Chapter 116: Footage

Adam was naturally no exception to this, and it took him a long time to recover his vision after the flash of light subsided.

By the time he turned his sore and teary eyes back to the three-dimensional projection, he discovered that the battle was already over.

Who won?

The two anomalies were both laying still on the ground with their bodies severely mutilated, and it was impossible to tell which one of them had secured the ultimate victory.

However, the host quickly stepped onto the stage to announce the outcome of the match.

"According to our electroencephalographic data, I hereby declare the Skinned Anomaly to be the winner of this match!"

A chorus of disgruntled voices instantly rang out in response to this verdict, but everyone knew that the event organizers were too powerful to mess with, so none of the spectators dared to do anything aside from loudly voicing their displeasure.

"As I'm sure all of you are aware, we never rig any of our events. In order to support this verdict, I'll be releasing our electroencephalographic data for all of you to see. We'll start with the Skinned Anomaly." The host placed a certain device onto the host of the Skinned Anomaly as he spoke, displaying a normal electroencephalographic reading.

However, the electroencephalographic reading of the host of the Thousand-eyed Anomaly was very abnormal. The reading was a completely flat line, which indicated that he no longer had any brain activity, confirming to everyone that his psychic body had already perished.

At the same time, the Skinned Anomaly twitched slightly in the three-dimensional projection, and its body was displaying signs of recovery.

"We keep video footage of every single one of our matches. That explosion of light in the end was too bright for anyone to see anything, so the footage has been sent backstage to have the brightness lowered. It'll be ready soon, so please wait patiently in the meantime."

……

"You were right! The Skinned Anomaly really did win."

Following that explanation from the host, most of the spectators were already convinced of the outcome. Furthermore, after inserting her card into the machine, Hailey discovered that the money owed to her had already been paid out.

This made her even more excited, and she couldn't help but praise, "As expected of a seasoned hitman, you have a really sharp eye!"

"There was an element of luck involved," Adam replied with a shake of his head. "I'm really curious to see what happened after that eruption of light."

……

Around 15 minutes later, the processing of the footage was completed, and the Skinned Anomaly had also already made a partial recovery. The workers wheeled the host of the Skinned Anomaly away, then began to play the footage.

After the eruption of light, the battle continued.

The light was so bright that the Skinned Anomaly was instantly blinded, but it didn't panic, and it was relying on its senses of hearing and smell to gauge the location of its opponent.

The blinded Skinned Anomaly unleashed two more attacks at an incredible speed to severely wound the Thousand-eyed Anomaly, but the Thousand-eyed Anomaly also displayed two more abilities after the eruption of light.

First, it emitted a high-frequency soundwave blast that was inaudible to human ears to rob the Skinned Anomaly of its hearing. After that, a type of strange black smoke rose up from its body to deprive the Skinned Anomaly of its senses of taste and smell.

Having lost four of its five senses, the Skinned Anomaly was darting around like a headless fly, completely losing track of its opponent's location.

The Thousand-eyed Anomaly pounced on this opportunity to unleash a ferocious barrage of attacks, and the Skinned Anomaly seemed to be unable to use that ability that allowed it to return from the dead consecutively in a short time. As a result, it sustained a string of severe injuries, having had its flesh torn open and its bones shattered.

However, right at this moment, the Skinned Anomaly seemed to have detected something, and it suddenly lashed out, latching onto its opponent, who was hiding behind a certain container.

This time, it made sure to capitalize on this opportunity, refusing to let go of the Thousand-eyed Anomaly as it lashed out repeatedly with its fists and claws at an incredible frequency like a gatling gun. In just a single second, it was able to unleash dozens of attacks, and it didn't take long before the Thousand-eyed Anomaly was torn into shreds.

𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

However, the Skinned Anomaly was also severely injured by the Thousand-eyed Anomaly's desperate retaliation.

"I see... So that's what happened..."

"What do you mean?" Hailey was feeling very exhilarated after watching the footage, but she still had no idea what had happened at the end. "How did it find the other anomaly at the last second?"

"It used its sense of touch." Back when Adam had faced off against the clown anomaly, he had also employed a similar method to track down his opponent. "The Thousand-eyed Anomaly didn't deprive its opponent of its sense of touch, and due to the fact that the Skinned Anomaly had no skin, it was particularly sensitive to pain. With its heightened sensitivity, it was able to sense the direction that the wind was coming from, thereby allowing it to ascertain its opponent's location."

"I see." Hailey nodded in response, but she wasn't actually all that interested in hearing the technical breakdown. "In any case, I won!"

Adam nodded in response and prepared to depart.

There were still other events that were yet to come, so the stadium was still as rowdy as ever, but he had already seen everything that he had come here to see.

As he departed from the stadium, Hailey naturally followed along as well.

The two of them emerged from the stadium exit, and Hailey asked, "Where are you going?"

"I'm going back."

"What about our plan?"

"We have no plan. Don't follow me anymore." Despite what Adam said, Hailey was still trailing along behind him, so he could only try and intimidate her. "I'm a hitman, and one thing a hitman absolutely cannot do is let others know where they live. Anyone who finds out has to die! Do you still want to follow me now?"

"Alright, then let me leave you with my contact details!" Hailey insisted on leaving her contact details on Adam's communicator before finally agreeing to leave.

Adam didn't care either way. As long as he could get this annoying kid to leave him alone, these trivial things didn't matter to him.

Following Hailey's departure, Adam followed the slightly muddy path and returned to Baldie Lin's shop.

At this point, it was already late in the night, and Nie Yiyi, Hook, and Shae's makeovers had also been completed. The four of them were seated in a small room at the back of the shop in a rather depressing silence.

In the end, it was Shae who broke the silence. "Where did you go just now?"

"I went to have a look around."

"Do we have to be in hiding for the rest of our lives?" Hook was the second one to speak. "All of my social media accounts have been banned. All of those followers that I gathered are gone."

"Perhaps we really will have to lose touch with the civilized world." Nie Yiyi was the last one to speak.

Now that they had been swept up in this crisis, even though they weren't in any immediate danger, they were essentially dead as far as the rest of society was concerned.

They weren't locals of Shadow City, but even the locals here could return to the civilized world. After all, not everyone in Shadow City was a fugitive. Even if they were, they certainly weren't being hunted by so many powerful organizations as Adam and his group were.

What was most depressing to everyone was that they couldn't think of any way to turn the tables.

With Prince's video evidence, the southern congress held all the cards, so they couldn't do anything aside from hide in this underground city.

"It seems like our only hope would be for the pawn shop or the resistance army to help us track down Oni-faced Dragon, then secure the footage that Hook recorded."

"That footage probably doesn't even exist anymore," Hook said in a depressed voice. "If I were them, I would destroy that footage right away. There's no reason why they would keep such self-incriminating footage around."

"That's where you're wrong." Having had a more privileged upbringing than Hook, Shae had a bit more insight when it came to the upper echelons of society. "Just because the Oni Organization is working together with the southern congress doesn't mean that they're close allies working solely for one another's benefit. The best way for different organizations to hold some sway over each another would be to keep incriminating evidence on one another. Besides, even a single organization isn't guaranteed to be a completely unified entity. Even in the southern congress itself, there are constant internal conflicts taking place, so don't be too pessimistic. In any case, if I were Oni-faced Dragon, I definitely wouldn't destroy the footage."

"Shae's right. However, it's definitely not going to be an easy task to recover the footage from the Oni Organization anytime soon," Nie Yiyi sighed. "We're going to have to prepare to stay here in hiding for an extended period of time."