2 Chapter 1 : The error

Krishna had just finished teaching his first class, he was walking down the hallway, to the teachers lounge. He could clearly hear the chatter that was directed to him.

"I heard he got the job because he is the son of the founders."

"Didn't he run away after the first anomaly gate opened."

"He is a lowly F rank, he probably figured out his own power and ran away."

"To think he belongs to such a prestigious family, they do say it right, one black spot in enough to kill a family."

Ignoring them was easy but not hearing them wasn't so. It wasn't just the students that said such things but even other professor were chatterboxes. Krishna couldn't care less though. For him the job was solely for the money to sustain himself.

On his way he sifted through some articles to get the gist of what had befallen on his homeworld when he wasn't there also served as a perfect distraction to avoid those talks.

'Will humanity go extinct? 8billion reduced to 4billion in one go' - posted 7 years ago

'Global Catastrophe : Unknown gates appear all over the world bringing monsters' - posted 7 years ago

'End is near : Gates keep appearing randomly' - posted 7 years ago

'Hope has arrived: are these new powerful humans the last hope as modern weapons fail against demons' - posted 7 years ago

'Can we survive? Another wave hits but we win' - posted 6 years ago

And so it went as waves gates kept opening every year. Humankind knew it wasn't ending any time soon.

Just as a nuclear reaction can be used as a bomb, it can also be used in a power plant, the demonic powers that destroyed many human lives also brought them the power to fight the calamity. It was not known how but the power that came through the gates could be absorbed and wielded by a human.

Everyone had a different affinity for it, most of them not having enough power to fight. But there were enough who could. These extraordinary humans came to be known as Raiders. Krishna understood what they were trying to measure in him back in the hospital though he may have learned the name the term later, it was his affinity and luckily he had hidden it well and so avoid getting into more fights.

He sat at his table and went through his calendar on the computer to check other lectures in his schedule and hoped to finish them like he did the first one.

He bought a coffee on his way back home when he heard a certain scream. He thought, 'What was that? It's on my way home anyway, I will know when I reach there.'

He kept walking at his pace as people were escaping the area. One of them who was terrified and running shouted out to Krishna who was walking towards the epicenter "Turn away an Anomaly gate has appeared."

Anomaly gates were like an uninvited visitor. They appeared from time to time randomly and in between the time frames of wave gates.

It was these anomaly gates that kept the humans ready for the disaster that was to come, they were a good practice point for Raiders too.

There was a big crater where there used to be a fountain in the middle of a four way street. Some low rank Raiders that lived in the neighbourhood had already arrived at the scene and started doing their job.

Demons were a varied bunch among themselves. These were particularly low leveled. They were a hideous monstrosity, especially at lower levels they would appear very varied with unequal joints which resembled human hands but their number and placements were random. Their faces disfigured to and extent that it barely looked like a face. They survived solely because the demon physiology could support their survival. Yet they could easily crush an F rank and maybe even prove some difficulty for an E rank.

Luckily raiders were only chosen from D rank or above and for them it was fairly easy to deal with these low level demons. All of those raiders that had appeared were from the D rank with the exception of one C rank who was fairly old, probably in his late 50s.

"Hah, this is going to be easy. Let's see if we can gain a level from this outpouring of low levels." Said a D rank and slashed his sword cutting a demon in half.

"It is our lucky day indeed." Said another D rank as he closed his eyes and threw a fireball badly singeing a demon. On the other side the C ranked raider was a support shield type and was blocking the incoming damage for inexperienced raiders.

A girl came running to the battlefield, she was out of breath, her attire was thrown in quickly, hair roughly kept together by a band. The C rank saw her and said, "Why are you here Anika? You know you can't control your power."

Anika narrowed her eyes with clear anger, "shut up old man, you thought if you left me asleep I wouldn't have come? I will destroy every last demon."

Anika then clenched her fist and let the demonic aura flow through her, it was erratic and leaky, everyone there could feel it. She then jumped and smash one of the demons who went flying into a light pole.

The Demons had stopped coming from the gate after she hit that one and the others had been taken care of. Anika whined and stomped her feet in the ground cracking the road. "Old man Ganesh, it's because of you that I could not fight today."

Ganesh slowing walked to her and said, "I did not stop you from coming, it was you who was sleeping this late in the evening."

"You could have woken me up you know." She said in a high pitch.

The other D ranks were still looking at gate tapping their heads.

"Why isn't it closing? We defeated the demons."

"I don't know maybe it will take a bit of time."

"Maybe one of the low life has stayed back in fear."

Right then Ganesh felt a chill run down his spin as he swallowed his saliva. "It's not good, we need to call the heroes."

Anika was confused by his statement, "what are you saying old dude."

"I understand now. Those demons, they were not here to attack. They were running from someon... something. Something terrifying."

When he completed his statement a well built but slightly slender humanoid figure came out of the gate. Humanoid was too simple to describe its actually appearance. It had small horns on his frontal eminences, red flushing skin and fingers that ended in pointy nails seamlessly. It's tail was chopped off but that seemed like a fight from the past as the end had completely healed. There were numerous scars all over his body making Ganesh think if there was anything that could even hurt that being.

His aura was oozing of strength, enough that even the combined aura of that of every Raider present could not surpass it. He then put a Grin on his face and said "Boom."

There was a big blast the levelled all of buildings nearby. When the smoke cleared most of the D ranks were dead and those Alive were barely clinging to their lives. Ganesh had used his shield to block the impact but he was out of breath just from one attack. "Anika, Run, I will hold him for as long as I can."

__________

A certain operator was sitting in his chair drinking tea from a cup in one hand and scrolling through his social media with other hand. He suddenly heard a familiar notification ting. He kept his phone aside and operated the mouse while taking a sip of tea. The tea cup became a little loose as he looked at what the notification was about. A little bit of tea fell on his lap as the cup started rotating. That jolt by the hot tea was enough to bring him back to his senses.

He then picked up his phone a dialled a number that he didn't want to dial because calling that person meant it was an emergency.

"Director, there is a spike in demonic aura in Ahmedabad."

"How big?" Said the voice from the other side.

"It's a confirmed S1 rank, could even be S2."

Just as he said that the call was disconnected. The operator kept his phone down and join his hands in prayer "Oh Lord, have mercy."

___________

Ganesh was on his knees. The demon tilted his head with his grin still just as big if not smaller.

"I see, two little flies survived."

Ganesh could not understand what the demon just muttered. Demons accent as a bit different though language was similar and that made it harder to understand given the distance and the volume at which the demon said his words. But even so it was clear to Ganesh that whatever he said was not good for him.

He knew that he was about to die, there was no way a hero would be able to arrive so fast. His goal was solely to buy time for Anika to escape if it was even possible. As he thought of ways he was going to tackle this beast or more like defend against this beast as he was more proficient in shielding rather than attacking, not that it mattered at his rank anyway, Anika jumped from above him and his eyes were left open as her shadow drew his attention.

She dashed towards the demon And was yelling in rage from seeing the amount of people he had killed. She threw her mightiest punch towards the demon. She created a sizable shockwave which moved the rubble around her but the demon remained unfazed and his grin even bigger than before.

"Not a bad try for a fly but as expected of a fly's brain, utterly foolish."

He flicked his wrists and Anika was thrown into a pile of concrete that was the remnant of a fallen building.

Ganesh's jaw dropped in shock and terror as the demon now fixed his gaze on him and started walking towards him. He could have thought of running away but what good would it do. Just then Anika came at him, bloodied and yelling at the top of her voice,

"our fight not over you filthy monster."

The sides of the Demon's grin fell as he saw her hit him again with no effect.

"I don't like irritating flies."

This time he hit her with punch. Luckily Ganesh had somewhat regained his senses and created a barrier. It wasn't nearly enough to block the punch and Anika was sent again flying into a rubble. She stood up again, more wobbly than before, the concussion had made her lose her balance.

"You won't be able to hurt anyone ever again. I will kill you."

Ganesh who was now at his stamina's end, breathlessly said, "stop it, I can't see you get hurt anymore."

The Demon started laughing and after a few seconds stopped abruptly,

"I like you ambition, but it's hopeless, you have nothing to back your words, you can barely control your own aura."

Anika stood drooping, her cloths in shambles showing here powerful physique, blood being the dominant colour on her, she raised her fist and said in a raspy voice, "I would rather die than give up on my ambition."

The demon gave a small smile, "then come, I will give you a worthy death."

Anika mustered her everything, she could barely make out the figure of the Demon with her moist and bloody eyes. The demon raised his hand and gathered his energy there. Ganesh knew a certain familiar attack was coming and this time he won't be able to defend even himself, he was expended. As he saw Anika's fist moving towards the hand of Demon he closed his eyes waiting for the outcome to end it all. There was that familiar noise of the blast, he thought finally it will all be over, he gave his best and he can die with that.

He waited but nothing happened. As he opened his eyes slowly thinking 'is this how death is?' He saw a man younger than him, well built and he stood between the demon and Anika. With one hand he was holding the hand of the demon who looked just as shocked as Ganesh himself was and on the other hand, a cup of coffee. Ganesh could not believe his eyes, how did he stop the demon was beyond him.

Krishna came just in time when Anika made her speech. It reminded him of himself at that fateful day. He was lucky to be alive but he knew the girl won't be. Though he had vowed not to fight his reflexes had chosen otherwise. He looked at Anika with calm eyes and said,

"let it go, you can rest now."

Anika who's fist was now at forearm of Krishna, the region of his coat destroyed but not a single cell on his arm damaged, heard Krishna's words and collapsed.

"Take her as far as you can Oldman."

Ganesh's jaw was still down, it took him a second but he nodded in agreement and picked up Anika and ran as fast as he could. He was trying to identify the guy that saved him and Anika right now, 'I have never seen or heard of this guy, who could he be?'

Krishna turned around loosening the grip over the Demon's hand. He gluped down his coffee and threw the cup,

"I don't see any dustbin around but I sure see some thrash that needs to be thrown."

The Demon was showing his teeth, not a grin this time but blazing anger was the cause of this display.

"You impressed me." he rubbed the bruised wrist that had just escaped the clutch of Krishna's hand, it was the sudden pain that bewildered him and that must have been the cause of his attack going dud he thought. "But now you have angered me and that will only end in your death."

He then clenched his fists and released his aura. The bloodlust was so clear, Ganesh who had covered a considerable distance could also feel the pressure 'so this is it's true power.' But the D ranks that were holding their lives on a string were too unfortunate as the weight of that aura was enough to break that string and darkness of death took hold of them.

Krishna's left cheek twitched as he gave the demon a smirk,

"Thanks for that, you did me a favour." He clenched his fists and said, "now I won't have to hold back."

_______

Director Abid Khan was in the control room where they were monitoring the Demonic flux activity in the area of the gate, towards which two heroes had already been dispatched. It would take about an hour for them to reach the point. It was the first time an S class demon had arrived from a Type1 anomaly gate. It was an emergency they were not ready for.

He had also ordered some A class Raider's to surround the area as soon as possible. It would not be safe for an A class to take on such foe directly so their orders were to defend and evacuate, buying enough time for the hero's.

His assistant Pooja was taking care of the ground reports and making sure that only the important stuff reached the director. Currently there wasn't any satellite that could provide live images of the gate, she was told it would still take five more minutes. For now the ratings from a sensor satellite were their only eye on the ground.

There was a sudden increase in the flux which shocked her, she rushed to the director and handed over the tablet in which she was viewing. The director's eyes grew wide as he saw the readings, "it's impossible, the beast's rating just changed to S3 rank, the previous data said there is only a possibility of it going to S2 rank." he sighed and rubbed his chin, a few moments later he said, "get in touch with other heroes, the ones we sent may not be enough but get the A ranks to team up with those heroes that get there…" as he was saying the tablet started giving off a ping which directed the eyes of the director towards the screen of the tablet. What it showed was a simple message 'error'.

That message could only mean 2 things so he did some things on the tablet and hoped it wasn't the bad news but as soon as he completed his test cold sweat formed on his forehead, his palms started shaking and the tablet fell from his hands.

______

Krishna let his aura out. The demon fell on his knees with the pressure that Krishna's aura exerted. It was like a deafening noise that kept increasing in intensity, it became harder and harder for the demon to maintain a constant rhythm of breathing. It became a voluntary task for him. His eyes were wide and red from fear, more red than his now pale red complexion. His long face was accumulating more and more wrinkles with time. Mortality was striking down on him. "How is this possible? Are you even human?"

Krishna squatted down and slide his finger over the neck of the demon. He looked into the red iris of the demon and said, "I thought I would not fight again but this hardly counts, right?."

[SPLASH] the head of the demon rolled down on the floor.