Mutagen

<strong>Day 44 – 10: 32 AM – San Jose, Antipolo, Rizal</strong>

Mark landed with ease after he jumped from the second floor. After landing, the first thing Mark did was…

"Stop that already, you're wasting bullets."

He grabbed Edzel's shoulder. The young man did not even realize that he already arrived behind him and was continuously shooting the incoming animals. When Mark grabbed his shoulders, he flinched as he snapped away from his current state.

"Boss…"

"You need to keep you calm even if death is approaching you. Otherwise, you won't even notice any opportunity to survive even if there is one."

Edzel fell silent. He still needed to learn a lot of things. His legs were even shaking from the scary scene in front of him. He might be able to handle one or two enemies but this many pushed him into fear.

"Retreat first. You can back me up from the second floor. Also tell and Karlene to watch out for the ones that will go straight to the school. The target of these guys is Amihan."

"Yes, boss."

Hearing Mark's orders, Edzel finally retreated and helped Karlene in assisting the children to go up.

"It's better if no one will drag me around this time."

Mark murmured with a serious expression as he watched the incoming animals. He was also not confident in being able to deal with these creatures with efficiency.

What was harder? Was it fighting people? Maybe, fighting the infected? Was fighting evolved animals harder? Or fighting these beasts?

For Mark, it was the fourth one. These beasts exhibiting the same symptoms as the people that were the hardest enemies he faced so far. He knew that these beasts were still alive. However, their consciousness and instincts were all wiped out. In other words, these beasts should not be capable of moving at all as they were all in a state of coma. Yet, these beasts were moving. It was something similar to the infected by the unstable strain of Mutagen. No, it definitely had to do with Mutagen. Everything in the world had already been altered by Mutagen ever since the start of the outbreak.

With Mark's Emphatic Ability to detect and absorb emotions, he had a high advantage against humans and animals. As for the infected, even if they had no emotions, their movements were mostly monotonous and easy to predict.

These beasts in front of Mark however were the combination of the two. The enemies now had no consciousness but exhibited the physical prowess of those that had consciousness.

Furthermore, there were several more things he was wary about these beasts.

But he had no choice right now but to fight.

Making his first step, he charged forward. He then dropped the angle of his body as he ran and at the same instance, a bladed baton launched forward from the shield on his back. As the baton passed over his head, he immediately grabbed it with his right hand and swung it to the side. With that swing, bladed baton turned into a long spear, the [Blader].

In this fight, what he needed to do the most was to avoid getting too close to these beasts. As they had the same symptoms of the contamination, it was very likely that they could also transmit the disease. A single careless move could be fatal. In that case, he should fight while maintaining distance as soon as possible and this spear and his needle launcher were the best weapons to use.

There were only a few steps before he would clash with the first beast. He then held the [Blader] with two hands and positioned it with the blade of the spear in front. It was a typical spear charge. Still, Mark was in doubt whether it would be effective.

It was a large deer about the size a little smaller than an adult thoroughbred horse. However, its antlers looked like stone spears. Anyone pierced with its horns would surely suffer a fatal injury. This deer was charging forward with its antlers pointing in front of it.

"Antlers are bones so…"

Mark murmured as he suspected something. Antlers were made of bones. If its antlers looked like tough solid stones, then how strong the bones of this deer were?

He decided not to continue the initial attack he wanted and pointed his spear a little downwards. Then, he suddenly stopped his running causing the force and speed from his charge to push him forward. With his left foot forwards and the right foot behind, he let his feet skid through the soil until the deer was already within the reach of his spear.

Since the spear was pointed downwards, the blade passed below the head of the deer. With a stomp, Mark stopped sliding forward. He then let his right hand let go of the spear and hit the hind side of the shaft with his right palm downwards. With his left hand as fulcrum and his palm as the effort, the spear was used as a lever.

BAM!

As the previously lowered edge of the spear suddenly swung upwards with the force enough to crush a normal person's skull, the lowered head of the deer was blown upwards revealing the area underneath its jaw. With his fast reflexes, Mark pulled the spear back and pierced it forward with more force.

SPLAT!

A hole was punched through underneath the deer's jaw. The spear evaded the strong bones of the deer's skull and its blade went straight into the deer's brain.

With the blood splattering around, Mark hurriedly retreated. He then swung the spear to the side to free it of the remaining blood and charged towards the other animals. Still, Mark was not relived at all even though his attack at the deer succeeded. It was because the deer stood up once more even though its brain was already done for.

However, Mark managed to get the attention of the whole horde of contaminated beasts.

As Mark thought, these beasts were being controlled remotely. He only succeeded at injuring one of them and yet, the whole attention was on him now. If it did not happen, he would have thought that these animals were some sort of voodoo or magical zombies that had no weaknesses except being burned to ash or being sliced into unrecognizable pieces.

For sure, whoever or whatever was controlling these beasts, he found Mark as a threat.

BAM!

Mark hurriedly jumped back as a dog sized grasshopper hopped and landed to the place he was standing previously.

SHING! SHING!

As he dodged the sudden attack, metallic sounds echoed from the blade of his spear as one side of the blade stretched down to a quarter of the length of the spear shaft. Mark then jumped forward and rotated the spear two times as he passed over the body of the grasshopper. After he landed behind the grasshopper, its body fell down with its dismembered legs scattered around it.

"Since they won't die, disable them first."

Mark said as he charged towards the other animals nearby.

However, it was not easy to attack after that and Mark started to fall into defense. All these animals were connected to one another and what one saw were seen by the others. He was losing the opportunity to attack the beasts swarmed at him continuously.

"It's amazing how he was able to dodge all those attacks but will he be fine?"

Jennivive could not help feel both amazement and worry.

All the children already managed to get to the second floor of the school building unscathed with Karlene and Edzel. It was all thanks to the effort of Karlene and Miracle along with Mark stalling the contaminated animals.

They were all currently watching the situation below. The children were all noisy cheering for Mark. Children were children after all. Right now, what they see was not just a person but a strong hero that had inhuman strength and reflexes. Despite their cheers though, the worry was present. Mark was in a disadvantage with him alone and if he fell, they would soon follow.

"He should be fine." Karlene spoke as she readied her assault rifle. "Mark hasn't even displayed a quarter of his abilities. Besides, he's not alone."

After removing the cloth that covered the rifle and fiddling a little, she aimed her rifle while using the concrete half wall on the terrace as leverage. Compared to Edzel's, her rifle looked to different. It had a lot of necessary attachments and the outside appearance was customized. This rifle was given to her by her father when they met during the evacuation. It was a normal rifle with attachments back then but with the help of Alana, Hallie, Mark and the [Blood Children], the outer appearance of her rifle was customized.

It was like a gun with a sci-fi skin from online games. Some of parts of the guns were even glowing. It was like a toy but deadly. Furthermore, its ammunition was not normal either.

TSST!

She fired the first shot. The green coated bullet flew and hit the wingless dog sized mosquito that was about to attack Mark from behind. Because of the mosquito's soft abdomen, the bullet pierced through and hit another animal, a wild boar that was beside the mosquito.

Both the animal and the insect should have been fine since it was a superficial wound. However, before the two managed to make another step, they both fell down and their bodies started to twitch. It could not be seen on the mosquito but the wild boar's mouth started to foam. The wounds caused by the bullet started to fester.

Poison, it was a very deadly one. The bullets Karlene was currently using were coated with a very thin film of [Blood Metal] from Ivy, the [Poisonous Blood Child]. Despite the miniscule amount of [Blood Metal] on the bullets, a single bullet was enough to kill a perfectly healthy cattle in several seconds. It was the very reason why aside from Mark, Miracle and the other [Blood Children], no one else should touch Ivy.

"Edzel, take some bullets from the bag. The poisonous bullets seem effective."

"O-okay!"

With Karlene's order, Edzel hurriedly switched the bullets of his assault rifle. After reloading his gun, Edzel started to shoot the animals. Since he was not confident about his shooting skills, he aimed for the ones quite a distance away from Mark. He was not Karlene who had a military Major for a father. He did not even have one in the first place.

With the help of the two, Mark finally had some opportunity. He then pulled the sleeves of his jacket revealing two smaller needle launchers on both hands. Since the bigger needle crossbow could not be hidden inside his jacket, he made smaller ones but had shorter firing range before he left the base.

When both needle launchers were out, he rotated the needle cases on the inner edge of the bracers where the launchers were set up switching the ammunition to poisonous ones. Since he saw what happened after the two fired their guns, he now knew what to use. Unfortunately, the [Blader] was not equipped with any poisonous blades or attachments.

The numbers of the animals were steadily dwindling. Since the number of bullets they could carry inside their bags were limited in the first place, it was good that even though the beasts were quite a number, it could still be handled. Edzel was still wasting ammunition though. Karlene on the other hand was rather a good shot.

With the rate that the enemies fell, it would not take long before they were wiped out. Still, Mark was having a bad feeling for some reason. He could not help but focus on the direction where these beasts came from thinking that there would be reinforcements. It would not be surprising if there were because this number of animals and insects were too little for a big forest.

Then, as if having a last struggle, the remaining animals all jumped towards Mark in very fast speeds. He had nowhere to run. With that, he had no choice but to use the move he was hesitating to use.

POOF!

Mark vanished into black mist and the wavy mist escaped from the circle of beasts. But then…

BUGSHK!

The swelling on the body of a festering animal he passed by burst open splattering red viscous liquid around. And a part of that liquid managed to land on his body…

It was despite he was inside the subspace and traveled as mist outside. The liquid was supposed to phase through his body.

When Mark appeared outside the circle of beasts, he was holding his right hand that was splattered in red liquid.