I opened my eyes to see my Guardians all standing in front of me, all of them doing their job of protecting me as I finished absorbing the Qi energy from the air.
One thing I realised was that the Qi energy in the rifts felt a little different compared to the Qi energy back in our world.
Also, the Qi energy I had been gathering back at home seemed to be getting lesser and lesser with each day. Either because twenty four hours was not enough for all the Qi energy to replenish or that I was getting diminishing returns from trying to absorb Qi from the same place constantly.
Either way, it means that I would really need to be travelling around the place if I really wanted to maximise the power I can get.
I climbed back up to my feet, "Did anything happen?"
"Aside from you glowing and stuff? Surprisingly not," Kris answered me.
We were still in the cavern where we had entered so we could still leave the rift if we wanted to but we were supposed to do a recon here so we should do what we came here for.
I looked at the three tunnels in front of us.
"I suppose we should pick one tunnel to go through for now? Anyone?" I asked.
Sergei spoke up, "Does it matter which one we start first? We'll have to go through each of them eventually anyway."
That is true…
"Then we might as well start from left to right I guess?" I suggested.
No one objected so we headed down the left tunnel.
Just in case, I activated my purple smoke aura and it clad around me like a cloak.
Without the light coming from the portal, we were quickly shrouded by darkness and Leena turned on her lantern that she had brought along to clip onto the bag behind her, allowing us to see properly.
Actually… I realised that I could kind of see in the dark somewhat now… It's not night vision for sure but I could tell that I could see better than before I started absorbing Qi energy so I was definitely getting stronger.
We proceeded through the tunnels carefully, even keeping an eye on the ceiling in case there were Anomalies hanging above us and waiting to ambush whoever passed through the tunnels.
We then reached another intersection where the tunnels split into two.
The one on the left was noticeably smaller but still big enough for a truck to drive through while the one on the right was as big as the one we had passed through.
Just before I could wonder which way we should take, the sound of what I assume to be a stampede came from the left tunnel.
All of us turned towards the tunnel and the stomping noises had some growling noises mixed in and we knew there was a wave of Anomalies rushing towards us right now.
I immediately gave out orders to my Guardians.
"Jia Lian, Kris! Front line! Avatasia! Get ready an AOE spell! Sergei, Leena! Slow them down with ranged attacks as much as possible!!"
They obeyed and moved to their positions as I had ordered.
The first Anomaly appeared from the darkness, revealing itself to be another human shaped creature with various stones growing out of its body.
It spotted us and let out a roar before sprinting towards us while flailing its arms in the air wildly.
More Anomalies also appeared behind it, also charging towards us while flailing their arms in the air.
The sight would have been comical if they weren't all trying to kill us.
Leena took aim with her machinegun and started firing down the tunnel, mowing down the first few Anomalies that were at the front and dropping them after filling them with bullet holes.
The next few Anomalies ended up getting skewered by shadow spikes that popped out from the tunnel walls.
At the same time, Avatasia was busy forming her spell at the back line while I joined Jia Lian and Kris on the front line.
I called upon Olivia's powers and charged electricity into my arm before punching forward, shooting a bolt of electricity at the Anomalies.
The lightning bolt struck one of the Anomalies and arced to another three more, electrocuting them and dropping them to the ground.
There was another roar coming from the back and a literal tidal wave of Anomalies literally rolled out of the darkness.
And I really did mean roll out as there were so many of them that they actually formed into a boulder and was rolling towards us. The fact that they had stones growing out of their bodies reinforced the image of it being a boulder.
"Avatasia? Any time now?" I called out, watching the giant ball of death rolling towards us.
Leena's machinegun fire and Sergei's shadows were barely even slowing it down. Even my lightning punches barely did anything to it and it just continued to roll down towards us.
Jia Lian stood in front of us and raised her shield, fully prepared to tank the weight of the boulder when Avatasia let out a shout from behind.
"Take cover!"
A star of light flew out from behind and went straight towards the boulder, passing through it before it expanded into a magic circle that covered the space in front of us.
There was a pause before the boulder suddenly came to a stop like all the momentum it had just disappeared.
I realised there was also a sudden absence of sound coming from the anomalies before all of them were flattened onto the ground.
It happened instantaneously like one moment everything was normal and when you blinked, they were all just gone, except they didn't disappear but were just flattened against the ground.
That happened to the entire corridor of the Anomalies so everything was now silent here.
Just as I was about to let out a breath, another stomping sound came from the tunnel and a deformed Anomaly with a small head but an impossibly wide jaw pulled itself out of the darkness with its similarly oversized hands.
It was crawling towards us not because the space was too small but because it doesn't have legs.
This one looked like it had crawled straight out of a horror movie…
When it spotted us, the jaw opened even wider and started crawling towards us at an incredible speed.
Leena and Sergei tried to stop it but both their attacks barely did anything to the creature as almost every part of its skin was covered with stone.
Jia Lian seemed to falter at the sight of that and I don't blame her. If I saw something like that running at me in the dark, I would probably also be at least a little scared.
Kris must have felt her fear and moved to cover her, swinging his greatsword down in front of him. His blade slammed onto the top of the creature's head right as it reached him with a loud crash.
He must have increased the weight of the sword by at least a few times since the Anomaly got smashed into the ground and even cracked the ground beneath it.
The Anomaly wasn't dead yet as it immediately raised one of its hands and tried to swipe at Kris from the side.
I leapt towards it and punched at it with all my strength, my fist meeting its giant palm with a thundering crash.
It was even stronger than I thought as I found myself sliding back a few feet before I dug in my heels and stopped the hand from moving any further.
Unfortunately, the Anomaly seemed to take offense at that and tried to curl its fingers to wrap around me.
I immediately fired off another bolt of lightning from my fist, electrocuting the palm and paralysing it for a single second.
That second was enough for me to kick off the ground and leap out of the way before it closed its fist, crushing the space where I had been moments before.
Jia Lian seemed to have recovered from her earlier fear as she gripped her sword and wrapped the blade with some kind of bluish energy before plunging it towards the creature's head.
The Anomaly let out a roar and flung its head upwards, shaking Kris off and freeing itself, revealing that only Jia Lian's sword actually managed to do damage to it while Kris's attack merely broke some of the stone on top of its head.
It seems like the stone around it was acting as some kind of armour and preventing most of the damage from reaching it.
In that case…
I jumped towards the creature and grabbed onto one of the stone pieces at the very top of its head.
It tried to grab at me to throw me off but I had already pulled back with all my strength and the stone piece came off, revealing its unprotected head.
"Now!" I called out.
Jia Lian slashed her sword down towards the exposed part, cleaving through the creature and cutting it vertically in half.
There was a low groan before the stone pieces fell off from the Anomaly and it collapsed onto the ground, unmoving.
Well… That was a rather unexpected boss fight…
If it was even considered a boss…
You were saying something about the monsters being too easy, Kris?