Mutagen

Day 160 - 11:21 AM - Agos River, General Nakar, Province of Quezon

It was already three days after the consecutive events that changed the entire world.

Gliding down from the sky, Mark landed on a large rock by the riverside. After a long while, Mark stepped on this river area by at the base of Mount Malabito once more. When was the last time he went around its vicinity? It should be at that time when Mark and Amihan made their way to Real Military Settlement, just before encountering Karlene and Alana's group for the first time.

But to say, the appearance of the river, then and now, drastically differed.

The current Agos river had its width doubled. The flow of the water was more violent than before. It was also quite deep at its center. And to say, it looked better than its dried appearance in the past. Of course, also more dangerous.

If a regular human fell into this river by accident in its current state, there was no need to even imagine getting back up without a miracle.

Many things changed in the terrain around the mountain. Even Mount Malabito had grown larger. It was troublesome since the dirt road they painstakingly created was covered with trees and grass once more, not to mention that it was a longer trek down the mountain.

Sad to say, almost nothing was familiar in the surroundings any more. 

The world's change definitely brought forth good and bad outcomes.

With the New Earth's Current landmass, overpopulation would not be an issue for the next hundred or thousand years. Of course, that was if humanity could repopulate the planet, considering how dangerous it was now.

And the biggest problem at the moment was not the [Infected] nor the [Mutated Animals]. Not even the [Mechids] that had yet to make its appearance in front of Mark.

It was radiation.

This was something that no one had expected. It seemed that the planetary debris contained large amounts of radioactive materials inside it, which scattered across the globe. That might have to do with the power source of the Artificial Planet.

Although the amount of radiation did not seem harmful for a short time, it was better not to take any chances. Even more so, considering that [Mutagen] was present in everyone. It might use the radiation to do something unexpected, like mutating a perfectly healthy human into a monster.

This also made Mark expect to see radioactive [Mutated Infected] in the near future.

The only place safe from the radiation was inside the barriers that the Eyes created. 

Although humans without protection could step out of the barriers, they would soon feel nauseous. The time for the symptoms to appear would vary, but it seemed that [Evolvers] and [Mutators] could last longer outside. And to say, even regular humans now could stay longer under this amount of radiation compared to humans before the apocalypse.

This was one of the things that proved that [Mutagen] was capable of enhancing humans, even without being an [Evolver] or a [Mutator].

Another thing was that [Magical Creatures] seemed to have some immunity to the radiation. It might be surprising at first. But if one was to think about it, [Magical Energy] could also be considered a form of radiation. It might be the reason they could withstand radiation.

Mark, however, had no problems going outside.

Radiation was a form of energy. As a person capable of using [Miasma], Mark was like a fish released into the sea. Any radiation that would touch his body would be absorbed by his [Miasma]. Not only this caused Mark to be immune, but it was also increasing his strength slowly.

And that was why Mark was outside, scouting the surroundings.

As for why Mark was only doing the scouting three days after the event, they were busy organizing the base these past few days.

While the base remained intact because of Chiyo and Luis Morgan, it still felt the earthquake. Many things like in the warehouse got toppled. Even in houses, utensils and pieces of furniture were displaced.

Luckily, the supplies stored in glass jars and bottles were not stored in the warehouse. Instead, those were all hidden inside Chiyo's subdimension. That was why any fragile supplies they had were safe. Many of their canned goods got dents, though.

ROAR!

Suddenly, a [Mutated Animal] rushed roaring towards Mark.

Mark already anticipated the attack as he already detected it beforehand.

The animal brandished its claws towards Mark's back ferociously.

Mark turned his head over his shoulder. With a swift swing of the [Divider], one of his whip-blades, the blood of the animal splattered. Its head fell off mid-air.

Stepping back, Mark avoided the falling body of the animal and the splatter of its blood.

The body of the dead animal fell onto the rocky riverside. Mark took a look at it with a frown.

It seemed to be a mutated household cat about the size of a large dog. However, its body was covered in disgusting boils, and it strongly smelled like pus.

As Mark had thought, mutations because of the radiation had appeared.

However, Mark was suspicious. With the amount of radiation in the surroundings, it should take more time for animals to mutate. The radiation was also dissipating as time went by. Mark did not think that it would become a crisis, especially in terms of food.

Of course, radiated mutated animals would appear, but it was likely to be rare cases.

Unless...

The mutated animal made contact with the source of radiation.

It was not surprising. The broken chunks of the planetary debris were scattered everywhere.

The existence of this cat might indicate that there was a radiation source nearby.

Mark deduced the direction that the mutated cat came from and started to fly downstream. It did not take long, and he found the location. There, a pointed chunk of space debris was half-buried in the soil.

It was not hard to find. Even if the craters were filled by new soil because of the [Dimension Fusion], the traces of destruction that the debris caused could not be erased that easily. In this case, topped trees and the broken riverside rocks.

Not to mention that Mark could feel the radiation getting stronger and stronger.

The blackish grey chunk of melted metal was about the size of a small four-seater car. What Mark immediately noticed was the hollow interior of the debris. There was also the fallen part of it on the ground. This reminded Mark of scenes from video games where an alien lifeform forced its way out of its broken pod.

However, it did not seem to be alive in this case. Mark could see a non-moving half-mechanical, half-organic body in front of the debris.

Covering his body with [Miasma], Mark approached the space debris. He wanted to remove this thing from this mountain as it could spark dangerous effects from the surroundings. If left alone, it might affect his base in one way or another.

First, Mark cautiously observed the dead creature on the ground.

His eyes were filled with curiosity, in contradiction to the usual empty expression.

Mark took out a piece of rebar from his ring. He had these kinds of things in his storage. In a zombie apocalypse, anything could happen. Who knows when he would need these things, like now.

Using the rebar, Mark poked different parts of the creature's body. He even turned the body around as it seemed to be facing upside down.

Although far from human, the upper body of the creature was humanoid. It seemed to have four legs, but Mark could see that three were broken in this one. Half of its head and torso were crushed, which might be the cause of its death.

The more Mark observed the creature, the more he felt curious.

Its exterior body was organic. However, it did not seem to be natural. It was appeared to be synthetic.

The skeleton, or rather, skeletal frame, was definitely made of a metal unknown to Earth. It also seemed to have blood vessels, although not made of tissue. Instead, it had something similar to clear silicon tubes accompanied by wirings.

Without a doubt, it was an alien robot. Even calling it an alien android might not be wrong either.

In any case, it was an artificial lifeform.

"This is a [Mechid], isn't it."

Mark surmised.

As far as Mark knew, the planetary debris carried no lifeform aside from [Mechids], if they could be considered as one.

Mark wanted to study it further. However, its artificial flesh seemed to be rotting already. It was melting into black pus-smelling liquid. He did not want to carry something like this, not to mention the risk it could bring to others.

"Maybe, I should build a laboratory or workshop, far from the base just in case."

Mark murmured, considering the circumstances.

Taking his attention away from the dead [Mechid], Mark turned to the broken space debris. The radiation was coming from this thing instead of the dead [Mechid]. It was a relieving thing.

As the cause of radiation was from the space debris, Mark cautiously poked and tapped it using the rebar in his hand.

"It was all made of metal." 

Mark murmured.

And then, with all his strength, Mark swung the rebar at the space debris with both hands.

BAM!

Mark's hands felt numb as he let go of the rebar that was split in half.

His swing was strong, but the space debris was too. The rebar did not even leave a mark on its surface and got split instead. The rest of the rebar bounced off and flew, spinning far into the distance.

"Just what kind of metal is this?"

Mark said with great interest. Even the metal matrix composites in the more advanced Eriellis were not this strong.

Then, an idea entered Mark's mind as he took out a [Blood Whip] on his hand.

One property of his blood was to be able to turn into metal and vice versa. Nonetheless, the base of that metal was also iron. Turning back into blood means that it was melting the iron composite and other properties of the [Blood Metal].

Mark tried it before, and his blood could melt anything that had the same component as his blood. Iron, for example. It was just until now, Mark had not found any use for this thing.

If this space debris had iron in its makeup, Mark might be able to melt it. Of course, he would not dare absorb it in his body. He was not foolish.

And as Mark thought, the metal composite of this space debris had iron. It was too little, though, as he could only leave a few marks on the surface.

Nonetheless, it made Mark capable of dismantling this thing. It was rather slow, though. While his blood could melt [Blood Metal] fast, other metals were far different. It was even slower on this absurdly strong metal.

Mark did not give up, however. Even if it took him days, he would dismantle this thing.

Fortunately, Mark only had to spend the rest of the day and managed to find where the radiation was leaking from.

It was in a compartment inside the debris. It might have been easier to open it if not for the fact that the compartment was melted shut. It was very likely to be the result of it entering Earth's atmosphere.

Creating a pair of tongs with [Blood Metal], Mark carefully took out the radiation source.

What Mark got was a glass capsule about the size and shape of an American football. Both ends had metal nodes, which made Mark think that it was some sort of battery.

"Huh? This is not kryptonite, right?"

Mark tilted his head, seeing the green glowing crystal inside the capsule. It was where the radiation was coming from.

The glass capsule should be able to contain the radiation. However, the capsule already had a large hole and more cracks on it, causing the radiation to escape.

"Even though I want to, I can't bring this home."

Mark thought.

But all of a sudden, another thing caught Mark's attention. It was not something or somewhere else. It was on his right wrist.

The [PsyCrystal] was glowing.