Chapter 50: Planet: Hunter’s Shack Three
"You two know each other?" Jiran asked, surprised.
Aidan and Ouja laughed as sparks from their eyes clashed with each other.
"Well then, I’ll take my leave. I need to enter meditation since we’ll have to fight for resources soon." Ouja smiled. "Pleasure meeting you, mister Aidan. Ah, my bad. It was Garen. You look just like my nephew Aidan, so I made a mistake."
Aidan’s right eye twitched. ’This bastard.’
[Arthur: I might not be able to defeat him since my radar is showing him as a threat.]
[Jovan: I can pinch him like an ant. Want me to do it? His real rank is peak Legendary.]
’No. He is a Transcendent Player. That means he has powers beyond his rank like me, items, tricks, and whatnot. If he showed himself to me despite seeing the spectacle of power I showed the other day, it means he has a way to keep himself safe even from Divine-rank power.’
[Tom: We should take a cautious and careful approch if we want to deal with that thread.]
’Yep.’ Aidan’s fists clenched. ’I have zero Divine-rank items, so I need to get my hands on one at least and bond with it.’
Aidan calculated and compared his parameters with others.
With the attribute boost from his current Power Bonds, his strongest attacks could reach the level of Legendary-3 to Levendary-4.
His Speed could also reach upto legendary-5 level.
His defense was a few points lower, but still at Legendary-1 at least.
His control of Mana and Spirit was at Epic-10, but his control over the aspects was absolute.
So the limitation here was in the depth and intricacy of his techniques and spells that required higher control.
’Alright, I can’t wait now.’
He wanted to reach the Hunter’s Shack Three, and get an Epic-rank Terrorized Dimension for himself as soon as possible to breakthrough to Epic-rank.
’I’ll generate my daily quests after that.’
...
The planet filled the whole viewport. It was so large that the River-class spaceship felt like a single grain of sand drifting toward a mountain.
Hunter’s Shack Three was thirty-eight times bigger than Earth, and from up here that size was easy to believe. It stretched wall to wall across the glass and kept going past the edges.
Its surface was deep bronze and dark green, wrapped in slow bands of gray cloud. For one short moment, it looked peaceful and beautiful.
Then the details sharpened, and peaceful was the wrong word.
All across the planet, small points of light flickered and pulsed in the dark. They were not cities. They were wounds.
Thin cracks of purple and black glowed on the land like scars that would not close. Some were tiny sparks. Others were long, angry tears that lit up whole regions.
"Those are the Terror Tears," an Alliance officer said to the gathered Hunters. "This planet has thousands of them. New ones open every single day."
Aidan watched the glow shift and crawl across the surface. Even from orbit, he could tell the planet never rested.
Wherever a Tear had been left too long, a dark stain spread around it. That was where the Terrors had already poured out and taken the land for themselves.
"On Earth, a single Tear was a crisis," the officer said. "Here, they are the weather. There is always a Tear spilling somewhere, so there is always a mission waiting to be taken."
A broad-shouldered peak Epic-rank veteran near the front folded his arms, his scarred face grim.
"And no one ever closes them all?" he asked.
"No one can," the officer answered plainly. "You close what you can reach before its deadline. After the deadline, the Terrors come through, and then you go and kill what came out."
The veteran gave a slow nod. He had fought Tears for decades, and a planet made entirely of them did not frighten him. It simply meant more work.
Aidan’s eyes moved to a few spots that glowed a different color, a deeper and slower red.
"Those larger ones are Terrorized Dimensions," the officer added, following his gaze. "They open far less often than Tears, so they are rare and valued. A whole world hides behind each one, full of resources."
"That is why we fight over them," another voice said.
It was Kaelen. He stood with his arms crossed, calm and steady, looking down at the glowing planet like a man who had seen a hundred of them.
"Remember what I told you on the deck. The Alliance gave us one permanent Terrorized Dimension. If you want more, you win it in a tournament, or you earn enough to buy your way to one."
The Legendary and peak Epic-rank Hunters around him nodded. Every one of them was a hardened master, and every one of them was already thinking about resources.
Aidan just smiled to himself. This was exactly the kind of place he needed.
...
As the ship slowed and began its descent, Aidan drew out the Digicard he had received back on Earth.
The smooth, dark card woke at his touch, and a small screen lit up in the air above it. His public name glowed there in clean letters. Garen. SSS-rank.
’Still works this far from home,’ he thought, pleased. ’Spirit and tech in one. Neat little thing.’
Below the name sat a note that made his eyebrows lift a little. His card had already been granted special permission to enter an Elite-class Shelter, even though he was only SSS-rank Hunter.
’The disciple of a hidden Divine master gets doors opened for him,’ Aidan thought, amused. ’Convenient.’
He put the card away. He would need it soon, but not for entry alone. On this planet, the Digicard was everything.
It held his contribution points. It carried the news and the mission listings. It handled all his trading. Losing it would be like losing a hand.
...
The ship dropped through the gray clouds, and the planet opened up beneath them.
Up close, Hunter’s Shack Three was not a country or a continent. It was one endless battlefield that never stopped.
Ruined ground stretched for miles. Fires burned in the distance. Streaks of light shot across the sky as far-off Hunters fought things that could not be seen from here.
And rising out of that chaos stood the Shelters.
They were huge fortresses of stone and metal, wrapped in glowing barriers. Each one sat like an island of safety inside an ocean of danger.
"The whole planet is divided by the Shelter system," the officer explained as they flew over one. "There are three kinds, and each kind decides who is allowed inside."
He pointed to a smaller fortress far off in a calm, green valley, tucked away from the worst of the glowing scars.
"That is a Knight-class Shelter. Only Hunters from A-rank up to SSS-rank may enter. They are built in the safest spots, so the weaker Hunters have somewhere to breathe."
Then he pointed ahead, to a much larger fortress ringed by thick walls and bright barriers.
"That is an Elite-class Shelter. Any Hunter from A-rank to Divine-rank can enter one. But there is a rule for the lower ranks."
"For Hunters from A-rank to SSS-rank, you cannot walk in freely. You need an invitation from an Epic-rank Hunter or someone stronger before the doors will open for you."
Aidan thought of the permission already sitting in his Digicard and understood why it mattered so much.
Finally, the officer nodded toward the horizon, where the sky itself looked bruised and the light of the Tears burned thickest.
"Out there, in the most dangerous zones, stand the Overlord-class Shelters. Only Epic-rank to Divine-rank Hunters may enter them. They sit where the fighting is worst, because only the strong can survive there."
...
The ship came down at last inside the walls of a grand Elite-class Shelter.
Its barrier parted to let them through, then sealed shut behind them, humming with quiet power.
Every Hunter from Earth stepped off onto solid ground. All of them were peak Epic-rank, and the thirteen leaders were Legendary-rank, so they belonged here without question.
Only Aidan was different. He was the single SSS-rank in the group, and he walked in anyway, the permission in his Digicard clearing the doors for him.
A few eyes flicked toward him, but no one said a word. Being the disciple of a hidden Divine master was its own kind of key.
Inside, the Shelter was a city of its own. Wide streets, tall buildings, shops, training halls, and crowds of Hunters from a dozen different worlds.
Some wore armor still scorched from battle. Others sat quietly, resting and healing. The air buzzed with talk of Tears, missions, and money.
Aidan drank it all in. After the quiet of Earth, this place felt alive in a rough and dangerous way.
...
Kaelen led them toward the center of the Shelter, where a huge tower of light rose up from the middle of the streets.
"That is the Information Hub," he said. "Every Shelter has one. If you want to do anything on this planet, you start here."
The Hub was a great open hall lined with glowing boards. Hunters crowded around them, reading, arguing, and tapping their Digicards against the panels.
One whole wall was covered in mission listings. These were the Tear jobs.
Some missions asked Hunters to close a Terror Tear before its deadline ran out. Those paid well, because a closed Tear was one less flood of Terrors.
Other missions were posted after a deadline had already passed. Those asked Hunters to go and destroy the Terrors that had already spilled out and taken the land.
Aidan watched the numbers on the board shift and update in real time. New Tears opened. Old deadlines expired. The work truly never ended.
Another glowing wall held something that caught his eye far more.
It was the tournament board.
These were the contests where Hunters fought for the right to own a Terrorized Dimension. Some were for Epic-rank Dimensions. A rare few were for Legendary-rank ones.
Whoever won a tournament won the Dimension itself. They could then decide who was allowed to enter it and who was kept out.
Aidan’s eyes lingered on the Epic-rank listings, and a slow grin spread across his face.
’There it is,’ he thought. ’Win an Epic-rank Terrorized Dimension, farm it, break through, and get rich doing it.’
Ouja Sinclair had shown his face without fear, even after seeing the display of power Aidan had unleashed. That meant the Devil Prince had a way to stay safe from even Divine-rank attacks.
’Get strong,’ Aidan reminded himself.
He raised his Digicard and tapped it against the tournament board. The details of the nearest Epic-rank contest bloomed into the air before him.
His grin widened.
The whole planet was a battlefield, and Aidan had just found where his war would begin.
