297 Fighting the Contaminated Beasts, The Circumstance Mark was Being Worried Abou (1/2)

Day 44 – 10: 32 AM – San Jose, Antipolo, Rizal

Mark landed with ease after he jumped from the second floor. After landing, the first thing Mark did was…

”Stop that already, you're wasting bullets.”

He grabbed Edzel's shoulder. The young man did not even realize that he already arrived behind him and was continuously shooting the incoming animals. When Mark grabbed his shoulders, he flinched as he snapped away from his current state.

”Boss…”

”You need to keep you calm even if death is approaching you. Otherwise, you won't even notice any opportunity to survive even if there is one.”

Edzel fell silent. He still needed to learn a lot of things. His legs were even shaking from the scary scene in front of him. He might be able to handle one or two enemies but this many pushed him into fear.

”Retreat first. You can back me up from the second floor. Also tell and Karlene to watch out for the ones that will go straight to the school. The target of these guys is Amihan.”

”Yes, boss.”

Hearing Mark's orders, Edzel finally retreated and helped Karlene in assisting the children to go up.

”It's better if no one will drag me around this time.”

Mark murmured with a serious expression as he watched the incoming animals. He was also not confident in being able to deal with these creatures with efficiency.

What was harder? Was it fighting people? Maybe, fighting the infected? Was fighting evolved animals harder? Or fighting these beasts?

For Mark, it was the fourth one. These beasts exhibiting the same symptoms as the people that were the hardest enemies he faced so far. He knew that these beasts were still alive. However, their consciousness and instincts were all wiped out. In other words, these beasts should not be capable of moving at all as they were all in a state of coma. Yet, these beasts were moving. It was something similar to the infected by the unstable strain of Mutagen. No, it definitely had to do with Mutagen. Everything in the world had already been altered by Mutagen ever since the start of the outbreak.

With Mark's Emphatic Ability to detect and absorb emotions, he had a high advantage against humans and animals. As for the infected, even if they had no emotions, their movements were mostly monotonous and easy to predict.

These beasts in front of Mark however were the combination of the two. The enemies now had no consciousness but exhibited the physical prowess of those that had consciousness.

Furthermore, there were several more things he was wary about these beasts.

But he had no choice right now but to fight.

Making his first step, he charged forward. He then dropped the angle of his body as he ran and at the same instance, a bladed baton launched forward from the shield on his back. As the baton passed over his head, he immediately grabbed it with his right hand and swung it to the side. With that swing, bladed baton turned into a long spear, the [Blader].

In this fight, what he needed to do the most was to avoid getting too close to these beasts. As they had the same symptoms of the contamination, it was very likely that they could also transmit the disease. A single careless move could be fatal. In that case, he should fight while maintaining distance as soon as possible and this spear and his needle launcher were the best weapons to use.

There were only a few steps before he would clash with the first beast. He then held the [Blader] with two hands and positioned it with the blade of the spear in front. It was a typical spear charge. Still, Mark was in doubt whether it would be effective.

It was a large deer about the size a little smaller than an adult thoroughbred horse. However, its antlers looked like stone spears. Anyone pierced with its horns would surely suffer a fatal injury. This deer was charging forward with its antlers pointing in front of it.

”Antlers are bones so…”

Mark murmured as he suspected something. Antlers were made of bones. If its antlers looked like tough solid stones, then how strong the bones of this deer were?

He decided not to continue the initial attack he wanted and pointed his spear a little downwards. Then, he suddenly stopped his running causing the force and speed from his charge to push him forward. With his left foot forwards and the right foot behind, he let his feet skid through the soil until the deer was already within the reach of his spear.

Since the spear was pointed downwards, the blade passed below the head of the deer. With a stomp, Mark stopped sliding forward. He then let his right hand let go of the spear and hit the hind side of the shaft with his right palm downwards. With his left hand as fulcrum and his palm as the effort, the spear was used as a lever.

BAM!

As the previously lowered edge of the spear suddenly swung upwards with the force enough to crush a normal person's skull, the lowered head of the deer was blown upwards revealing the area underneath its jaw. With his fast reflexes, Mark pulled the spear back and pierced it forward with more force.

SPLAT!

A hole was punched through underneath the deer's jaw. The spear evaded the strong bones of the deer's skull and its blade went straight into the deer's brain.

With the blood splattering around, Mark hurriedly retreated. He then swung the spear to the side to free it of the remaining blood and charged towards the other animals. Still, Mark was not relived at all even though his attack at the deer succeeded. It was because the deer stood up once more even though its brain was already done for.

However, Mark managed to get the attention of the whole horde of contaminated beasts.

As Mark thought, these beasts were being controlled remotely. He only succeeded at injuring one of them and yet, the whole attention was on him now. If it did not happen, he would have thought that these animals were some sort of voodoo or magical zombies that had no weaknesses except being burned to ash or being sliced into unrecognizable pieces.