Mutagen

<strong>Day 54 – 11:35 AM – Industrial Area, South District, Bay City Settlement, Parañaque City, Metro Manila</strong>

Miasma, common people might not have known of it but it was the thing that most spiritual beings, elementals and psychics feared of. A lot of beings even in Auraboros feared such thing. It would not be wrong to say that it was the bane of Auraboros. Who would have thought that a human that could control such baneful power. Even a human that casually touched such energy could lose his mentality and those that were exposed to high concentrations of it would cause their bodies to rot painfully.

"How could someone like that exist? I did not agree to this mission to encounter such being."

Dopp murmured with all those thoughts in his mind. He was currently running as fast as he could. Since he was created, it was the first time he experienced a setback like this where he had to do all he could in order to survive.

Fear? He did not know of it. Not until now. Devon had been done in in the blink of an eye and the sylph they captured was taken back without them being able to resist. It was questionable why their enemy left them alive but it looked like he did not have any notion to let them go.

"My greed got the better of me but why is that guy going against us in the first place?"

He questioned but of course there was no answer.

Dopp finally arrived at the warehouse and took a peek. To his relief, the ritual was still on going. Screams of all the sacrifices echoed eerily wailing in pain as their bodies started to dry up as if all the fluids in their bodies were being sucked up.

"Sir!"

A robe person hurriedly approached Dopp.

"How will the ritual take?"

"It's already in the middle stages, Sir. It will finish shortly."

"Good!" Dopp said but his complexion did not improve at all. "Continue the ritual without fail. I have to do something."

"Yes sir!"

Dopp then hurriedly left. He was now heading towards the aircraft parked near the warehouse. He was not trying to escape using it. It was pointless to try that. Instead, he was going to contact someone really quick. If it went well, there might be a chance to survive this.

***

At the sky, Mark sat on Chaflar's back holding Aephelia carefully. The face and figure was totally different from the one in the memories he got from Freed but her expression while sleeping was surely the same.

Mark was glad that Aephelia was just unconscious and no further harm was inflicted to her. If she did have more things done to her, his switch might have flipped immediately.

He caressed Aephelia's head with his finger letting her sleep some more. This girl barely rests at all. It was her habit since she became Freed's personal maid.

Mark looked at the sky. The clouds swirling above had already covered the whole Industrial Area inside and outside. He looked down. The several meters high wall of miasma surrounded the whole place preventing all his enemies from escaping.

"Now, shall we begin the experiment? Show me how long can all of you last. I wonder."

Mark smiled while his eyes were glowing eerily. That expression was surely something that would not show at someone who was looking at the creatures below as equal. Right now, all of them were just pests that needed to be exterminated… Both for relief and for fun…

Beside him, a sword was shaking fiercely. Not because of excitement but because of fear. Although Flam was just a sword, it could perfectly grasp its surroundings by detecting the energy around it. Right now however, it could not feel anything but the overwhelming animosity that the person that captured it was emanating. Flam was sword that gained sentience due to blood that washed its blade for decades. Countless lives were taken away by its blade. The negative emotions from that blood caused its birth. Still, all the negative emotions that gave birth to it could not be compared to the negative emotions it could fell right now.

Mark raised his right hand facing the sky. Three crystals manifested in front of his palm and glowed brightly like stars in the cloudy sky.

CRACKLE!

Branching light traveled from cloud to cloud with a rumbling sound.

It repeated several times alarming everyone inside and outside the settlement. The display of lights in the cloudy sky was both fascinating and frightening. They all raised their heads to see the light show in the sky.

Finally, the lightning was not content of travelling just from a cloud to another.

CRACKLE! BAM!

The first strike had finally fallen onto the ground.

A single shadow person disintegrated leaving his burned robe on the ground. This alarmed all those that were around that shadow person but before they could flee, remaining electricity in the air scattered as if being guided into their bodies. As they felt their bodies paralyze, they could only look at the sky one last time. Along with the flashing lights from the sky falling unto them, their pitiful lives flashed by their eyes.

CRACKLE! BAM! BAM!

Lightning rained inside the industrial area. One by one, the enemies that could not use their abilities died. They pain they suffered might be short but it should be the most painful thing they felt in their lives before they left this world.

They said that lightning could only hit a person once in his life. It was a thing that could happen by chance. If the person survived, that would likely be the first and last time they could get hit by a lightning.

Not this time however. Those that managed to survive the first lightning strike on their bodies were hit a second time. Survive once more and another one would come falling. Even if they survived the third strike, the fourth would still come.

There was no doubt that the only purpose of this rain of lightning was to eradicate them all.

Like black ants disturbed from their lines, the enemies scattered fleeing for their lives. As the attacks were lightning strikes, they thought of finding shelter.

However, as if ridiculing their lives, the lightning bent and turned in unlikely angles before hitting the ground just to enter the places they hid. Without places to run, the lightning hit their bodies. There was no escape. That was what the lightning wanted to tell them.

A smarter werewolf transformed. He managed to withstand the first and second strike with his strengthened body. As the third strike came, he knew that he would not be able to withstand it anymore. By chance, he grabbed a metal pole and threw it towards the lightning in attempt to either block or redirect it away.

However, it was naïve thinking.

The lightning bent away from the metal avoiding it instead of getting attracted to it. Without touching the metal he threw, the third strike hit him causing him to fall unto the ground, dead.

"How boring, they die too easily."

Mark said but his expression betrayed what he said. He was surely having fun watching his enemies die with fear as the last thoughts in their minds.

However, it was not enough. They were not suffering enough at all.

Soon, the lightning strike became thinner and thinner. At last, the lightning looked like it was just the size of a laser pointer. It was as if the lightning was finally losing its energy. However, that was not it. What they thought was nothing but a false hope.

Since the lightning became weaker, the enemies did not die immediately. That was when several more lightning strikes hit their bodies in fixed intervals. They could do nothing but spasm on the ground until they finally died. They could not even scream as their voices were unable to come out.

***

Dopp looked at his surroundings in horror. None of the lightning strikes hit him at all but that was the worst thing that could happen right now. As he was fine, he could watch all his subordinates die one by one. Some of them tried to call him for help but of course, there was nothing he could do. His ability had no way to deal with this kind of thing.

He looked at the sky. He knew that a gaze was fixed on him this whole time, a gaze full of ridicule and contempt.

However, he was still not losing hope. The person he had just contacted agreed to help him. The price might be overly expensive but as long as he was alive, he could gain it back.

***

CRACKLE! TING!

Mark frowned.

After his gaze left Dopp who ran into their aircraft to hide, he sent a small lighting towards the aircraft as a warning. To his surprise, it looked like that the aircraft had a barrier to block his lightning attacks. It was the same for the warehouse near the aircraft. None of his lightning attacks could enter the warehouse at all.

He did not know whether those were energy barrier or a psychic ability. Still, he could not let those be.

With a wave of his left hand, black smoke surged towards the barriers of the aircraft and the warehouse.

CRASH!

A sound like glass breaking was heard as the surges of miasma made contact with the barriers. Since the miasma corroded the energy that made up the barriers, the barriers could not be maintained anymore and were broken into pieces.

Seeing the barriers broken, Mark sent several streaks of lightning into the warehouse aiming at the enemies inside.

Before the streaks of lightning could hit them however…

BURST!

The whole warehouse exploded into a sea of flames. With that explosion, the whole warehouse became nothing but burning debris.

Mark was surprised.

"Is this what they used the hostages for?"

The sea of flames was rather strange. There was a kind of energy inside those flames was on par with his miasma and both energies were countering each other.

Flames burst and spread into a certain distance forming a large circle of flames.

Mark thought that they self-destructed but the questions in his mind was immediately answered.

A large figure emerged at the center of the circle. It was about three meters in height. The figure was humanoid with ram horns on its head. Its skin was black in color and looked totally scorched with cracks releasing glow like magma. The figure's head was covered in flames and nothing else aside from its glowing eyes could be seen from its face.

On its right hand, it was dragging a two meter sword with a half meter wide blade. Like the figure's head, the sword was also covered in flames.

"FINALLY!!!"

The figure spoke with a gruff and eerie kind of voice.

"Congratulations, Master Gar'Vlam."

The remaining members of Auraboros kneeled outside the circle of flames calling upon the name of the Demon they had just called. Dopp was among them.

Hearing the felicitations of the people that called him here, the demon nodded in satisfaction. His fiery eyes fell on Dopp who was known to lead this people to call him here.

"Dopp. I am gratified for your success in calling me here into the surface once more. However, what is with this event? Why are there traces of that foul false deity in this place?"

Hearing that, Dopp was dumbfounded. He had no idea why he was asked of that question. The missions Dopp was given was to aid Devon take control of this settlement, investigate the events regarding the Great One and to investigate what had happened to Death Valley Settlement. As for the ritual, it was just an attempt to call forth one of their leading figures in the organization. The ritual might or might not succeed and it was lucky that it had succeeded as their survival was now ensured.

However, for the demon to speak of a false deity here, Dopp could not fathom how it came to this.

Dopp could not reply at all, however something came into his mind as his wide eyes fell onto the figure flying in the sky.