Into The Portal: Monster Invasion

Chapter 136: Monuments of the Ancient Race

Miles and Jelly traveled in the forest for many days. After helping Miles get three more minerals, Jelly didn’t deviate from the main path to get more, firstly Miles had no more space to store the minerals, secondly the monsters were getting stronger as they walked further, to no one’s surprise. It was against the pattern observed by humans ever since they entered the Portal World but he got used to it by now.

Monsters were always rigid with their territories. Very rarely a higher-level monster would enter a lower circle and when they did wouldn’t stay long, but the same couldn’t be said for lower-tier monsters. Monsters would travel to inner circles because of more abundant energy, but even those who didn’t risk would have to relocate after they advanced. But in the outer edge of the G-circle, Miles saw not only Frenzy-Rank monsters but Evil-Rank too.

Miles looked at the scaled monster and looked like armadillos and felt the death itself is eying him in those bloodthirsty small beady eyes. The monster wasn’t big, on the contrary, it was as big as Earth armadillos, but the breath of the monster was so suppressing Miles felt his knees giving up. He instinctively wanted to prostrate on the ground. The eyes of the small monster looked at Miles’s soul and turned to Jelly. This time the silent conversation took only a second before the armadillo-like monster walked away and Jelly continued with Miles. josei

They, one monster and one human, walked for days. At this point, Miles didn’t even know how to return even if he wanted to. Of course, Coin recorded the surroundings to his map and they wouldn’t have any problem finding their way back, but the path was too damn complicated. After a week of walking, the forest ended.

He didn’t see any monster stronger than Evil-Rank but saw many nests covered with Elemental Minerals. But Miles dared not to approach, and Jelly avoided them all the same. Even with its aggro repelling ability, it wouldn’t antagonize those strong monsters.

After the forest ended, they arrived at an opening. The cave was still illuminated as before thanks to stones on the walls, so Miles could see the opening clearly. But what he saw there surprised him nonetheless.

There were countless monuments of humanoid creatures placed in two rows, all the way to where his eyes could see. The creatures looked like humans in many ways. Except for having three eyes —one vertical eye on their forehead— the rest of their heads looked pretty much similar.

Miles couldn’t judge their height because monuments were tens of meters long, but proportionally they looked similar in height to humans, maybe a little taller. They all had accessories on their heads or necks that looked like they were made of plants. Just from that, Miles could see they were close to nature. There were also many animal monuments staying close to them.

“Are these the native race of the Portal World? Where Mother AI was built?” Miles asked silently.

“Maybe.” Coin answered. They could only guess at this point since there wasn't any solid information at hand.

“They look pretty much like humans. I wonder if we have any connection, or is this the natural evaluation of the universe. Those standing at the apex of the food chain and mind chain look like this. After all, according to evolution, humans got erected after evolving and also got smarter.” Miles talked to himself. Humanoid monsters were usually smarter, was it because they had more evolved brains or having more evolved brains mutated them to look more humanoid. Were the shapes of human or humanoids related to apex form?

“It is strange reasoning but I can't say it is not accurate. So far we only saw two civilizations with two different races but both look like erected creatures with similar bodies. There is too little data to make a conclusion but it is safe to say the form of the humans might very well be the ultimate form of evaluation.” Coin answered. Two out of two made it %100 percent but looking at one sample and concluding it to be certain would go against the way of science.

Miles approached the monuments and took a closer look. They were holding scepter like weapons and looked like shamans. The plants around their bodies were so lifelike but made of stone. Monsters were living with them in symbiosis. At first, Miles thought animals to be domesticated but realized they were living in harmony and none were masters of others. Of course, these were the feelings he got from the monuments and might not be the real story.

All three eyes of the creatures looked with benignity, and Miles could feel their magnanimity from their postures and faces. They were a lot like Mother AI, helping humanity in their dire state without asking anything back. Mother AI descended on Earth and gave them a second chance, improving humans’ ability overall. For that, it could be seen that Mother AI built in a similar character with the monuments, but Miles couldn’t be sure.

“What do you think of the randomness of AI handed to the people?” Miles asked Coin. This wasn’t the first time talking about this, but they couldn’t reach a conclusion whenever they thought about it.

“It would be expected for them to be in similar characters, but that is not always the case,” Miles asked. When a citizen of Unity reached an age, they would have to take an AI wristwatch as an identity. And for the rest of their life, they would be wearing the watch and grow up with their wristwatch AI companions.

He was an exception to that and had Coin a lot younger because he didn’t want it to be deleted. And they hit it off, and they have been best buddies ever since. But just like in Miles's friend Carl’s situation, AI watches and their life companions most of the time wouldn’t be so compatible. Miles would occasionally wonder why Mother AI didn't make wristwatch companions more in tune with their partners.

“That is something we cannot figure out by just thinking. We talked about it a lot, and couldn’t come up with an idea.” Coin said. Clearly didn’t want to argue over it once again.

“Yeah, you are right.” Miles shook his head helplessly.

“I wonder if Unity knew about this cave, what would they do?” He chuckled. This trip was bountiful. Not only did he discover an ancient mausoleum-like place, he even found a place filled with Elemental Minerals.

Unfortunately, this mausoleum wasn’t a place where treasures were hidden. There were only monuments, and nothing else. After passing two rows of monuments, they arrived at a thin log placed over an abyss-like rift. Miles couldn’t see the bottom of the endless darkness, but the log over it looked sturdy but Miles wasn’t willing to gamble his life to pass on it. He looked at the jelly monster and wanted confirmation.

“You really want me to walk over it?” Miles was too scared to try that. He grabbed a rock and let it free fall to the abyss, but the sound he was expecting to hear never came. How deep is this hole? Miles was baffled.

“Alright, alright.” Miles shook his head and approached the log. Of course, he wasn’t going to gamble with his life. He tied a rope around his body and knotted it to one of the monuments. After making sure it was safe and could carry his weight he started to walk on the thin log. He was also ready to deploy the wing orb as soon as something was wrong.

The reason he didn’t use it directly, was because he wasn’t sure if the gravitational force plummeting him to the ground was active in the cave or not. After all, he was still in range of the mountain and flying might not be possible there.