Chapter 166: Assembling Teams

Thus, the battle concluded in an extremely brutal fashion.

Of course, in Shadow City, no battle was considered to be too brutal. Brutality was only considered to be a visual spectacle here, and the more brutal a battle was, the more excited the spectators became.

Even in the main stadium, it was very rare to see a match of such a high caliber.

Both Oni no Hanzou and Adam had displayed powers that would place them comfortably near the top of the S tier. In particular, Adam's terrifying clown anomaly and his supporting army of anomalies had left all of the spectators with a very deep impression.

Everyone was cheering with all their might, and even those who had lost money betting on Oni no Hanzou had no complaints.

At the same time, the S tier combatants were already thinking about the next step.

"I should go ask Lean Mean Killing Machine if he's looking for teammates."

"I definitely wouldn't mind having him on my team!"

"Looks like he avenged your father for you, Ikkaku. Are you going to join his team?"

"No."

Ikkaku's indifference certainly wasn't mirrored by everyone else.

Not long after Oni no Miko left the stadium, she was stopped in her tracks by a muscular man with diamond-shaped tattoos all over his body.

"What do you want?"

Oni no Miko couldn't sense any animosity from the man, so she gestured for Ironback Tiger to stay back.

"Hello, Ms. Miko. Please allow me to introduce myself: I am Diamond, an S tier combatant, and I want to assemble a team with you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means exactly what I said. The battle royale is about to begin, and without Mr. Hanzou on your side, the overall power of your team is undoubtedly going to be taking a massive hit."

Oni no Miko's identity had already been exposed among the S tier combatants, so Diamond didn't bother to pretend that he didn't know who she was.

"That invocator doesn't appear to be any less powerful than you are. I know that your Oni Organization has a total of eight Onis, but I'm sure not all of them were able to come here. If you're the only one left, then it's going to be very difficult for you to secure victory in the battle royale on your own."

"That may be so, but I still have them," Oni no Miko countered as she pointed at her companions.

"They're all members of the Oni Organizations 36 Tigers, right? Forgive me for being blunt, but I don't think you'll be going very far at all with a team like this. Each team has four people on it, and you'll need at least two adapters of your caliber to have any chance at securing victory. I can give you a piece of information for free: there's an S tier combatant by the name of Ikkaku, and there's a very good chance that he'll join that invocator's team."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because he has a vendetta against your Oni Organization. His previous target was Mr. Hanzou, but now that Mr. Hanzou is no longer around, he'll have to target you instead. Even in the S tier, Ikkaku is quite a formidable figure. He may not quite be on your level, but he's definitely not far away."

"Alright, and how would you compare yourself to me?"

Oni no Miko took a step forward as she looked straight into Diamond's eyes, exerting immense psychological pressure upon him.

"There's only one way to find out, isn't there?"

Diamond didn't back down in the slightest as he invaded Oni no Miko's psychic world.

……

Several minutes later, both of them opened their eyes at the same time.

Oni no Miko's complexion remained completely unchanged, while Diamond was looking a little weary, but only to the same extent as someone who had stayed up an entire night.

"I accept your offer to form a team," Oni no Miko said with a nod. "But we won't be able to split the reward that I'm going to be requesting."

The Oni Organization's target was the footage captured by Hook, and they weren't going to split that with anyone.

"That's fine. The director isn't the only one who can provide me with what I want, the Oni Organization can fill that role just fine."

"What do you want?"

"I want three premium blank slates, one male and two female."

"That's quite a big ask, but you're in luck," Oni no Miko said with a smile.

For her, finding three blank slates was not a very difficult task.

Of course, blank slates were exceedingly precious, with demand far outweighing supply. Countless wealthy individuals were willing to offer up astronomical sums of money for a blank slate, but there was still no guarantee that they could get their hands on one.

However, the Oni Organization had very close ties with the human farm, so it was even more capable of sourcing top-quality blank slates than the director was.

"Great! In that case, do we have ourselves a deal?"

Oni no Miko nodded in response.

……

Only around 10 minutes had transpired since Oni no Miko's departure from the stadium to the establishment of her agreement with Diamond.

Inside the stadium, the match had only just concluded not too long ago, and Adam was standing in the stadium with an exhausted expression, listening to the host shower him with praise, but he couldn't really hear what was being said.

At the moment, he felt as if he had stayed up an entire week without sleep. His ears were burning and ringing incessantly, making it virtually impossible for him to hear anything.

Amid all the clamor, he gazed directly up ahead with his bleary eyes, and all of a sudden, a figure appeared in front of him.

He raised his head slightly to find that it was a figure wearing a black and white robe, and it took a while for his dull brain to register who this person was.

"Director?"

The man nodded in response. Behind his mask, his pupils were as red as blood, and they didn't seem to belong to a human. He scrutinized Adam with those bright red eyes as he said in a low voice, "I'm very interested in you."

"Huh?"

"I've heard about your situation, and I know what you want. I can tell you that I have what you want, and I hope you can obtain it from me. If you win the battle royale, I'm sure we'll have a lot to discuss with each other."

"So you do have it..."

"That's right, but I'm not going to provide you with any assistance before you win the battle royale. You have to be the one to take control of your own fate."

With that, the director departed.

Adam didn't have much of a recollection of what happened after that. He only vaguely recalled that he was given an S tier electronic token by an employee.

After that, some more people came to see him, but he couldn't remember who they were as he was on the verge of passing out.

In the end, he was carried away by his friends.

On the way back, everyone seemed to have been extremely excited, with Hailey displaying the most memorable reaction, sobbing through her tears and wiping her snot all over Adam's face as she swooped in to embrace him.

……

By the time Adam opened his eyes again, he was already laying on a hospital bed, with Fighter Li on the bed next to him.

"He's awake!"

Not long after he regained consciousness, a female voice rang out, following which the door was opened, and Nie Yiyi and the others made their way into the ward.

As soon as they came in, everyone began to talk at once.

"You slept quite a long time. 27 hours is more than my record," remarked Hook.

"Why were you hiding so much power all this time? If you had revealed this back at Mirror Lake Primary School, we wouldn't have ended up in this situation," Sato complained.

"What's in the past is in the past, we're just glad that you're fine now," Shae said, intentionally changing the subject.

She knew more of Adam's secrets than anyone else, and she had already guessed that Adam had most likely only attained this level of power recently. Furthermore, it seemed that using his newfound power came with severe aftereffects.

Nie Yiyi had also arrived at the same conclusion, and she decided to help Shae in her efforts to change the subject.

"The battle royale is about to begin soon. I was taking a stroll outside today and caught sight of many new faces. Apparently, they're all from betting organizations, and they're here to run live streams of the event.

“I've also heard that the annual battle royale is the biggest attraction on the dark web, exceeding the popularity of all other sporting events. I suppose that makes sense, considering you don't really get to see top-tier adapters duke it out in a battle royale format like this anywhere else."