Chapter 173: The First Stronghold

"10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Prepare to enter!"

With that declaration, a flurry of fireworks was set off, and Adam's psychic body was drawn into the metal ball by a burst of immense suction force.

By the time he regained his vision, he discovered that he had already arrived on a barren plain. There were some tumbleweeds and other plants around him that were commonly seen in the desert, and the ground was entirely paved with sand and rocks.

The server had ensured that the members of each team were sent to the same place. After arriving in the psychic world, the first thing that Adam did was confirm that all of his teammates were with him. After that, he inspected the environment as he invoked Mummy before fusing as one with it.

"Why aren't you fusing with Clown? You've already shown everyone your trump card, so there's no need to continue hiding it." King Arthur was rather displeased by the fact that Adam was still hiding his power, a gesture that was completely pointless in his eyes. "You're way too cumbersome in your current state."

"I can't maintain my fusion with Clown for very long," Adam replied, making up a story on the spot. "It's too taxing on my psychic power."

"Is that right?"

𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Adam nodded in response.

In reality, Adam was able to maintain his fused form with Clown for extended periods of time, but due to the parasitic tentacles that had been left in Clown's body by Raven, the longer he remained fused with Clown, the more prone he became to being influenced and controlled by Raven.

He didn't understand exactly why this was the case, but having witnessed what Raven had previously done to the alien anomaly in Sithu's psychic world, he decided that it was best to avoid fusing with Clown as much as possible.

"Hook, tell us where to go."

"I'm on it."

This was an extremely dangerous game, and for once, Hook was displaying a serious and decisive side to himself. He wasted no time with unnecessary words as he immediately pulled out his telescope to inspect the surrounding area.

"Directly up ahead is an anomaly that's in the process of hunting a target, and it's moving extremely quickly... Behind us is a cluster of houses. From the looks of it, there are definitely resource cards in there... I can also see another group not far away from those houses. Where should we go?"

"The director still hasn't entered the battleground, so the zone still hasn't taken shape yet. We should take advantage of this opportunity to try our luck in those houses. Perhaps we'll be able to find some useful cards."

Adam was the leader of the team, and after he made his decision, everyone immediately traveled toward the cluster of houses that Hook had spotted.

Adam was slightly interested in the points cards, but he was more interested in the other resources on the map.

In order to add an extra element of intrigue to the game, the director had placed some other cards at the point collection sites, such as cards that contained different cyberhexes.

These things were very practical. Even though they were only one-time usage items, the cyberhexes imprinted in those cards had been left by the director himself, so even adapters of Eyeless's caliber were susceptible to them.

Aside from cyberhex cards, there were also cards that could disperse anomalies, and even high-level cards that could allow one to control those artificial anomalies. Hence, they were extremely valuable resources.

Additionally, there were also exit cards that could allow one to exit the game at will, so even those who weren't interested in collecting points would still prioritize collecting resources before doing anything else.

The team quickly traveled toward the cluster of houses while following Hook's instructions. Due to how slow Hook was, he was being carried in the mouth of King Arthur's dragon.

"Can you put your dragon away for now? It's so massive and conspicuous, it'll be impossible for us to remain hidden with that thing around."

"She's not an invoked entity, so I'm unable to make her disappear as I please," King Arthur explained.

Indeed, King Arthur's dragon steed was a massive creature. Its lizard-like body was around six to seven meters in length, and it had a pair of small wings on its back that allowed it to fly over short distances. Half of King Arthur's combat prowess stemmed from his dragon.

Seeing as it was impossible to keep a low profile, the team didn't bother to hide at all, charging toward their destination at full speed like a rumbling freight train. As a result, they immediately caught the attention of the other team that was traveling toward the same cluster of houses.

This team was the same one that Hook had spotted earlier, and due to the fact that they had spawned near this cluster of houses, they had arrived here before Adam's team, and they had already gotten into a battle formation.

Right as Adam's team was rushing toward their destination, a series of vines suddenly rose up from the barren ground to stop them in their tracks.

"We were the ones who found this place first, so..."

"Cut the chit-chat! This is a battle royale, not a children's game! You can't just call dibs on something because you found it first!"

King Arthur patted the neck of his dragon steed, and the dragon immediately tossed Hook aside, then opened its cavernous mouth to release a blast of fire that instantly incinerated all of the vines into ashes.

Having lived most of her life in Shadow City, King Arthur's host had a far more direct and hostile personality than Adam and his friends.

"Either back down, or die!"

King Arthur had already identified the opposing team, which consisted of a pair of A tier combatants with two outsiders. Such a team composition had no chance against Adam's team. King Arthur raised his golden sword high above his head as he spoke, and the sword began to give off resplendent radiance, as if it were gathering enormous power.

The members of the opposing team exchanged a few glances before ultimately choosing to back down.

However, right as they began to back away, the wall behind them suddenly exploded, and a massive hand reached out before crushing one of them in an instant. Immediately thereafter, an enormous mouth emerged to devour another one of them, following which both the hand and the mouth vanished back into the darkness.

All of the adapters present were of quite a high caliber, but none of them had been able to sense this surprise attack.

Due to how close the opposing group had been situated to the house, two of them had perished in the blink of an eye.

Adam and his team didn't even get to find out what abilities those two adapters possessed before they were killed on the spot.

Given the fact that they were A tier combatants, it was likely that they were both at least on the same level as Nie Yiyi.

"What kind of anomaly was that? It seems to be capable of concealing itself."

"It's very rare to see such a massive anomaly relying on stealth."

King Arthur had also witnessed what had just unfolded, but he wasn't fazed at all.

"You two, if you're willing to fight the anomaly inside with us, we can give you the exit cards if we find any inside, along with some of the points cards," Adam offered, trying to temporarily recruit the remaining two members of the opposing team.

The opposing team had just lost half of its members from the get-go, so the remaining two members had no choice but to accept Adam's offer.

Sure enough, they immediately nodded in agreement.

After receiving their response, Adam wasted no further time with words, immediately rushing into the cluster of buildings, relying on his defensive prowess to keep himself safe.

This was a cluster of around a dozen old and dilapidated apartment buildings constructed in a style reminiscent of the World War II era. The area wasn't very large at all, so it was presumably going to be an easy task to scour the area for resources.

The first room that Adam rushed into was the one that the anomaly had just emerged from, but after looking around, he didn't discover the anomaly, nor did it attack him.

"It's run away!" Adam yelled to his companions, then spotted several cards on a table in the room.

He made his way over to the table to find that the cards consisted of four points cards. He then made his way to the second floor where he spotted three more glowing golden cards, and with that, he had 7,000,000 in the bag. It was almost outrageous how quickly and easily he had been able to collect such a massive sum of money.

After searching the building, Adam jumped directly upward, crashing through the roof on the second floor so that he could see the entire cluster of buildings from a higher vantage point.

There should be some more good stuff here...

While Adam was inspecting his surroundings, he suddenly heard Hook crying out for help.

"Help! It's onto me! I can feel it! I don't want to die!"