The Ultimate Awakener

Arriving Late

Elion gazed back and saw a towering beast dashing toward him from a far distance. There wasn’t just one but a bunch of them.

Elion’s body immediately began to quiver. He lifted his gaze to the man he couldn’t even see and begged desperately:

“Please, sir, I beg you, let me in! Those things will kill me!”

“How old are you?” the man asked. Though that was the only question he seemed to know and more interested in.

“I'm sixteen years old! Please open the door, …”

Elion begged, slamming his hands against the massive iron door. He could feel his hand numb, but he kept hammering even though the pain was unbearable.

“Wrong answer…” the man bluntly rejected. “No awakener coming to this castle is older than thirteen years.”

Elion kept begging, but the man refused. Meanwhile, the monsters were closing in, dashing at super-fast speed toward where Elion stood.

“P-please, I’m telling the truth… I met some men who promised to bring me to the castle. Meanwhile, they were taking me to a place called the Dark Temple to extract my core. It was too late for me to realize that… but everything changed, and I somehow survived!”

Elion explained, his voice faster than his breath, his heart rising in deep panic.

The moment the man heard everything Elion had explained, he finally believed him.

And just then, Elion saw the massive gate begin to gradually rise open. The gate hadn’t even fully opened before Elion desperately squeezed himself through the small gap and got inside the castle.

The moment he was in, the gate began to drop. At this point, the monsters were already close, but before they could reach him, the gate closed just in time.

In the Shadow Realm, the monsters are called shadow monsters, and they are graded based on their strength and the gate they are bound to.

The monsters in a gate share the same grade as the shadow gate. There is Gate One, with lower-ranked monsters called E-rank. The higher the number of the gate, the stronger the monsters. There are only five gates ever recorded to have opened. The fifth gate was the first to open and the strongest, which sent the world into chaos and almost wiped out the entire existence of humanity.

Elion’s breath was heavy, rising from his chest as though he was going to cough it all out. But the moment his eyes caught sight of the magnificent castle, his face went pale.

This is unbelievable. Never have I seen such perfection.

The castle was bustling with people—not just humans, but different species like elves, fairies, and many other wondrous beings. The golden glowing features of the building added to the breathtaking view.

Not long after, the man who had been watching from the top of the wall took an elevator down. He was short—a dwarf. The moment Elion saw him, he imagined smashing the man’s face with his leg for stressing him so much before letting him into the castle.

The wall was so tall that only an elevator could reach the top, and the dwarf was the man on duty at the moment.

As the man got closer to Elion, he walked around him, sniffing him like a dog.

“What are you doing…?”

Elion asked, confused. The man ignored him and, when done, stood in front of him. “I have to confirm that you are truly not a scavenger.”

Elion sighed, narrowing his eyes. He had just tried to explain that he wasn’t one of those, yet here was the man still doubting him.

The man then gestured for Elion to follow him.

While walking, the man lifted his gaze to Elion from below before asking, “How did you get here so late? It’s almost time for you to return to your bodies.”

Elion was the last to reach the castle. There was a specific duration every awakener was meant to stay in the incubation dream piercer. If the days passed and anyone hadn’t woken up, they would be assumed dead.

“Sorry about that… I didn’t know it would be so difficult to get here.”

“So hard?” The man snapped, then turned to Elion. “Everybody placed in the dream piercer is ideally supposed to arrive at the gate. What happened to you? Did you run off?”

Elion flinched at the words. He didn’t know it had already been customized so that every awakener was to arrive at the gate once placed in the incubation. The question now was why his experience was different.

“I didn’t know that’s how things work. I arrived in the middle of nowhere, with towering mountains. And then… I mean five men, with a bunch of dead bodies…” Elion explained.

The man’s face immediately went pale at what Elion said. “Oh, goodness… it was a miracle you survived. Do you know what that means—”

The man’s words trailed off when he was interrupted by a lady. She was tall elegant, with long ears.

“Damien, who is he?” the lady asked. Damien gestured toward Elion before speaking:

“One of the awakeners. He arrived… late.”

“Arrived late…?” the lady echoed, stunned.

“This was the last day for the awakening, and yet he is arriving now. What has he been doing all this while?”

As the thought ran through the woman’s mind, she turned to Damien. “You mean he just arrived?”

“Yep…” Damien nodded, folding his hands against his chest.

“Thank you… I will take over from here. You can return to your post.”

As Damien left, the woman turned to Elion and offered a handshake. “My name is Jessica. I’m an elf, and I'm responsible for guiding you through the awakening.”

Elion accepted the handshake, staring at her in astonishment. Her beauty was striking—he had never seen an elf in his life. He had read storybooks about them, but he had never expected to see one in person. He now realized the Shadow Realm held many fascinating things.