When the first batch of contestants stepped through the teleportation gates shimmering with an ethereal blue glow.
The perilous environment they had expected did not appear.
Before the slight spatial distortion and sensation of weightlessness had fully faded.
Their feet had already landed on solid, level stone paving.
Only the soft white lights that occasionally flared behind and around them.
And the new arrivals who appeared from nowhere, equally bewildered and wary.
Proved that they had come to the right place.
Before them lay something resembling a town square.
After a brief period of adjustment.
Everyone's attention was inevitably drawn forward.
There.
An unimaginably towering gate stood in silence.
It seemed both like the boundary of this region and the starting point to another world.
The gate was forged from some kind of dark, demon-faced metal, its surface carved with twisted faces that seemed to be crying and laughing at once.
Its hollow eye sockets looked down upon the ant-like creatures gathered in the square.
Radiating an ancient, awe-inspiring majesty that made hearts tremble.
Merely meeting the gate's "gaze" brought a crushing pressure, silently declaring the danger of the world beyond it.
Some people vaguely recognized it as Rashomon.
Without needing to say anything, everyone instantly understood that this was merely a pre-match gathering point, a safe zone.
The real battlefield should lie beyond that demon-faced gate.
Once they realized this, the initial restlessness quickly subsided, replaced by an oppressive calm.
Some contestants stood alone with their eyes closed, conserving their energy, while others cautiously observed their potential opponents and assessed each other's strength.
A small number tried speaking quietly among themselves while carefully observing their surroundings.
Walls that looked to be a hundred meters high enclosed the area on all sides, with more than a dozen buildings along the