The Boundless Journey, Starting From Bofuri

As for Takeru, he left behind two Shadow Persons to guard the school, who would automatically attack upon sensing the bat monsters.

Due to the monster invasion, Miu gained a group of little admirers, both boys and girls. Nao, who used to compete with Miu, instantly became Miu’s number one fan.

Seeing her former friends suddenly worshiping her so much made Miu feel a bit embarrassed. However, since they were just children without much ulterior motive, Miu happily accepted everyone’s admiration.

As for Takeru, he headed to other battlefields. Since a large area was under attack, to minimize casualties as much as possible, Takeru found it necessary to eliminate more of these bats.

Takeru was also very puzzled, wondering how did such a large number of bat monsters suddenly appear. After all, even the country hadn’t detected them before.

But now wasn’t the time to think about that.

Then, relying on his extremely powerful Observation Haki and formidable strength, Takeru began clearing out the bats.

Facing different situations, Takeru used different methods, but mostly relied on lightning and ice shards. Wherever Takeru went, the number of giant bats constantly decreased.

"Thank you so much!" After clearing another area of giant bats, the people thanked Takeru gratefully.

"My child was taken by them! Please, save my child!" Besides those thanking him, several people knelt on the ground, pleading tearfully to Takeru.

Hearing the woman’s words, Takeru was astonished. He hadn’t expected these bats, besides directly devouring humans, would also kidnap some children. This was something Takeru hadn’t anticipated.

"Don’t worry, I will find them as soon as possible." Hearing her words, Takeru nodded seriously.

Although Takeru could have completely ignored them, seeing the extremely pained expressions of parents who had lost their children, he couldn’t remain indifferent.

Soon, Takeru saw several giant bats in the distance carrying children towards a certain direction, with the children’s parents chasing below.

Seeing this, Takeru suspected whether these bats had a so-called king or queen-like existence, and that this invasion was very likely orchestrated by such beings.

That means, simply eliminating these bats might only be treating the symptoms, not the root cause. With this in mind, Takeru took a deep look at these special bats.

Immediately, Takeru’s figure disappeared from the spot. When he appeared again, he had used the Transformation Technique to turn himself into a child, heading precisely towards an area where many bats were flying.

Sure enough, upon seeing the harmless-looking Takeru, a pitch-black bat directly dove towards him, then grabbed Takeru’s clothes and began carrying him away from the spot.

Because Takeru used telekinesis to reduce his own weight, the bat carrying him didn’t notice anything unusual, and its speed wasn’t too slow.

The reason Takeru didn’t use Nen Needles to control these bats or use Nen Abilities to hypnotize them was mainly because he feared alarming the bats, which might cause many bats actually carrying children to abandon them, leading to unnecessary casualties.

Being carried by the giant bat, Takeru was also extremely puzzled.

’What exactly was the purpose of these bats? Moreover, it seemed some of their intelligence was quite high. Another point was the existence of a hierarchy.’

Observing the bats carrying children, Takeru found their color was generally darker. Through Observation Haki perception, they also seemed to be of a stronger type. Takeru even saw many of them giving orders to lighter-colored bats.

That these bats could suddenly appear unnoticed, and in such numbers, with tens of thousands at once, made Takeru very curious about where their nest was.

’How could they evade human detection and develop to such a scale?’

As time passed, Takeru was soon taken by the giant bat to a remote, sparsely populated area. Takeru noticed that most of the bats were flying towards a certain point in the air, where the giant bats’ figures completely disappeared. Also, some bats appeared out of thin air.

"This is...!" Seeing this, Takeru was shocked, and an idea formed in his mind.

Soon, it was the turn of the bat carrying Takeru. As the bat and Takeru flew to the designated spot, Takeru felt as if he had passed through an invisible barrier. Being somewhat familiar with space, Takeru understood that he seemed to have undergone a spatial displacement.

Sure enough, when Takeru carefully investigated below, he found himself already on a special island.

On the island, besides a forest, the most prominent feature was a tall mountain occupying more than half of the island.

Takeru also found the sky here was very dark. It had been afternoon before, but in this special place, it was nighttime.

Takeru noticed the moon here was very full and relatively bright, allowing him to easily see all the scenery below with his eyes.

Takeru also found that all the bats were currently moving towards a cave in the mountain. Many bats were coming in and out, accompanied by the constant crying and calls for Mommy and Daddy from the many kidnapped children...

Looking at this special area, Takeru understood that they might no longer be on Earth.

Through Observation Haki, Takeru perceived that most of the animals and plants on this island were unfamiliar to him.

Although they might have changed due to Earth’s mutation, Takeru felt it was unlikely, as these animals didn’t seem like they could have mutated in just a few months.

Combined with the spatial passage he just passed through, Takeru suspected that due to the mutation, the main world had connected with another world. These bats accidentally discovered the main world and began a large-scale invasion.

This could also explain why the country only discovered the problem when the disaster struck... because from the beginning, they weren’t monsters belonging to Earth.

Having roughly figured out the reason, Takeru began to think about how to deal with these creatures next.

If not for the large number of kidnapped children below, Takeru could have directly activated the Eight Gates or Susanoo to flatten the place.

But now, obviously, he couldn’t recklessly cause large-scale destruction.

Although a new world represented new resources, for Takeru, who could constantly travel to other worlds, his interest in this new world was only moderate.

As time passed, Takeru was carried by the giant bat through a long cave tunnel. He also discovered a special cave prison not far away holding a large number of children. Clearly, this was a collective holding area.

Takeru wasn’t sure why these bats had captured them here... perhaps as food reserves.

Noticing that most of the children had some injuries, minor or serious, Takeru frowned.

These bats basically captured children between about three and eleven or twelve years old. Currently, the older, more sensible children were constantly trying to comfort some of the continuously crying children.

"Mommy, Daddy... waaah...!"

"Don’t cry, it’ll be alright. Someone will definitely come to save us soon!" A girl who looked about Miu’s age, hearing the many cries, forced down her fear and gently comforted a little boy who looked about four or five.

"But... my arm hurts so much!" Hearing the girl’s comfort, the boy, still with tears and snot, extended his hands, which were still bleeding.

"Don’t worry, big sister will bandage it for you." The girl said, then forcefully tore her own clothes and used a stone to cut, finally managing to tear off an irregular strip of cloth. Then she carefully bandaged the little boy’s hands.

Of course, although the little boy stopped crying after being bandaged, there were still many crying voices here. Three or four older children couldn’t handle it all.

Soon, Takeru himself was thrown into the special cave prison. After dropping Takeru, the giant bat left without looking back.

"Are you okay?" Perhaps because Takeru landed close to the little girl, and because Takeru wasn’t crying like the others, he caught the girl’s attention.

"I’m fine. You’re doing great. What’s your name?" Looking at the girl with concern in her eyes, Takeru smiled lightly and asked.

"Hi... Hinatsuru Ai." Hearing Takeru’s words, the girl instinctively said.

"Is that so? Your injuries aren’t small." Hearing her words, Takeru calmly looked at the injuries on her arms and legs.

"It’s okay. I’m a big girl now!" Hearing Takeru say this, Hinatsuru Ai said seriously.