Where am I? Where did the girl go? Did she also get sent here somewhere? Or whatever happened to me and these three guys only affected us and left the girl out of it?
Wait… The girl gave me that look as well… Maybe her skill was to teleport other people somewhere else and she had been trying to use it on these guys but I just happened to be affected by it because I butted in?
That would explain why she had that guilty and apologetic look when I was reaching out towards her earlier. Probably also because she could not stop the teleportation from happening after she activated it.
Do I regret trying to save her now? Of course not. What I regret is not going to her rescue sooner so she wouldn't even need to use this skill to begin with.
Whatever, let's just check my location on my phone and figure out how to get to the nearest civilisation…
A groan interrupted me as I was just about to do that and I turned towards the group of guys who got teleported with me.
The guy with the fire power slowly got up and looked around, his gaze stopping on me before he furrowed his brows.
"You… Did you do this? You fucker! What did you do?!"
I shrugged nonchalantly at him, "Does it look like I'm the one who did it? "
"Of course!! Is there anyone else around here that could have done this to us?!"
"Hey, I'm just an innocent bystander that got dragged into this. I don't even know what happened and all of a sudden, I'm in the middle of this place and you three just fell out of the sky. I should be asking you how you came here."
The other two also managed to get up and one of them pointed his finger at me, "That… That's him!! He attacked you from behind and then punched me as well!!"
Damn… I was hoping that guy didn't manage to remember my face.
Guess I'll probably have to fight them here…
And it seems like they thought the same because the leader raised his hand to summon a ball of fire again while his two cronies adopted a fighting stance.
"You will regret this you stupid bastard! You want to be a hero? Then die like one!"
As I got ready to dodge the fireball, something flew out from the side and I only had time to blink before it disappeared.
There was a moment of silence as we stared at the stump that used to be that guy's hand, the fireball already extinguished.
Blood spurted out from the stump and the guy let out a scream as he clutched at his lost arm.
I turned in the direction of where I saw the object fly and I realised that it was a creature with the head of a wolf and the body of a human, if the human's body had belonged to a bodybuilder who then had their muscles expanded to three times the normal size so the head looks tiny in comparison to the rest of the body.
In between the teeth of that creature was the arm that it had bitten off.
I immediately recognised that this was an Anomaly… Which means that we had somehow been teleported into a rift.
Oh… Shit… And I don't even have my weapon…
The Anomaly chewed on the arm that it had bitten off while slowly turning back to face us, its soulless, blank eyes seemingly staring at nothing.
I did not wait for it to finish eating and leapt at the Anomaly instead, the creature seemingly uncaring to my attack as its attention was fixed on the arm it was chewing on.
I pulled back my fist and punched the Anomaly as hard as I could across the snout.
Its neck was surprisingly fragile as the punch was enough to separate the head from the torso, leaving just the stump of the neck behind like how this creature had bitten off the guy's arm.
The body of the Anomaly wobbled before it fell backwards and crashed onto the ground with a loud thump.
I then rushed over to the guy who was still bleeding at the arm, grimacing at the wound that the Anomaly had caused.
I pointed at one of his cronies who was still staring at him in shock, "You. Tear off his shirt and use it to wrap around the stump."
He turned to me, wide eyed, "Wha… What?"
"I said tear off his shirt and wrap it around his stump! Do you want him to die?!!"
He jerked and quickly did as I instructed.
Why am I even trying to save this guy? He's a trash of society that deserves to die, that I don't deny.
But right now, all of us are stuck in this rift and the only way for us to get out of here was to hope that there's a Gatekeeper here and there's a portal that would bring us back.
And if there's a Gatekeeper, it also means that there are Anomalies guarding it or even the portal itself so I'm going to need all the help I can get to fight through all of that.
If there's a Gatekeeper, I would like to deal with it to close the portal as well since we're already here anyway. But if it's too dangerous, I would just head straight for the portal and leave this place first.
I'll deal with them after we have successfully escaped from here for what they did to that girl.
The guy quickly wrapped the torn off shirt around the guy's stump of an arm to stem the bleeding while the other guy was staring at me with fearful eyes.
"Wh… Where are we? What have you done to us?"
I side eyed him, "Where do you think we are? That's an Anomaly and I'm pretty sure that it would be all over the news if there was an Anomaly breakout."
His eyes widened, "We… We're in a rift? Bu… But how?!"
"I'm just as confused as you are but I know that we have to get out of here before the miasma completely mutates us into an Anomaly. If we get out of here fast enough, we can still get the miasma purified from our bodies. So if you guys still want to live, we're going to need to work together to get out of here."
The guy who had his arm bitten off looked up at me, "Ar…. Are you… Ugghh… A Vanguard?"
I nodded, "That's right. I'm assuming that you guys aren't Vanguards, are you?"
All three of them shook their heads.
I sighed, "Are all of you awakened? I know that guy has fire powers but what about the two of you?"
The guy who was wrapping the torn off shirt around his friend's stump grimaced, "I… I can shoot electrical sparks from my fingers… But they're only strong enough to stun someone…"
The other guy scratched his head, "I… I can see through walls…"
Well… I can see why these three are working together then…
Whatever, I'm going to have to take what I can get.
I gestured at myself, "I guess it's kind of evident now but my powers are enhanced strength. Though it's only to the extent of about three men. Like I said, we'll have to work together to get out of here so I hope you guys can at least set aside any differences we have until after we leave. Sounds good?"
All of them nodded meekly.
There's a reason why they suddenly turned meek because to someone who isn't a Vanguard, the rift is basically a forsaken place that only the craziest of people would venture into.
Anomalies are basically the stuff of nightmares for them and the idea that they are now in a place that is crawling with them, they might as well just be told that they were transported to the very depths of hell.
Right… With their cooperation secured for now, all I have to do is to search for a portal and we should be able to get out of here.
And as soon as I thought about that, a howling sound filled the air and the ground started to shake.
Without warning, the ground behind the three guys suddenly burst open and another one of those wolf headed Anomaly appeared, its jaws opening wide and snapping the fire guy's head off.
Two more burst out from the ground and one of them slashed open the electric guy's neck and the other guy had his abdomen ripped open by the other Anomaly.
The ground beneath me also burst open but I reacted fast enough and punched downwards, shattering the face of the Anomaly that tried to ambush me from below.
As if that was a cue, the ground exploded upwards and more than a dozen of these Anomalies appeared all around me, encircling me.
Fuck my life…