Mutagen

Day 360 - 2:58 PM - Private Room, Military Hospital, Southside Peak, Muria Sacred Fortress, Mount Muria, Kudus Regency, Central Java, Indonesia

All of a sudden, the atmosphere inside the private room turned intense.

Luna and her friends could barely understand what Mark was saying. The concept of souls was something unexplored by science. And even though it was a concept largely affiliated with religion, the concept had no concrete explanation.

Still, Luna understood one thing from what Mark said. Something bad was happening with her niece.

"Can you explain what is going on?"

Luna decided to stay calm as she asked Mark.

Since Mark was concentrating on Luna's niece, he did not look at Luna. However, he still explained.

"The concept of souls is pretty complicated, so I won't explain that part. Just in case, you understand the concept that souls are the source of life, right?"

Mark said, and Luna responded with a nod.

"Good. Then, what I'm saying is someone or something planted a harmful thing inside your niece's body. It is slowly eating away her soul and absorbing her life energy. I don't know how long had it been going on, but your niece's soul already had more than a year-long damage."

"W-what?!"

Luna was still trying to act calm, but her words were already stuttering due to nervousness.

"What do you mean by year-long damage?"

Nelia asked Mark, trying to get a more specific explanation.

"It's more like a lifespan damage," Mark answered. "Just think of this. When any living thing is born, it only has a small soul. But as they grow older, their souls also grow bigger. The thing gnawing on this girl's soul already took off a year's worth of growth of her soul. That's what I'm saying."

Luna and her friends could not help but frown. The little girl's soul already had that much damage, and no one noticed.

"What would happen if her soul got eaten entirely?"

Bajing asked in worry. She already had a hunch on the answer, but Bajing still wanted to confirm.

However, they did not expect Mark's answer as he shook his head.

"There's no such thing. If the damage reaches half of the soul, it will already detach from the body. Depending on the state of the body, it could die or continue living, but the soul will either pass on or turn into a wandering soul. The worst thing to happen is for the soul to become an evil spirit while the still living body could be taken over by a malevolent entity."

Mark's words sounded unbelievable. It was as if he was narrating some sort of script from an occult movie. However, as they could see what was happening before their eyes, they could not deny the truth in his words.

All of a sudden, the motionless girl began to twitch. It was a horrifying sight as if it was literally taken from a horror movie.

"Shasha!"

Luna called out in worry.

"Help me hold her down!" Mark shouted. "Don't let her slip out under my hands!"

Everyone in the room, except Amihan and the little girls, took action. They surrounded the bed and held the unconscious little girl. However, instead of making her stop moving, her twitching began to turn more and more violent.

Even with five women holding the little girl down, it was hard to pin her.

Then, the women holding the girl felt scared as the little girl's body began emitting black smoke. It was not just one part of the body. It was the girl's whole body.

It was as if there was a film of black smoke covering the girl's body.

"No matter what, don't let go."

Mark told everyone firmly. They were confused as to why he was reminding them again. But it was then they suddenly felt their bodies shiver. It felt cold. It was as if they were suddenly in a freezer.

However, the women noticed that Mark's daughters and Amihan looked the same. They just stood there watching.

It meant that the cold feeling they had was caused by the black smoke.

"UGH!"

The women felt the urge to let go. The unbearable cold made them feel like freezing to death.

However, Luna did not waver. So were her friends. They could now confirm that Mark was not playing around. As for Mei, she looked calm. As a [Blood Demon], she could bear more of this cold than Luna and her friends.

Soon, the smoke began to move strangely. As Mark kept his hands on the girl, the more the smoke seemed to struggle.

Then, the black smoke began to surge out of the girl's body, gathering and swirling above her chest.

And then...

SCREEEEEECH!!!

A loud screech was heard throughout the entire hospital and the surrounding building.

Everyone within several dozen meters around staggered as the painful screech entered their ears.

Now, Bajing, Nelia, and Limabela could not hold on anymore and covered their ears by reflex. It was not surprising. The people further away staggered on their feet after hearing the screech. The feeling would be worse for everyone in this room since the source of it was right in front of them.

Luna and Mei kept holding on. They nodded at each other and quickly changed position to pin down the violently twitching girl.

Finally, after a few minutes that felt like an eternity, the smoke stopped coming out of the girl's body, forming what seemed to be a distorted face of a woman above the girl's chest. It was just the size of a fist. However, it looked larger because of the smoke spreading out of its body.

The distorted face glared at Mark and tried to float away. Whatever it was, it clearly had some level of sentience. It was even confident of escaping.

It was a soul-like creature. Normal humans would not be able to touch it at all, let alone catch it.

Unfortunately for it...

"No, you don't."

Mark's voice echoed as he clamped the ghostly shut inside some sort of canister.

With a loud clunk of metal, Mark closed the canister with the ghostly entity inside.

The entity did not seem to care as it tried to escape the canister. However, it realized that it could not pass through the glass body of the canister.

Realizing it was caught, the entity began swirling inside the canister. However, all its efforts were in vain. It could not escape.

Mark looked at his catch with interest. He then felt something and could not help but give out a sinister smile.

Luna looked at the canister in Mark's hands and at her niece. After that black smoke left the girl, all her violent twitches stopped instantly.

Now, the little girl was back to being unconscious. It was as if she was sleeping with nothing else happening.

"Is Shasha fine now?"

Luna asked in worry.

But before Mark could reply...

"Aunty?"

A hoarse voice of a little girl entered everyone's ears.

Luna turned her head by reflex. She saw her niece, who already opened her eyes.

The little girl still looked a little out of it. She was confused. She tried to move her body and look at the surroundings but was unable to with her weakened body.

"Shasha!"

Luna could not stop her tears as she hugged the confused little girl.

Seeing the miraculous scene before them, Luna's three friends could not help but shed tears. The struggles of their precious friend and leader were finally rewarded.

"The scream came from here!"

All of a sudden, a commotion could be heard from outside the room.

BAM!

The door was kicked open.

"Don't move!"

Several soldiers came in with rifles drawn.

This situation was expected. With the screech affecting a wide area, the soldiers near the vicinity would immediately respond. Not to mention that the military laboratory was just beside the hospital. This place was always guarded by a large group of soldiers.

With the guns pointed at them, no one in the room made any fast movements.

However, Mark' still with his vicious smile, stared at a particular stout man who was with the soldiers.

Luna and her friends also noticed the person. They all knew the stout man wearing a lab coat. It was the doctor in charge of taking care of Luna's niece.

However, the doctor showed shock at the scene in the private room. The little girl was already awake, which was a surprise. However, his attention was focused more on Mark and the canister in his hands.

The doctor saw Mark staring at him with that vicious smile.

The soldiers expected the doctor to enter. It was the room of the patient he was in charge of, after all.

But to everyone's surprise, the doctor, a stout man who should have a heavy body, ran away as fast as an olympiad. He rushed into the opposite room of the private room, shocking the patients inside before the doctor jumped and crashed through the window.

Everyone's mouth fell open at the unexpected scene. This was the third floor, after all.

"Quick! Check what happened to him!"

The soldier leading the group ordered his subordinates. However, before they could even move, the blurred silhouettes of two individuals zoomed past them and jumped through the very same window.

The soldiers were surprised once more as they turned their eyes inside the private room. Now, a woman and a child were missing in the room, and the soldiers did not even have the time to react.

Without further ado, several soldiers moved. A pair looked out of the broken window while a smaller group ran into the lower floors.

Scanning everyone in the room, the leading soldier realized whose room it was. He told his remaining soldiers to stand down.

"Miss Luna, what is happening here? Please explain."

The leading soldier asked, seeing the teary Luna hugging her supposedly comatose niece.

Luna looked at the soldier and realized it was someone they knew.

"Sir Randy," Luna greeted. "As you can see, my niece finally woke up. As it turned out, someone deliberately prolonged her comatose state."

The leading soldier, Sir Randy, was surprised to hear those words. But then, it suddenly clicked. Sir Randy and his soldiers were no fools. The doctor who was supposed to lead them here suddenly ran away for no reason. The doctor was so scared to be caught that he even jumped out of the third-floor window.

There was still a lot to question, but the main points were already clear.

Without hesitation, Sir Randy took out his radio.

"To all patrol units. Dr. Murni was caught to have committed a crime and is now on the run. He's last seen escaping the hospital. Capture on sight is in effect."

With just several sentences, the soldier named Randy mobilized the entire patrol troops of the military.

"Please wait here until we capture Dr. Murni. We will get to the bottom of this."

Sir Randy told Luna and the rest.

There was no doubt Sir Randy understood the severity of the situation. He was also aware of the deal between Luna and the government when she handed everything to them. It was to admit Luna's comatose niece and treat her until she woke up. However, who would have thought that someone was deliberately keeping the poor girl in a comatose state all this time?

It would be no surprise if Luna's group decided to sabotage everything due to this error. And if the Moon Chasers did that, the damage would be immense, even if they were just a single group.

But as Sir Randy said those words, the man standing with Luna's group spoke.

"Sir officer, it's better if you all go already and capture that guy."

"What are you sa-"

Sir Randy was about to ask Mark what he meant.

However...

BOOOM!

A loud, explosion-like sound echoed in everyone's ears. The sound came from outside the hospital. It was then followed by horrified screams.

"Looks like they started..." Mark voiced out while fiddling with the canister he was holding. "That doctor isn't human, you know?"

Those words from Mark gave everyone a bad premonition.

BOOOM!

Another loud sound echoed. Sir Randy could not help it anymore and ran to the opposite room where the patients were already peeking out of the window with horrified faces.

There, Sir Randy's eyes widened.

There was a four-meter-tall, stout humanoid in the nearby market area. It was wreaking havoc while fighting a woman and a little girl.