Chapter 142: The Unstoppable Force and the Immovable Object

Adam was very confident in his own defensive capabilities. Even after enduring such a lengthy battle against the sludge anomaly, he hadn't suffered any substantial damage, and not a single grievous wound had been sustained.

Of course, he was also very confident in Camera's offensive capabilities.

It was the classic showdown between the unstoppable force and the immovable object, and anyone would be eager to find out the answer to the question of which one would come out on top.

Adam knew that Camera wasn't very intelligent, so he cautioned, "Don't attack my body, just swipe at my arm."

As soon as his voice trailed off, Camera immediately sprang into action. All Adam could see was a blur flash in front of his eyes before Camera was already upon him.

Its extreme speed and its semi-transparent body made its attacks as stealthy as they were lethal.

A flash of light swept past Adam's eyes as Camera's scythe-like arm came slashing down.

Even though Adam's original intention was to take the attack head-on, he still reflexively raised his arm in self-defense, and as a result, the attack that was originally aimed at his forearm struck him on the hand instead.

A loud screeching sound akin to the noise made by metal grating on metal rang out, but the sound was very short and sharp, ringing out only for an instant amid a flurry of sparks before abruptly cutting off.

Adam focused his gaze onto his hand to find that half of his palm had been sliced open, and Camera's scythe arm was currently caught between the base of the bones of his index and middle fingers.

Both Adam and Camera were quite shocked to see this. Camera was staring at Adam with its lens-like eyes, as if it were wondering why its scythe arm had gotten stuck rather than slicing straight through Adam's hand, while Adam was astonished because no other anomaly of the same level as Mummy had ever been able to inflict so much damage upon it with just a single attack.

If this blow had landed on his neck, half of his neck would've been sliced open!

"That was incredible!"

Adam plucked out the scythe arm with his other hand while looking at Camera with an elated expression.

Prior to this, he had no confidence whatsoever in his ability to secure victory in the battle royale, but with this trump card up his sleeve, he had finally managed to muster up some confidence.

Even Oni no Hanzou or Oni no Miko would be sure to severe injuries from an attack like this! The problem is that if Camera can't kill them with a single strike, they would be able to destroy it with ease in retaliation, considering how fragile it is.

Adam gently bumped into Camera's body to gauge its physical resistance, only to find that it was still as frail as ever.

Given how extremely skewed its attributes were, Camera was a trump card that could only be used as a surprise unit.

Now's not the time to be thinking about things like this. In any case, I've already gotten a lot out of today. It's time to leave this place.

Adam had already wasted far too much time in his battle against the sludge anomaly. At the moment, his physical body was still on someone else's territory, so as a safety precaution, he decided that it was best to leave the psychic world right away.

As soon the urge to leave arose in his mind, the connection was instantly severed, and Adam's consciousness returned to his body as he slowly opened his eyes.

Liu Shouyi was still situated directly in front of him, and Adam didn't know what Crocodile had done to put Liu Shouyi into his unconscious state, but he still hadn't woken up.

This man was harboring too many secrets, and Adam had no intentions of sharing those secrets with anyone else. He couldn't shake the feeling that the Metaverse, Madam Tree, the human farm, and the upper echelons of human society were all somehow interconnected with one another.

.

In other words, if he wanted to unravel the secrets surrounding his own past, it was definitely an option to follow these leads and gradually work his way up to the top.

With that in mind, he opened the door.

"Holy shit, it's almost nighttime right now! Why were you in there for so long? You didn't fuck him, did you?" Crocodile had already been standing outside the room on lookout duty for a long time, and as soon as he spotted Adam, he immediately began to complain. "If you hadn't told me not to disturb you, I would've gone in ages ago! You better tell me you found out some useful things after spending so much time in there!"

"Well..."

"Don't tell me there's no money to be made! I'm gonna lose it if you made me wait out here all this time for nothing!"

"There's definitely money to be made. He's got quite a bit of wealth under his name, but there's some more information that I want to dig out of him. How about this? I'll give you some money in private, and you make sure he doesn't cut up. Deal?"

Adam's original plan was to take Liu Shouyi back with him, but he was dealing with a lot of trouble and could find himself in danger at any moment, so it was better to leave Liu Shouyi with Crocodile.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Crocodile scoffed with a disdainful sneer. "I'm a big guy, and I'm probably too honest for my own good, but I'm not stupid! There's definitely more money to be made from him if you want to keep him. I'm not asking for much, all I want is half of what you'll be getting out of him."

"I'm telling you the truth, all I want is to find out some more information from him."

"I don't believe you."

"How can I make you believe me?"

"I won't believe you no matter what you say, but I can believe anything you tell me as long as you give me enough money." Crocodile held up a pair of fingers, then quickly raised a third finger as well. "Give me 2... No, 3,000,0000! Give me 3,000,000, and I'll keep him for you. You can do whatever you want with him, it'll be none of my business."

"Alright, I can do that, but I don't have enough money on my at the moment." Adam had earned quite a bit of money from the matches he had been fighting in, but 3,000,000 was still too large a sum for him to fork out at once. "I'm about to go up a tier in the tournament soon, and as I'm sure you're aware, money comes really fast from fighting in these matches. I'll transfer you a deposit, you look after him for me in exchange. There's no need to keep him locked up, just let him live here like a normal person."

"Sure thing. As long as you pay up, I'm open to anything, but you have to make the transfer now!"

After transferring the money to Crocodile's account, Adam asked him to rouse Liu Shouyi from his unconscious state.

They had used a special concoction to knock him unconscious, and he quickly woke up after sniffing some type of chemical powder.

"Who are you?" Anyone would be given quite a fright if they were to suddenly wake up in an unfamiliar environment with a bunch of menacing-looking thugs around them, and Liu Shouyi was no exception. "What's going on?"

"What's going on? Didn't you know what you were getting yourself into when you decided to come to Shadow City?"

"I did hear that this is a lawless place..."

"That's right! Under normal circumstances, someone like you who came to the city without a guide should currently be on an operating table, getting their organs removed, but there are some things that we want to ask you first."

As opposed to being fearful of the prospect of having his organs harvested, Liu Shouyi seemed to relax a little instead, and he sighed, "Someone like me deserves to suffer such a fate."

"That may be true, but surely you don't want to die now, right?"

Prior to the eradication of the sludge anomaly, Adam fully believed that Liu Shouyi was prepared to die. In his past experience, Adam knew that a level three anomaly was already enough to drive someone to suicide.

For the average person, a level three anomaly was generally the limit of what one could tolerate.

Nun had been a level three anomaly, and its presence in Li Qi's consciousness had been enough to drive him to suicide on multiple occasions.

Compared with Li Qi, Liu Shouyi's psychological burden was even more severe, so it was only to be expected that he had severe suicidal tendencies.

However, now that the anomaly had already been destroyed...

Liu Shouyi faltered momentarily upon hearing this question, and he was surprised to find that he seemed to be in a far better mental state than he had been in for quite some time. "I... I'm not sure..."

"I'm an adapter, and I've already cured you of your mental illness," Adam revealed. "Now, I have a few questions that I need you to answer."