Chapter 20: Human Farm

"The anomaly isn't dead!"

A feeble voice suddenly rang out from the deep crater beside Adam.

He cast his gaze in that direction to discover Deranged Pig, half of whose body had been buried under soil and debris.

"You're still alive?" Adam was quite surprised to see this. He had been situated right at the center of the storm with the scarecrow, yet he had survived even after being ravaged by countless blades of wind. "Your defenses are even better than the anomaly’s!"

"Cut the chit-chat! The anomaly isn't dead..." Deranged Pig was in an extremely feeble state, but he was adamant about delivering that message. "After its head was sliced off, the air around it began to warp. I could see that it was trying to escape, so I went to grab it, but unfortunately, I was blown away by the storm."

"Where did the anomaly's head go?"

"It fled into a deeper space."

"It's entered the internal space!" This was a trump card that the anomaly hadn't used this entire time, but it was finally forced to resort to it in its desperation to flee. "Hook, it's time for you to shine!"

"Coming!"

Hook immediately heeded Adam's call and hobbled over to him.

After learning what had happened, he instantly burst into triumphant laughter. "I can finally recover some dignity now! Just you wait, I'll find that thing and stomp it to death!"

Hook pulled out his damaged magnifying glass as he spoke, then used it to search the surrounding area. After that, he marked a coordinate on a certain spot before blasting dense, steamy mist at it.

As he was doing all that, Adam could sense that his two anomalies had finally begun to evolve after devouring enormous quantities of black energy.

The first to undergo a change was Mummy. It was more powerful than Hellhound to begin with, so it was no surprise that it was evolving first. Its body began to swell in size, and all of its muscles bulged, while its bones became thicker and more deformed. Initially, it was standing at around 180 centimeters in height, but it gradually grew to 260 centimeters tall, and its weight also increased by severalfold.

After completing its evolution, Mummy had transformed into a fearsome giant with a massive belly, and its bandages had become thicker and more resilient. Its arms were thicker than the average person's waist, and its carving knife had also elongated to over a meter in length. Furthermore, the blade was glowing with green luminescence, indicating the presence of lethal toxins.

"Looking good!"

It was clear just from its appearance alone that this Mummy was far more powerful than its previous form. Additionally, the surprises didn't end there.

Not long after Mummy completed its evolution, Hellhound's body also began to undergo changes.

From a distance, the first thing that Adam saw was a burst of fire erupt into the heavens from its body, following which it swelled from the size of a dog to the stature of a male lion. At the same time, it spouted a second head, and fiery cyberglyphs appeared on both of its heads, giving it a very badass appearance.

"What kind of ability is this?" Mixed emotions surfaced in Nie Yiyi's eyes at the sight of the two evolved anomalies. It was clear that she also desperately yearned for power, so she was both happy for Adam, but also envious at the same time. "I've been training on a psychic isolation island ever since I was a child, yet you've improved more from this single battle than the culmination of all of my training! How did you get those two anomalies?"

"This is an innate ability of mine."

Adam was lying as he didn't want to tell anyone his secret. In fact, unless there was no alternative, he didn't even want anyone to see his anomalies.

He didn't trust the pawn shop, nor did he trust his friends.

"I see. Everyone has different innate abilities, I guess. Those two anomalies of yours may be quite powerful now, but you're still no match for me!" A competitive look appeared in Nie Yiyi's as she added, "Your psychic body is too weak. If I had to fight you to the death, it would be way too easy for me to kill you, and once I do that, your anomalies will also cease to exist."

"... Thanks for the constructive criticism, but we're allies at the moment, and I think it's a little inappropriate for you to be talking about killing me."

It had to be said that Nie Yiyi's personality was a little difficult to stomach at times. Just as Adam was about to say something to alleviate the awkward atmosphere, Hook swooped in to save the day.

"All done! We can enter the internal space now!"

"I'll go on ahead and clean everything up."

"Alright, I'll let you take care of it. This will be a good opportunity for you to see just how powerful those two pets of yours have become."

Nie Yiyi nodded in response, and she was still rather envious as she observed the two anomalies.

She felt like someone who had been working hard for over 10 years to build up a foundation of savings, only for her neighbor to instantly outstrip her in wealth by winning the lottery, and it was quite a bitter pill to swallow.

Adam offered no reply to Nie Yiyi. Instead, he beckoned over his two anomalies, and they entered the dense mist together. As they advanced deeper and deeper into the steamy mist, the surrounding scene also became more and more warped and twisted.

"Just keep going and follow the trail of steam. I'm too scared to go in, so I'll leave it to you."

Hook's voice was fluctuating unsteadily in volume, and once the surroundings became warped to a certain extent, it became impossible to see anything. As Adam advanced further and further, the steamy mist gradually became thinner, and the surrounding scene also began to change.

After the mist completely dissipated, Adam found himself in a massive factory, which was filled with rows upon rows of artificial wombs. These mechanical wombs were carrying human infants inside them, and some of the infants had already taken shape, while the others were still growing.

A swarm of mechanical drones was flying in the air above, and they were looking after these infants. It was clear that this was an infant breeding factory.

This is not a hospital, nor is it a nursing station. Neither of those places has such a large scale.

Adam continued to follow the trail of steam beneath his feet, and he was soon greeted by a terrifying sight.

Due to the enormity of the factory, there were infants that were constantly being expelled from the machines upon maturity. These infants were then taken by automatons to a production line off to the side for examination.

Steel needles were plunged into the tops of the infants' heads, and their neurons were extracted before being sent to a laboratory for analysis. Adam observed the laboratory for a while to discover that only a single parameter was being examined in there: neuron activity.

Only the infants that reached a certain standard would be kept, while the rest were tossed onto another production line.

According to what Adam had learned, the passing threshold was the minimum standard for adapters, which meant that only adapters were retained in this factory.

Adam was naturally curious about where all of the other infants went.

Thus, he followed the production line and continued his investigation, upon which he witnessed an even more horrific scene. All of the infants that failed to reach the standard were pulverized like culled chicks.

If hell existed in this world, Adam couldn't imagine it to be any more horrific than what he was seeing here.

Even for an adult and a pessimistic blank slate like Adam, this was a traumatic scene.

The fact that this scene was present in Kim's psychic world meant that she had seen all of this before. Perhaps her trauma had been too severe, thereby overwhelming the tolerance capacity of her brain, causing her to automatically forget everything.

This type of selective amnesia was very common among traumatized individuals, and that was why this factory was concealed within the internal space of her psychic world.

Memories could be forgotten, but the trauma would remain unhealed.

Having witnessed this hellish scene, Kim had suffered incurable PTSD, thereby leading to her rapidly ailing psychological and physical health.