Mutagen

<strong>Day 41 – 6:22 PM – Residential Area, Death Valley Settlement, Barangay Poblacion, General Nakar, Quezon</strong>

Although no one could see it due to the storm, the sun was about to set in a few minutes.

Mark was currently surrounded by dead bodies of the Mutators he had just killed. With a large rice sack in his left and the blade on his right hand, he started to behead each dead Mutator. To scientists, they might be precious research material while to normal people, these were just dead bodies. In Mark's case however, these bloody heads were precious resource.

As he stored the heads, Mark thought about the ambush that failed. For sure, the ambush was a total impromptu scheme to deal with him. Since they came from the military, his existence was very likely to be disclosed to many of them especially those with high positions. A person like the leader of the spies totally fit those criteria. Knowing that Mark was doing a move against this place, those that were highly affiliated with this settlement would not like it.

The scheme was not bad at all and was well thought even though it was made with a little bit of time. Sending several small teams as sacrifice to gain trust and lower the guard of the target and lay a huge ambush in the end, other people might have fallen to that trap. Not to mention that they were actually willing to make a large number of people withdraw from the frontline of the defensive battle which would be a very much unexpected thing to do.

Mark wondered why the first groups were sent as sacrifice. Thinking about it thoroughly, it was not hard to find several answers. First was might be because those people were just useless cannon fodder but considering their abilities, Mark found that the possibility of them being cannon fodder was very low. This led him to the other answer. Those people were likely to belong or support other factions different from the person that made the scheme. So send those people as sacrifice while weakening the other factions was like hitting two birds with one stone.

"He still failed though…"

Mark muttered as he stuffed the last head into the sack and vanished from the place leaving more headless bodies scattered around the settlement.

It was not wrong to say that he was not only turning this settlement into ruins after he lured the Mutator Whale here but he was also slowly turning this place into a graveyard of headless corpses.

It did not take long and Mark appeared near the battlefield. Unlike before where both sides were in a stalemate, the current situation started to tilt towards the Mutator Whale and the dismayed defenders of the settlement were being pushed back. It was all because of the scheme made to kill Mark failed and the loss of the elites of the settlement backfired.

"Ready the rockets!... Fire!"

SWWWOOOOSHH!

BOOOM!

A barrage of rockets flew towards the whale causing a massive explosion on its right side. The smoke and fire from the explosion dispersed fast due to the wind and rain and revealed the broken armor and scorched skin of the whale.

UWWWWOOOOOOH!!!

The pain it felt from the wound it received caused the sixty feet whale to become even more berserk.

BAM!

One of the berserk Mutators holding the whale back was kicked forcefully and flew towards a house. The force from that attack was too strong that the wall the Mutator hit cracked from the impact. Blood spurted from the Mutator's mouth as an obvious sign of severe injury. As the Mutator fell unconscious, the stone like armor in his body crumbled into dust and his body started to wilt. Soon, a dead body that looked similar to a tree root, due to being almost dried up, remained on that spot.

This caused Mark to frown. Those Mutators becoming berserk was already strange but to become like this after being defeated. It was very unnatural. However, the truth was soon revealed in front of him.

"Sh*t! One died! Bring another one!"

A man who seemed to be in command shouted with anger. Following his orders, one of the subordinates with strong and agile body ran off. The subordinate entered one of the intact houses near the school.

Mark was confused hearing about bringing something when the subordinate that heeded the commander's order returned forcibly dragging a female slave with him.

"Let me go!"

The slave cried.

"A b*tch?"

The commander asked which made the subordinate talk.

"Sir, we already used the last man."

"Alright, do it."

With the commander's command, another subordinate approached the struggling woman and took out a syringe filled with murky looking liquid. Under the yells and cry of the slave, the needle of the syringe was plunged into her neck and the contents were emptied into her body.

Following that, the woman was kicked towards the center of the battle, in front of the whale while yelling in pain. Despite the whale moving towards her, she did not react. Her screams intensified until a stone like growth covered her body. The stone that covered her body strengthened and became her armor.

With red eyes filled with nothing but killing intent, the woman charged towards the whale and attacked.

Mark frowned even more at that scene. It seemed that he was mistaken. The berserk people that were stalling the whale were not Mutators but were normal people that were somehow turned into Mutators forcefully.

The key to that transformation was the liquid injected into their bodies. It seemed that the people Death Valley Settlement were rather competent to be able to come up with this drug. Being able to forcefully turn a normal person into a mutated human could bring a good amount of advantage to them in battle.

They were able to create disposable but strong human weapons. Although there seemed to be no way to control them, just throwing some of them unto the ranks of the enemies were enough to cause a good amount of damage.

The strange thing however was that the Military Settlement seemed to have no idea about this since Mark did not hear anything about this from them. However, with the existence of the spy leader being a double agent, it was no wonder.

It could be either that the information about this drug was blocked from coming out or the drug was unfinished in the first place and the Mutators from this settlement were just forced to bring the unfinished drug out due to the circumstances.

Mark became interested about that drug. Of course not because he wanted to use it but he just wanted a vial or even just a syringe for collection. It was just his gamer impulse on item hoarding kicking up.

With those in unnecessary things in his mind, Mark carved the faces of those involved with the drug in his memory and save dealing with them for later. He then vanished and continued to ambush the Mutators behind the battle or those that were alone.

Since he already did this before, he could not keep his existence hidden to most of them and he was spotted several times. However, there was nothing that the people who saw him could do but stare at the headless bodies that Mark left behind. After all, before they could attack, Mark had already vanished.

Mark's harassment in the battlefield became a bad influence to the battle as even the Mutators in front of the battle became uneasy about watching their backs for Mark's sudden appearance.

While the battle was ongoing, many vehicles could be seen traversing the southern roads towards this settlement.

"The Emperor is coming back!"

One of the Mutators positioned at a higher ground yelled as he noticed the vehicles. His shout lifted the spirits of the already worn out fighters of the settlement. At the same time however, the face of the Mutator that shouted became pale.

Mark also heard the shout and flew up using his ability. As he stopped mid-air and gravity started to pull him back down to the ground, he saw the convoy of vehicles returning. However, Mark almost laughed.

The vehicles were not just returning. Actually, rather than gallantly returning to save the day, those vehicles were actually fleeing. Behind the convoy was a large amount of infected chasing after them.

Looking at the Mutated Infected behind the convoy, many of them looked familiar to Mark. Those infected belonged to the ones controlled by Aephelia as preparations to attack this settlement. Seeing them like this already told Mark about what happened.

The person they called Emperor along with their men should have blocked the path of the evacuation having the information either from the Cristobal or the Ruanto families. It was more likely that the leak came from the Ruanto but the possibilities that it could have come from the Cristobals was not low either. However, for sure, Aephelia and Miracle gave them a good lesson to be fleeing like this with the infected in their tail.

They might have thought of dealing with these infected inside the safe confines of the walls of the settlement but unfortunately for them, there was no walls to protect them anymore. Even if they made it here and use the barely damaged elementary school, it would not be enough and the infected would swarm the settlement.

"Time to make another move then…"

Mark murmured as he plunged back to the ground. Before he hit the cemented road below him however, black mist burst forth and he vanished. He then appeared over the southern gates of this settlement while staring at the direction of the whale. His eyes glowed red brightly as he released a huge amount of mental energy into the air.

UWWWOOOUUUHHH!!!

The gigantic whale let out a loud cry as it found its target once more. Its movements became even more chaotic as it kicked and smashed the berserk people with its body.

BAM!

THOOOM!

"F*ck! Retreat! Retreat! Get out of the f*cking way!"

A plethora of loud noises, such as sounds of buildings collapsing, people screaming in fear and pain, and people cursing the sudden behavior of the whale.

The whale bulldozed everything in its path. Buildings and houses collapsed and crumbled, trees broken and uprooted and people were hit and turned into meat paste.

In response to the sudden change of behavior of the whale, the Mutators peaked up their attacks and shot another barrage of rockets towards the whale. Another large explosion ensued.

The whale received another large and scorched wound and another part of its armor was broken. It let out another cry of pain but it did not stop on destroying everything as it tried to find its target.

Mark, the target of the whale, jumped off the gates and circled the settlement with the school as exception. It caused the mindless whale to turn around, crash into more buildings and kill more people.

It was quite an amusing sight as the ranks of the Mutators fighting the whale fell into disarray.

With the situation at hand, some of the Mutators lost hope and started to desert their positions. Of course, those that were forced to fight the whale also found this situation a good chance to flee.

RATATATATA!

A round of gunshots echoed facing the wrong direction. Many of those who tried to flee immediately fell into the muddy ground not to stand anymore.

"All those that f*cking abandon their posts will f*cking die! You motherf*ckers! Fight to death or just f*cking die now!"

It was that same commander that ordered for the female slave to be injected with that drug to stall the whale.

In order to maintain their ranks, he decided to command the people under fear of being shot to death. It was quite effective however as those who wanted to ran away all returned to fight the whale.

Unfortunately for them, Mark was done playing.

After circling around the settlement, Mark appeared outside the southern gates and ran along the road. His eyes were glowing even brighter.