Chapter 40: Kaelan and his group
His eyes narrowed, and without wasting any further time, Lucien activated his telekinesis talent.
The car in the front vibrated for a moment before slowly lifting in the air, just enough for the creature hiding behind it to become visible.
"What even is that thing?" Andrew inhaled a sharp breath at the sight of it.
A two-headed, mutated dog with saliva constantly dripping from its jagged teeth. Spikes protruded above its hide, while its claws looked almost comparable to those of a bear as it scraped against the ground.
It lunged at them with a sudden bark which somehow sounded more terrifying than a lion’s roar.
Evelyn stepped ahead of Lucien without being asked. She extended her right hand and at once, spiritual energy released from her body and gathered at the center spiritually before condensing into a spike of ice.
The spike shot forward with terrifying speed. Before the mutated dog could even react, it pierced straight through one of its skull and continued its trajectory before embedding itself into a nearby building.
She had progressed too.
Lucien raised an eyebrow, seeing her steady progress.
Glancing back at the creature, he checked its status.
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[Target: Two-headed mutated dog]
[Combat Power: D-]
[Description:- A simple dog that had somehow mutated into a two-headed creature.]
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The information was straightforward, but there was also one thing he noticed.
There is no mention of its talent.
Was it not able to awaken any despite being able to mutate? frёewebnoѵēl.com
This meant that having a talent wasn’t always necessary, a new piece of information he had managed to find from this seemingly simple exploration.
"I think we should head back, it might be evening soon."
Andrew’s words made everyone nod in approval, and without further ado, the group started heading back to their apartment.
But, unfortunately, they had another encounter on the way, a group of five people rushed out from a nearby corner road and happened to run in their direction. freёwebnovel.com
The person in the front was the first to spot them before he immediately shouted, "Run, there’s a powerful creature behind us."
His words made the entire group realize that there were people standing right in their way, so they shouted too.
"Run if you want to live and see another day."
"They don’t seem bad considering they didn’t use us as bait," Evelyn spoke beside him and Lucien agreed to her words as he thought the same.
"Andrew, you can handle that, right?" His finger pointed to the creature chasing them from behind, a big, muscular jaguar-like animal that chased them from behind.
"Uhm, I can try."
Andrew wanted to say no, but he didn’t want to appear as someone weak and cowardly in her eyes at the very least. In the eyes of his daughter, Emily.
"All of you, don’t stop and keep running past us." He shouted without using his talent.
The group of people didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. They also didn’t have enough time to convince him to run away or at least hide while he still could.
Hence, they just chanted in their mind your loss before leaving Andrew and Lucien’s group behind.
"It’s probably a cat that has somehow mutated this much." Just as Evelyn spoke her words, an ear-piercing scream erupted towards that creature, stopping it mid-charge.
It roared in frustration, yet refused to advance even a single step as the scream was too painful for its sensitive ears to bear.
Andrew stopped, seeing it had stopped its charge but still hadn’t backed away.
Hence he stood waiting, ready to use his talent again, and probably even louder this time if it tried to move closer.
"GRRAAARRGH!"
The creature whose facial features eerily resembled that of the cat snarled, trying to scare Andrew away but only to fail in its approach as even after a few seconds passed by, he stood completely still.
"Shouldn’t we just kill it?"
Evelyn shot a confused look at Lucien as she couldn’t understand why they were trying to keep it alive and allowing it to escape.
"We need to see if it’s intelligence enough to understand when it should back out." Only after he had spoken his words did realization dawned on Evelyn.
Right. They were mutated creatures of a species that already had intelligence far lower than that of a normal human.
If mutation had decreased that even more... the implication itself was terrifying as she imagined what the world would be a year after if the humans failed to finish off every single creature.
Though contrary to their expectation, the jaguar-like animal still retained enough of its intelligence to run away moments later.
All this time, the five-person squad was standing just tens of metres behind Lucien. Andrew’s scream had attracted their attention and what followed next was enough to make them almost faint.
They’re awakeners too, and powerful ones at that.
"H-hello." The leader, a young man in his early twenties with black hair and eyes of the same color tried conversing carefully.
But after a few minutes passed as they continued chatting, the group realized these people weren’t as arrogant as the other awakeners who had powerful talents.
Or maybe this Andrew guy is the strongest one in the group.
Lucien’s lack of talk had made them subconsciously rule him out when they were trying to decipher the leader of their group.
"Shouldn’t u come back with us? We have a very big shopping mall a couple of blocks away as our base which houses dozens if not hundreds of survivors."
The words finally attracted Lucien’s attention who was getting bored with all the small talk. Andrew noticed it too, and hence asked a little more info before agreeing to his words after he saw Lucien nod slightly in agreement.
The leader of the group introduced himself as Kaelan, and the only woman in the squad was his fiancée and lover.
The remaining three men used to know Kaelan from before the apocalypse and hence, they had decided to form a five-person squad to search for resources as it was their turn today.
This surprised Evelyn greatly so she asked about the taking turns and searching for supplies thing.
Apparently, the survivors had to search for food themselves in groups of three to five irrespective of the fact that whether they were awakeners or normal humans.
A rule that Lucien had to say, could indeed work very well.
Remembering the survivors from his building who acted arrogantly and didn’t show the slightest bit of appreciation after Lucien had saved them repeatedly, he realized the leader of this whole settlement was probably far more shrewd than he had initially assumed.
Well I can find that out for myself after meeting him.
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A/N: I am stockpile for second tier privilege so only a Chapter update for next four-five days.
Sorry T_T