Chapter 167: White Robe

"It's important for all of you to be careful during the leadup to the battle royale." It was Baldie Lin who was speaking on this occasion. He knew far more about Shadow City than anyone else here. "This may be the director's territory, and he's very much against the idea of combatants targeting each other outside of the battle royale.

“On top of that, there are all types of armed automatons overseeing everything, but there have been instances of combatants being assassinated or the families of combatants being abducted. In particular, Adam has to be extra careful. Also, have you chosen your teammates yet?"

"Who else can I choose? I've got all of my teammates here."

"I suggest you pay the S tier club a visit to see if anyone there would be willing to join your team. It's going to be very difficult for you to win the battle royale if your team is reliant solely on you."

"That's a little bit condescending, is it not?"

Nie Yiyi had always been quite proud, so she was naturally rather unhappy to hear this. However, having already watched several S tier matches, she knew how she stacked up against those powerhouses.

"I hate to admit it, but he's right. Outside of Adam, I'm the strongest one in our group, but I've been having trouble even in the A tier matches, there's very little I can do to help in any meaningful way against opponents of Oni no Hanzou's caliber. Hence..."

"I understand."

Adam nodded in response as he fell into deep thought.

"Also, we checked the surveillance footage, and it looks like you were the one who let Sithu go."

Adam nodded once again.

"Okay."

Nie Yiyi didn't ask any further questions. She knew that Adam had never been short of secrets.

……

By the time Adam left the hospital, there was only less than a week left until the battle royale.

Following his departure, Fighter Li still remained in the hospital, and that reflected the difference between organic adapters and artificial adapters. Artificial adapters were forcing themselves beyond their natural limits, so they suffered severe brain trauma each time their psychic body sustained injuries.

Even if their psychic bodies weren't injured, their brains were still sustaining trauma from those machines that pierced through their skulls.

In the wake of the battle that had taken place in Sithu's psychic world, Adam could clearly sense that Fighter Li's body had atrophied even further, to the point where he resembled nothing more than a skeleton in a suit of skin. On top of that, he was suffering occasional seizures, and it seemed that he wasn't going to be alive for much longer.

"I'm sorry. If I had known this would happen, I wouldn't have asked you to help me."

"Don't feel guilty about what happened to me, that'll only make you weaker. Everything I did in my life was by my own choice," Fighter Li said with a smile, and several layers of wrinkles appeared on his dry and withered face. "I only do the things I want to do, and no one can force me to do anything I don't want to do.

“Everything I experienced were things I chose to experience. I should be thanking you for giving me the opportunity to experience something so exciting. On that day, I saw many things that I had never seen before. Speaking of which, what happened at the end there?"

The exertion of speaking caused Fighter Li's condition to worsen even further, and his heart monitoring device was beginning to beep insistently.

Adam looked around to find that there was no one else in the ward aside from himself and Fighter Li. The hospital staff of Shadow City was as irresponsible as ever, and Nie Yiyi had gone somewhere else as well.

"After that explosion, I killed the remaining couple of anomalies. To put it more accurately, the last one committed suicide."

"Anomalies can commit suicide? Don't they only kill their hosts or devour their hosts to become them? People can be controlled by their emotions, but I never thought that emotions could control themselves."

"It was in control of itself. Instead, it was being controlled by another anomaly, which was another one of Sithu's personalities. That one was a recessive personality, so it was only able to take control of his body once all of the other personalities were dead."

"I see. No wonder his psychic world was so strange if there was someone pulling the strings behind the scenes all along. What happened after that?"

"We struck a deal. I let him go, and he gave me some things in return."

"You trust him?"

"I don't, but he's just a normal person, so he poses no real threat. On top of that, he has something that he can use against me as well, so I won't send anyone to find and kill him."

Here, Adam was naturally referring to the parasitic tentacles on Clown.

Raven was a very intelligent anomaly, and one that was also extremely powerful.

In order to obtain the power Raven had offered to him, he had no choice but to choose one of his anomalies to act as the receiver.

He knew that without that power, there was no way that he would've been able to defeat Oni no Hanzou, and they would be unable to obtain the footage and clear their names.

Hence, even though he knew that it was a poisoned gift, he still had no choice but to accept it.

After some consideration, he had chosen Clown as the sacrificial tribute.

Out of all of his anomalies, Clown was the one that he used the least. Its combat prowess was quite mediocre, and even if something were to happen to it, it wouldn't have been a significant loss.

However, to his surprise, after evolving into a level five anomaly, not only had Clown retained all of its flashy tricks, it had also attained exceptional combat prowess.

"I see." After getting a rough understanding of what had happened, Fighter Li closed his eyes. He knew that if he continued to ask questions, then he would be prying into Adam's secrets. "You can go now. I want to rest."

Adam took a glance at the medical equipment, which was still beeping insistently, and he took a deep breath before departing.

On the hospital bed, Fighter Li could feel his own life force slipping away with each passing beep.

After a long while, he heaved a forlorn sigh.

"It's a pity that I didn't get to see more interesting things."

"Are you about to die?"

A white-robed figure had appeared at his bedside, completely avoiding his detection in the process.

"Who are you?" Even though Fighter Li wasn't far away from death, he still had his telegnosis, yet he had no idea when this white-robed figure had arrived. "What are you here for?"

"I'm here to give you a choice. I can grant you a healthy body, one that'll allow you to become an organic adapter. Does that sound appealing to you?"

Appealing was a massive understatement, but thanks to Fighter Li's remarkable mental fortitude, he was able to remain calm and collected as he asked, "What do you need from me in return?"

"I need you to make the world a more interesting place. Don't you feel like this entire world is like a pool of stagnant water, and everyone is living in constant pain and monotony?"

"Don't talk to me about the state of the world, what exactly do you need me to do?"

"I need you to kill people for me."

"Who?"

"I have no set targets for you for now, but I assure you they won't be your friends or those close to you."

"Alright, you have yourself a deal."

"Then come with me..."

……

Meanwhile, a similar scene was unfolding in a waste treatment plant in Shadow City.

The area around this waste treatment plant was the least populated area in all of Shadow City. The waste products produced by millions of people were processed in this plant, and due to the fact that Shadow City was an underground city, not all of the sewage pipes were underground. Furthermore, it was very difficult to incinerate rubbish in an underground setting, so much of the rubbish had to be packed up before being sent to the surface.

The entire plant was filled with filth, and due to the fact that this was an underground city, there was nowhere for the odors to escape. Hence, it was an extremely putrid environment to be in, and no one liked to visit the place.

All of the work here was done by machines and automatons, but at this moment, there was someone picking up scraps inside the waste treatment plant.

As he did so, he was assembling the scraps together, seemingly trying to repair some type of electronic device.

All of a sudden, another figure appeared before him.

This figure was wearing a white robe, and he was looking at the scavenger with a gentle expression.

"Your name is Sith, right?"

Even though Sithu was currently standing on a mountain of trash, he seemed to be far more at peace with himself than ever before.

All of the fear and insanity in his eyes had completely faded, replaced by tranquility and thoughtfulness.

"Is there something you need from me?"

"Do you want to become an adapter? I'm sure you'll be able to do many things if you attain the body of an adapter."

"Become an adapter?" A smile appeared on Sithu's face upon hearing this. "Of course I would like that. If you can make me an adapter, I would be willing to serve you and do all of your bidding."