Mutagen

Day 72 - 11:02 AM - Mansion, Padilla, San Jose, Antipolo, Rizal

Heavy pressure enveloped the surroundings as Mark released the emotional energies he accumulated from his Emphatic Ability. It was a medium-scale [Emotion Induction] that targeted every single enemy in this area.

Mark's eyes glowed bright red as he planted deep fear in everyone's subconscious. None were aware of it and did not feel the fear consciously. However, their bodies stopped moving as it recognized the intense feeling of fear inside the back of their minds. As a result, they felt heavy, and their legs were shaking.

The enemies could barely move at all. And only those with enough mental fortitude would be able to negate this effect. Like three people among them.

RATATATATA!!!

Gunshots echoed from above as HawkOwl opened his wings and flew up. This birdman was the first to react to Mark surviving the explosion.

TANG! TANG! TANG!

Some of the bullets hit the vehicles behind Mark, making everyone inside nervous. However, the deformed bullets fell to the ground after hitting the cars.

Aside from a few scratches and barely noticeable dents, the cars were not damaged at all. All these vehicles had already been modified by Mark. Only high caliber weapons could do some damage to these vehicles.

M16 military-issued guns like HawkOwl had, was useless. It was unless the bullets targeted the wheels. That, however, would not happen as HawkOwl started shooting as he flew up.

Nevertheless, Mark's hazy visage just blurred every time a bullet hit him.

Each shot hit nothing but air in its path and flew towards the ground unhindered.

Accell saw that the guns were not working. Supporting HawkOwl's actions, Accell also started to move. His reaction was not as fast as the former. However, as a person with the highest intellect and mental capacity within their group, Mark's [Emotion Induction] had the least effect on him.

As HawkOwl continued to fire his assault rifle, Accell charged towards Mark at an unimaginable speed. It only took him a second, and he traversed the seven-meter distance between him and Mark. He even rushed behind Mark to attack from a blind spot.

However, in another unexpected action, Accell did not use any weapon. Instead, he tried to grab Mark with bare hands. His hands, however, had been releasing a large number of sparks. It was obvious that he was releasing a rather deadly amount of electricity from his hands.

Mark, on the other hand, squinted his eyes at the sudden movement by Accell. He could tell that the guy flying above was still affected by his mental attack as a lot of his gunshots missed him. This guy behind, however, was barely affected. Furthermore, this attack might be able to harm Mark.

To dodge the explosion, Mark used miasma to block and absorb the heat hitting his body. Against the bullets, he partially used his [Shadow Mist Movement], causing his body to blur and phase through the space between the bullets.

Electricity, on the other hand, was a different matter. Electricity was formless and could occupy space. He could enter his subspace, however, as electricity was not a physical matter but was a flow of electrons, he did not know whether he would be able to pass through the gaps of chaotic electrons without getting hit.

As for absorbing the energy using miasma, it was already late. The enemy's movements were too fast. There was barely any time for him to react, not to mention releasing miasma.

And thus, Mark made the easiest thing to deal with this guy.

Accell proceeded and used his second ability. It was to conduct and release a high voltage of electricity from his body. This was also his deadliest move. None of those he used this ability to managed to live.

However, he had the shock of his life. It was because of Mark directly catching Accell's hands covered in electricity with his own. Accell felt strange. Still, he already launched his attack and there was no option to retreat.

Mark caught the two hands of the enemy. This caused a burning pain in his hands as the electricity started to burn his skin. His hands started to release smoke as the tissues in his hand's arms were became numb and damaged.

Seeing the effect of his attack, Accell raised the voltage further. This caused his arms to light up and emitted crackling sounds all over.

Then, he was terrified.

Accell saw Mark's face. He was smiling. Then, the visible damage from his arms and body started to heal at an inconceivable rate. Increasing the voltage further, Mark's body started to emit smoke. But then, the damage was soon repaired. It was until... Mark's body did not seem to be affected by the electricity Accell released any longer.

Feeling the threat in his life, Accell tried to retreat. However, like a clamp, Mark's hands locked his hands and did not let go.

Seeing Accell's expression, Combustion and HawkOwn knew that he was in a predicament. HawkOwl swooped down closer to Mark to ensure that he would not miss and shot more bullets.

Combustion, who could still move, despite slowly, spat several times. He shot several nail sized clumps of saliva towards Mark.

To those attacks, Mark made a sinister move.

He swept his right foot below and caused Accell to lose balance. At the latter's fall, Mark spun his body upside down and pushed his body towards the attacks of Combustion and HawkOwl.

RATATATATATA!!!

"GAAAAAAHHHHHHHAAAAHHH!!!"

HawkOwl's bullets tore holes on Accell's body, making him scream in severe pain.

BOOM! BOOM!

The screams were replaced by small explosions engulfing Accell's body.

Almost turned into a charred human, Accell's body fell on the ground... Lifeless. His body was filled with holes of different sizes from the gunshots and explosions. His left leg and right arm plopped on the ground, detached after the explosions hit him, and melted his limbs.

Seeing Accell's fate, their members wanted to scream, including Combustion and HawkOwl. However, the pressure they were feeling prevented them from being able to speak. Accell was the most important member of their group. Without him and his planning skills, they would need more effort to do things they needed to.

Fortunately for them, they did not have to think of those things anymore. None of them were leaving here, alive.

Mark glanced at the sniper dome on his vehicle. Mei was there waiting for his command. He then moved his head as if pointing at the enemy above. Receiving the order, Mei aimed at the birdman above.

Of course, HawkOwl noticed the movements on the vehicle. With his superhuman eyesight, he clearly saw the muzzle of a sniper rifle turning to aim at him.

Thus, he decided to flee.

Accell was no more and the other members of their group could barely move at all. There was no use to staying. Everyone had no way of escaping aside from him. He could just start over after he escaped this place.

He was able to fly fast with his wings similar to a hawk's. What he did not expect, however, was that even if his flying speed was as fast as Accell's speed, it was nothing to the eyes of Mei.

BANG!

HawkOwl's eyes grew wide. There was no time for him to feel pain, however. He only felt an impact on his head before his vision turned dark. His lifeless body plopped violently on the ground like a ragdoll.

Seeing what happened to Accell and HawkOwl, Combustion started to panic.

Facing Mark, he spat saliva like a machinegun loaded with grenades.

Towards those clumps of explosive saliva, Mark stretched his right hand forwards. He then started flicking his fingers. In every flick, a ball of black swirling miasma was shot.

Each ball hit a clump of saliva. Thus, each hit caused the saliva to explode midair. Reacting to the sudden release of heat, the balls of miasma expanded and swallowed the explosion whole. The miasma ate the heat released by the explosion until both vanished.

Combustion could only stare at the spectacle that happened before him. This time, he finally realized. Because of Harold, they f*cked up big time.

"Well, we don't have much time to deal with you all one by one, so..." Mark spoke. "Let's just do this."

Mark then raised his hand. It was a command towards Ignis as it flew out of its sheath behind Mark. Ignis could fly on its own. However, having a direct mental connection with Mark through the naming ritual, he was able to control its flight using his mind.

All the enemies stared at the flying sword with both shock and fear. Then, they were overwhelmed by the aura of death looming over them. It was because Mark swiped his hand around making the flying sword behead them one-by-one in a single swing.

As Combustion saw the sword flying towards him, he knew that he was going to die.

At the last moment, the leader of the raiders turned towards Harold with absolute hate and fury.

"F*CK YOU!"

Combustion screamed. As the sword was about to hit his neck, he made his last spit. It was towards Harold who could only stare at the clump of saliva flying towards him in extreme horror.

Harold tried to resist the pressure and even transformed as he finally used his Mutator Ability. Two large curved horns grew out of his temples as his body became bulkier. Thick brown hair covered his highly muscled body. He surely looked like a humanoid buffalo.

With his sheer strength, he kicked the ground to dodge the clump of saliva.

Despite the heavy pressure hindering him, he managed to move. It caused the saliva that was about to hit him, fall to the grass where he stood before.

Unfortunately, at that attack, Combustion used his greatest move. A concentrated explosion occurred engulfing a seven-meter radius from the center.

PLOP!

BOOM!

At the same time that Combustion's head plopped to the ground.

Harold's body was engulfed in the huge explosion.

A shockwave of heat spread into the surroundings which made the closer flora to catch fire while the further ones immediately dried up.

Mark also had to cover his face because of the heat from the shockwave. Although his body would regenerate to heal any damage, it was still painful to let his face get blanketed by scalding heat. Especially to his eyes.

Still, what worried Mark was that the corpses of the mutators to become charred corpses. If they were burned to the point of turning to ash, it would be a waste. Luckily, Harold hid further away from the others. That was why the explosion only caught Harold in it.

When the explosion dissipated, what was left was an unrecognizable charred humanoid. From the smell, it was sure that the fur Harold grew contributed a lot to his death.

Mark then used an empty crystal on the charred body.

Fortunately, it still worked. Mark could not tell why as Harold's body was all charred. Thus, he smashed the corpse's head open. There, he saw that while he was charred to the bone, it seemed that the skull prevented the brain to be charred entirely. Still, Mark could not help but notice something.

Compared to normal corpses of Mutators and Mutated Infected that he took their abilities from, those that had damaged brains had a paler glowing orb inside the [Physical Crystal]. It seemed that the absorption of ability was incomplete or maybe, degraded.

If that was the case, he better try not damaging the brains of the Mutators he would kill in the future.

After killing every enemy, they proceeded into the mansion to retrieve everything they could carry. Even the working appliances inside the mansion and the solar panels installed on the roof were included.

Since Mark was around, the traps he installed did not activate. Thus, there was no need to remove the traps, he made using miasma, one by one.

Everyone spent till late afternoon before being able to load everything into the vehicles. They also chose some vehicles from the group of raiders and towed the cars.

This was a rather bountiful day.

That night, after arriving back at the base, Mark and Mei went out riding on Chaflar.

It could be called a date under the night sky, however, Mark had a place he wanted to go. He wanted to visit the place where the altar that sealed the Deity of Bloodshed was located. They went to retrieve several things.

Now that everything they needed to do outside the base was done, they should focus on the things they needed to do inside.

Especially, there were a few things Mark wanted to try.