Doomsday Pillars

When Alex reached the place where the briefing session was held, he immediately went to the podium that had been prepared and swiftly started the briefing, lest the representatives in the room began throwing daggers at each other. After he had read and explained the preparation and terms that they had to comply, several voices immediately resounded in the room as some of the representatives voiced their disagreement.

As a result, a little quarrel occurred because some entourages could not accept the limitations placed on the number of members who could enter the Abyss Gate. Alex could hear and see that the loudest disagreement came from the Heaven Gate and US side, where the former who had brought 30 members wanted to send all of them while the latter was obviously conflicted on who should go with the expedition due to their 2 separate groups.

However, Alex was silent and maintained his earlier attitude with no sign of him giving in to the disagreement these 'protesters' raised. Seeing Alex's stance on the matter and the other representatives who were still there witnessing this fiasco, the US representative finally gave up and decided to only send 5 members from each group, lest they brought halt to tomorrow's expedition with this very minor issue. 

Meanwhile, the Heaven Gate that was about to continue their disagreements immediately fell silent as even the United States, one of the most powerful countries, needed to obey the rule. Therefore, there was no reason for the Heaven Gate not to follow.

"10 person or you people are not going." said Alex very firmly, without taking any further disagreements.

Receiving Alex's glare, these black robed people finally fell silent and relented. They were then forced to only bring 10 people to the Abyss Gate, leaving the rest here at the hotel. Alex then told the representatives to gather in front of Abyss Gate tomorrow morning before he closed the session.

-

The next morning, 16 groups of 10 people each had gathered in front of the Abyss Pit, waiting for Alex to arrive. 160 fighters from all around the world; USA, Singapore, Australia, Philippines, China, Russia, Egypt, Israel, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Japan, Indonesia, and last but not least the Middle East's Heaven Gate.

As Alex walked over to the gathering, he could see Christina standing there in the crowd accompanied by two members of the Firebirds. Maxine and Corrie. He could also see a man with a tattoo on his shoulder standing beside her. The man was Nam, a gang chief from Hong Kong.

The four of them were actually not part of the Chinese group, but the leader of the representative from China did not mind if these 4 people were counted taking quotas from 10 places belonging to China.

Since yesterday after the briefing session was over until this morning, Alex still hasn't had the chance to have a deep conversation with Christina. There were several times where he spoke to her briefly, however the topic they talked about was about the expedition. He always tried to find an opportunity to have a good talk with her, but it seemed that the woman had suddenly turned elusive like a ghost. Seeing that, Alex was increasingly convinced that something happened to her. Alas, the expedition remained the top priority for him. Thus, Christina's problem needs to be shelved for now and thrown to the back of his mind.

As planned, all the representatives who came were eager to find and see a way to close the Abyss Pit. Before they entered the Abyss Pit, an absolute chain of command where everyone followed a single order was completely necessary to avoid casualties as much as possible. Therefore, everyone unanimously agreed to let Alex take the lead since he was the one who proposed this unbelievable idea in the first place.

At yesterday's briefing, Alex didn't say much apart from providing information about the expedition's plans, the terms for joining the expedition and the creatures they would fight inside the Abyss Gate; the critters, the hellhounds, the gargoyles, and the Cerberus.

Apart from that, Alex also explained some battle formations and needed these fighters to understand them clearly, so that there would be no confusion and accidents later on during the expedition. There were 2 formations that Alex emphasized on these fighters. The first one was a formation where they were scattered in groups of 5, increasing their overall mobility and flexibility. Meanwhile, the second one was a large-scale formation where rows of fighters were lined up corresponding to the magic formation that Alex had explained.

All the fighters had practiced the second formation while trying to get used to each other. They learned to fill the ranks according to the elements they had and mastered. The vanguard was filled with Earth, Plant, and Ice element fighters, The rearguard was filled by fighters that had Fire and Metal elements, while those who possessed Wind and Lightning elements were assigned as blitzkrieg troops. Those with elements beyond those mentioned could follow the movements of the blitzkrieg troops.

After checking everything and making sure everyone was prepared, these 160 people entered the Abyss Pit at the same time.

30 days before the first tribulation struck Earth, the Abyss Gate inside the Abyss Pit had reached the third stage, where several Abyss creatures had been able to exit the Abyss Gate and roamed the area around the Abyss Pit. The gigantic stone gate was already covered with countless cracks while a reddish light with malevolence vibes emanated from it. One could also see a swirling black hole about two meters in diameter in the center of the gate, as if inviting anyone who saw it to touch it.

Every minute, a number of critters and hellhounds could be seen running out of the swirling hole on the gate and immediately darting towards the entrance of the Abyss Pit, as if they have gained freedom from the shackles that hold them back. However, these poor creatures were immediately annihilated by a shower of bullets fired by dozens of high-caliber machine guns and fell dead a few feet from the Pit.

The 160 fighters marched towards the Abyss Gate with ebullient momentum as they slew any hostile creatures baring their fangs in their path. When they reached in front of the Abyss Gate, Alex calmly turned around and asked everyone if they were ready one last time. Seeing the overall expression on their faces, Alex nodded his head before he touched the swirling hole. When the 160 fighters saw Alex's body swiftly disappear from their sight, they immediately moved forward and touched the swirling hole one by one as they started to enter the Abyss Antechamber.

When Alex opened his eyes, he was greeted with the familiar sight of a huge cave that was illuminated by rivers of lava flowing around him. He could see the fighters appeared one by one as he looked behind. When the fighters finally opened their eyes, many of them were not amazed because they had already entered the antechamber. It was apparent that the majority of them had already entered the antechamber at their respective Abyss Gate.

A magnificent sight could be seen as 160 middle stage Sky realm fighters walked down the antechamber and fought against hundreds to thousands of critters and hellhounds, easily slaughtering them as if they were strolling through their own garden.

The deeper they went into the antechamber, the more creatures that appeared and blocked their advance. When Alex saw that the number of monsters blocking grew and began to run out of control while the efficiency of their slaughter decreased, he swiftly began to order the fighters to form the magic formation they had learned and practiced.

In a few seconds, the vanguard and rearguard line were formed and started bombarding these Abyss creatures with countless different kinds of spells, killing the weaker ones while pushing the stronger ones back. However, despite being hit by countless spells, thousands of hellhounds kept running and charged towards the vanguard as they crashed into the vanguard line of spell-fortified fighters. The result was that these thousands of hellhounds were quickly ground and crushed beyond measure, like eggs crashing into a rock. When the hordes of Abyss creatures fell into confusion over the failure of their charge, the blitzkrieg troops quickly moved on and did their job, causing even more havoc among the Abyss creatures by attacking and retreating in a fast and furious style.

As Alex watched and observed the battle, he could see several fighters got busy showing their skills as they slaughtered the Abyss monsters. A German fighter was able to form three golems made of ice and order them to destroy the hellhounds. In one corner of the battle, a fighter from Spain was seen constantly firing lightning strikes at the monsters. Meanwhile, on the other hand, a fighter from the Philippines turned himself into a fireball and charged towards the crowd of monsters in front of him, burning them as he passed them.

Alex nodded in satisfaction when he saw the combatants' high combat abilities when suddenly a blue explosion appeared among the hordes of creatures, startling and catching everyone's attention. They then immediately looked for the culprit of the explosion when they saw a fighter from the US who was under the command of Winter holding a strange rifle. 

These were the new energy weapons brought by James and developed by the Americans. They were now using this chance to test the power of the weapon against the future threat.

When the representatives saw that the hellhounds and critters were unable to break through the formation line at all, one of the US representatives could not help but walk over to Alex.

"Is this formation really necessary, Mr Alex?" asked the man.

"He's right, comrade. Let's just hurry up." added one of the Russian fighters.

When he heard those words. Alex could not help but shook his head inwardly. He obviously knew that this antechamber was too easy for these chosen people. Heck, if any of them could get hurt at this level, then that means the person they sent was wrong. All the fighters who came were the world's best fighters, most of them couldn't even show their true abilities when fighting hellhounds.

Alex's main goal, of course, was to get them used to forming ranks and encouraging them to start interacting with fighters outside their group. Alex also wanted to see how much these fighters could follow orders from the people they didn't know very well. In the end, Alex just wanted them to not only know how to destroy the Abyss Gate but also how to trust each other more.

In less than 12 hours, they finally arrived at the large door bearing the emblem of a three-headed beast.

Cerberus, the guardian dog of hell.

Seeing the large closed door, Alex turned and looked at the fighters before him.

"Alright! We're here." said Alex with a smile, "There are only three Cerberus in there."

"Who wants to volunteer?"

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