Chapter 282: Cavern Battle

As it turned out, Adam's analysis was correct.

In the instant that the anomaly appeared in the spacious area within the cavern where Adam and the others were situated, it was immediately ambushed by Sludge, which clasped its fists together, then swung them down violently like a powerful mace.

The anomaly wanted to evade the attack, but it was unable to do so as Rabbit was also attacking it from the other side, and it had no choice but to raise a few of its legs to defend itself from both of its assailants.

Two of its legs were raised to ward off Sludge's attack, another two were raised to oppose Rabbit's attack, and the remaining four were pressed firmly against the ground to stabilize its body.

In the face of both Rabbit and Sludge's attacks, a huge crater was instantly smashed into the ground beneath the anomaly's feet upon impact, and the anomaly's body also sank down by half a meter, but it was able to withstand both attacks.

Rabbit was sent flying by the reactive force, and she stumbled back several meters before she was able to steady herself.

"It's become a lot stronger than before!"

"Indeed, it has. Prior to this, it wasn't able to oppose Sludge's strength!"

Unlike Rabbit, Sludge was able to remain rooted to the spot thanks to its enormous weight, and it continued to batter the anomaly with more attacks.

The anomaly wanted to jump out of the crater and retaliate, but a burst of suction force suddenly erupted beneath it, following which Armadillo's paws extended out of the ground to grab onto it from below, locking it into place.

"Let's all attack it together!"

Adam immediately seized the opportunity, instructing all of his clones to jump into battle.

Due to the risk of a cave-in, Adam's clones didn't use any firearms or explosives. Instead, they pulled out their electric drills and chainsaws to attack the anomaly's limbs and heads.

At the same time, everyone else also entered the fray. Rabbit mustered up her soul power before attacking the anomaly's heads again, while Shae and Mole also unleashed their most powerful attacks.

However, in the next instant, the hexagram on the anomaly's body suddenly began to glow brightly, basking the entire cavern in purple radiance.

In the instant that the purple light surged through the cavern, everyone was immediately struck by a sense of feebleness, and the power of their attacks was instantly halved.

At the same time, a series of moving human heads began to sprout out of the walls of the cavern, and they were wearing all types of expressions, expressing emotions like joy, appreciation, pain, despair...

As soon as the heads appeared, they began to speak in a completely unintelligible language. Adam felt as if there were countless people chanting right into his ear, creating such a frustrating cacophony that he felt as if his head were about to explode.

What the hell is this?

An irrepressible urge to chop off his own head and offer it to the anomaly was rising up in his mind, and he knew that this had to be some type of psychic manipulation cyberhex.

Due to the fact that he had fused with Clown, Adam had a very high level of resistance against cyberhexes of this nature, thereby allowing him to retain his sense of reason, but the same didn't apply to everyone else.

Shae and Sludge were also anomalies, so they were also able to resist the effects of the cyberhex just fine, but the three psychic mutants were insane to begin with, and they were becoming even more deranged, darting around like a bunch of cats on a hot tin roof as they yelled a bunch of gibberish at the top of their lungs.

"Only a head in formaldehyde can exist for all of eternity!"

"Everyone dies eventually!"

"The most beautiful things can only be preserved in jars!"

"Otherwise, rot and decay will be their only fate!"

"Snap out of it!"

Adam was suppressing his own mental discomfort while trying to yell some sense into his companions. At the same time, he was also instructing his clones to attack the heads on the cavern walls.

Clown's offensive prowess was rather lackluster against powerful enemies, but its clone ability allowed it to excel when taking care of a large number of weaker enemies, as was required in this situation. The dozens of clones equipped a series of different weapons before firing at the surrounding heads, destroying all of them within a span of no more than 10 seconds.

Finally, peace and quiet returned to the cavern.

"What happened just now?"

"I think we were controlled."

"Holy shit, I'm injured!" Only after returning to her senses did Rabbit notice a wound on her abdomen that had almost sliced her body into two. "What a sly bastard!"

It had taken close to 10 seconds for Adam to eradicate all of the heads on the cavern wall, and the spider anomaly certainly wasn't going to just sit around and do nothing during that time. First, it struggled free from the crater that it was trapped in, then knocked over Sludge, but given how intelligent it was, it naturally wasn't going to engage Sludge in battle.

Similarly, it wasn't going to go after Adam as it didn't know which Adam was the real one.

Instead, it had chosen to attack Rabbit, who posed the biggest threat to it.

Indeed, Rabbit possessed the most potent offensive prowess out of the three psychic mutants. She had once shattered one of the spider anomaly's heads with just a single blow, so the anomaly was extremely wary of her.

"Look out!"

Rabbit was still inspecting the wound on her abdomen when a figure suddenly came pouncing down on her from the roof of the cavern.

"Come at me, you little bastard!"

Rabbit's bullish personality led her to immediately retaliate against the anomaly, mustering up her soul power before unleashing a powerful strike.

𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

It only took a single clash for the anomaly to dispel the soul power around her fist, following which the spider anomaly unleashed a rapid barrage of strikes with its eight legs, attacking at an incredible rate of dozens of blows per second. The soul power around Rabbit's body almost immediately disintegrated in the face of these rapid-fire strikes, and dozens of wounds quickly appeared all over her body.

Thankfully, Sludge was able to swoop in to save the day, picking her up before turning around to shield her from the anomaly's attacks with its back.

Countless trails of sparks were flying up from Sludge's back as the anomaly continued its assault. Thanks to its greatly enhanced strength, its destructive power had also taken a significant leap, and it was able to slice countless gashes into Sludge's body. As a result, countless rock shards were tumbling rapidly off its back, and it didn't take long for it to lose several tons of weight.

However, at this point, Mole and Shae had also arrived, distracting the anomaly with their attacks to alleviate the pressure on Sludge.

The anomaly scurried away into the distance, where it clung to the walls of the cavern like a gecko to observe everyone.

Adam and the others were also observing the anomaly, and both sides refrained from attacking.

After that sequence of clashes, Adam had developed a good understanding of how powerful the anomaly was in its ultimate form. After collecting all seven heads, the anomaly had received seven enhancements, which were improved defenses, enhanced regeneration, immense strength, incredible speed, venomous claws, energy supplementation, and technomantic powers.

Any single one of those abilities would've already been enough to give rise to a decently powerful anomaly, and with all seven present in a single anomaly, this was definitely the most troublesome anomaly that Adam had faced to date.

The anomaly was incredibly well-rounded, and in particular, its tremendous defenses and regenerative abilities made it virtually unkillable. Overall, it was most likely even more powerful than Eyeless at the height of his powers.