After a few sips of his coffee, feeling refreshed, Kael stood up and walked to the kitchen. He found the refrigerator and looked around. The ingredients and spices were still good, and the meat freezer was working fine.
"Great," he muttered, grabbing some ingredients and starting to cook.
For the first time since he returned to the past, he could finally enjoy his meal.
***
Kael got up from his bed after lying down for a while, feeling refreshed after a short nap.
He walked to the window of his hotel room, looking outside.
The night grew darker, but the solar-powered streetlights gave him enough visibility to see his surroundings.
Everything was quiet and peaceful, then he walked back through the hotel corridor, heading to the restaurant to prepare his dinner.
Time moved quickly, and the numbers on the calendar now showed that in just 24 days, the fourth gate would open.
He let out a quiet sigh and took the last bite of his meal before leaning back in his chair. He glanced around, noticing the empty seats surrounding him.
His thoughts drifted back to his past, to the time when the fourth gate had opened before. What emerged was not just monsters, but in some cities, the gates brought forth a new kind of human.
Bloodborns.
They were humans from another dimension, possessing power far beyond the Awakened, as they either wielded immense strength or were descendants of gods and goddesses.
Some of them had extraordinary physical strength, allowing them to shatter steel walls as if they were nothing more than thin paper.
Others carried the bloodline of ancient gods and goddesses, making them beings with unimaginable mystical abilities.
Some could control the elements without limits, others possessed bodies as resilient as monsters, and there were also those who could create illusions so real that they could deceive the minds of their enemies.
He lifted the can of beer he had found in the restaurant's storage and took a sip.
Time kept moving forward, and if he wanted to change something in the future, he had to act faster.
He glanced again at the empty customer seats before him, his mind consumed by the one mission that had driven him back to the past. He had to find Amrita.
Amrita was a legendary elixir from one of Earth's mythologies, known as a drink of immortality and incredible power. It was said to be extracted from the depths of the ocean, with an astonishingly sweet taste.
But in the reality he now faced, Amrita was more than just a potion for eternal life. If used correctly and at the right time, it could become a weapon capable of killing the Outer Gods.
However, finding Amrita was no easy task. If the legends were true, the elixir was hidden far away, in a place unreachable by ordinary humans.
Kael clenched both hands tightly on the table. If he wanted to change fate, he had to find Amrita before one of the Bloodborns, Loki, destroyed it.
***
Kael spent his time before the Fourth Gate opened by preparing himself. He only trained to get used to Titan Slayer and rested more.
He had been exhausted for decades before returning to this world, and he knew that once the Fourth Gate opened, everything would become even more chaotic and busier than now.
Kael sat in the corner of the room, looking at the world map he had found in the library the other day. If the clues he remembered were correct, then he could already estimate where he needed to search.
He just had to keep moving north, and from there, he would reach that place, the one he remembered so well, where he had once found an item he desperately needed.
And after finding that item, he would easily be able to search for the Amrita and even other items.
This item had actually been used by one of Odin's bloodborn, and this time, Kael would try to obtain it before that bloodborn could.
Time kept moving, and without realizing it, morning had arrived. Kael had woken up and taken a bath, something he hadn't done for days. He put on his clothes and grabbed his backpack.
"I must find a dimensional storage item as soon as possible," he muttered while strapping Titan Slayer onto his back.
Once ready, he stepped out of the hotel. His estimate was that by noon, the fourth gate would open.
But just as he feared, he suddenly felt a strange vibration in the air. In the distance, the sky started to distort in several places, visible over cities lower than where he was standing.
Kael stopped in front of the hotel, his expression blank as he stared at the familiar scene from his past. The fourth-type gates were beginning to open everywhere.
He lifted his gaze to the sky and saw lightning striking repeatedly, exactly where the fourth gates were about to emerge. Above the city of Stantton, a circular ripple hovered just a few meters above the ground, standing vertically, facing the now-empty city.
A faint purple glow seeped through the gap at the center of the gate, forming shifting patterns that Kael recognized as ancient runes.
The temperature around the gate fluctuated, sometimes scorching hot, sometimes freezing cold. Kael was grateful for the cloak he had found, which protected him from any kind of extreme weather.
Now, he clenched his fists as he saw something beginning to move from inside the gate. He had no intention of standing still and waiting for whatever was coming through the gate. He needed to move.
Kael ran in a certain direction, heading behind the gate. He dashed toward the forest stretching along the outskirts of Stantton. Once he reached the trees, he stopped running and instead leaped from tree to tree.
His feet landed on a tree trunk, then propelled him into the air, moving from one branch to another with almost no sound. He couldn't afford to be caught in an open area.
If something emerged from the gate and found him in a weakened state, the battle would end before it even began.