, a normal-sized bedroom. There was nothing in the room as he looked around.
Then his eyes caught sight of a mysterious door. The door was tall and heavy, with different kinds of lights occasionally shining on it.
As he stared at the door, strange memories began to flood his mind. As he processed these memories, his body bubbled with excitement.
This mysterious door was his cheat, his golden finger.
Oliver actually had a secret. He was not from this expanding realm. He was a transmigrator.
He was from Earth. A normal graduate student, whose only problems were student loans and finding a job. But on a normal day, when he slept, he woke up in this current world.
He had been transmigrated into this world named the Expanding Realm three years ago.
This world had monsters that appeared through rifts, also called secret realms. To combat these monsters, there were warriors who could awaken their powers at the age of 16.
Every human in this world had a chance to awaken a superpower, but Oliver was only 15, not yet the age for awakening.
He wasn't ready. He hadn't awakened his powers yet. He had no way to defend himself.
But now that he had this cheat—a mysterious door with the ability to send him to another world—he could use it to escape, to go to a world far from the monster attack.
"Well, I hope the world I travel to doesn't have any danger," he muttered to himself.
Without wasting another second, he stepped towards the door with anticipation and hope.
And just like that, he turned into light and disappeared.
----
Back on the street, the flying monster hunting Oliver stopped in confusion. Slowly, it screeched in frustration. It circled the area, looking for any sign of Oliver, but found none. After some time, the monster lost interest and turned its attention to other fleeing humans.
The eastern section of the base had been attacked, and the Public Bureau had been caught off guard. Whenever flying monsters attack any base around the world, the initial casualty rate is very high as they are often unprepared. Fires raged in the distance, and the cries of the injured echoed through the air.
The Public Protection Bureau was slow to respond and was organizing itself as they headed towards the eastern section.
The Bureau fought against the monsters, but even so, the outskirts of the base suffered, and many lives were lost.
The monsters continued their slaughter, hunting down anyone unlucky enough to be caught in their path.
But Oliver was no longer their prey. He had escaped through the door, leaving the destruction behind—at least for now.
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