Mutagen

Day 154 - 10:08 PM - Air Space, Municipality of Badian, Province of Cebu

The Dimensional Barrier was, once again, damaged. The Observer and the Eyes were immediately alerted by the situation. There was no need to mention that the damage this time was immense, and the sky was torn for miles.

And as the one currently overseeing Southeast Asia, Fourth, the Eye of Amusement, was not amused.

This was the second time in the span of a few days, furthermore, in the exact same country.

With the barrier between the Mortal Realm and the Spirit Dimension weakening, it could not be helped that fractures appear every now and then. Even in other places on Earth, many incidents like this happened in the past two months. However, it was mostly by accident.

The largest fracture so far happened in Oaklyn, New Jersey, in the United States, after a sealed Humanoid Chimera finally escaped from his, several thousand years, slumber. The events, however, unfolded in front of one of the Eyes. Thus, the fracture was mended before anyone could notice.

This time, the fracture was definitely larger than the one in New Jersey. The previous one only spanned across a small village, while the current one basically slashed half across the country.

"What a headache!"

Fourth grumbled in frustration.

With the planetary debris in space closing onto Earth, they were rushing to find the remaining hidden gods. There were a lot of Gods in the past era of Earth, thousands of years ago. Some of them went down in texts and history, while the lesser ones were totally forgotten. Among all of those gods, many did not leave or did not get killed during the time the Observer was changed.

Due to many factors, many local gods misunderstood the new Observer and the Eyes.

Thus, many gods went into hiding.

Even for the Observer and the Eyes, it would be difficult to find those gods. They were gods, after all. Thus, until now, many of them remained hidden. On the other hand, some managed to stealthily leave the plane in one way or another.

Of course, some of them also died. Some were found by the Eyes and were killed. Some were killed after losing their powers after the world was returned to its original path.

Now, to find the remaining hidden gods, the Eyes were doing their best. Time was now limited, unlike before.

And yet, Fourth had to deal with this situation.

Fourth was all the way in Indonesia when this happened. She was in the middle of tracking traces of a hidden god there, possibly the Goddess of Lakes, Dewi Dani.

In the middle of her search, Fourth had to fly as fast as she could and return to the Philippines. Then, she had to see the sky cracked for miles. She was really annoyed.

The worst part, it would take a while to fix this Dimension Crack if she had to do this alone.

And there was no time to do that. Fourth should be looking for the hidden gods to help save the world instead of doing this.

Fourth immediately arrived at where the cause of the crack should be. What Fourth saw was a gigantic crocodile standing by the coast like a statue.

And, of course. Fourth was shocked to see a gigantic mutated infected crocodile radiating a godly aura.

There was no need to think or investigate.

This monster was definitely the one behind this mess.

Fourth wanted to deal with this problem immediately. The Eyes needed to remove this creature before it caused more problems.

But before Fourth could make a move, a door of light appeared out of nowhere in front of her.

"Don't be so hasty, Fourth."

A strict voice entered Fourth's ears as a figure stepped out of the door.

"Nineteenth! Why are you stopping me? We need to deal with that creature!"

Fourth complained with a frown as she gazed at Nineteenth, the Eye of Interest.

"I'm not stopping you for no reason," Nineteenth replied. "Just before you do any rash action, calm down and observe what you are about to attack."

"What do you mea- ah."

Fourth's mood dampened down as she realized that she almost made a grave mistake.

Thus, Fourth could only look at the gigantic crocodile below with dismay.

Except for a few strict occasions, the Observer and the Eyes could not directly interfere with the world.

One of those occasions was when...

A foreign god wanted to invade or interfere with the world.

It happened several times before and also the reason they had to drive out the foreign gods that inhabited this planet before. At these times, they could deal with the gods and their minions if they denied complying. They also had the authority to deal with traces that could lead to the possible invasion of foreign gods in the future.

This rule was the very same reason why Blood Demons, who were born from the drop of blood of a foreign Evil God, had gone extinct due to the machinations of the Eyes. It was because their existence could lead to the rebirth of the god they defeated in the past.

And this very same rule was what caused Nineteenth to stop Fourth from attacking the gigantic crocodile.

True, the gigantic crocodile was emitting a godly aura. Even if it was not a foreign god, it could have a direct relation to them. Thus, the Eyes could have dealt with it directly.

That was if...

It was still alive.

Unfortunately, the gigantic crocodile was an infected. It had long died with its soul and consciousness popping out of existence like a bubble.

And an infected, no matter how dangerous they were, were considered as [Earthborns]. It was an existence born in the lands of Earth.

Thus, the Eyes now lost the authority to directly deal with it even if it still had a godly aura as an infected.

If Fourth attacked the crocodile just now, she could be subjected to punishment. Luckily, Nineteenth stopped her.

"Damn it... What are we going to do? This is not amusing at all, you know? What if it caused the Dimensional Barrier to crumble further? We don't have a lot of time just to do the repairs!"

Fourth grumbled in annoyance.

"First, it doesn't seem to be keen on doing anything for now." Nineteenth said, assessing the gigantic crocodile. "We can leave it be for a bit and ask our friends below."

"Friends?"

Fourth was confused as she looked down where Nineteenth was also looking.

"Heeh?"

The three-eyed little girl was frozen stiff.

***

"You people again?! Just what in the world are you doing?!!! Just why is there always a problem when you all are around? HUH?"

Fourth immediately threw a tantrum as she landed on the ground.

After all, she saw the culprits in the previous incident in Catanduanes being involved here too.

"Can you not shout?" Mark yelled back with a frown. "Also, pipe your aura down. We got a sick person here."

Mark pointed at Celine, who was already having a hard time breathing just because of Fourth's presence. The others, like Padua and Geronimo, could not help but step back too.

Suddenly being scolded was actually effective. By surprise, Fourth followed Mark's words.

"Hey! Why should I follow you?!"

Of course, she immediately realized it.

"In any case, he is right, Fourth." Nineteenth said, standing behind Fourth. "If this female human died just because you didn't control your aura, you'll definitely receive a scolding from Master."

Hearing Nineteenth's reasoning, Fourth could only concede. Stopping her tantrum, she finally got to take a good look at Mark.

"Pfft! Hahaha! Did you jump into a grill or something?"

That was Fourth's reaction seeing half of Mark's body charred black. Although Mei had already cleaned his right cheek of the burns, his arm was still far from cleaned properly. His clothes were also burned.

"You think this is amusing?"

Mark sighed.

"Yeah?"

Fourth replied without hesitation.

Seeing that the three-eyed girl would not stop soon from laughing, Mark turned to the more dignified Nineteenth instead.

"What are your plans regarding that infected monster?"

And the reply was...

"Nothing." Nineteenth shook her head. "No plan at all."

And then, she explained the circumstances.

"So basically, you are saying that you can't deal with it since it's already a new entity and not the one that a god created?"

Mark summarized.

"Yes. Nicely put."

Nineteenth nodded at Mark's words.

"But isn't it still a god's creation?" Mark asked. "After all, it's only the soul that is changed or removed."

"That is true if we are talking about magical zombies, possession, or transmigration." Nineteenth replied. "Unfortunately, we are talking about the thing you call Mutagen."

"Mutagen, you say..."

Mark could not help but mull, digging the memories inside his subconscious.

Mutagen affects its victims genetically. Especially for those affected with the [Unstable Pathogen], so-called the Infected, their bodies undergo some restructuring after they mutated.

"So, it's not the very same body that a god created, is it?"

Mark said, making Nineteenth nod in agreement.

"Then, it's up to us inhabitants of Earth to deal with that thing?"

Mark added, which also received a nod in reply.

"How can we deal with that?" Mark could only ask. "Just the heat from an attack that missed turned me into a grilled potato."

"Pfft! Grilled Potato! Hahaha!"

In the background, the three-eyed girl was on another round of laughs.

"Can you do something about that?"

Mark complained to Nineteenth.

"There is nothing I can do about her. That is just how we, existences created by emotions, work. Fourth, as the Eye of Amusement, found your situation amusingly funny and could not help but laugh it out. It is good for her since she had no way of "receiving" amusement from humans in these dire times."

Nineteenth shrugged helplessly.

It was good for Fourth that she found Mark's situation amusingly funny? Although Mark understood, he could not help but feel slightly conflicted.

"Before anything else, can you tell me what happened first?"

Nineteenth asked Mark as she could not see his information from her book. Since it was not hard to do, Mark explained without hesitation.

"I see... So it just happened to appear here attracted by the battle. Then it attacked you when you tried to get close to it to investigate. Furthermore, it attacked without actually seeing you, is that right? That attack was the cause of the fracture."

At Nineteeth's affirmation, Mark nodded.

"So, it's all an accident, huh." Fourth, who finished laughing, joined in. "I thought you caused it directly like the previous one."

"What are you talking about?" Mark frowned at Fourth. "I didn't cause the previous one either."

"It's the aftermath of your war with those island Demons!" Fourth argued. "That is the same as you causing it directly!"

With that, Mark could not argue back and turned to Nineteenth.

"Then, we can only leave that monster alone for the meantime and you Eyes will repair the fracture?"

Mark asked.

"That is the only thing we can do, unfortunately." Nineteenth helplessly sighed. "It would be a different thing if we had his creator around."

"Hmm?"

Mark stared at Nineteenth, asking her to elaborate further.

Nineteenth then turned to the silhouette of the crocodile at the coast.

"You all can feel it, right? The unrestrained godly aura. It is actually not because it is releasing it on purpose or did not know how to control it. It felt more like its godly aura is leaking. A god's magical powers are theirs alone and would not leak. For it to leak like that, meant that the godly energy it had in its body did not belong to it at all, and it is experiencing some sort of rejection. It probably got that godly energy from an external source. Besides, even if Sinogo is a messenger of Kaptan, it is very unlikely for a messenger to be bestowed with such power."

"The seal..."

Mark blurted out, remembering the myth.

"That is probably right." Nineteenth agreed. "Previous instances showed that the infected are attracted and can absorb magical energies to mutate. It likely is one of those circumstances. If Kaptan is with us, he should be able to extract his own magical energy from the body of that creature. Godly energies are unique to their owners, after all."

"So, we needed the sky god Kaptan to kill that thing..." Mark murmured. "Can we just look for a needle in a haystack instead?"

At Mark's words, even Fourth and Nineteenth agreed. Finding gods that hid themselves were much harder even comparing to finding a grain of rice in a bucket of sand.

But then...

Pefile, who was listening silently all this time and carefully holding Celine, spoke.

"What about the Goddess Magwayen? She always go side-by-side with Sky God Kaptan."

Those words from Pefile could not help but put him in the center of attention.

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