Chapter 761: The New Earth, The First Problems (1/2)

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.