Chapter 255: There’s Still Some Hiding
I stood near the recon team as they secured the area to make sure there were no other Anomalies around and hiding inside the buildings along the streets.
Once the area was secure, they brought in the surveyor team to start measuring the Danger level of this rift using a machine that would measure the ambient miasma in the air.
I’m not exactly sure how it actually works but I believe it was something about the density of the miasma that lets us know how dangerous the rift was.
A rift with stronger Anomalies would have denser miasma or something like that.
I’ve heard that it’s not really a foolproof method to determine the danger of the rift but... The danger level classification was just something that we made up to begin with for the sake of making things easier to understand.
It’s not like the rifts or the Anomalies themselves had come to announce to us that they had these danger levels to begin with.
I left Liliac to watch over the Vanguards and the surveyor team while Dan and I went to look around the area to make sure the coast was clear.
There might always be some stragglers or something so it’s better to be safe than sorry.
At least... That was the excuse I was giving to get away from the group because I was afraid that I would give myself away if I stayed there any longer than I already have.
Dan probably figured that out as well which was why he didn’t say anything and just followed along without saying anything else.
He only turned to grin at me after we were out of sight from that camp.
"Wah, I never knew you were a berserker sia~" He smirked, gesturing to my bloodsoaked form.
"Shut up..." I groaned, taking out my water bottle to wash my hands of the blood. "I was restricted in what I could do, ok?"
"Sure... Not like I don’t already know you’re a berserker anyway. Hahaha!"
I decided not to give him the satisfaction of responding to his taunt and just rolled my eyes at him.
He hefted his shield and chuckled, "Not gonna lie though... That was pretty cool. You looked like some kind of anime protagonist. Hahaha!"
"That’s your way of saying that I looked cringe. You think I don’t know what you’re thinking?"
He was about to say something when both of us suddenly felt movement coming from the side while walking through the alley between two buildings.
The only problem was that the movement came in the direction of the wall.
We didn’t even have time to figure out if what we felt was just a mistake before the wall suddenly exploded towards us, sending bricks and debris flying towards us.
Dan immediately shoved me aside and raised his shield, taking the brunt of the impact as the bricks crashed into his shield in a hail of debris.
I rolled to my feet, having been saved from being hit by the debris, just in time to see an even bigger sized monkey wolf Anomaly rushing through the hole in the side of the building and smashing its fist into Dan’s shield.
I watched as Dan was sent flying back to crash into the wall of the other building behind him, his figure disappearing through the wall as he smashed through the brick and mortar like it was made of cupboard.
I was about to leap to his aid when the wall to my side also exploded and another of the giant monkey wolf Anomalies crashed through the wall to rush at me.
I let out a growl of my own as I felt annoyed at the ambush they sprung at us, though the annoyance was directed at myself because I let my guard down which led to this ambush.
Seeing that we were out of sight from the main camp and thus couldn’t be seen, I summoned one of my floating arms and projected a shield in front of me to protect me from the debris.
At the same time, I summoned another floating fist above the Anomaly and smashed it down on top of it.
The giant Anomaly saw my fist coming down on top of it and tried to raise its hands to stop it, only for the fist to smash it down into a crater and splatter its upper half of its body into meat paste without much resistance.
I turned to the side to see the first Anomaly smashing through the wall to chase after Dan who was no doubt somewhere inside the building right now.
I dismissed my extra arms just in case the Vanguards dispatched someone here to aid us and crashed through the wall to enter the building as well.
I shook off the dust just to see Dan smashing his shield against the Anomaly’s fist, my best friend tanking the hit and forcing a stalemate from the blow.
Despite the earlier surprise attack, he looked to be completely fine albeit just as pissed as I was.
He side stepped an overhead smash from the Anomaly, using his shield to block the pieces of the floor that flew towards him before he smashed his mace at the Anomaly’s wrist with a loud crack.
The Anomaly let out a roar and pulled back its fist, only for Dan to dive in and bash his shield against its side and forcing the creature to topple onto the ground on its side.
I hung back as it looked like Dan had it under control, though I remained close enough to jump in if he needed help at least.
He jumped on top of the Anomaly and smashed his mace across its face, whipping it to the side with a loud crack that indicated broken bones underneath the creature’s wolfish face.
It was, however, more durable than we thought as it snapped its head back to face Dan before it tried to swing its fist at him, trying to smack him off its chest.
He had his shield raised to intercept it, only to pause when he realised that vines had coiled around the arm of the Anomaly, locking it in place.
Dan turned back to see me with my hand up, using Lilia’s powers to control the vines to hold it down.
He gave me a nod before he raised his mace and started going ham on its face, smashing it left and right while not giving it any chance to recover.
The Anomaly tried to use its other arm to smack Dan away but he didn’t even slow down because he already expected me to stop it. Naturally, I did not let him down as I coiled more vines over both of the Anomaly’s wrists to hold it back, preventing it from doing anything.
Dan continued smashing his mace on the Anomaly’s head until it became just a crushed mess of broken bones and flesh, its limbs falling to its side as I let the vines loosen themselves and left no trace of the Anomaly being tied up.
Dan made sure that it was dead by giving the Anomaly’s head another smash that cracked open its skull before he was satisfied, the man breathing hard while standing on top of its corpse.
Well... With all that smashing, it was unavoidable that he also got blood and smashed bits of flesh splattered on his armour so I found that to be the perfect comeback for his teasing earlier.
"Wah... I never knew you were a berserker bro," I chuckled, coming up from behind.
He turned to me, his face splattered with blood and his mace still dripping with it to scowl at me, "You shaddup lah, bitch. How the fuck this big thing sneak up on us? They more sneaky than my daughters trying to sneak candy before dinner sia."
I shrugged, "They probably were already just laying in wait there the entire time and we triggered them for being too close I guess."
Dan rolled his eyes, "So you’re telling me that there could be more of these things just standing around in the buildings that are hidden away and waiting for someone to trigger them?"
"Maybe... Or there’s a Commander Class Anomaly that had instructed them to stay here and wait for someone to pass by to ambush them."
"That’s not good either."
"Definitely not... We’re either going to need to bring all the buildings around the portal down just to be safe... Or we have to comb through all the buildings to make sure there aren’t more of these things just waiting inside them."
He looked back down at the dead Anomaly, "What do you think the Danger Class is?"
"With the fact that there’s these Anomalies here? I think it’s at least a level three. Unless these two were supposed to be really rare then maybe it might be a level two... A high level two at least."
He clucked his tongue, "Tsk... And I still thought this might be easy job sia."
"A level two or three is still considered rather easy..."
"Yeah, yeah. Because got you mah."
That’s true... Without a Mortal God, a normal Vanguard would find a level three to be quite dangerous too...
Good thing I’m here then.