Chapter 100: The Two Onis

"Do any of you sense anything?" Adam asked as he looked at the people around him.

"We seem to have crashed into something." Shae opened her window slightly before taking a peek outside. "There's nothing out there."

𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"Then that feeling of impact most likely came from the reciprocation of our physical bodies," Adam deduced as he felt the wind blowing in from outside. "We've already been dragged into the psychic world."

"When did it happen?"

"I don't know. It was a very seamless transition, so we're definitely dealing with an elite adapter." Adam was rather frustrated that his telegnosis had failed him. "Looks like I have to do more training!"

"What do we do now?'

"What else can we do? We get out of the car, of course. We can't just wait in here like sitting ducks to be blown up!"

"You're right."

Shota seemed to have realized how stupid his question was, and he hurriedly emerged from the car with everyone else. There were still pedestrians and cars driving along as normal around them, and it was unclear whether these were actual people in the area who had also been dragged into the psychic world by the synapse transmission device or if they were simply manifestations of the memories belonging to the host of this psychic world.

However, there was no time to ponder such trivial matters. Their lives were in severe danger here, so they had far more important things to worry about.

As soon as he emerged from the car, Adam caught sight of a familiar figure, one that he had fought before and had shown him just how powerful elite adapters could be. It was Oni no Hanzou.

"Be careful, the man up ahead is an extremely powerful adapter. He's one of the eight Oni of the Oni Organization, Oni no Hanzou."

As usual, Oni no Hanzou was still in his half-samurai, half-ninja get-up, wearing a set of ninja garbs with a pair of samurai swords on his back. His posture was a little hunched over, but he still looked extremely agile, nonetheless.

He was rushing along the railing on the road beside the green belt, traveling at a very high speed.

Oni no Hanzou was on a completely different level compared with Adam and his group. In their previous run-in, Adam had only managed to ward off Oni no Hanzou's assassination attempt with the help of the scarecrow anomaly after he had already expended a great deal of power during his battle against Cowboy.

Neither Cowboy nor the scarecrow anomaly was here at this moment, so there was a complete mismatch in the overall combat prowess of the two sides.

"Why is the Oni Organization getting involved in this? Aren't they an organization of hitmen? Why are they working together with psychic mutants?"

"They're not working together with the psychic mutants, they're collaborating with those bastards from the southern congress," Shi Feng corrected as he looked on while Oni no Hanzou gradually slowed down. "All psychic mutants are completely deranged, so it's all well and good instructing to commit murder and cause destruction, but they're unable to carry out any intricate plans. In contrast, these hitmen are sane but have no sense of moral compass, and they're willing to do anything as long as the price is right?"

"Why has he stopped?"

After rushing along the railing for some time, Oni no Hanzou drew to a halt around 200 meters in front of everyone, and he didn't immediately attack. It seemed that he was waiting for something, and there was a hint of wariness in his eyes as his gaze fell upon Adam.

He didn't have to wait long before a shadow slowly emerged on the ground to his left, following which a witch wearing an oni mask crawled out of the shadow.

"That's Oni no Miko! Two of the eight Onis have been sent after us!" Red Spider was astonished to see this. "This is complete overkill! Why are they taking this mission so seriously?"

"Can we beat them?" At this point, Hook was so terrified that he was already trembling uncontrollably. "Adam, you've fought Oni no Hanzou before, haven't you? Do we stand a chance?"

"None whatsoever," Adam replied with a shake of his head.

"Then let's surrender!" Hook instantly adopted his steam robot form, concealing himself within a cloud of mist before vanishing into thin air.

However, he had only just activated his self-concealment ability when Oni no Miko suddenly pulled out an enchantment tag. The tag released a pair of glowing cyberglyphs that read "Illusion Eradication" in Chinese characters, and Hook was instantly squeezed out of a certain pocket in space before falling face-first onto the ground!

"Hold on, let's be civilized! There's no need for a fight, we can just talk things out! You want the footage that I recorded, right? I can just give it to you! There's no need to turn to violence. Everyone's just trying to make a living here, you're also doing this for money, aren't you?"

"That's right," Oni no Hanzou replied with a nod. "We're being paid one sum of money for taking your lives, and another for securing the footage, and I want both!"

The arrival of Oni no Miko instilled Oni no Hanzou with a great deal of confidence, and he immediately initiated an attack.

"That kid in the middle is an invocator, and he can invoke an anomaly that's no less powerful than you and me," Oni no Hanzou cautioned while hurling several kunai knives through the air.

Adam was completely speechless after hearing this.

So he called up an ally because of me!

With that in mind, Adam was beginning to regret the display of power he had made to Oni no Hanzou during their last encounter as he was being severely overestimated here.

Oni no Hanzou on his own would've been an insurmountable foe, but there was still a chance for everyone to escape. However, with another Oni-level hitman on his side, there was virtually no chance that they would escape from this ordeal alive.

"Run!"

As the kunai knives exploded in mid-air, Adam instantly invoked Mummy before fusing as one with it, then used his body of steel to protect the people beside him, particularly Red Spider.

In the psychic world, Red Spider had lost her prosthetic limbs, so she was virtually no different from the average person. In the face of attacks from an adapter as fearsome as Oni no Hanzou, even the residual shockwaves alone would've been enough to kill her.

"Hook, open your cabin!"

"Got it!"

Hook immediately did as he was told, and Adam tossed Red Spider into his cabin. An excited look appeared on Hook's face, and his physical capabilities instantly spiked through the roof. He then turned to flee, and he was running far faster than he was normally capable of, but no matter how fast he was, he couldn't outrun a ninja.

Given that Hook was in possession of the incriminating footage, there was naturally no way that Oni no Hanzou was going to allow him to escape, and he crouched low to the ground before quickly giving chase. His footsteps were extremely light, but he was extraordinarily fast, so fast that he was leaving a trail of afterimages in his wake.

The chase only lasted less than 20 seconds before Oni no Hanzou caught up to Hook, following which he sprang up into the air before firing off a chained grappling hook from his arm. The grappling hook latched onto Hook and stopped him cold in his tracks, and immediately thereafter, Oni no Hanzou drew his twin katanas before slashing them several times through the air. None of the attacks managed to strike Hook, but several shadow blades had inexplicably appeared on his body.

The orientations of the shadow blades were completely identical to the angles at which Oni no Hanzou had unleashed his katana strikes, and all of the shadow blades struck the vulnerable joints on Hook's body, instantly tearing him into pieces.

"Hook!"

Adam was desperate to save Hook, but there was no way for him to do so as he had been completely immobilized.

Prior to setting off after Hook, Oni no Hanzou had cautioned Oni no Miko about Adam's abilities.

As a result, Oni no Miko was clearly regarding Adam as an opponent on the same level as herself, and right as Oni no Hanzou sprang into action, she cast an extremely powerful singular restrictive ability onto Adam.

At this moment, there were countless ghostly hands rising up from the shadow beneath his feet, and they were all intertwined with one another in a chaotic mass to bind his entire body. Not only did these ghostly hands possess tremendous strength, they also seemed to be capable of sapping one's energy. Trapped within this prison of ghostly hands, Adam was unable to muster up any strength, rendering him powerless to escape anytime soon.

After immobilizing Adam, Oni no Miko pulled out a bow and arrow used for exorcisms from her back, then fired the arrow, and as it flew through the air, a projection of a massive ghostly head appeared on the arrowhead.

Adam was struck by an intense feeling of foreboding in the instant that he saw the arrow.

The arrow was far more powerful than the ones that Black Archer from the Golden Iron Triangle had been capable of firing.

Even with his current body of steel, Adam was certain that the arrow would be able to inflict severe harm upon him.