Chapter 107: The Death Matches of Shadow City

This is such a strange feeling,?Adam thought to himself as he inspected his own reflection in the mirror.

He had pink hair, and there were designs similar to tree rings tattooed onto his face. An electronic lens had also been installed over his eye, and it was displaying all types of data. In addition to that, he was wearing a strange mask that resembled an oxygen mask, seemingly for the purpose of filtering out the smoggy air here.

A set of sharp teeth resembling sandworm mouthparts had been drawn onto the front of the mask, and that, in addition to his tight-fitting leather attire and the miniature cannon that had been installed onto his arm, made it impossible for anyone to distinguish him from the locals in the area.

Adam took a glance at the time on his communicator to find that it was already close to nighttime. However, there was no sunlight in this underground city, so there was no perceptible concept of time.

His communicator was also a retrofitted product, having had its positioning chip removed and an independent operating system installed. With this independent operating system, the information of the communicator didn't enter the database, so it couldn't be monitored by the Dataist Union and Mechguard, making it an essential tool for all those who were working against the law.

Even though it was already nighttime, the others were still undergoing their makeovers, and Adam didn't have anything to do anyway, so he switched on the television to watch the news.

"According to reports, those accused of attacking the congressman have already been authorized for capture..."

𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

"According to insiders, the suspects have gone on the run and can no longer be contacted..."

"We will now be releasing images of the suspects..."

"The number of casualties suffered during the psychic mutant terrorist attack has risen once again, and the number of deaths has already climbed to 6,637..."

"There are people who are calling for all psychic mutants to be put on trial, but that goes against our legal regulations and our policy of care toward minorities and the mentally ill..."

"Due to the attack, Shi Feng of the northern congress has been impeached by many parties, placing him in a very difficult position in his political career."

……

Many of the pieces of news being broadcast on the television had something to do with him, and after watching for a while, Adam had developed a rough understanding of what was happening in the outside world. However, all of these news stories were quite repetitive in nature, and after watching for a while longer, he switched off the television before leaving the room.

Outside the room was a dim corridor that was lined with many retrofitting rooms. Passing through the corridor, Adam arrived in the shop, then carefully traversed through the cluttered piles of parts on the ground before emerging into the alley outside.

There were some passersby traversing through the alley, and most of them only took a casual glance at Adam before looking away. His get-up was far too commonplace in this city.

Emerging from the alley, Adam arrived on the street outside, then took in the underground city around him with his eyes.

He was certain that absolute chaos couldn't possibly exist in a place inhabited by humans.

Sure enough, after passing through several streets and alleys, he discovered that there were rules in this place as well, and that there was a very clear system of hierarchical segregation.

The locals here clearly seemed to be of a loftier status than outsiders, and the main differences between the locals and the outsiders here seemed to be the facial tattoos and all of the illegally retrofitted prosthetics.

The tattoos were quite easy to replicate, but most people were resistant to the idea of facial tattoos as the majority of the outsiders who fled to this city still wanted to return to the civilized world, and receiving and removing facial tattoos was quite a hassle.

Furthermore, even if they could emulate the facial tattoos, it was very difficult to imitate the illegal prosthetics. Unless the counterfeits were installed by a master craftsman, it would've been very easy to see right through them.

Looks like Baldie Lin is quite a skilled artisan!

Additionally, there was also a very clear hierarchy system even among the locals, and the difference laid in the designs of their facial tattoos. The different powers in the local area all had differing facial tattoos.

"Piss off! Get out of my way!" A man with a viper tattooed onto his face pushed aside a little girl who was standing in his way, shoving her straight into a pile of trash on the side of the road.

The surrounding bystanders were already completely accustomed to this, and the little girl didn't even say anything as she stood up before dusting herself off. She then caught sight of Adam looking at her, and she flipped him off as she cursed, "What the fuck are you looking at, bitch?"

Adam initially faltered slightly at the sight of the little girl's reaction, then brandished the miniature cannon on his arm, and the little girl immediately fled into the crowd.

It seems like everyone is mentally ill to a certain extent in this godforsaken city...

Adam still possessed an intense yearning for power, particularly after he witnessed Oni-faced Dragon and Sadou.

If he had been more powerful, he would've been able to stand up for himself back then, and he wouldn't have fallen into this predicament. Instead, he would've been able to protect Hook's footage and have the southern congress completely at his mercy.

.

If everyone here is mentally ill, would it be possible for me to find some emotional anomalies here to strengthen myself?

As this thought occurred to Adam, he suddenly caught sight of the sky overhead. In reality, the sky in this underground city was just a glorified ceiling, and at this moment, there was a massive advertisement playing on this ceiling.

The advertisement depicted several fierce-looking figures, and beneath those images were the names and nicknames corresponding to those figures.

"Red Demon... Frost Giant... Titan... What are these weird names? Are they professional wrestlers?"

The advertisement then went on to introduce the matches that were scheduled to take place on this day.

After watching for a while, Adam finally understood what type of matches these were. As it turned out, these were death matches that were unique to Shadow City, where the first half consisted of fights to the death between cyborgs. The use of firearms was prohibited in order to avoid harming the audience, but all other weapons were permitted, and judging from the snippets of the matches being displayed in the advertisement, it was an extremely gorey affair.

As for the second half, that was a clash between psychic worlds.

Some of the matches consisted of adapters battling emotional anomalies, but the majority of matches were between emotional anomalies. After all, adapters were extremely rare, and very few of them were desperate enough to turn to something like this for money.

In any case, Adam was very intrigued by these matches, and he wanted to see exactly how they orchestrated their psychic battles.

Thus, he opened his communicator and followed the map to the sports stadium. Shadow City wasn't a very large place, but it had quite a large population, and upon arriving at the sports stadium, Adam was truly staggered by just how many people were gathered there.

Are these matches that popular? Is this like the Super Bowl or the World Cup of Shadow City?

Never did he think that these matches would be able to draw in such a massive audience. Not only was the sports stadium completely packed, there were even more people outside the stadium.

The area outside the stadium was fully equipped with carparks, food courts, campsites, beer vendors, betting stalls... It was like a full-blown carnival!

Adam wanted to enter the stadium to watch the matches, but even the cheapest ticket cost in excess of 2,000 dollars. He was certain that his bank account had already been frozen, so he was essentially dead broke.

Thankfully, after looking around briefly, he discovered many money-making opportunities.

There were many people betting on the open spaces outside the sports stadium.

The content of these bets was identical to that of the matches taking place inside the stadium, with matches between cyborgs, non-retrofitted humans, and psychic battles.

However, the matches outside were clearly of a far lower caliber than the ones scheduled to take place inside the stadium, and most of the spectators were people who couldn't afford tickets or were seeking out some pre-match entertainment before entering the stadium.

Adam followed the sound of the rowdy voices and made his way over to an arena where a psychic battle was taking place, then took a glance inside.