Chapter 6: What? You Again?

"Do you know me?".

Saransh asked her in a confused manner.

"….."

"Oh… It's nothing…"

She replied as soon as she snapped out of it.

"Aahh… I'm Diya, a level 5 swordswoman and this is Saniya, a level 5 healer". She added.

"What about you, young man?", and this time the healer asked.

"Oh…yes, I'm Saransh, I'm level 4".

"Oh… good".

Diya who wasn't interested in dragging the conversation, finally said.

"Ok, let's get moving, we still have to get to the center of the vault."

Saniya and Diya both were in their twenties and both had a fair complexion. Saniya was much more feminine compared to Diya who was wearing all sorts of armor as she was a swordswoman. But Diya still had an edge on Saniya in terms of cuteness.

As soon as both of them took their backpacks and started moving, Saransh who was frustrated by this finally uttered.

"But, about the orc?"

He was still worried about the unfinished work.

"What about it?", Saniya asked.

"Aahh… it is still having its life stone intact right?"

"Oh… life stone! But we were going to leave it, since we don't have a dismantler.", Saniya answered.

"Well, I'm a dismantler."

Saransh replied delightedly.

"What???", Saniya was shocked.

"How can a dismantler move around freely in an abandoned vault like this?", She added.

Saniya looked at Diya, but she wasn't that surprised as if she already knew Saransh was hiding something from the beginning.

And then Saransh took out his short sword from one of the waist pockets and held it in his right hand.

As if all the confusions were cleared up, Saniya spoke up.

"Oh… you must be a swordsman; you could have told me earlier."

"Aahh."

Saransh wanted to correct her, but he didn't bother to.

'Ohho, so this is how hiding the real identity feel like.', he thought to himself.

As if not interested at all in the topic, Diya asked.

"How long will it take?"

"Just over a minute.", Saransh replied right away.

He climbed over the chest of the orc where it had its life stone.

'It is 'dismantle' time.'

Saransh thought to himself and didn't shout it out loud like always.

He striked his shortsword deep into the wound which was already present in its chest. By applying a little pressure around the edges and rotating it around the wound, the life stone popped out of orc's chest into the air.

He grabbed the blue life stone which was in the mid-air and climbed down the orc. It didn't even take a minute and Saransh had already acquired the life stone.

"Wow, you really are exceptional at dismantling.",

Saniya said after seeing Saransh's handiwork.

"Well, I've been doing this for an year now."

"Even then, I haven't seen anyone taking out the life stone this fast."

Saniya was still surprised.

As if not interested at all, Diya said.

"Let's get going. We can absorb the life stone afterwards."

After hearing Diya, Saniya stopped praising Saransh and focused on leaving the premises.

"As for the life stone, you can keep it with you for now."

Diya added.

And the three of them started sprinting towards the vaults' center.

Since all three of them were around level 5, the superhuman abilities which they got from inducing plasma energy, were almost the same. It didn't matter that they used different types of weapons.

"Do you know what caused the mansters to infiltrate the vault?

Saransh who was very anxious about it the whole time, finally asked.

"Sorry, but we don't know that either, we were sent here from our home vault as reinforcements."

Saniya replied to him.

"But this isn't the only vault that got attacked today."

She added.

"What??"

After a couple of minutes, they had already reached the plasma tower which was at the center of the vault. The plasma tower had a very crucial role to play in a crisis like this. Many vaults in the country were connected through an underground railway network which could transfer people out to other vaults at the times of emergencies. It was one of the reasons that Saransh didn't find that many human corpses in the first place because the battle in front of him was trying to hold of the mansters for the residents of the vault to escape.

A large amount of plasma was still leaking out from the vicinity. But one thing was sure, it wasn't from the battle which was raging on but from an entirely different entity.

The locality around the tower once had a beautiful lawn and even a garden set up. But none of them was even noticeable right now. For every huntsman in the scene, it was a completely unusual battle, since the mansters they fought were wearing armors and were well organized. Some of the mansters even had guns imbued with plasma.

"Saniya! Back me up… I'm heading out."

Diya said as soon as she understood the situation.

Saniya nodded.

Both of them didn't ask Saransh to join the battle, since he was a still stranger to them.

Diya gazed at Saransh for a moment as if she wanted to say something and but she headed into the battle field without uttering a word and Saniya followed her.

'What was that?', Saransh thought to himself after seeing Diya's reaction.

He took out his plasma gun, once he saw Diya heading into the battle and started dashing towards a platform near the tower. There were two such platforms in the proximity of the tower which was a part of the railway network. One lead to his home vault and the other one lead to the 'Cantonment' Vault or defense vault.

After a couple of seconds, he climbed over the platform which lead to his home vault, since the other one almost looked like the source of the infiltrated mansters. He started aiming afterwards.

"I think I will just stay here on the platform since the battlefield is a such a dangerous place."

"Anyway, I can improve my accuracy once I tried to shoot from here."

*[Yeah… probably, you coward!] *

Mira spoke up to Saransh's comment.

"Whew… so you were actually real!!".

*[Well of course I'm.] *

"And I thought my brain made you up, since I was feeling lonely."

*[Ha-ha… very funny.] *

Saransh was targeting a lizardman which was trying to attack a huntsman from behind.

"And snipe."

A beam of plasma blasted from the gun and pierced right through the manster's right leg this time. Saransh felt a little embarrassed since he was aiming for his lower waist.

*['Paralyze' effect has been activated on the target. ]*

"I don't think I'm ever going to accurately hit the target,".

He sighed after seeing his failed attempt.

*[Even though it is only your first day, I certainly don't think you have knack for 'aiming', which is very vital for shooting. But it could be because of something else entirely.] *

He calmed himself down and started taking aim again.

"I think I need to device a new strategy."

*[What's it?] *

"I'm going to change the trajectory of the bullet once it leaves the gun."

*[Impossible!! Your eyes can't even keep up with the bullet.] *

"It can't keep up with it now. But it surely will in the near future and that time, I will register it as a skill."

Saransh was a very passionate person. Even when he was told he had no affinity for any of the weapons present in the huntsmen facility, he didn't loose hope and became a dismantler instead, just to get the huntsman license. But now he had resolved to something quite impossible. He had to raise his superhuman abilities up to point where he could track the movement of bullets and control them. Controlling them would be the easier part, since it is basically his plasma shot by the gun at unimaginable speed but his eyes could never keep up with the deadly speed.

Someone from the huntsmen association came out from the platform which was mostly underground and shouted.

"It is the last train. Bring the people in."

As if responding to it, a huntsman started leading a group of people from a building that was guarded by the huntsmen all this time. It was the last bunch of civilians left alive in the vault. From the moment the vault was attacked in the morning, they were scared to death. If it wasn't for the huntsmen, they would already have been dead. From the morning, countless huntsmen had sacrificed their lives for getting the civilian safely to the 'residential' vault.

But suddenly,

*ZHOOOOSH*

A strong shockwave emerged from the plasma tower and the ground started trembling.

The intensity of plasma energy leaking out from the tower increased dramatically.

All the mansters and humans alike, halted their skills in mid-away and started gazing towards the plasma tower. It almost looked like the battle was paused because of the fear of some unknown force present inside the plasma tower. All the mansters who were standing still, started screaming out.

*KRAAAA*

*KRAAAAA*

It wasn't the scream of pain and but the scream of joy that had engulfed them.

As for the civilians who were trying to escape, they were frozen stiff after feeling the intense pressure of the overwhelming plasma.

"Hurry up!!"

Someone from the huntsmen association started shouting again.

"We don't have much time left. Hurry up!!"

The civilians very well understood this and started sprinting towards the entrance of the platform all at once.

After a pause, the battle resumed but the manster didn't fight back anymore. They were frozen stiff at their spot.

"Why does this look so oddly familiar?", Saransh who was seeing all of this while sitting at the top of the platform, got reminded of what happened this morning.

And after a second, they started falling dead on the ground.

*[The mansters are all dying one after the another.] *

"But how?", Saransh was totally surprised by the unexpected turn of events.

He wasn't the only one surprised, all the huntsmen who were battling the mansters were surprised as well.

"What is this?"

Diya asked Saniya, who was still casting some healing spells.

"This is my first time seeing something like this."

As for Saransh, he already knew what was about to come.

"I have a really bad feeling about this."

*[I know you wanted to say that clichéd dialogue for quite a while now.] *

"Oh… shut up!!".

Saransh's suspicions were right.

*GROOOOOR*

A huge roar emerged from plasma tower this time and shattered all the glasses which surrounded the entire entrance to the plasma tower. There was already a huge cavity in place of the entrance which was widened further because of the roar. After which, a huge amount of black fog started pouring out of the entrance surrounding the whole vicinity outside the plasma tower.

"What the hell is that?"

A huntsman who was standing closest to the entrance shouted in panic.

All huntsmen now had their eyes locked on to something standing on its two feet in front of the entrance. It was not visible entirely because of thick fog still pouring out from the plasma tower. Every one of them knew something was in there from the beginning but they had their hands full from evacuating the residents and couldn't check up on it.

*GRROOOOOR*

The unknown manster roared again.

A shadow materialized underneath its legs and started approaching all the dead mansters lying on the ground. Soon enough, the shadow started engulfing each and every manster's body in the battlefield and started pulling each of those bodies into the ground.

"What the hell is going on?"

The huntsmen were dumbfounded after seeing the mansters' bodies disappearing from the sight.

*GROOOOOAR*

The manster roared again and this time, the fog that covered the entire locality started vanishing. The unknown manster was now completely visible to all of them and a huge amount of plasma energy was leaking out from its it entire body which had a humanoid physique.

For Saransh, who was seeing it for the second time, felt something off.

"It is only half the size of the huge shadow manster."

"and why the hell is carrying a sword?"

The shadow manster in front of him was equipped with a long sword which was cloaked with its plasma and the sword was pitch black in color.