Blood Assimilation

After Randy's figure disappeared into the portal, the middle-aged man finally let out a deep breath as he had also come out of the station to watch as the young man entered the portal with his own eyes. 

However, that young man especially took his time to enter the portal, so he had to watch him with bated breath until he left.

He then sighed and turned around and started walking back as he kept muttering: "Even though I gave him some advice, he still insisted on going anyway? I wonder what's wrong with the new generation, so brave and foolish with their decisions." 

"Ah, now I will be bored once again. Maybe I should've prolonged our conversation for a little while longer?" The middle-aged man muttered to himself in regret as he sat behind the table inside the constructed station. 

…

Inside the dimensional rift that connects both worlds, Randy suddenly found himself floating in darkness with nothing in sight. And without knowing where he was, he instantly frowned in confusion shortly after.

He tried speaking, but he found out that his voice was not coming out, and he could only display a scowl as he tried to move. Soon after, he found out that he could not control his body in the space where he found himself.

'What's going on? Where am I? Where's this place? I thought I just passed through the portal a moment ago, then why am I here? Shouldn't I have already arrived at my destination by now just like how it was described on the seeker's website?'

'According to what I read on the seeker's webpage, it said that you will instantly arrive at the other world upon entering the portal of a dimensional rift. So why am I taking so long to get there?'

'System…'

At this point, notifications with lines of cautionary texts started flashing across his vision out of nowhere.

Noticing these changes, he thought that the system had a solution, so he quickly looked in front of himself. 

Even though his body was in a disoriented state caused by him floating in space, Randy could still read the texts from the system. 

Since his point of view was not impacted no matter how disoriented his body was.

[Attention!]

[Attention!]

[Attention!]

[[Warning: Detected an unknown disturbance in the space-time flow. The cause seemed to originate from an unknown source. As a result, there were fluctuations within space, preventing space traveling. Therefore, the current dimensional travel would be delayed until the new changes in the dimensional pathway are reverted into their original state or the space-time's fluctuations fully stabilize, which would result in the dimensional pathway being fixed in the process. However, the duration for that to happen is unknown]]

[[In the meantime, the host should remain stationary and not move around too much or leave this protective shelter. Otherwise, you would lose your life instantly to the chaotic and destructive fluctuations of energies caused by the dimensional distortion as a result of space-time being in disarray]]

The system displayed these lines of texts in front of Randy's vision, shocking him greatly.

'What the hell— Wait a minute, now that I look closely, my body seemed to be enveloped in blue but translucent light. What is this thing? Some kind of barrier? More importantly, is this the shelter that the system was talking about just now? Regardless, I have to listen to the system's words since I have no idea what's going on.' Randy silently thought as he observed his body.

A short while later, Randy could perceive some light in the distance in front of him, and as he drew closer to the light became distinct, he could see a tree beyond the light. At this moment, he realized that he was almost reaching his destination. 

At least, that was what he thought when he saw the tree beyond the light.

With the blue light still on his body, he moved forward slowly without the means to increase his pace. He felt like he was getting closer, but at the same time, he was getting further away from the light in his path. 

This situation caused Randy to become frustrated, as he could not do anything but let his body move to his destination slowly. He felt like he was slower than even a snail at this point.

'Why can't I go any faster? If not because of the system's warning, I would've forced myself there already. It's been so long that I don't even know how much time has passed, but I am starting to get hungry. Although I can still hold on for a bit, if this goes on, I would be starved to death since I cannot move my body around too much as the system suggested.' Randy complained in his mind. 

He was starting to regret his decision which made him impulsively use this new dimensional rift. However, this was the only dimensional rift close to where he lived. The other dimensional rifts were far away, so he had no choice but to go to that abandoned factory.

Randy quickly calmed himself down as he realized brooding over his situation would not change anything, and he could only remain patient until he gradually drew closer to his destination.

In the meantime, with nothing to do, he admired the scenery around him, albeit a chaotic one.

That was because the surrounding scenery made it seem like space itself was ripping apart and repairing itself at a rapid but slow pace. Even though it was very dark all around him, Randy still managed to see something like this unbelievable. It was hard to describe what he saw in words. Besides this, there seemed to be nothing else to admire.

But after observing this incomprehensible situation for a while, Randy started pondering on a deeper level. 

With how the space was ripping apart and repairing itself, he could not help but wonder to himself, 'Just what could cause the space-time to fluctuate like this? What is space-time anyway? Is it just a concept of both space and time? But how is it going to affect me once it stabilizes? And was the cause natural, or was it caused by a powerful entity or some unfathomable existence? 

'In the first place, was that even possible? For someone to get strong enough to affect space itself? I don't even know the answers to these questions. I had never put much thought into these things. For example, how the dimensional rifts and gates came to be. But if space can be destroyed and repaired like this, then what could cause the space-time to fluctuate enough to cause these visible changes?' 

No matter how much he thought about it, he could not think of any answers to these questions. That was because they never taught them these things in the academy. 

Perhaps, maybe when he goes to university, they might touch on this topic, but he highly doubts that they would know too much about these things that seemed to be closely related to the creation of the universe as a whole.