About over a month ago…
Katharin was under house arrest after not revealing any clues to Liu Yang's whereabouts, even though she knew nothing about his current location.
Even after many interrogations, the big shots gave up interrogating because it was useless.
Liu Yang made all the necessary preparations so that he would not be found. So it was useless to continue interrogating Katharin.
So for a whole year, she stayed indoors and couldn't go out.
Xinyue went through the same situation, but it was smoother because she was someone else's slave. So there was nothing she could hide.
Everything she did, her master knew.
The entire world was busy with the new portals being opened by the Invasion System.
The humanoid creatures on the other side were insanely more powerful than usual. So it was normal for many Hunters to die during conflicts.
The first portal was for the mutated insects, then came the elves and orcs.
The mutated insects didn't seem to want to do anything but stay in the area with the purple liquid, so they weren't targets for humanity to attack.
Elves and orcs were different.
When the portals were opened, they still couldn't get out because they needed time to fully open.
The first to be opened was the elven portal, the two sides had a brutal war where both sides were massacred. But no matter what happened, the elves kept coming out of the portal without fear.
Eventually, Europe lost territory of several tens of thousands of kilometers.
The place where the portal was opened was a forested mountainous region in the north.
Six months later, the orc portal was fully opened in central Africa.
The region was already considered very dangerous by humanity, and the emergence of the portal the location several dozen times more dangerous.
There wasn't a war like against the elves, so the orcs had a smoother invasion and controlled all the surrounding areas.
The orcs' territory expanded by several thousand kilometers.
The third portal, the troll portal, would not be fully open until a little over a month later. The region was in South America, to be more exact, in the Amazon Rainforest.
It was as if every six months, a portal was opened for a new invasion to take place.
Liu Yang had to deal with the invasions entering the worlds on the other side of the portals.
System quests asked him to go there.
…
One day, a mutated insect invaded Katharin's house from underground, but before she could defend herself or call for help, she was devoured and was only able to send the message to Liu Yang while inside the mutant insect's stomach.
When she reappeared, the place where she was was in the region of the purple liquid, but as she passed out, Katharin didn't know what was happening.
The whole world knew because her body was spat out by the mutated insect on the portal's other side. As a sort of ritual, she was surrounded by the mutated insects before being thrown into the mouth of the biggest mutant insect of all.
After that, heartbeat sounds were heard several kilometers away.
Many speculations were created, but no one knew who these heartbeats were. Most likely Katharin, but they had no proof of that.
…
On the same day, Xinyue was in her research lab in the basement of her house.
An elf entered without activating any traps and knocked her out.
Without knowing anything, she was kidnapped and taken to the mountains in northern Europe.
The world has also seen this because the cameras on drones and satellites show it.
Xinyue was taken to the world on the other side of the portal. So no one knew what happened to her.
…
The other day, another woman was kidnapped, but this time, it was the orcs.
The woman was an unknown person with no powerful background, but those who know her know that she was related to Liu Yang.
This woman was one of Liu Yang's close military friends.
The two went through deadly training, and life and death situations and went to Penghu together with the squad.
Thus, she could be considered a very close person to him.
…
The two lovers and one of Liu Yang's friends were kidnapped by creatures from other worlds.
What does that mean? Why these three women?
Why were only women who were related to Liu Yang kidnapped?
What is the reason for this to have happened?
Governments, Hunter Associations, and guilds around the world wanted the answer to this.
But they came to only one conclusion. The Level Lock.
Because it was the only thing he had that was special.
The Level Lock had some use, but no one knew what it was.
The latest discovery was that the Level Lock wielder could get stronger without leveling up, so there must be other benefits as well.