The group felt regret at not being able to fight. Harris was especially down as he was the reason Sang Woo had found them. He also couldn't protect anyone when it was needed. His heart ached recalling the desperate face his wife and friends gave him when the debris was heading for them.
'I couldn't be a shield that protects everything'
He felt like punching the old him who told Sang Woo about their plans. He had only wanted to help as many people as possible, but he was foolish not to have seen that Sang Woo didn't share the same feelings.
'I'm an idiot for believing such an act'
Harris clenched his hands, almost making them bleed with his short nails. He was angry and disappointed with himself. Harris continued to feel down with his actions when he felt a sudden warmth.
"It's not your fault honey"
Sophia hugged him and started to stroke his hair. Her calm and warm voice made Harris stop his self judging thoughts. He embraced her tightly trying to hide his tears to his loving wife.
"You have a big heart that wants to save everyone, it's not your fault that you wanted to save people"
She continued to stroke the head of the big man and hugged him warmly.
'Never again'
Harris thought in her embrace.
'Never again will I endanger my loved ones'
Harris swore that his actions would never harm those that he cared about. He would become an immovable mountain that he loved and tower over those he wanted to protect.
The other members in the group were surveying the building they found. When they had exited the alleyway and made their way to the street they saw no zombies anywhere. It was like the street had returned to the state before the black hole had swallowed everything. They entered a small 4 story building a few blocks away from the alleyway.
The building also had no zombies inside and was safe enough for them to watch the fight on the highest floor.
Dean sighed heavily when the group had finally left.
'They should know that I'm an mutator, no an evolver would be a better term'
Dean had mutated without being infected by a zombie unlike Sang Woo. He wasn't sure if there was a difference between the way they mutated but he instinctively knew that they weren't the same. His eyes glowed red as his focus was pushed to the limit.
"Oi, where's your snake tongue? You've been awfully quiet being beat up by the person you want to kill"
Sang Woo roared loudly at the remark and charged fiercely at Dean.
Dean quickly jumped out of the way and watched as Sang Woo's body started to change. His arms grew bigger and shoulders grew concrete armor whenever he slammed against the walls. The red eyes grew solid leaving no other colour in his eyes.
Dean watched the transformation with utmost attention. This was the first mutator he was seeing and the astonishing adaptation of concrete armor was shocking to say the least. The previously enhanced body could be summed up as denser and stronger muscle mass but this mutation was purely a physical mutation with the surroundings.
'I guess that's the difference between an evolver and mutator'
Sang Woo slammed his elongated arm down at Dean while Dean was still in the air. Dean's face went serious as his focus was all on what he was about to do.
'I'll show you the difference between me and you'
Dean's eyes lit up brightly becoming a deep crimson colour. The air around him warped and space itself was contorting to his will. A 15cm portal appeared in the direction of the arm and absorbed the attack.
Dean simultaneously created another portal near Sang Woo's face and soon a bizarre event occurred. The arm that was supposed to hit Dean had appeared disconnected in the air and slammed into Sang Woo's face instead.
Sang Woo flew in the air from the attack showcasing the amount of force that his attacks carried. Dean had an ecstatic expression on his face watching what he was capable of, deep inside him was a will roaring proudly at watching the foe be sent flying.
Dean's headache had stopped when he confronted Sang Woo. His mutation finished evolving when Sang Woo was near. It might've been a result of the S gene inside him reacting to the stimulus around him. Similar to how Sang Woo was mutating with the surrounding, Dean had a reaction that made him grow stronger when sensing Sang Woo.
Sang Woo warrily got off the ground and looked at his enemy once more, but instead of charging carelessly he seemed to be wary of what had happened. His solid red eyes dimmed and started to show an emotion of hesitation.
"YOU!"
"Oh so you can speak"
Dean smiled wickedly at Sang Woo, causing him to once again rush blindly to attack. It would seem that Sang Woo's mentality was struggling to keep his original sly personality and could only become berserk.
Dean would probably have been struggling more if Sang Woo kept his rationality while fighting, it was significantly harder to fight an opponent that was human than one that acted like a beast.
Humans were able to fight all kinds of animals with different weapons and using their brains they were able to hunt beasts far bigger and stronger than themselves. This was how Dean felt like fighting Sang Woo, it felt like hunting a dumb beast that didn't have any cunning.
Dean would aggravate Sang Woo to attack him while he would create a portal and make Sang Woo attack himself.
Sometimes Dean would get the chance to attack but the knife he had taken from a corpse wasn't able to pierce through the hardened skin or concrete armor surrounding Sang Woo's vitals. Dean tried to attack the areas uncovered by the concrete but Sang Woo would always retreat or block with his armored body. He had broken a couple of knives and didn't have that many left.
Dean had no other experience with these portals and could only use them in such a basic way to break the armor.
After some time, the concrete armor that covered Sang Woo's shoulders and arm were breaking apart. Dean was heavily mentality fatigued creating the portals. He had made Sang Woo hit himself at least 30 times. Dean was panting heavily while staring down his enemy.
Every time the armor was about to break Sang Woo would charge at the walls and reinforce himself. Dean had tried to stop him from doing that but his portals weren't a big enough size and the reckless charge from Sang Woo was impossible to stop by himself. Finally though the area had no more concrete walls and were destroyed.
Sang Woo's concrete armor all fell off the body leaving his body exposed. His body was bloody and bruised all over but the amazing thing was that his hands weren't damaged the slightest. The hard material still covered his hands and his own blood dripped from them due to hitting himself but that was it. His eyes went dimmer and started to lose the solid red colour.
"HAhahaHAha"
Sang Woo's mentality returned to normal. He started to laugh hysterically as if he wasn't in a life or death situation. Dean was frowning heavily and just watched quietly and started to think of a plan. Even this momentary break was beneficial for him to stabilise himself.
Sang Woo stopped laughing and his face lost all emotion. It was the true face of the ambitious man.
"You know…I'm shocked that you can fight me for so long"
Dean felt iffy hearing that. If he put it into words it was like he felt like he was about to verse the last stage of a final boss. He didn't reply and just stayed quiet resting himself.
"You kept getting in my way…You deified and disrespected me in front of so many people…Acted against me by destroying my plans…And now you still stand in my way"
"You're power is really strong I'll give you that, you even managed to beat that monster…Too bad for you but now I'm in control"
Sang Woo calmly sprinted towards Dean, sending a flying punch. Dean quickly evaded and threw a knife at Sang Woo. Sang Woo deflected the knife with his hands and continued to rush Dean. This all happened in an instant and would be too fast for other people to have reacted if they were in Dean's shoes.
The two continued to chase and evade each other. Dean had little trouble evading the attacks with his senses but his mind was having trouble creating portals. Dean had to have a clear sense of the surrounding and then control space to contort where he wanted. Moving at such a fast speed made it hard for him to accurately create portals; it made it twice as mentally consuming to dodge all of Sang Woo's attacks and sense the surroundings while creating a portal. His mental fatigue didn't help either.
Sang Woo must've figured that out quickly. It was why he hadn't stopped charging Dean and kept the pressure up.
'This is hard'
This was one reason why versing a beast was better. When Sang Woo was still in his berserk state he didn't have any methods to think and just continued to randomly attack. This left ample time for Dean to sense the surroundings and plan to create a portal. It took almost no effort to create them. All he needed to do was dodge attacks and focus on the space he wanted to create a portal. He had to think ahead and know what he wanted to do as he couldn't change a portal that he already created, he could only make two at a time and had little options. It was easy to control and kite the berserk Sang Woo who only knew how to do simple attacks.
"Just give up and die, you can't beat me now"
Sang Woo had the advantage of a stronger body and wasn't as tired as Dean. It would only be a matter of time till Dean makes a mistake and pays dearly.
'Heh, it's troublesome but it's the only way'
Dean was reluctant at his idea but he couldn't think of anything else. His brain wasn't thinking properly and his body was tired. This idea was the only way he could see himself winning.
Dean jumped high into the air and turned around to see Sang Woo jump as well. Dean's body wasn't as strong as Sang Woo and didn't manage to jump as high. Sang Woo quickly managed to reach Dean and his fist impaled Dean's stomach. Sang Woo's hand exited the other side of Dean's stomach forcing blood to gush out.
"Idiot"
A sly smile appeared on Dean's face while blood leaked out his mouth. Sang Woo quickly felt danger and put his other hand to block the incoming knife attack from the front. He smiled at the fact that Dean's last attack wouldn't be able to pierce his skin. However as the knife was about to hit his hand a portal appeared on it and the attack went through stabbing the back of his neck.
"YOU"
Sang Woo's bewildered expression was evident. He had thought that he had gotten the last laugh killing Dean but instead fell into Dean's trap. It might have been because he was constantly unable to hit Dean that made him not realise that it was a trap. His berserk state was slowly appearing again the more frustrated he got. He didn't even manage to think that Dean would allow himself to get hit to be able to make a portal.
The knife cut Sang Woo's neck cleanly off and his body went limp.
'Fuck it hurts'
Dean coughed up a horrendous amount of blood and his vision went blurry. He didn't pull out the hand as he knew that it would lead to losing even more blood. He soon lost consciousness and fainted.
He was lucky that no zombies were in the area. Not that he had any energy to defend against them. He was just hoping that when he woke up he had recovered enough to move somewhere safe.