Chapter 199 - Evolve

"Kilzachs, what do we do?" Inquired Suri, a tone of panic in her voice, snapping my out of it. 

I have to give everyone a clear picture of what they need to do, and I have to do it now, or we're dead! 

"Yugi, cast an illusion that'll make them see a wall between us and them! There's no way in hell we can't take those numbers in a straight fight, we have to slow them down, use your illusions! Katie, go all out and blast the things! Mitchell and Seila, pick them off but keep a distance! Grey, get some distance with the clients, drive back! Go with him, Suri, stay on top of the jeep, in case more Mutants show up on the way back. And...I'm heading for the vanguard!" I stated my instructions urgently and clearly, as I began recording through my glasses' lens. 

"Easy enough...," Muttered Yugi in response, as the Ronas suddenly halted, some of them losing control a bit, while some began flying upwards. 

They'd been fairly closely bunched together, but now, they were breaking apart...this is our chance!

"Quickly, while they're still spread out, take out as many of them as possible!" I exclaimed, as Grey and Suri began to retreat in the jeep, along with the clients. 

"<Manifestation Surge: Dragon Cloak>," Chanted Katie, as electric, yellow XFE wrapped around her body like armor. 

As she transformed, wings manifested from her shoulder-blades and a row of spikes formed down her back and continued straight down her tail, which grew out about two meters long. And around her head, the XFE formed in the shape of a dragon's head, before she fired out a huge blast of lightning from her hands, wiping out about a couple dozen of the Mutants in an instant. 

Mitchell was using his Dozen Tails manifestation to whip at the Ronas flying upwards, as well as grabbing their neck with the energy tails and snapping them. Seila was expanding and slashing with her twin manifested blades and rapidly cutting down the Ronas that were spreading out to the sides. 

"My turn...<Unleash Anomaly: God of Space and Time>," I chanted inaudibly, the dark mist forming around me as shot forward, before focusing on a chunk of the cliff and chanting, "<Copy>...and now, <Paste>, <Paste>, <Paste>, <Paste>." 

As I chanted, several small boulders appeared in mid-air above the Ronas, before plummeting down and crushing several of them in an instant. Loud crashes echoed throughout the valley as the chunks of rock crashed onto the ground, the blood and guts of the Mutants bursting out and splattering all over the ground. 

There's still a lot of them left, but in what's been just a handful of seconds, we've already taken out nearly half of them. The Ronas were still spreading out, a lot of them seeming to be very confused...good, looks like that bastard's doing a good job with his illusions.

As much as I hate to admit it, this'd be a lot more difficult without him. And between Katie's lightning blasts, Seila's expansive blades, Mitchell's tails and my copied rock chunks and bullets, the Ronas were dropping like flies. 

If I'd hesitated for a moment longer before giving my instructions to the others, it might have been too late, and things would have been a lot more difficult. There had probably been around a hundred of them, and we'd reduced their numbers down to around thirty, from the look of it. 

"Alright, guys, take out the stragglers...I'm going after the one that screeched and called them here," I remarked, as I shifted my gaze over towards the cave that it had poked its head out of, before zipping up towards it using my Jetback.

"Go ahead, we've got this!" Responded Mitchell affirmatively. 

"Yeah, it shouldn't take too much longer before we're done," Added Seila confidently. 

"What they said," Chimed in Katie. 

During teamwork training sessions, I've often emphasized that they shouldn't get used to relying on me too much, and it looks like that's paid off...of course, it helps that they're all highly powerful and skilled in their own right. 

As I landed inside the cave, I scrunched up my nose as I got a whiff of a foul smell, before I swiftly scanned the area, sending a couple of drones up ahead...tch, there's no sign of the thing. And further inside, this cave leads into what looks like a long, winding labyrinth. 

I can't risking heading in here, it's way too dangerous. If I run into a huge pack of Mutants in here by myself, I'll be screwed. And besides, this Unleash Anomaly form burns through XFE at a pretty fast rate, I can't maintain it for more than fifteen minutes at full capacity. 

Inverse has been regulating my XFE flow to conserve as much as possible and prevent even miniscule levels of wastage, but even with that, the time limit didn't extend by much. 

The last thing I want is to be out of XFE while lost inside a maze-like cavern, and I definitely want to avoid a situation where I have to sacrifice my lifespan again. Still, this is awfully concerning. That Rona, it definitely called all those others here, and it made sure to not leave itself exposed. 

And while we were busy dealing with the swarm ahead of us, it must have retreated once it realized that we were winning. These actions contradict typical Mutant behavior. Is it like the Monke we encountered earlier? 

It has to be. I've never encountered a Rona before this, but I have studied up on them, and I've never heard of one screeching to call for reinforcements. If we had tried to take on that swarm in our usual formation, we'd have been overwhelmed with ease. 

The only way for us to deal with so many Mutants at once is to throw everything we've got at them before they reach us, keeping our distance. If it wasn't for Yugi's illusions slowing them down and confusing them, they'd have been upon us in no time. 

I could have frozen time around the area where they were, but freezing a specific area while maintaining a normal time flow everywhere else takes a lot of XFE, especially the larger the space is, I'd likely have used up most of my XFE by the time we finished them off. 

Hm? What's this? I walked over towards a small lump by a corner of the cave, before halting as I got a good look at it...that's the head of a J-Ranked Mutant, a rat-like creature. And now that I'm looking around, I can see that there's also some bones scattered about, along with dark patches that are probably blood stains. 

The head is already rotting, and the blood stains have dried up...this thing was killed at least a few hours ago, definitely not any time recently. It wasn't just killed, it was eaten...so, this confirms it, it's not just that Monke that's eating other Mutants. I need to get back and report this. 

Which means, I guess there's no longer any reason to stick around here. In fact, we really ought to leave, before anything else unexpectedly shows up. I flew out of the cave and swooped back down towards the ground...looks like the others have finished up, a huge pile of Rona corpses on the ground. 

"What happened to the Mutant?" Inquired Mitchell, as they approached me. 

"Long gone. As we're about to be. We're heading back now, even if we're commanded to keep going. The jeep should soon be at the base, since it'll be going at full speed. Let's get in formation and get out of here, agreed?" I surmised bluntly. 

"Definitely, that fight cost an alarming amount of XFE, it's too dangerous to keep going...and would be pointless to do so without the client anyway, so yeah," Responded Seila with a nod. 

"I used too much XFE too, I'd rather fail the Mission than fight another huge group of Mutants like that," Added Katie, sweating a bit. 

"For sure," Agreed Mitchell, while Yugi was silent but didn't protest, so I'm guessing that he's on board too. 

We then got into formation, with Yugi up front, Seila and Katie a few meters behind, Mitchell up in the air as usual, and me bringing up the rear, along with some drones further back to make sure nothing tries to sneak up on us from behind. Once the formation was set, we began heading back, a sense of relief around us. 

We moved fairly quickly, all of us eager to get back to the base. We could all sense it, the feeling that danger was in the air...just what exactly was with the Mutants we came across today? The Monke was bad enough, but that Rona was even worse...especially since it got away.

What the hell is going on here, anyway? Are the Mutants starting to evolve? Developing greater intelligence is one thing, but being able to use XFE is a whole other story...I've got a really bad feeling about this... 

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