Chapter 279: Closing In

The first one to reach the anomaly was naturally none other than Mole, not because he was more furious than the other two psychic mutants, but simply because he was the fastest of the three.

A bolt of blue lightning flashed through the air, and Mole was already directly beside the anomaly.

"These things with multiple heads really piss me off! That old witch had eight heads, and you have five! Both of you deserve to die!"

Mole blasted a powerful burst of electricity at the anomaly as he spoke, but the anomaly was able to evade the attack.

Mole immediately gave chase, and the two of them sped through the apartment at an extraordinary speed.

All Adam could see was a bolt of lightning pursuing a blurry figure, and it seemed that the two were evenly matched when it came to speed.

However, those who could match Mole's speed were generally able to defeat him in battle.

Speed was Mole's forte, but it was only a facet of the anomaly's powers.

Sure enough, after just a brief chase, the anomaly suddenly turned around and went on the offensive, forcibly plowing directly through a lightning attack before sending Mole flying with a strike to the abdomen.

By the time Mole clambered to his feet, there was already a clear wound on his abdomen, and the flesh around the wound was already beginning to fester.

"Fuck! That thing's claws are poisonous, and they're super sharp!"

As for the anomaly, a patch of its skin was charred black by the lightning strike, but it was able to quickly recover from that minor injury, displaying far superior physical resistance to Mole.

Thankfully for Mole, this was not a one-on-one battle, and in the same instant that he was sent flying, Rabbit and Armadillo arrived on the scene. The former was wielding her peculiar soul power, while the latter was controlling a storm of yellow sand, and both of them attacked the anomaly in unison.

Both of them possessed immense offensive prowess, and the anomaly was also sent flying after directly withstanding their attacks, crashing through around a dozen walls in succession before it was finally able to steady itself.

During the process, the anomaly suffered some broken bones, but once again, it was able to make a full recovery before long.

Both Rabbit and Armadillo were quite taken aback by this.

In contrast with Mole and Adam, both of them possessed tremendous offensive capabilities, as evidenced by how they were able to make such short work of a defensive tank like Anaconda during the battle royale.

Even when pitted against opponents of the same caliber as themselves, they had the ability to severely injure such an opponent with a single strike, given the right circumstances.

𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

However, their opponent on this occasion had managed to recover from the effects of their combined attack in just a few seconds, and that was a rather alarming sight.

"It's stronger than I expected."

"It only has five heads right now."

"I want to see how powerful it'll become with all seven heads."

"Speaking of that, is this thing an idiot? Why doesn't it just always carry its seven heads with it? Why does it have to wait until it's being attacked before it collects its heads one by one?"

"It's a psychic anomaly, who knows what it's thinking? Besides, maybe using other people's heads makes it susceptible to emotional backlash. I don't think its victims would appreciate it using their heads!"

As expected of the psychic mutant trio, they were always keen for a chat, even in the face of danger.

However, the anomaly wasn't going to grant them much time for a casual conversation, and while they were still chatting with one another, the anomaly's retaliation had already arrived.

This was an extremely cunning anomaly that knew to run away from opponents more powerful than itself, but was also willing to go on the attack if it were to determine that it could match up to its opponents.

Through that sequence of exchanges, the spider anomaly was able to gauge the power levels of its assailants, and it had chosen to retaliate without any hesitation.

In the blink of an eye, it arrived in front of everyone as a blurry shadow, and the first target that it chose to attack was Rabbit, who had inflicted the most damage upon it. Its glowing blue nails sprang forth, and it thrust them directly at Rabbit's abdomen.

Rabbit wanted to evade the attack, but was unable to do so due to the speed advantage that the anomaly held over her, so she could only choose to withstand the attack.

The problem was that she had only two arms to defend herself with, while her opponent had eight legs. While she was able to defend herself from the first attack, she was unable to deal with the subsequent attacks, and a long gash was immediately sliced into her abdomen.

.

The anomaly immediately pressed its advantage, swinging its eight legs through the air at an extraordinary speed. In the blink of an eye, it had unleashed a sequence of over 10 attacks, and Rabbit's body was quickly riddled with wounds.

If this had been a one-on-one battle, then it would've drawn to a very fast conclusion.

The anomaly's speed, defenses, and offensive prowess were all superior to Rabbit's, and at this rate, it wasn't going to take very long at all before her body was torn to shreds.

Thankfully, Rabbit had allies on this battlefield, and even though they were unable to immediately reinforce her as they were unable to keep up with the spider anomaly's speed, she was able to hold off her opponent long enough for help to arrive.

Even though Armadillo wasn't very intelligent, he was quite a seasoned psychic combatant, and from experience, he knew that the best way to deal with opponents that excelled in speed was to restrict their movements.

Thus, while the anomaly was attacking Rabbit, he sent a wave of yellow sand surging toward the anomaly before clinging onto it from behind.

At the same time, Shae also arrived on the scene before sinking her fangs into one of the anomaly's heads, trying to tear the head off its body.

In her current form, Shae was over three meters tall, and the larger one of her two heads was comparable in size to a hippopotamus head. It was as if a hippopotamus had chomped down onto a watermelon, and as she bit down forcefully, a gruesome crunch quickly rang out, following which intracranial fluids began to gush out of her mouth.

The spider anomaly immediately retaliated in pain and alarm, using its claws to scratch at Shae, while the glowing spikes on its back began to release strange cyberhex energy. After the spikes sliced through Armadillo's skin, a disoriented look quickly appeared in his eyes, and he suddenly turned on Shae, punching her in the head to force her mouth open before sending her flying with another punch.

"What the hell was that for?" Shae yelled as she massaged the side of her head.

"I..." Armadillo slowly returned to his senses, and he exclaimed, "I fell under some type of cyberhex just now! Everyone, make sure you don't get impaled by the spikes on its back, and avoid coming into contact with that energy!"

Everyone quickly gathered back together, and after familiarizing themselves with the anomaly's abilities and attack patterns, the five of them were gradually able to gain the upper hand.

The three psychic mutants would've all ranked in the top half of the S tier back in Shadow City, and Adam and Shae were no slouches, either, so they were able to slowly dominate the anomaly.

Given his prior experience, Adam knew that it was about time for the anomaly to try and run away.

"Make sure it doesn't get away! If we let it escape and collect more heads, we'll be screwed!" Adam yelled as he began to conjure up his army of clones, but instead of participating in the battle, all of the clones distributed themselves throughout this confined space to cut off all escape paths for the anomaly.

Adam refrained from invoking Sludge as this apartment level was nowhere near five meters in height, and the levels were only separated by simple floorboards, so there was no way that the building could contain its enormous body.

While Adam was conjuring up his clones, Mole was darting around the anomaly in circles, binding it with a chain of lightning.