Chapter 186: Why Are You Giving Mixed Signals?
The group of Anomalies spotted us and started lumbering their way towards us.
The quadrupedal types rushed out towards us, the creatures snapping its jaws in our direction while making growling noises.
Olivia rushed towards them, placing herself directly in their path and prompting them to switch their target to her.
She waited until they were bunched up together before she pulled back her fist and punched forward, letting out a blast of lightning that engulfed almost all of them and blasting them to pieces.
The few that managed to avoid the blast immediately chose to run towards her flanks, opting to skip her to try and get us who were behind her instead.
Dan immediately moved to intercept, already settling into his role as a defender.
He raised his shield and slammed the edge onto the ground, drawing their attention to him.
The Anomalies let out a roar and charged towards him, looking like angry dogs snapping at his heels.
He didn’t falter and even slammed his mace against his shield to taunt them.
As soon as they got within range, Dan stepped forward and slammed his shield against the closest Anomaly, flinging it away from him like it weighed nothing.
The next one thought it could take advantage of the opening to attack him, only to have his mace smash into its side and send it flying away.
Another Anomaly tried to attack him from the flanks and I jumped in, this time unsheathing my sword to slice through the Anomaly’s head.
I had also secretly used Jia Lian’s ability to coat my sword with a thin layer of energy to slice through the rock, otherwise my sword might have broke from trying to slash through the rock.
The other Anomalies behind them also started stomping their way towards us.
The pale woman stepped up and threw her arms forward, sending what looked like small metal balls forward.
I watched as the balls pierced through the rock Anomalies like they were made of paper, killing them with barely any fanfare as they all just toppled to the ground like puppets with their strings cut.
Even the larger sized Anomalies were completely defenceless as the metal balls seemed to target their weak points specifically and bypassed all the rock armour they had on them.
The last to move was the dark elf girl who threw what I assumed to be seeds towards the hole in the wall.
As soon as the seeds landed, vines exploded out from them to seal up the hole and any Anomaly that had been unfortunate enough to be in the plants’ way was immediately crushed by the giant vines that sprung out in the space.
In just that short instance, all of the Anomalies had been wiped out.
If I had to say... I think I contributed the least in the fight here, though of course, that’s because I wasn’t using my full capabilities here.
Olivia still remained vigilant and stared at the vines for a minute, making sure that the vines held and there weren’t anymore Anomalies coming through there before she relaxed.
She turned back to nod at us, "Well done, all of you."
Unexpectedly, the pale woman scoffed and crossed her arms, the metal balls from earlier floating towards her to disappear into her sleeves.
"Well done? It feels like one of us is not even pulling his own weight."
And to make sure that there was no doubt about who she was talking about, she eyed me specifically.
Dan frowned at her but said nothing, knowing that he could not give it away that he knew who I really was.
Olivia scowled at her, "If you think trying to put down your own teammates will get you more points, then you are sorely mistaken."
The pale woman scoffed at her but said nothing.
Olivia then nodded at the tunnel that she had initially wanted us to move towards, "Lead the way then. Any Anomaly that we encounter along the way is yours to deal with until I say otherwise."
The pale woman huffed and did as Olivia told, leading the way towards the tunnel.
She strode forward without hesitation with a confident gait, her chest puffed up while metal balls floated around her.
We only needed to walk a few steps into the tunnel before an Anomaly stepped out from the side and turned its head towards her.
Without even a moment’s hesitation, she flicked her hand towards the Anomaly and a metal ball pierced through the creature’s head, killing it instantly.
She didn’t even slow down as she simply strode past it as the body was falling, not even looking back as the Anomaly crashed onto the ground.
Another one popped out from the tunnel on the other side and she flicked her hand again, killing the other Anomaly as well in the exact same way.
In fact... She was killing every single Anomaly that was appearing in that way, not even giving any of them a chance to appear for more than a second before they are dead.
Seeing that the woman obviously had no problems dealing with Anomalies on her own, Olivia motioned at her, "Alright, that’s enough. You, take over her."
The red Oni gestured towards Dan and the pale woman switched positions with Dan without a word shared between them.
I realised the woman was looking at me with a proud smirk like she was trying to show off, as though saying ’what do you think’ to me albeit in a really arrogant tone.
I wasn’t really sure what exactly she wanted so I didn’t say anything and just continued walking behind Dan.
For some reason, that seemed to piss her off somehow and she even reached out to grab me by the wrist to get my attention.
I jumped a little in surprise and turned to look at the pale woman, shooting her a questioning gaze and wondering why she was looking at me like I just killed her favourite dog or something.
Since I didn’t know why she seemed to be interested in me and everything around me... I went ahead to confront her directly instead.
"What’s wrong with you? You got a problem with me or something?"
She actually answered my question with a nod of her head, "Of course. And you already know why, don’t you?"
I tilted my head at her, "Err... Sorry but I have no idea why? What’s wrong? Was it something I said? Something I did?"
The pale woman growled, "I do not believe you are being intentionally difficult here. But since you don’t even seem aware of why this is happening--"
"I do not remember saying that the uninvolved parties can freely chat amongst themselves behind the person being tested," Olivia interrupted, shooting the pale woman a glare.
The pale woman glared back at her but said nothing and just shut her mouth instead.
At this point, I’m honestly quite confused as this woman was really giving me mixed signals.
First of all, she has been the one approaching me so far all this while... Not once was there a time where I was the one who chose to be near her outside of the fact that I arranged this grouping today.
So I thought for sure she might have been interested in me or something and yet right now, it was pretty clear that she was taking quite a lot of offense at my presence for some reason...
I can’t even tell if she’s really interested in me or what? Because she certainly wasn’t acting like someone who was interested in me.
I decided this wasn’t really the time or place to figure that out so I didn’t ask and just focused on looking for Anomalies that might be laying in wait as we walked through the tunnel.
And right on time too because I immediately noticed one of those Anomalies clinging to the ceiling above us and Dan walking right under it without noticing it.
Since we had been facing enemies that just appeared in front of us all this time, it was not surprising that he had completely let his guard down on looking for these types of enemies.
I leapt forward right as the Anomaly dropped down on the ceiling and it would have landed right on top of Dan if I hadn’t given the creature a flying kick to send the creature crashing away.
Dan flinched and looked at the dead Anomaly that I had kicked away before giving me a nod, "Thanks bro."
Olivia did not waste that chance, "Well done. Be careful while you are inside the rift, you never know when you might just step into a trap or something and end up losing your life. As Guardians, you will also be protecting someone more important than you so make sure things like this never get past you. Understand?"
She was looking directly at the pale woman as though she was addressing only her in the entire room.
The pale woman was also glaring at her as well like she was thinking if she should launch a metal ball at her.
Damn... Both of you calm down, please...
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