Mutagen

Day 41 – 5:15 PM – General Nakar Central Elementary School Multi-purpose Oval, Death Valley Settlement, Barangay Poblacion, General Nakar, Quezon

Mark returned to where the fight started. There, the dead bodies of the fat man and the other men brought by him and Sherwyn were left under the rain. Sherwyn on the other hand had already fallen unconscious. Being tormented by the pain left after his limbs were severed would surely make him lose consciousness after a while.

He then picked up several of the bodies along with Sherwyn's and Filameno and brought them to a secluded spot one by one. After all, he could not just waste their Mutator abilities no matter how weak they were. Another thing was that there were several functions of the crystals that he had not tried yet. It was just he wanted to have more variety of [Physical Crystals] to choose from to try one of the functions.

It did not take long and Mark came back. Of course, the bodies including Sherwyn had already been disposed at the back of one of the school buildings.

When he came back, he noticed that the Mutators defending the settlement and the Mutator Whale was now in a stalemate. He noticed that some of the Mutators which held the whale back looked strange and none of those Mutators behind seemed to want to approach them.

As Mark could see, it seemed that those Mutators were out of control.

"They had gone berserk? Strange."

He murmured. In any case, most of the Mutators and those that were in charge of defending the settlement were occupied because of the whale. Their predicament gave Mark total freedom to roam the dangerous settlement.

Vanishing from his spot, Mark moved up to the sky to oversee the place. He found that most of the men he threatened ran towards a certain direction. It was a building to the south of the school.

***

"Stop! Madam Philia owns this building! What are you bastards trying to do?!"

One of the two guards by the gate of the building yelled seeing a large group armed men approach their place. They tried to stop the people by pointing their guns at them. However…

"Damn it! Get out of the way!"

BANG!

The crazed men opened fire without warning. The two guards fell on the spot with wide eyes.

"What is happening h-…"

Hearing the gunshot, several men immediately went out from the building only to face the full barrage of the bullets. The men that responded to the sudden situation all fell down by the door. After the way was cleared, the crazed men did not even bother about the bodies and even stepped on them as they ran into the building.

When the crazed group entered the building, a plethora of gunshots echoed out from the building. If not for the already occurring battle at the east side of the settlement, the noise would surely make a lot of people check the situation.

From the back of the building, several people escaped. They were led by a middle-aged woman who wore thick makeup and black lipstick. She also wore black clothes that seemed to be a trademark of sadistic women. On her waist, instead of a gun, she had a whip. What a generic look. Around her were armed good looking men that wore skimpy clothing. They all seemed to be boy toys of the woman.

The rain immediately ruined her looks but she did not care. Right now, they could only flee as a large group of crazed men attacked her paradise. She was a Mutator but her ability was not related to fighting. She had an ability that could only be used in bed after all.

Ephelia delos Santos also known as Madam Philia. She was one of the pillars of this settlement and a high ranking member of the organization they belonged to. As her alias meant, she was inclined to do something inhumane. A large portion of the funds their organization had in the Philippines came from her pocket and that made organization indulge on her uncanny hobbies.

With the group of her tamed boys, she escaped the building. Usually, they would only drive them away but Adrik took a lot of their capable people on a mission. Her remaining men were unable to prevent the crazed group from storming her building.

While fleeing however, a man win tattered jacket appeared blocking their path. The boy toys immediately surrounded Madam Philia to protect her.

***

Mark stood on the way facing the group with the cougar at the center. He felt rather disgusted. He would have no intention to reprimand her tastes but it still felt repulsive.

KABLAM!

A bright lightning lit the area and temporarily blinded everyone.

"How convenient."

Mark spoke as he vanished along with the bright light.

The next thing that happened… Everyone in that group fell on the muddy road splattering blood everywhere. All of them were bisected in their waists as Mark appeared at the center of the group and behind the cougar and swung his blade around.

"W-why…"

Being bisected in their waists did not immediately kill them. The cougar still managed to speak despite her shivering voice that was about to fade.

Mark turned his head towards the woman that was about to die.

"I don't really have a grudge with all of you but I can't have something as dangerous as this place exist near my base. Also it's a good opportunity to harvest a lot of abilities."

He was not sure if the cougar managed to hear all of what he said. She already stopped breathing after all.

Mark tossed three [Physical Crystals] around, one on the body of the cougar and the others on two of boy toys. While he waited, he looked at the building this group escaped from.

He then smirked.

The men inside already found the [BloodChild] and were already killing each other in order to get the little critter. They all thought that only one person could be same for every slime taken back to Mark. It was what Mark induced to them as he threatened them after all.

Their crazed group started a battle royal on their own.

However, Mark frowned soon enough. Their fight started to make the [BloodChild] afraid. Despite the fact that an untamed one should have a quite aggressive nature, the [BloodChild] inside the building was shrinking itself in fear.

As soon as Mark was done taking the Mutator abilities of the dead group outside, Mark appeared inside the building after a puff of mist. Without saying anything, he butchered everyone inside and took the abilities of the Mutators among the dead bodies.

After the bloodshed inside the building, he found the [BloodChild] inside the largest room at the topmost floor. The room was filled with uncanny looking machines and furniture that aligned heavily towards the cougar's hobbies. The [BloodChild] was placed inside a fishbowl on the nightstand beside the bed.

Mark was surprised seeing the appearance of the [BloodChild]. He perfectly understood why the poor thing was placed beside the bed. The [BloodChild] had a greenish-yellow color and its body was glowing and for sure, the little female [BloodChild] was used as a tool to illuminate the activities of the owner of the building.

Seeing the properties of the [BloodChild]'s body, Mark wondered if after he converted her body, the [Blood Metal] she could create would glow. After all, Oracle's [Blood Metal] was transparent and Ivy's [Blood Metal] was poisonous.

He fed the [BloodChild] with his blood and its transformation occurred. There was very little change in color of the [BloodChild] and it also retained its glow although the glow now was a little red in color. Since there were bodies lying around the house, Mark immediately made it create something and Mark was both amazed and excited at the result. It was really a glowing [Blood Metal].

A little problem however occurred. It was not with the [Blood Metal] or the [BloodChild]'s health. The problem was with its personality. Pretty much like Salacia, her mind was more mature compared to others. She was also clingy but her clinginess had something different mixed with it. The little critter was transmitting both shyness and quite a disturbing attraction towards him.

"Just what the hell..." As Mark was about to complain, it struck him. "You probably witnessed uncanny things even though you are just a child… Seriously…"

Mark scratched his head. This [BloodChild] was placed in this room and sure enough, it witnessed all the activities that cougar had done in this room. Looking at the [BloodChild] rubbing her body on his arm, Mark was sure that she needed some rehabilitation.

Throwing the matter for later, Mark roamed the settlement once more and followed the men he scattered to search for the [BloodChildren]. Sure enough, the search for the [BloodChildren] became easier due to the men knowing which places to search. Unfortunately however, among the ten places that the men searched, only another two had a [BloodChild] being kept.

Mark asked the inhabitants for the information in of course, a threatening way and found out that the [BloodChildren] that they had before already died long ago. Hearing that, Mark felt dejected as he killed everyone not innocent in those buildings. He also collected the broken slaves that already wanted to kill themselves.

These people had the toughest experiences in their lives and would surely appreciate the life Mark could give them even more. Of course Mark also made sure that the personalities of these people were fine. He did not want some retarded imbeciles in his base after all.

Collecting the [BloodChildren], harvesting the abilities of the Mutators and gathering people to work for him. With all this done, Mark put everyone in the sturdiest building in the school grounds. A fragile tent would not be able to hold the twenty people he decided to bring back home.

Since most of the people he picked were already losing the will to live, Naomi and Aaron took care of them under Mark's orders. With Tullia having similar tendencies, the two managed to handle the others efficiently.

Now, Mark was ready to mess with the people at the eastern part of the settlement, especially the Mutators fighting the whale.

When Mark reached the area, the battle was still in the stalemate. The Mutators was already getting tired of the fight while the whale was also injured all over. The armor of the whale had missing parts on different parts of its body. One of its eyes was destroyed and the inside of its mouth was bleeding. However, all the injuries were superficial since the whale was already in a berserk state since the start. Mark doubt if it was still able to feel pain.

It was the same for the Mutators fighting the whale in close combat. Their abilities seemed had already gone haywire. One Mutator what seemed to have a rock like armor was even swinging its arm towards its supposed ally and that ally that had an insect like carapace on his arms was the same. The attacks of the two clashed with each other's body and they were both pushed back. When that happened, the two were separated and the whale was closer to them. It was only then that the two attacked the whale once more.

The two Mutators had lost their minds and were attacking anything near to them. That was what Mark observed. Still, he could not fathom what happened here.

In any case, he started what he came here for. Starting at the furthest Mutators at the back firing high caliber guns, Mark started to kill them one by one without the ones in front noticing.

Soon, the whale gained momentum once more. It was because…

"Hey all of you! Don't stop firing!"

A Mutator in command shouted as he turned his head behind their ranks since he started to notice that the gunfire seemed to have weakened. Only to see that the people behind had already fallen dead and all that was left was their dead bodies with missing heads.

"WHA! WHAT HAPPENED?!"

The man's scream made everyone else look behind and see the nightmarish scene of headless bodies on the ground.