[GATE: World Divers]

Somewhere within the cities of the outer wall.

Monsters were plunging and destroying everything they can set their eyes on, the people were screaming and running for their lives.

"Mom NOOO!!!"

A child was trapped under debris and so was her mother, she tried crawling to her child but there was a monster right behind her.

"Behind you! Mommy!"

Long black bodies that stood on four legs, it's head was deformed and only had one monstrous eye, it resembled that of a mantis, only this one had four scyth arms and was standing about three meters tall.

It walked towards the trapped human and looked down on it, saliva dripping from it's maw.

"Oh priestess have mercy on my child's soul."

She prayed and closed her eyes, accepting death and ready to meet her god.

The child cried out.

She didn't want to see her mother die right in front of her.

What was she to do? Weak, and trapped underneath the rubble.

Just as the mantis was about to bring it's scyth like arms down on the mother.

A thunderous sound raptured through the surroundings and a loud crackling sound, followed by something sizzling.

"What a hideous creature you are."

A young girl with a slender figure, beautiful light gray hair and held her spear like weapon confidently.

Her eyes suddenly changed into blue as she took on a fighting stance.

The mantis did not react showing how unintelligent it is, and raised it's four arms high in the air and let out a roar as if warning or intimidating the small human.

' it doesn't look intelligent at all, but it's size will give me a hard time...'

Looking at the two trapped people around her, she scoffed and held her naginata tightly as a trail of electric sparks came off of it.

The mantis roars and finally dashed at the glowing human.

Dodging the first scyth arms, she blocked the other one, slashed at the second and diverted the other perfectly with her feet. Using the momentum, she leapt up into the air and suddenly turned into a lightning bolt, crashing and splitting the mantis in half.

[You have slain a class-D Spawn]

[+10 EXP gained]

"class-D? I see, the old way to classify humans and monsters." Leah muttered to herself.

Black blood flowed from it's corpse as it plops down on the ground,there were too many and the sound and the smell will attract more.

Her eyes turned back to its normal shade of gray and went to help the humans that were trapped underneath the debris. They were lucky they could still walk, Leah still had to help around.

"Thank you young miss!"

"Thank you big sister!"

The child and her mother both hurriedly left and ran towards the second wall where they should be safe...

They should be safe...

Right?

***

Huff.

Huff.

Huff.

After seeing the entire thing from afar, Han hurriedly rushed down the mountain. The cold winds biting down on his skin, the cold air making his body shiver with every inhale.

' where's Leah? Those three unknown people, who are they and why are they here?'

Suddenly the air turned warm around him, the snow seemed to have melted slowly for some reason.

Feeling a shiver run down his spine, he immediately dashed using his ability and almost smashed into a tree.

A second later the ground that he was standing on earlier suddenly blew up in flames.

Two figures suddenly came into view.

One was a grotesque large monster that had six arms, it's body was like burnt charcoal and it's skin like liquid black rocks, it smelled horrible.

The other was a humanoid shadow looking creature, it's body was black as well and it was tall. It held a scale and there was a charm wrapped around it's neck, their glowing red eyes suddenly landed on Han who was also staring back.

He felt unfathomable fear at their gazes...

But he also felt anger, hatred, disgust, and rage.

How could a slum rat like him not recognize that charm and the scale?

"Priestess... You disgusting hag!"

He yelled and stood up, already taking out the two daggers. He did not care about the six armed disgustingly burnt potato, he only cared about how the other one would sound, screaming.

A rattling sound echoed through the air, it sounded aggravated and even muffled the sounds of the howling winds and the distant screaming of the city.

"I'm gonna—"

Pat. Pat.

His words were suddenly cut off when another figure patted his shoulder.

The monster suddenly growled and took a step back, even the priestess took an involuntary step back as it's eyes grew wide seeing the person behind Han

"Revenge can wait. Your friend is at the second wall, go, I'll deal with these two."

The man's voice held authority but his gaze was locked at the two black figures Infront of him.

Han did not want to go, how could he let someone else take the satisfaction of revenge away from him?

"I'll keep them alive, kid." The man said as he took off his cloak and rolled his shoulders, there was a sword on his waist but he did not take it out.

Han gritted his teeth and suddenly disappeared in thin air, the sound of hissing and rattling faded and the howling winds replaced it.

Looking at the priestess and her large six armed monster, the man smiled and flexed his fingers.

The monster felt it's threat and pushed the priestess away from where she was standing, and then a heartbeat later the arm that the monster used was suddenly cut into three pieces, the slice so perfect and inhumane.

"BASTARD!!"

The monster growled and leapt at the man, at the same time the priestess got up and threw dark crescent shaped blades at him.

Dodging the attacks easily, he blew the monsters large body away with a flick of his hand and then parried the corroded magical blade that was sent his way with his bare fists.

"How weak. I expected more from the priestess of love and justice." He laughed with disdain and flexed his fingers once again.

The priestess couldn't see it before but now she could, there were dozens of threads all attached to the man's fingers and with every move, dozens would shift and would move to his will.

The threads were thin and sharp, able to cut the most hardest material. She used her magic and dodged whatever she could, the monster that accompanied her was too big of a target and got entangled.

Blood flowed from every cut, the blood was dark and thick that had steam or vapor coming from it every time it flowed out of the vile things body.

"Disappointing..."

The surroundings went quiet suddenly.

...

...

...

The priestess and the monster looked around and couldn't see the man that they were just fighting.

"Tsk. Change of plans," the priestess spoke, this time her voice didn't sound like a zombie but more hoarse. "We have a pain in the ass to deal with so we'll do things discreetly."

***

Han arrived at the second wall and was able to find Leah within the crowd.

Injured people, dead people, homeless people, families, children, old people.

They were going to crowd the second wall and soon, this one would have been destroyed.

"Are we really going to go through this?" Han thought to himself as he looked down on the bloodied and terrified people of Northridge.

"So this is how Northridge was centuries ago..."

Leah said sitting on a stone railing as she looked down on the crowd as well, her face serious and looked as though she was trying to find someone.

The mother and the child she saved...

They weren't here...

Han sighed and said in a somber tone:

"Yep... Welcome to Northridge from centuries ago."