Mutagen

Day 54 - 11:16 AM – National Shrine of Our Mother of Perpetual Help (Baclaran Church), Redemptorist Road, Baclaran, Parañaque, Metro Manila

Light entered through the disintegrated roof of the church. The whole church was literally divided in half as the walls and the roof where the beams of light passed through formed holes and lines.

Aimee did not expect that to happen and she did it by instinct due the overflowing emotions she had. When she saw that her tentacles were boring holes everywhere in the church and not only the enemies could be hit, she forced her tentacles to fire the beams in one direction and pointed the tentacles upwards. That was the cause of the divided walls and roof of the church. She only meant to save her child and did not want to destroy the church.

However, what was done was already done.

The only thing she could do next was to search for everyone and her child, wrap them with her tentacles and bolt out church as fast as she could. Fortunately, she found everyone she looked for easily because of her numerous eyes. That was except for the captured Aephelia. She could not find the leader of the enemies either. She wanted to look for Aephelia but there was no time left.

Debris started to fall causing clouds of dust and more destruction. The church would not hold out any longer.

CRUMBLE!

BAM!

With the walls first, the church started to turn into a pile of rubble.

Aimee grabbed everyone even leaving their things inside the church and bolted out of one of the largest holes on the wall of the church. However, her speed was slower than the speed that the church started to crumble. Because Aephelia was gone, the Alpha Infected stood on place without moving. Aimee tried to take the Alpha out but the infected was too heavy. Without any other choice, she had to leave it.

As for the other large guy, Chaflar, it already spread its wings and flew out of the roof after seeing that Aimee already had everyone. Of course, since the church was already crumbling, the smart dragon did not hold back anymore. It blew a huge burst of flames incinerating a lot of the remaining enemies that were also fleeing from the crumbling church.

Aimee managed to get out safely with everyone. She looked at the state of the others with relief on her face. It was fortunate that she did not shot them with those beams by mistake. Among the little girls, Iola and Miracle were fine but Abbygale seemed to have received a bruise on her right cheek and right arm after being blown away by the enemy leader. All the [Blood Children] were like the way they were before the battle. As for Karlene and Edzel, the two were also fine aside from being covered in dust.

They watched the church crumble and became a pile of debris. Even they already escaped the church, they still ran away further in order not to get caught in the cloud of dust that scattered.

Still, there was no sign of Aephelia or the Alpha Werewolf.

At this time, Miracle, Iola and the [Blood Children] looked up to the sky.

""Papa! Mama!""

The two girls called out as they saw two figures flying towards them in a hurry.

***

Mark frowned at the scene of the crumbling church. When he saw that them outside the church, he sighed in relief but his frown did not vanish. It was because he could not detect someone.

Together with Mei, the two landed in front of the group which were immediately greeted by the embrace of the little girls.

"Is everyone alright? Where's Aephelia?"

Mark asked.

At his question, he saw everyone's expression change for the worse.

"We don't know." Karlene replied. "We saw her got captured before the church crumbled but we didn't see her afterwards. Even the guy that captured her is gone."

"Tell me, what happened?"

Hearing his question, Karlene summarized what happened while the behaved girls waited their turn to supplement other things.

While listening to the story, Mark's expression started to turn calmer and calmer. Angry? Yes, he was. He was too angry that he became too calm instead.

He turned to Abbygale whose right cheek and arm was reddish. It was too obvious on her skin that was like of a porcelain doll.

"Did they do this?"

Mark said which the girl nodded. He patted her head as gently as possible and let out a gentle smile.

"Don't worry. I'll punish them for you and take back your Aunt Aephy."

Mark turned to Aimee and Karlene.

"Find somewhere else to hide. This place is not safe anymore."

He then turned to Mei.

"Mei'er, you stay here. Treat Gale with this. Karlene know how to use this."

Mark gave Mei a pouch he had on him which contained plastic medicine bottles containing the [Regeneration Medicine] he got from the military in Quezon Province.

Mei was also mad about what happened especially when she looked at how badly Abbygale was bruised. Aside from Mark, the only ones she cared for the most were the three girls. Seeing that they were injured and were subjected to great danger was making her feel that she could destroy a whole country.

However, Mark was right. She needed to treat Abbygale's injuries first. What the girls needed the most right now was the security a parent could bring them and she was the only one that could give it to the three right now.

Mark watched the group hurriedly leave the area. There were infected that were already drawn to the commotion but with Aimee and Mei around, they should be fine.

He turned to Chaflar was still sweeping across the air searching for any survivor of the enemies to burn alive. However, it could not see anyone else anymore.

"Chaflar!" Mark called out. "You will come with me. We're going on to save Aephelia. But first…"

Mark's eyes swept the area. It was not like there was no one anymore among the enemies left here. They were just hiding.

"It's useless to hide you bastards."

He murmured as his expression became blank. Instead, his eyes glowed brightly that it could be seen clearly from a distance even though the sun was high up in the sky.

"GRRRUUUAAAA!!!"

"GAAAAHHHH!"

Painful screams was heard as the enemies hiding in the shadows were forced out while holding their heads in extreme pain. If not for the fact that they had no physical bodies, their orifices should have already been bleeding badly. Seeing this shadow people, Mark felt like laughing.

All of them looked like disabled people. Some had missing arms while others had missing legs. One of the worst looking guys did not even have a single limb left and was only able to move by melding into the shadows.

Mark approached one of the shadow people and grabbed the person by his neck. Despite the pain the shadow people felt in their heads, they were all shocked. As their bodies were non-physical, unless they wanted to, no one could touch their bodies. But now, one of them was mercilessly picked up by his neck.

Then…

The body of that shadow person Mark grabbed disintegrated in a way that was as painful as possible. While his body was disintegrating, the shadow person's cries could already be put as background screams in horror movies and games.

As if releasing his anger, Mark smiled as the enemy on his hand suffered.

This made all these remaining shadow people shiver. Even though Mark was wearing the same robe as them, there was no doubt that he was their enemy.

Unfortunately, Mark had no time to do this one by one. He already had an idea where to find Aephelia and he needed to catch up.

And thus…

Several surges of black smoke covered the bodies of the remaining shadow people. The smoke did not kill them immediately but started to eat their bodies as slowly as possible causing an even more eerie sight.

***

Day 54 - 11:25 AM – Industrial Area, South District, Bay City Settlement, Parañaque, Metro Manila

"To think that Flam is taken. We underestimated those two."

Dopp frowned as he stared at the unconscious boy in front of him. This unconscious boy was left along on the ground and was retrieved by one of his men.

The fight between the military and the members of Auraboros did not reduce even after the incident with the falling jib of the tower crane. The military focused on retrieving surviving soldiers under the rubble while holding off the enemies. Unfortunately, it was different on the enemies were different. They did not even care about their comrades and focused of fighting the soldiers. Due to the circumstances, it was the military that was forced to a defensive instead of the enemies.

"Sir Dopp, what do you mean? Isn't this Flam? Why did you say that he was taken?"

Devon could not help but ask. He was not of the same rank as the two and had no idea what Flam was.

"The missing sword is Flam's real body. This boy here is nothing but a body he used because of interest."

Dopp replied as he nudged the face unconscious boy with his shoe.

Devon and Senator Estrada was surprised and confused. They could not fathom how that was possible.

Dopp on the other hand was feeling strange. Flam was a cursed sword and anyone that touched it would be possessed. And yet, the person that took him was still fine and it seemed that it was Flam who was beaten into submission. With these thoughts, urgency filled his mind. It seemed that their enemies were not just simple pests that they could deal with.

While Dopp was on deep thoughts, several figures appeared inside the room which emerged from the shadows. When he saw the appearance of the figures, Dopp was shocked.

"Emmett, you…"

Dopp was speechless as he saw Emmett's condition. He sent Emmett and his squad just to capture a sylph and her companions. It should just be an easy task since that group was just composed of a ragtag band with three children. However, looking at Emmett's condition despite being an Alpha Werewolf, he could not hide his shock anymore.

Emmett's left arm was missing and by the looks of it, it was not chopped but more seemed like burned into crisp. There was no blood dripping as his wound was melted into closing. Not only his left arm but he was also missing his right foot and right ear. If not for the fact that Emmett was maintaining his werewolf form, he should have passed out already. Besides Emmett, the subordinates that returned with him were all shadow people that also lost some parts of their bodies.

"Sir, don't worry about my injury." Emmett weakly spoke. "I completed the main goal."

Emmett opened his large hand revealing the unconscious sylph he captured.

Seeing the sylph, Dopp was delighted. If they managed to retrieve Flam and start the last part of their mission here, it would be perfect. He tried to reach for the sylph but before he was able to do so, Emmett spoke.

"Sir, it's better if we leave this place. As you can see, it's only us who managed to escape and I only snatched his sylph by sacrificing a lot. That group this sylph belonged to is not your normal people. If they chased us here to retrieve her, our casualties will be even more severe."

Hearing that, Dopp was forced into thinking. As Emmett was his direct subordinate, Dopp knew his personality. To make him suggest leaving, for sure, the situation could be grave.

"The preparations is about to finish. We can leave after that."

Dopp decided. However, before he was able to say anything further, everyone froze. They noticed that the surroundings suddenly went dark.

They all hurried to gaze outside the window and there they saw.

Black swirling clouds covered the sky.

"Sir Dopp, is this part of the preparation?"

Devon asked in utter confusion.

"No, its not."

Dopp answered with a serene face.

No one knew how the clouds suddenly appeared but one thing they all knew…

This was a bad sign.