Every single one of them gulped with nervous as they palpitated with excitement as they looked at the sight before them.
They were standing in front of a devastated forest with a wrecked ground and the trees toppling over or literally got destroyed like someone just performed a deforestation just beside the roadside they're on.
But they aren't looking at the devastation in front of them but the man standing at the middle of the blood soaked ground littered with mutant beast corpses amounting to exactly thirty seven of them and the most surprising thing is...that the animal carca.s.ses around the man are wolves, a pack of wolves that should have already considered almost extinct in UK.
"So this the true strength of the right hand man of our leader" Austin muttered as he stared at Alex like he was seeing his idol for the first time.
"If Sir Alex is already this strong that he's able to wipe out those pack of wolves that's at least twice the size of a lion then how strong would our Boss be if his right hand man is already this strong?" Mark muttered as his curiosity suddenly grew and along with it is his motivation to grow stronger and personally see with his own two eyes if a legend would be born in this chaos where mankind is facing its greatest threat that they have ever face.
"Sir, what are we gonna with the beast corpses?" Austin immediately asked respectfully when Alex finally got back.
"Put them all in the back of the cargo trucks" Alex instructed knowing that Leo has a lot of needs for mutant beast carca.s.ses right now and after that he immediately stepped inside a black Hummer truck.
"You heard him boys, get to work!" Austin yelled at the people around him.
Austin and Joe didn't join them but instead patrolled around just in case some of beast or zombies wanders over towards them because of the smell of blood while Josh, Mark and three of the new recruit that Leo brought with him before and along with the newly added twenty two people that they rescued along the way started working on getting all of the beast corpses on the backs of the trucks, of course the kids were spared from doing anything.
Right now, Alex and his crew was just midway to Leeds as they are already three hours late to their first destination because of the abandoned vehicles along the way and what's worse are they are those big a.s.s vehicles and with it like six wheelers or ten wheeler trucks, it took up a lot of their time including rescuing some survivors they met along the way.
There are currently fourteen adult women and eight adult men along with two boys and five girls between the age of three and eight.
Almost an hour later, they finally managed to load all the carca.s.ses on all of the trucks as they all lazily sat inside the mini bus all exhausted while Mark handed them some water and biscuits. After they were done, Alex suddenly ordered that they turn back immediately which didn't come as a surprised to the rest as what they got was really a huge haul.
Unbeknownst to Leo, the two convoys that he sent would suddenly come back to their base with not even a day pa.s.sed since they left.
*****
Somewhere around the roadside heading towards Manchester, 4 pm.
Two kids, a boy and a girl around 8 or 9 years old dressed in ragged clothing and covered in soot and dirt are running in distress and fear through the foliage just a few hundred yards away from the main highway road.
"Lea, come one or the monster will get us!" the boy said in hurriedly as he tried to help his sister up from the ground.
"I can't! I'm already too tired that I can't almost feel my legs anymore, just go on without me at least you would be able to escape from the monster if you leave me behind!" the girl started crying.
"N-No! I'm not leaving you here!" the little boy shouted in anger.
Suddenly, the boy started dragging the girl towards a large tree with huge roots that's able to provide cover on them.
A few moments later, there was a rustling sound along with a small growl. Hearing the growling sound, the girl suddenly whimpered which the boy hastily covered her mouth but unfortunately for them, the beast still managed to hear her.
A few seconds later, the beast appeared in front of them. It was a huge three meter tall blank panther.
"Growl!" the beast growled when it saw the two kids as it licked it lips and the kids even thought that they were seeing things that it seemed like the beast was mockingly smiling at them.
"Kyaa!" the girl screamed, completely terrified and closed her eyes while the boy gathered up his courage and stood up and picked up a rock from the ground, double the size of an adult's fist.
"B-Beast! I-I'm not afraid of you! I will not allow you to hurt my sister! Ahhh!" the mustered up his courage as he threw the rock and precisely hit the monster head.
"Roar!" the panther roared in anger as it's saliva dripped down onto the ground.
"Hii~!" the girl immediately shrieked in fear while the boy immediately ran towards her and hugged her head towards his chest.
"It's going to be fine, Lea. Your big brother here would surely protect you" the boy smiled and rubbed his sister's head.
In this life and death moment, the boy surprising didn't show any signs of fear anymore and instead his eyes were red, almost on the verge of tears but his eyes clearly showed determination to protect his sister that he even picked an arm sized branch from the ground and knowing that their deaths are imminent, the boy hatefully threw the branch towards the beast which the latter caught the branch on its mouth and crushed into pieces. If Leo or Caleb saw the boy right now, they would probably be amazed at this kid's mentality and wondered what their journey had been for this little boy to be this calm in the face of death that only people who had face countless near death situations would have.
"Roaarrr!" the panther roared angrily and pounced towards the two kids with its jaws wide open, ready to devour them.
But just as the panther beast was in mid air with its mouth wide open exposing it scary and sharp fangs.
"Roar?" the monster was suddenly confused as he suddenly dropped down towards the ground from mid air like its body suddenly suffered an intense gravity around its body that it immediately plummeted towards the ground.
Of course, the monster didn't suffer from some kind of increase gravity but instead there was a person behind it and holding its tail.
The man let go of its tail and the monster turned around and faced its new enemy with it's senses heightened to the max as it felt the dangerous air around the newcomer.
The boy seeing that nothing and instead heard a hard thump on the ground as he slowly opened his eyes and what he saw in front of him was a man dressed in some kind of military uniform, having some kind of a face off with the beast.
"Run or the beast will kill you!" the boy suddenly warned in concern like he suddenly forgot that they were in the same kind of scenario earlier.
Hearing, his brother shouting, the little girl hiding her head on his chest with her eyes tightly shut and with tears streaming down her face suddenly muttered in a low voice, "No, I won't leave you"
The boy heard her sister which he suddenly smiled warily at the misunderstanding.
Hearing the boy warning him, the cold look on the man's face decrease a bit as he smiled towards the boy, admiring the boy's morality even in this dangerous situation that the two siblings are.
While this is happening, the panther is instead circling around the man and emitting low growling sounds towards the man like he was giving him a warning.
"Noo~!" the yelled with immense horror when he saw the beast pouncing behind the man.
The man just casually smiled and his silhouette suddenly blurred as the man was already facing the beast with one of his hand already resting on the head of the monster and smashed it towards the ground causing web like cracks on the ground.
"W-what!?" the girl suddenly panicked and looked up when she felt the tremor on the ground and the first thing she noticed was the shocked expression on her brother's face.
"Andy! W-What happened?" the girl suddenly grew worried and started shaking him but when she noticed that he wasn't reacting to her. She then slowly turned her head towards where Andy is looking at and that, her little brain suddenly short circuited from the scene in front of her.
What she saw was a man in a military uniform pressing the head of the beast that has been playfully hunting them for a long time had it's head pressed hard onto ground by the man with only one hand.
"Sir! Why did you suddenly ran off?" Austin, Josh and Mark suddenly running over but Austin slowly died down the moment they got nearer to the scene.
"Gulp" all three of them gulped at the same time because the monster in front of them was two times bigger than the alpha wolf before.
Suddenly, Austin noticed the two kids huddled up near a huge tree.
'Kids? Why are there kids here' Austin thought but then he was suddenly struck with a realization and looked at the Alex who slowly stood up with his hand clamped around the neck of the whimpering beast.
'Did he purposely ran towards here to save this two kids?'
'But how did he know? Even if he had superb hearing, he still wouldn't be able hear what's happening here! This place was at least three hundred yards away from the road' Austin thought crazily in his mind
"Take care of the kids" is what Alex only said when he pa.s.sed by them while the dragging the flailing beast on the ground with beast's eyes full of immense fear.
"Yes sir!" Austin unconsciously saluted towards Alex, that even Josh and Mark followed suit.