Chapter 177: The Strongest Little Guy

Even though Midget temporarily held the decisive upper hand in his battle against the anomaly, his opponent was no slouch, either, and it had only sustained minor injuries from Midget's consecutive stomps.

As a combatant who was ranked somewhere in the lower mid-range in the S tier, his true power was only at around the same level as the artificial anomaly he was fighting, and he was only able to gain such a decisive advantage in this battle thanks to the enhancements that he was receiving from his teammates.

Even so, killing an artificial anomaly was certainly no easy feat, considering the overall combat prowess of their team was far inferior to that of Adam and his team.

In fact, even though he was the core member of this team, he wasn't even as powerful as the King Arthur, who was only the second option on Adam's team.

"We have to wrap things up, Boss! Otherwise, the commotion we're causing here will attract other teams and anomalies roaming nearby!" the blessing caster urged in an anxious voice.

"I don't need you to tell me that!"

Midget took a deep breath, then enlarged his own body even further before picking up the anomaly from the ground and tearing at its body using his tremendous strength, trying to rip the anomaly into two.

In the face of Midget's unmatched strength, the anomaly's body was beginning to creak and groan incessantly, sounding as if it were going to be torn apart at any second.

However, right at this moment, a burst of undead energy was suddenly injected into its body, significantly enhancing its strength and stabilizing its body.

"We've been ambushed!"

With Midget's extensive battle experience, he immediately realized that something was wrong as soon as he detected the anomaly's sudden spike in strength, but it was already too late.

Right as he was preparing to retreat, black technomantic light suddenly erupted all around him, and the gravitational force in the area was abruptly enhanced by severalfold. At the same time, countless black technomantic tentacles erupted out of the ground to bind his enormous body.

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

After that, the ground began to rumble, and a series of goblin landmines flew out before clinging to Midget's body and exploding violently.

Even though Midget was wearing a suit of armor, his body was still severely ravaged by the string of dozens of consecutive explosions, and as a result, the anomaly slipped out of his grasp.

These artificial anomalies were completely devoid of intelligence, so they naturally had no idea what was happening around them.

However, its instinctive resentment spurred it to immediately retaliate against Midget in vengeance as soon as it was dropped.

The anomaly plunged its bone spike viciously into Midget's knee, then released a burst of enormous power to completely pulverize his kneecap.

Midget's leg immediately gave out from under him as a result, causing him to fall to one knee, following which the anomaly jumped onto his body to tear at him with its fangs.

"Heal me!" Midget roared as his body turned bright red, and he finally swelled to his complete form, where he stood at 10 meters in height.

In this form, his strength received a significant increase, and thanks to the enhancements he received from his teammate's blessing technomancy, he was able to completely tear apart the technomantic tentacles around him, then ripped the anomaly off his own body before hurling it away.

However, right at this moment, the anomaly's body suddenly stiffened for a moment, as if it had been influenced by something, and it immediately abandoned Midget to attack the blessing technomancer instead.

Even though these artificial adapters were quite formidable in battle, with some of them possessing power superior even to certain S tier combatants, they had no intelligence or strategy. If a team could exploit this weakness, then they could work as one to eradicate these artificial anomalies relatively easily.

However, things were very troublesome now that it had somehow figured out that the best strategy was the attack the technomancer.

The technomancer hurriedly cried out to Midget for help at the sight of the oncoming anomaly, but all of a sudden, Midget was also momentarily rooted to the spot, as if he were being influenced by something as well.

All it took was that momentary lapse for the anomaly to reach the technomancer.

The blessing technomancer had no combat prowess to speak of, and he immediately turned to flee. However, he had only taken a few steps before he trod onto one of the goblin landmines, and his body was blown into pieces amid a resounding explosion.

In contrast, the anomaly only sustained minor injuries from the shockwaves released by the explosion, and after losing its target, it immediately turned back to pounce on Midget, who had returned to his senses at this point.

Midget was greatly unsettled by the demise of his teammate, and he raised his arms to hold back the anomaly as he yelled, "Who's there? Come on out, my friend. Let's talk this over instead of resorting to violence!"

"What is there to talk about, Mr. Midget?"

The sinister four-man team finally revealed itself.

Out of the four of them, the goblin was the only one that Midget recognized.

He was an A tier combatant who had earned a lot of points, enough for him to lead a team of three, so those three were most likely teammates that he had recruited from the outside world.

Seeing the familiar face, Midget hurriedly said, "Don't do this, Goblin. We've even shared a meal together before, haven't we? Let me go this time, and I'll be sure to compensate you handsomely once we get out of here!"

"Do I look like an idiot to you?" Goblin cackled. "The director has explicitly prohibited the striking of private deals under the promise of compensation in the real world. If I let you go here and the director decides to come after me, who's going to save me? Also, everyone always says that there are two really strong little guys in Shadow City, and that you're the stronger one of the two. That's pissed me off for a very long time! After today, I'll be the only strong little guy left in Shadow City!"

As soon as Goblin's voice trailed off, he whistled loudly, and many more goblin landmines sprang out of the ground before flying onto Midget's body.

At the same time, he set up a cannon on the spot, aiming it directly?at Midget as he ignited the fuse.

Midget could see that there a peaceful outcome was no longer possible to achieve, and with that in mind, he let loose a thunderous roar as he tapped into the last of his power and conviction. His body instantly turned an even brighter shade of red as he withstood all of the explosions.

However, there was simply too much firepower for him to contend with. Under the effects of the constant explosions, disruption from undead technomancy, psychic control, and the debilitating effects of the array, he was ultimately defeated, and the anomaly was able to punch through his body and smash open his head.

With that came the first S tier casualty of the battle royale. However, not only were the spectators not saddened in the slightest by this, the demise of Midget sparked a wave of excitement in the stands.

Then enjoyed watching the rise of powerful combatants, but they were even more eager to see powerful combatants fall.

The higher one rose, the more spectacular their fall, and all of the spectators were loudly cheering for Goblin and his team.

The outsiders that Goblin had recruited into his team were displaying abilities that the spectators had never seen before, and that was also one of the drawcards of the battle royale.

In contrast with everyone's excitement, Hailey and the others were staring at the screens in front of them with tightly furrowed brows.

"That's where Adam and the others are heading..."

"This is really bad! Aside from Goblin, there's no information at all on the other three members of that team, so there's no way they'll know what to expect."

"I hope no one dies..."