Then came the soil.
The soil began to vanish too. It wasn't being dug up—it simply disappeared. The topsoil, the middle layers, the deeper layers were devoured one after another.
In the end, only rock remained.
Hard, grayish-white rock.
The number of the Gold-Eater Clan kept increasing.
A thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand...
They poured endlessly out of that black gate, like water that would never stop flowing.
Human Alliance satellite orbit.
Monitoring center.
The technician on duty stared at the screen, a cup of coffee in his hand.
The screen showed a live feed of Mongolia's grasslands. As always, there were lush green plains and scattered flocks of sheep. Nothing unusual.
Since the mysterious resurgence began, the Human Alliance had deployed hundreds of surveillance satellites around the globe, each with a dedicated operator monitoring it. But most of the time, nothing happened on the screens.
Just like now.
The technician took a sip of coffee and prepared to switch to the next surveillance area.
The screen flickered.
He froze for a moment.
On the screen, a small patch of black had appeared in one corner of the grasslands.
The technician set down his coffee and zoomed in.
The edges of the black area were jagged, as if something had gnawed at them.
"What the hell is that?"
He pulled up footage from ten minutes earlier for comparison.
Ten minutes ago, that spot had still been ordinary green grassland.
Now...
The black area had doubled in size.
The technician's heart lurched.
He immediately brought up the thermal scan overlay.
The display changed.
The temperature of that black area on the grasslands was abnormal... fifty degrees higher than its surroundings.
And...
Something was moving.
Densely packed red dots moved within the black area.
The technician's hand shook.
Coffee spilled all