Chapter 379: Ambush in the Mist

With every expansion, the oil paint captured the invisible scents lingering in the air.

Each contraction was a process of filtering, of judging.

Moments later, the mottled paint retracted once more, coiling back around the bony eyeball.

The Anomaly’s hollow skull tilted slightly, “looking” toward a certain direction.

In that direction, something’s scent had become clear.

The next second, its body exploded into motion.

Like a bone-white blur, it lunged toward that direction.

Its heavy skeleton smashed through the corridor wall. Gravel sprayed outward, and plaster dust billowed through the mist.

But before it could steady itself, a flash of cold light cleaved through the fog.

“Clang—!”

A piercing metallic impact shattered the air.

Someone had launched an attack!

It was a humanoid figure, bursting suddenly from the mist.

His hands and legs were in a state of extreme mutation—flesh receded, bone proliferated, and the torso’s surface ridged with osseous protrusions. His entire body resembled a human-shaped blade.

But that hand... the left one only.

The right arm was conspicuously empty, leaving nothing but a stump sealed with potion.

The Anomaly’s unfeeling instincts recognized this prey instantly—it was the one it had gravely wounded before.

This figure was the squad leader.

He had taken the role of primary attacker, drawing the Anomaly’s attention.

His current state was entirely different from before.

After ample preparation, his body had undergone a certain degree of mutation.

His limbs had grown longer and leaner, thin blade-like bone protrusions extending from his fingertips and ankles, gleaming with a cold light in the fog.

His muscle fibers were as dense as steel cables, carving nearly inhuman lines beneath his skin.

At this moment, he was like some high-mobility combat weapon.

Yet the gap in sheer power was absolute.

A single exchange was all it took for the squad leader to be sent flying backward by the tremendous impact.

His back slammed hard against the wall, a violent pain shooting through his spine as a spiderweb of cracks split across the surface.

But he did not pause.

The moment his feet touched ground, his body rebounded on instinct, opening distance from the Anomaly.

Only calm remained in his eyes.

Just as he had anticipated.

True Rank-3 strength and the threshold of Rank-3 were not concepts on the same plane.

That all-out strike moments ago had failed to split the beast’s hardened bone. It had only left a shallow scratch.

And the creature itself...

The squad leader’s gaze locked onto the beast as it wheeled around to pounce again.

He knew all too well—if this thing landed a single clean hit, it would shred through his defenses as easily as it had torn off his right arm before.

So he had to maintain absolute focus.

A single mistake was not allowed.

The moment he slipped, what awaited him was death.

But he was not alone.

Within the mist, the other squad members were already in motion.

Jack, holding the Wizardry Crystal fragment, now lurked deep within the fog, constantly emitting sounds.

On one hand, he was responsible for coordination, keeping the Anomaly’s position synchronized with the other members at all times.

On the other, he actively layered echo upon echo, disrupting the Anomaly’s movements.

Thunderous crashes, shattering glass, wrenching metal—the sounds shifted endlessly.

The Anomaly would instinctively judge those noises as its prey’s location, making the wrong response.

Each time the creature lunged toward a false sound source, the squad leader would strike again in the gap as it turned.

The blade bit into the seams between bone, then withdrew just as quickly—never overextending.

On the other side, a figure cloaked entirely in dark-gray feathers clung to the ceiling far above.

Fine gray feathers had sprouted across that squad member’s face, neck, and arms.

These feathers were not decoration. They were highly sensitive sensory organs, capable of detecting the smallest shifts in airflow.

The air displaced by each of the Anomaly’s pounces, the wind pressure from each of the squad leader’s movements—all of it was faithfully recorded by those feathers.

In his hands, he cradled a modified firearm.

The weapon’s casing was not metal, but a fusion of bone and flesh, with faint writhing patterns visible across its surface.

His eyes were closed. His ears were filled entirely with the airflow signals from his feathers.

Occasionally, they mixed with the low voice of his teammate Jack:

“The opening is coming... prepare—”

His finger settled on the trigger. His breathing slowed.

“—Now!”

At the exact same instant, the gunner opened his eyes.

He pulled the trigger.

The flesh within the barrel constricted and compressed with a muffled thump, expelling the specially crafted high-powered sniper round.

The bullet tore through the mist, ripping a brief fissure through the gray-white fog.

It struck the Anomaly’s spine from the side with pinpoint accuracy.

“Bang!”

The Anomaly’s head snapped violently to one side. A clear crack appeared at the junction between skull and spine.

Bone fragments flew, and the oil paint upon that bony eyeball shuddered hard.

Its movements were disrupted. Its stride faltered.

Now!

The squad leader struck from the Anomaly’s flank. The bone blade of his left hand and the thin blade at his ankle slashed down simultaneously, crossing into the crack the bullet had just torn open.

This time, the blade finally bit deep into bone.

Bone dust scattered. The crack widened.

He still could not sever the beast’s spine, but the blow finally wrenched a low, grating cry from the monster.

The sound was dull and eerie, like something deep within its bones had snapped.

It was the first time the creature had shown any reaction to being “harmed.”

But the squad leader had no time to celebrate.

The Anomaly’s sweeping counterattack was already upon him.

It was faster than he had anticipated.

At the last possible instant, he twisted his body into a sideways slide. The armored leg blades carved two scorch marks across the floor as he narrowly evaded the lethal claw.

The claw tips passed before his chest, less than three centimeters away.

But while he dodged the claws, he could not evade the tail sweep that followed.

The twisted tailbone—formed from countless bone fragments fused together—came hurtling around like a war hammer.

It caught him square in the chest.

His body flew backward like a kite with its string cut, slamming hard into the corridor wall.

The wall caved instantly into a human-shaped crater, cracks spreading outward like a web.

Plaster dust showered down, scattering over his shoulders and hair.

“Cough—”

The squad leader’s mouth opened and spat out a mouthful of blood.

The blood was dark red, carrying a sickly sweetness that no normal human’s blood possessed.

His internal organs seemed to shudder. Within his chest came the dull crack of ribs fracturing.

Just as the Anomaly moved to pursue and finish him off, a glob of pungent mucus shot out from the fog at its side.

The mucus struck with precision, coating the joints of the Anomaly’s hind limbs.

And like a living thing, the instant it landed, it rapidly transformed into countless tiny tendrils that tangled and constricted, binding the joint tightly.

But the Anomaly’s strength was monstrous.

The tendrils were stretched to their absolute limit almost instantly, emitting a dense crackling of snaps, like strings being snapped one by one.