Mutagen

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Inside the unknown space that was overseeing the world, a robed woman whose face could not be seen was standing still. She was staring at the empty space in front of her while five figures kneeled behind her.

And if Mark was here, he would immediately recognize four of them.

A little girl who always looked for amusement. The Embodiment of Amusement, Fourth.

A boy with an almost nonexistent body. The Embodiment of Boredom, Ninth.

A beautiful woman with white hair and a strict demeanor. The Embodiment of Aesthetic Appreciation, Third.

A woman with spider-like eyes and hair that seemed to ooze of poison. The Embodiment of Disgust, Twelfth.

Right now, they were together with an unfamiliar person. It was a girl that seemed to be in her late teens. Contrary to the others, who wore clothing related to their territory, she was wearing a rather scholarly attire. White long-sleeved uniform draped with a black robe, black skirt, and square glasses. She looked like a librarian at a glance. Furthermore, there was even several inches thick book on her arms.

"Rise. Do any of you know why I called all of you here?"

The robed figure, no other than the Observer currently overseeing Earth, spoke.

By the Observer's command, the Eyes stood up.

Ninth tilted his head, totally oblivious of the reason. The scholarly Eye was also the same.

On the other hand, the three that encountered each other this morning had a vague idea.

"Master, is it about that thing, I mean, man?"

Twelfth asked.

Remembering what happened several hours earlier, Third could not help but frown. She never wanted to remember that at all ever. Not only she lost control and invaded someone's consciousness without proper reason, but she even suffered an awful consequence. Furthermore, there was no way for her to complain about it since she was the aggressor.

"Is it because I ran my mouth again?"

Fourth also asked worriedly.

At what Fourth said, the Observer seemed to have smiled a little.

"Fourth, you don't have to worry. You definitely ran your mouth there, but none of what you said is strictly confidential."

Hearing that, Fourth could not help but sigh in relief. That was when the Observer turned around to face the five.

"But as Twelfth said, it had something to do with that man and the information you told him Fourth."

There, Fourth tilted her head.

"Master, what do you mean?"

"Do you remember what information that man asked you about?"

"About Blood Demons? Is there something wrong with it?"

Fourth asked once more.

"Like usual, you're too slow in the uptake."

Ninth chimed in, picking his ear with his pinkie. This behavior irked Third.

"Fourth is slow, but you're as barbaric as ever."

"Hah! Says someone who vomited on someone else's table."

"H-how did you know about that!"

Hearing that Ninth knew about what happened, she froze and turned her head towards Fourth, like a broken doll.

"Ehe..."

Fourth smirked, taking out a small black bottle from her pocket. It instantly occurred to Third what the contents of that bottle were.

"NOOO!!! GIVE ME THAT!!!"

And there, the meeting was thrown off course.

"Silence!"

A heavy pressure enveloped the three that were causing trouble, forcing them to freeze on the spot. The voice came from the scholarly girl, now glaring at them coldly.

"You three are in the presence of Master. Behave yourselves."

The scholarly girl strictly reprimanded, making the three troublemakers gulp.

"Nineteenth, that's enough." The Observer commanded. "And you three, don't make a ruckus here."

"Yes Master."

The scholarly girl, Nineteenth, the Embodiment of Interest, replied respectfully, and stepped back.

As for the troublesome trio, they could only look down in embarrassment.

Finally, silence returned to the empty white space. Here, Twelfth spoke.

"Master, is there a chance that that man is a Blood Demon? Or else, why would he know about them or ask what happened."

The Observer nodded.

"There is no need to say about chances. That man is a Blood Demon. Not only him but his family and a few more humans and creatures in that base."

Everyone froze at that declaration.

"Nineteenth, show them."

The Observer turned to Nineteenth and ordered. There, the scholarly Eye opened her book and threw it in the air. The book then enlarged, displaying the contents of its pages for everyone to see.

On the pages of the book, it was all the information they could gather about Mark.

"This is..."

Fourth started focused. After all, the pages of Nineteenth's book contained information about her candidate.

The information started with Mark's so-called status.

It did not list any specific attributes like a numerical representation of his strength or agility. The page only listed his name, age, race, and, most importantly, abilities. There were even the titles, the names given to Mark by the people that met him for the entirety of his life.

But to say, all of them, even the Observer, was disgruntled.

All other information could be read properly, but Mark's race was a set of a garbled mess that no one could understand. This made it hard to determine that he was a Blood Demon.

However, one of his titles said it all.

"Master of the Night Everred Spirit Tree." Fourth murmured before raising her voice in exclamation. "That red-colored Spirit Tree?!!!"

Fourth was totally shocked. There were quite a number of red-leafed Spirit Trees in history and did not put it to mind. Furthermore, although she knew about this Spirit Tree that the ancestor of Blood Demons raised, she never saw it. Who would have thought that the red-leafed Spirit Tree she had seen many times already had actually been a Night Everred Spirit Tree?

"So, my suspicions are kinda right, huh."

Ninth spoke, making everyone turn to him to explain.

"Back then, when I met him and his wife and tested him, I saw a characteristic on two of them that is only seen in Blood Demons in the past. When they use their racial abilities, their veins glow red, increasing their strength and speed. I'm not that suspicious though since after this outbreak started, unique abilities had been popping out here and there from the Earthborns."

Ninth's reason made them agree. Humans that were affected by the infected had been displaying abilities that no human was capable of in the past. It was understandable why he overlooked it.

In any case, Mark, despite his race being Unknown, was confirmed to be a Blood Demon.

This pushed to a question.

"Master, are we going to eliminate them?"

Third asked. She was totally eager to erase the cause of the humiliation she experienced.

That question made Fourth silent. She was rather amused with Mark, and she took quite a liking for his behavior. Furthermore, she was her only capable candidate in her territory.

On the other hand, Ninth was chill. He did not care much about everything and would only follow orders.

Twelfth also did not have many opinions. She would only do what she needed to do.

Unexpectedly, Nineteenth spoke.

"If we are going to eliminate him, there was no need for this meeting at all."

The four realized. If they were going to eliminate Mark and the other people and creatures that were proven to be Blood Demons, there was no need for this meeting and the Observer would only call for the ones in charge of eliminating possible threats, Tenth and Eighteenth.

Here was when the Observer spoke her goal in this meeting.

"I called you all here to ask what you think of that man. It is you four that met him personally."

That made the four surprised. They could not fathom why there was the need for this considering that Mark could turn into the next incarnation of that Evil God.

Here, Nineteenth stepped forward to explain.

"All of you are confused about why the Master had no plans to kill them. Then, just look at this." Nineteenth pointed at a line among Mark's abilities. "I'm sure that Third experienced it first hand."

Reading what Nineteenth pointed at, she turned red. She was about to explode in anger.

[Imaginary World], an ability to manipulate the sea of consciousness into one's own world. Mark had displayed it before when Third invaded his consciousness and caused her to undergo such humiliation.

But then, while Third was already fuming, Nineteenth pointed at something that made her pale instead.

"Before you explode, you might want to know how lucky you are."

[Soul Gluttony], the ability to absorb the soul or consciousness that invaded the user's consciousness.

"He let you go on purpose and did not try to absorb you. You basically tried to feed yourself to him. Don't you think that your anger is unreasonable now?"

But then, Twelfth's eyes glowed.

"That ability..."

Twelfth then turned to her Master. There, the Observer smiled and nodded.

"That is the reason we are not in a hurry to eliminate him. There's a good possibility that we can use him to destroy the root of that Evil God's soul."

In this way, they would be able to rid of that Evil God for good.

Of course, it was still a gamble. After all, there was a chance that Mark would fail to absorb the soul of that Evil God and get his soul absorbed instead. However, if Mark was to succeed, it would end the threat that that Evil God posed to Earth.

"And now, we must evaluate him."

The Observer said.

***

The evaluation of Mark did not take long, with only Third saying negative things about him.

Ninth actually have a positive view of Mark considering how he saw his reaction after Mei was harmed. However, the way that Mark took revenge gave some minus points as he was basically an incarnation of the devil at that time.

Twelfth did not have much to say, considering that she barely had enough interaction with Mark. However, how Mark did not fear them at all made her believe that Mark would not succumb to that Evil God out of fear.

Lastly, there was no need to tell what Fourth's view about Mark. She definitely enjoyed his company as he did not treat her like some sort of respectable apostle and treated her like a brat. She found it amusing and soothing as if she gained a friend to annoy and talk to. It was hard to do that towards other people since they would fear her to the extent of worshiping her after knowing what she was.

Now, the Observer gave the orders.

"Fourth, I will task you to supporting them with information as needed. We can't let him die now that we can use him to kill one of the threats we are facing."

"Ninth, Twelfth. You two go back to your territories. If that man entered your territories, welcome him properly. I will order the other Eyes to do the same."

"Third, you also return and I order you not to trouble him. This is a strict order. If you did not want to turn into a child like Fourth, Ninth, and Sixteenth, do not fail this order."

Everyone kneeled after receiving their orders and vanished. Third was a bit disgruntled about the order she was given, though.

After the four left, the only ones left in the white space was the Observer and Nineteenth.

"Master, are we only focusing on this man called Mark? There are other Blood Demons around him."

Nineteenth asked, flipping her book that already turned back to its right size.

"So far, only that man is close to being a deity. All the others were still far from it, even his proclaimed wife. It is just we can't tell if he already heard the voice or not at this point."

Nineteenth agreed. Among the Blood Demons that were recorded in her book, only Mark was close to being a deity.

However, the reason why they could not tell if he could hear the voice already was because...

Nineteenth flipped on the pages and contained his life experiences. Even from his young life, there was a lot of weird occurrences. But the weirdest one was from six years ago.

The last thing properly recorded in her book was when Mark saw an explosion in the sky. The next thing was barely distinguishable with garbled mess here and there. It went from bad to worse as the pages went further until the pages that showed the rest of Mark's life was painted black.

The Observer and Nineteenth were not worried about this though. It was just the result of the string of fate, not being attached to him anymore.