Hunter of Immortals

Chapter 253: The Stockholm Anomaly

Chapter 253: The Stockholm Anomaly

I'll have to edit that part out.

Adam didn't feel much after witnessing the girl's death.

No wonder this is such a deeply rooted memory in his mind. This is most likely the first time that he killed someone, and the special combination of anxiety, fear, and sadistic euphoria must've made this a very memorable experience for him.

It seemed that in order to find the root cause behind a heinous criminal's descent into depravity, it was always a good idea to search for deeply rooted memories from their childhoods.

The vast majority of people only had very indistinct memories from their childhoods, and the only childhood memories that were very clear were generally ones that were extremely impactful, thereby making them very good starting points for investigations of this nature.

However, Adam didn't really know what to do next.

If he were purely hunting for anomalies, then all he had to do was kill this child. However, the anomaly had already fused as one with the child, and most importantly, Adam had to gather sufficient evidence to build a concrete case. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to achieve his objective.

With that in mind, Adam decided to remain patient for now and promptly departed from this psychic module.

As a level five anomaly, Clown was extremely fast, and after withdrawing Nun back into his body, it didn't take long for Adam to rush out of this psychic module. After exploring several more psychic modules, he discovered that the two killers had grown up together their entire lives.

The host was quite introverted, and he had a rather thin and frail body, coupled with a timid personality. There weren't many children in the village, so he didn't have any friends until he met that classmate of his.

At the time of their first meeting, they were only around 11 or 12 years of age, and they had met under rather unique circumstances.

Initially, the host had been captured by his classmate to be killed, so he was a victim to begin with, but he later went on to become an accomplice instead.

I see what this is, he's a sufferer of Stockholm Syndrome!

Adam immediately thought of the anomaly that he had just seen.

Adam had seen anomalies capable of possessing their hosts before, but this was the first time that he had seen an anomaly capable of completely fusing as one with its host and being fully accepted.

Everything makes sense now. Sufferers of Stockholm Syndrome not only sympathize with their tormentors, they develop a sense of fondness for and reliance on them as well. In severe cases, they would even become accomplices to their tormentors to enable their crimes. That's why this type of emotional anomaly is one that's completely accepted by its host.

After understanding how the host's anomaly had arisen, Adam didn't immediately leave the psychic world. Everything that was taking place here was still being recorded, and he wanted to record a complete case with a narrative that could be followed, detailing all of the host's crimes and the reasons for his descent into depravity.

Hence, he was patiently watching the first meeting between the host and his classmate.

Their first meeting was a rather quiet affair, and the host appeared to be quite fearful.

At the time, they still weren't very familiar with one another, and this clearly wasn't the first time that the other childhood had killed someone. He tied up the host in a very expertly, well-rehearsed fashion, and his demeanor was betraying no fear or anxiety, only a sense of excitement.

At this point, Adam had learned that the host's name was Alan, while his tormentor's name was Shaun.

Adam was watching the unfolding scene intently, and he was feeling a sense of discomfort from the psychic power expenditure required to conceal himself for long periods of time.

Hurry up! Show the people how you fell under his control!

Initially, Shaun's plan was just to kill Alan, but after raising the rock high above his head, Shaun discovered that Alan didn't struggle or yellow like his previous victims had, and that made him rather curious.

"Why are you not yelling?"

"What?"

"Why aren't you yelling for help?" Shaun asked with a curious expression. "Once I smash your head with this rock, your face will be flattened. You won't immediately die, but you'll be in a lot of pain, and you'll flail around like a fish out of water for a while before finally dying."

Alan was so terrified to hear this that he wet himself, but he still didn't yell for help, and the only sound that came out of his mouth were these strangled, unintelligible syllables.

Upon hearing this sound, Adam realized why he wasn't yelling: he was so terrified that he didn't even dare to yell.

However, Shaun was too young to understand this, and that was why he was so intrigued.

He cycled through several different torture methods, but still didn't get the reaction that he wanted out of Alan, and in the end, he untied him.

"Run!"

Shaun commanded Alan to run, but Alan's knees were so weak that he couldn't even stand up.

"How long have we been here? I'm starving!" Shaun complained, and in response, Alan pulled out a piece of chocolate from his pocket before offering it to Shaun with trembling hands.

This was the first time that Alan had extended a gesture of goodwill toward Shaun, and in the beginning, it was purely out of fear, but it quickly became something else entirely.

After that, Adam made a summary of the history that the two of them shared. From this point onward, Alan became more and more reliant on Shaun, to the point that it only took a few years before their relationship reached a point where Alan did everything that Shaun told him to.

Over the span of over a decade, Shaun had ordered Alan to participate in seven or eight murders with him, and all of their victims were minors. Adam didn't know why this was the case, he would have to find out after he tracked down Shaun.

After reaching adulthood, the two of them left the village and lived in many places, finally settling in Sandrise City. They were extremely impoverished, but they seemed to be addicted to their criminal ways and would compulsively commit periodic murders, almost as if to stave off withdrawal symptoms.

Recently, Shaun's criminal activity had become more and more frequent, but Alan hadn't participated in most of his recent crimes. Now that Alan had become rather adept with the computer, he was ordered by Shaun to take photos and footage of their victims before publishing the content onto the dark web.

This content attracted some sick fetishists who were willing to pay large sums of money to purchase the full videos, and there were even some who paid extra to make special requests for custom videos. After realizing how lucrative this was, Shaun's killings became even more frequent, and finally, his criminal activity attracted some attention from certain parties, including Adam.

How disgusting!

After witnessing all of Alan's life experiences, Adam tracked down his main persona in his psychic world before capturing it.

He tried all types of different methods to force out Alan's anomaly, but all to no avail.

All of a sudden, an idea occurred to Adam.

"Nun, possess this bastard."

Adam invoked Nun once again, planning to use it to force out that black anomaly.

He had thought that as a level three anomaly, Nun would be able to force out the level two Stockholm anomaly, but even though Nun was able to possess Alan and take control of his body, it was still unable to force out the Stockholm anomaly.

.

"If it's still not coming out, then control him to kill Shaun! Let me see if the anomaly is still going to refuse to come out then!"