Dawn of the 13th Era

Evolutionary Surges (1)

Orion froze on the spot, watching the huge beast down on all its four limbs right in front of him. It looked shorter than the others; after lying down, it was barely half his height, but its eyes were staring straight at him, making all the hairs on his body stand on end.

'What on Earth is that? Orion, move, we need to get out of here,' he thought to himself, then looked behind him to see the four wolves had surrounded him and were staring at him with deep amber eyes. The fifth one was already far gone, and it seemed it would take a while for it to be back on its feet.

"Fighting them is pointless, they have all the advantage. I just need an opening, then I'm leaving this godforsaken place," Orion muttered, then clenched his muscles while rushing towards the wolf on his right. The thought of fighting the crouching wolf didn't occur to him. There was something about those eyes that remained glued to him, giving him chills all over his body.

It gave him an oppressive feeling, like a predator watching its prey play around right in its trap. "I'll just make for it here at full speed; I don't believe it can catch up."

He threw his fist directly at the wolf, but the wolf simply dodged to the side and swiped at him, while the others also rushed over and made a new circle round him.

'They're fast! I can barely see them moving,' he thought, then looked at the amber eyes in the distance, which remained in the same position, unmoving and unbothered. Orion could swear he felt mockery and scorn from those eyes, like it was daring him to run.

"Fine then, if I can't outrun them, I'll wreck my way out," he said, then clenched his fists while raising them out. At the same time, the wolves pounced at him all together.

'I can't take on all of them together. I'll just take them down one after the other; a wound won't kill me anyway,' he thought, then ignored all the others and threw a punch at the huge wolf pouncing at him.

The wolf was thrown far away into the dark forest, but the other wolves pounced on him, ripping his clothes and tearing huge gashes on his body. If his body weren't stronger than normal, he would've been ripped apart in an instant.

He looked at the three wolves now surrounding him and didn't wait for them to attack again before clenching his fists and throwing another full-powered punch at the wolf, which was totally off mark and missed.

'Fuck.' He had no choice but to bear the retaliation of the wolves as they pounced on him again, ripping his flesh.

"Okay, that's enough!" Orion screamed out while gritting his teeth.

"You asked for this, we'll die here together then," with a mad look on his face, then raised his right arm and focused on the blue cell, then transformed.

---

Three men were walking across the forest, without any sign of fear despite the dark and silent forest all around them.

"I felt a tier-2 beast around here just now, but it just vanished from my perception," Aeric said.

"Someone must've killed it then, let's go check," Damion said, while Vinscent followed behind as silent as ever without saying a word.

"Five tier-1 and one tier-2 just vanished without a trace. A normal mutant can't achieve this, but I felt nothing from the human there; it was more like he was just a normal human."

"Wait till we get there first before jumping to conclusions," Damion replied, then was about to sprint over when Aeric stopped him.

"There's no need to rush, he's long gone and the beasts are also dead."

Getting to the site, the three found five dead wolves, all of them with scorch wounds on their bodies and a few twisted body parts.

"Looks like they encountered a tough opponent," Aeric said while watching in amusement.

"No, it's more than that. I can see electricity marks all over, but I can't see traces of them struggling, meaning they were defeated without resisting," Damion said after checking the corpses and looked at Aeric.

"They were totally overpowered, and that wolf," Damion said, then pointed at the alpha that had been reduced to a grotesque figure and couldn't be recognized again. It was missing its right hind leg and left foreleg, with its skin totally charred to black and huge gashes on its body.

"I don't think anyone able to do this was recorded in Cyberis. Overpowering five tier-1 mutant wolves and a tier-2 to this point is something only those from the first surge can do. There's none in Cyberis, if I can recall," Aeric said while looking at the site for any sort of information, then he pulled out a satellite phone and dialed a number. After a while, he heard a voice across the phone.

"Aeric, it's been long, how was your findings in the Silvermist Mountains??"

"The Silvermist Mountains is a whole different matter, I'll explain everything when I'm back. I found trails of a grade 3 mutant in Cyberis, so I'll be staying here for a while."

"A first grade?" a surprised voice came from the other side of the call.

"I'm as surprised also, I'll just deal with this real quick, then we'll be back."

"You've been out for long already, Aeric, you and Vincent."

"Just a few days, I'll be back soon," Aeric said, then cut the line.

Aeric looked at Cyberis City, brimming with life in the distance, and said, "Let's go, Damion take care of this mess."

Damion raised a hand and pointed it towards one of the corpses, which exploded with a huge bang, lighting up the dark forest.

Listening to the consecutive bangs, Aeric muttered, "A new grade 3 mutant after so long, this is interesting."