Mutagen

<strong>Day 41 – 10:21 AM – Free Port District, East Port Settlement, Barangay Dinahican, Infanta, Quezon</strong>

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Screams of people who were on the shore working on different things further bolstered the already boisterous situation. The people who were working on the sand bags for flood prevention and those who only came to the shore to secure their boats all started to run back inside the safe confines of settlement. Those Mutators capable of combat aided those who could not and fought with the incoming animals.

Everyone had been too focused on the raging storm beyond the horizon and failed to notice the incoming danger. The time they only noticed it was when the sea animals came out of the water.

It was not different from Mark but he had been observing things that he noticed a bit of the current situation. Furthermore, even though he did not manage to fully see the situation in his premonition, Mark believed that not only the gigantic whale came to the settlement and caused its destruction.

On the three floating dead bodies of Hamlin and his grandchildren in his vision, the injuries on their bodies did not match the attacks he saw from the whale. He saw the whale trash around with its large body destroying everything just with its weight and size but the injuries he saw included Hamlin's arm being cut off with a sharp object and Layan's stomach being punched through by a large pointed object. Alois' body on the other hand had turned bluish, grayish and even violet which should be because of a lethal poison.

In his premonition however, he did not see any of the possible causes of the injuries which made him think that the sources either did not come with the whale. They would either had already died or left to escape the rampage of the whale. If it was the latter, then, the current scene was not really surprising. Not to mention that animals had their inherent nature to escape from natural disasters.

Still, the situation was not good for the settlement. If the escaping animals continued on their way, the settlement would already be destroyed before the storm could even reach the shore.

Nevertheless, Mark did not have any notion to inform the others about this since he was not a hundred percent sure that it would happen. Also, Mark also had a plan in mind and having more people wandering around would just make things worse and harder for him. Anyways, he would not really bother to save people on the shore since jumping in to fight at the shore this early was not included in his plans.

As he watched the shore, Mark saw a large number of different crustaceans, gastropods, amphibians and even fishes. There was a huge variety among each kind of aquatic animals. It could be quite a sight if it was back in the pre-outbreak period but this time, it was a catastrophe with some of the animals having the size of a lawnmower and a few with the size of a motorbike.

Still, Mark could not help but have a wry smile seeing that not only those fishes that evolved to be able to traverse land come ashore but also those that had not. Those fishes ended up kicking up a huge fuss in the middle of the horde of animals and ended up being killed by the stampede or by the other animals that attacked them. That was how desperate these animals to flee from the incoming disaster.

The line of the animals was not neat either and there was infighting everywhere. Their species were different and some were feral animals causing the strife within their lines.

RROOAAR!

Mark who was falling midair turned his head to the west. Chaflar finally arrived causing more chaos in the settlement. Some of people had gotten ready to fight and fire their guns in case that the dragon flew down to attack but they were all mistaken. Chaflar did not have any need to fly down inside the settlement since the one that called it was already at the air waiting.

With his mental connection with Chaflar, there was no need to shout what it needed to do. The dragon hastily swept towards Mark and the latter landed on its back.

Then, the plan to deal with the crazed animals began.

With all the people at the shore fleeing and only a few remaining to at least delay the animals, things became easier. Mark made Chaflar fly lower inline with the coastline and it released a deafening roar as it flew past. Mark on the other hand released a full area [Emotion Induction]. The emotions he had just absorbed from the people in the settlement became handy as fresh energy filled with terror.

The combination Chaflar's presence, intimidation and pride in its roar and the emphatic ability Mark released to plant fear to others caused a strong effect to the people and animals alike. The bodies of the people fighting on the shore trembled as their instincts told them to stop fighting and run away while the sea animals finding another strong adversary they could not fight stopped and ran towards random directions.

With the sea animals at the front stopped and turned tail to escape the new danger, the animals became momentarily stuck at the shore. There were still those that ran towards other directions but most of them blocked the advance of those were further away and only got affected by Chaflar's roar and not Mark's [Emotion Induction]. Not to mention those that had just gone out of the sea were not affected with both attacks. The newcomers caused those in the middle to become sandwiched and stuck.

All the sea animals scrambled at the southeastern coast of the East Port Settlement was quite a hilarious sight to see. However, it was not over yet.

Like a jet fighter on an air show, Chaflar flew upwards and U-turned vertically and spun its body upright with Mark on its back. They then started to fly lower once more for another round of attack. Reaching a lower point of flight, Chaflar opened its mouth once more. This time however, it was not a roar but blazing flames burst out of its mouth like a huge flamethrower. It blew flames behind the animals that ran away creating another line of fear for them to run away from even more.

They were creatures of the sea and they were surely weak to fire and heat. Not to mention that the chemical from Chaflar's body that enabled it to breathe fire seeped on the loose sand causing the fire to even last longer. The very high temperature of the flames even changed the color of the sand and the parts directly hit by the flames even turned red or molten.

After the second attack, a one meter wide wall of fire was erected blocking the sea creatures from reaching the settlement. Since it was not enough and both Mark and Chaflar had no way of killing all these creatures, the best thing that they could do was to redirect the wave of the creatures away from the settlement.

And thus, several low passes was made by Chaflar and breathed walls of flames blocking all but one direction to the west. With the only way they could take without being harmed, all the sea creatures ran towards that opening with the ones afflicted by fear in the lead. That direction not only directed the sea creatures away from the settlement but also away from the only possible route the people from the settlement could take to evacuate.

The flames that blocked the sea creatures from advancing towards the settlement started to weaken but the sea creatures still continued towards the direction they the first ones took to run away. One reason was the pile of burnt corpses created a secondary wall, the second was because of the scorching sand left by the flames and the third was because the ones that had just emerged from the sea followed behind those that safely ran away.

These animals were a disorganized bunch. They had different species, sizes and were even fighting each other as they ran away. Still, all of them had one goal and it was to run away safely and survive the incoming catastrophe. Since they saw that the others were running towards another direction safely, the ones behind would follow. It was all for the sake of survival and nothing else.

At the port, Mark and Chaflar had already landed. Mark was currently fighting the creatures that managed to avoid the initial attack and reached the walls of the settlement. Chaflar wanted to help but with its large frame, it was very likely that it would end up destroying the walls than being able to help.

After fighting, Mark joined Chaflar by the port and watched the horde of creatures passing by in front of them. Chaflar's presence at the port was one of the things preventing the sea creatures from approaching further.

The people at the port saw everything and cheered loudly. Not known to them, those boisterous cheers caused further mental damage to the already scared sea creatures. Some of them wanted to approach thank Mark as they belong to those that were at the shore being besieged by the creatures but with Chaflar being at his side, no one dared to…

At least until…

"Wahhaa!!"

A certain brat rushed towards Chaflar and hugged one of its legs like nothing else mattered. Behind the brat was her eldest brother and her worried guards chasing after her.

"You don't fear anything don't you?"

Mark asked with an exasperated sigh. Annica was really scared when he appeared inside her room but towards the more scary looking Chaflar, she was more delighted than scared.

"Why should I? It's a good dragon right?"

Annica answered with a very pleased and enthusiastic expression. Chaflar could not even handle her enthusiasm and looked at Mark asking for help but as if there was anything Mark could do about it.

Mark then smelled something and turned to towards the shore once more. The wind started to become a bit chaotic and brought the smell of he burnt sea creatures towards his nose.

Two ideas entered his mind because of the smell and because of Annica's existence nearby.

One issue within the settlement was food and this evacuation would surely impact their supply. Another thing was that their catch of fish was limited since it was very dangerous at the sea and they could only fish at the shallow parts but the edible fish was very few.

Now however, there was a huge pile of food in front of them. Not to mention that most of these were very rare to catch these days and the sizes of each sea animal could feed more than a single person.

Another idea was that Mark could try to find interesting looking creatures that could be tamed. Especially those with higher intelligence compared to normal. Also those that were young since it would be easier to train and teach those ones.

Unfortunately however, he had not detected any creature from the ones before that fit the criteria.

Still, Mark could do the search while he tried to catch some of those that were large and looked tasty. He could also transport some of the sea food back to his base with Chaflar's help.

As he made up his mind, Mark with the help of Raybert peeled Annica away from Chaflar. Mark and Chaflar then started to work within their interests.

Starting with a gray colored Shore Crab about the size of a bull and had a spiky exoskeleton, the capture of food and possible tamed creatures started. The poor Shore Crab was lifted off by Chaflar. To avoid being counterattacked, Chaflar grabbed the crab on both of its pincers.

BAM!

The Shore Crab was thrown at the port making the people back away. Mark then pierced the shell of the crab stealing it of its precious life. It would not be too long before it turned into a huge crab delicacy.

The hunt continued and precious food piled up by the port under everyone's dumbfounded eyes. Some wanted to join the hunt but not only that they had things to do for the evacuation but the horde of animals was also dangerous.

Finally, Mark's eyes glinted. He detected the first target for taming. He immediately vanished into a puff of black mist since the poor young creature was too small to keep following the others.