Hunter of Immortals

Chapter 260: Experience

Chapter 260: Experience

Both Sludge and Nun appeared at once, much to Adam's surprise and elation.

"You're not dead! This is great!"

Adam wasn't surprised that Nun was still alive, but Sludge's entire body had literally been baked into hardened clay before melting away, so it was extremely surprising to Adam that it hadn't died. He made his way over to Sludge and stroked its bloated, shapeless body as he praised, "You're even more useful than Mummy! I'm going to rely on you from now on."

Ever since Adam resurrected himself using Sludge during the battle royale, he had realized just how much untapped potential it held.

Not only did it possess extraordinary physical resistance, its special properties made it extremely useful, especially for Adam in his current form as he was unable to fuse with any anomalies other than Clown.

With that in mind, Adam was planning to prioritize its development.

I can use this thing as a free-flowing suit of armor!

Adam was struck by a spark of inspiration stemming from the exoskeleton that he had recently acquired in the real world, and he realized that Sludge could perform a similar function for him in the psychic world.

With that in mind, Adam gave Sludge a final affectionate pat on the shoulder before withdrawing it.

He then turned to Nun and discovered that thanks to those mysterious flowerpots, Nun had recovered even faster than he did, and it appeared to be largely unscathed now.

I'll be counting on you for this one!

After confirming that both of his anomalies were still alive, Adam began to inspect his surroundings. The environment was extremely dark and forbidding, and there was both a smell of blood and a sickly sweet scent wafting through the air. At the same time, the ground beneath his feet was bright red, and it seemed that there was a powerful anomaly lurking in this psychic world.

The environment here is only slightly better than the environment in Sithu's psychic world. However, that guy's a schizophrenic, so he's a rare case. Assuming there's only one anomaly in this psychic world, it should be one that's roughly on the same level as Scarecrow.

Adam was beginning to grow quite excited.

Scarecrow was the first true opponent that he had faced, and it was quite formidable, possessing the power of a level four or level five anomaly.

Due to the fact that Clown had evolved directly into a level five anomaly, Adam had never witnessed the power of a level four anomaly, so he only had a rough idea of what such a concept entailed.

By Adam's own estimates, he was currently roughly on par with Scarecrow, so he was either a very strong level four anomaly, or a weaker level five anomaly. Thus, it was extremely exciting to him that there was potentially a target of roughly equivalent strength here.

This is perfect! An anomaly of this caliber will yield a ton of anomalic power, but it's not so powerful that I won't be able to defeat it.

Adam was eagerly rubbing his hands together. Even though he was still injured, he had a wealth of battle experience and many other anomalies under his belt, so he wasn't afraid, and he immediately commenced his search.

The first place that he appeared in was Sandrise City, which meant that in this psychic module, Shaun was already an adult.

This is not a good place to start.

Shaun's memories in Sandrise City were likely to be extremely diverse. Perhaps there would be some memories of the murders that he committed, but it was very likely that most of the memories would be quite mundane. In addition to that, Sandrise City had a massive population, which made it quite difficult to track down someone. With that in mind, Adam quickly made a decision to leave this psychic module.

After some exploration, Adam arrived in another psychic module, this one containing a village in a barren desert.

This is not a good place, either. I want to see his childhood.

Not only did Adam want to defeat Shaun's anomaly, he wanted to stitch together a narrative to tell a story to both the media and the general public.

With that in mind, he began to rush out of this psychic module as well, but he only managed to take a few steps before his entire body was racked with excruciating pain. His injuries were still bothering him, so he had no choice but to invoke Hellhound and use it as a steed.

Even though Hellhound was only a level two anomaly, the fact that it had four legs was very conducive to running, and it wasn't too slow.

After crossing over several psychic modules, Adam finally arrived in a picturesque village, which directly neighbored an expanse of barren wilderness.

This is the place! In Alan's psychic world, the village that the two of them grew up in was right next to a stretch of barren land. Now then, let me see what kind of home this twisted bastard grew up in!

The vast majority of psychotic criminals became that way due, at least in part, to their upbringing. After invoking Nun and instructing it to possess a villager, Adam was quickly able to learn Shaun's address.

Adam withdrew Hellhound before making his way to Shaun's home, and before he even entered through the door, he could already hear the sound of angry yelling and plates being smashed on the ground.

"Can't you do anything right? You really are a useless piece of shit! You wanna smash plates? Keep all of these plates on your head, and for each one that falls off, you have to keep standing like this for another hour! If all of them fall off, then you're not getting any sleep tonight!"

Immediately thereafter came the sound of a vicious slap.

Adam passed through the courtyard before arriving in the house, where he was greeted by the sight of what appeared to be an 11 or 12-year-old Shaun. He had a few plates stacked on top of his head, and he was standing in a martial arts horse stance. His face was bright red, indicating that he had just been slapped.

Surprise, surprise, it's another unfortunate childhood.

Adam was completely concealed as he made his way into the room before casually inspecting the scene inside.

The table was laden with bottles and cigarette butts, and there were some certificates and photographs hanging on the wall.

Adam made his way over to the wall to find a family photo, featuring a younger Shaun and a middle-aged couple who appeared to be Shaun's parents.

However, there was no sign of any female presence in the house at the moment, so either his mother had passed away, or his parents had divorced.

The certificates on the wall told Adam that Shaun's father was a sheriff, which was an archaic occupation that had completely died out almost two decades ago. With the rise of Mechguard, many people who had worked in law and order had lost their jobs.

Considering Shaun's current age, his father had most likely lost his job at around this point in time.

Adam then made his way over to Shaun, who was clearly extremely fearful of his father.

In rural villages like this one, the power of the law was quite lackluster, and there were no special departments that addressed domestic violence, so Shaun was forced to suffer in silence.

Could it be that his father is the anomaly?

Given his past experience with Li Qi's case, Adam felt like this was a very likely possibility, and he immediately rushed through the corridor before barging his way into the master bedroom.

The door was kicked open, and Adam saw a grotesque creature inside.

Perfect! Things couldn't have gone any smoother!

Adam gleefully pulled out his gatling gun before firing a barrage of bullets at Shaun's father.