Chapter 252: Adhesion

Adam hadn't seen any anomalies since he left Shadow City, and he was actually quite eager to find an anomaly to fight, not for battle training, but to see if his other anomalies could still absorb anomalic power now that he was fused with Clown.

Most importantly, he wanted to see if he could still absorb anomalic power himself.

If possible, he naturally wanted to prioritize making himself stronger.

Hence, not only was he going after these heinous criminals to improve his own reputation, he also wanted to run some experiments.

"I hope you won't disappoint me! Then again, I'd be very surprised if you didn't have any anomalies in you considering the disgusting content you've posted onto the dark web," Adam murmured to himself as he strode into the room, much to the horror and alarm of the young man inside.

"Who are you? What are you doing in here?"

He immediately began to retreat in fear, and he wanted to call the police, but he didn't dare to do so as he was far from an innocent man himself.

"Shut the fuck up!" Mole was already in a foul mood from being in Area 45, and he kicked the man over before picking up some leftover chips on the table and stuffing them into his own mouth, only to immediately spit them back out. "This shit's already grown mold!"

This only made Mole even more furious, and he gave the man another kick to the face, kicking out three or four of his front teeth.

"You're not going to look very good on the news now that you're disfigured," Adam mused with a contemplative expression. "But if I pluck out all of the rest of your teeth, it'll end up looking a lot more natural."

With that in mind, Adam immediately sprang into action, quickly plucking out all of the man's teeth with the help of his newly retrofitted exoskeleton.

The man was initially howling in agony, but he soon fell unconscious from the pain, and peace and quiet were restored.

"Stand on lookout for me. If you see a woman who looks like Oni no Miko come in here, wake me up right away. If you can tell that something's not quite right with me, get into my psychic world immediately. Also..." Adam looked around at the four unreliable faces around him, then ultimately decided to hand Armadillo the psychic world projection recorder. "Help me record."

"I've never done this before, but with my intelligence, I'm sure I'll be a natural!" Armadillo declared with immense unjustified confidence.

Adam had to suppress the urge to roll his eyes in exasperation. He wanted to bring Shae along with him on these missions, but Shae was too weak right now, and he didn't want her to suffer the same fate as Nie Yiyi and Hook.

Thus, he could only give Armadillo a pat on the shoulder and choose to place his trust in him.

With that, he invaded the man's psychic world.

As soon as he entered the psychic world, he immediately found himself in a dark and cold environment, one that he was extremely familiar with. In the past, this type of setting would've struck him with a sense of discomfort, but right now, it was only making him extremely excited.

This is exactly the feeling I'm looking for! There has to be an anomaly in here!

As soon as Adam entered the psychic world, he immediately began exploring the psychic module that he found himself in.

This was a village, but now like the town of Ash on the outskirts of Sandrise City. Instead, it was a more rural village.

The surrounding environment also wasn't the desert environment around Sandrise City. Instead, the entire area was filled with lush greenery.

Adam quickly concealed himself before springing high up into the air. From that vantage point, he saw several dilapidated houses that were spaced very far apart from one another.

This doesn't look like any foreign country. Instead, it looks like a rather underdeveloped area.

Villages like these that resembled historical relics from several decades ago still hadn't been completely phased out by the advancement of technology.

It was as if they had been forgotten and frozen in time, existing in a different era from the rest of the world.

Let's find the host first.

After briefly examining the village, Adam began to conduct a search.

This place was clearly extremely far away from where the host was currently living, but his memory of it was still very clear, so it had to have left a very deep impression on him.

In order to save time, Adam invoked Nun to conduct a search. As soon as Nun appeared, it immediately found a resident of the village before possessing his body.

After that, it began to search for the host while disguised as the villager. In the meantime, Adam was also conducting his own search, and he quickly found a child in the school of the village. The child bore a strong resemblance to the host, so it was very likely to be the host during childhood.

It's another kid. It seems like most of these people with anomalies have suffered some type of childhood trauma.

The school was a very old-fashioned catholic school with only around a dozen children in each classroom, and Adam observed the host for a while without noticing anything amiss.

Shortly thereafter, the bell rang, signaling the end of the school day, and the host was quickly approached by another child.

"Let's go play. I've got some new prey for us today."

Prey? Could it be that the anomaly is a manifestation of this child?

Adam could clearly see a hint of malice in the child's eyes.

He followed the two children out of the school, and it didn't take long for the two of them to leave the village. The village was surrounded by a wild mountainous area, but the two children were clearly very familiar with the environment and ran no risk of getting lost. They quickly tracked down a pair of mountain bikes that were hidden behind a tree, then rode the bikes to a lake that was very far away.

There weren't any footsteps around the lake, so this was clearly their secret base.

As soon as they arrived, Adam immediately heard a series of muffled cries for help. He followed the two children around a large rock, then saw the host's classmate drag a girl out from behind the rock.

The girl's hands and feet were bound by vines, and her mouth was stuffed with a rag.

Adam wasn't very surprised by this development at all.

He watched as the host's classmate pulled a sharpened stone spike out of his pocket before handing it to the host.

"We agreed on this last time, it's your turn."

The host was rather hesitant.

"We agreed on this! Aren't we friends?"

"But..."

The host was still quite scared.

"You told me you would do what I say!"

The classmate's voice became more forceful, and with that, the host's trembling suddenly ceased. Adam saw an anomaly emerge out of thin air behind the host before fusing as one with him, controlling his arm to pick up the stone spike.

What kind of anomaly is this? A control-type anomaly?

Seeing as the anomaly had already shown itself, Adam didn't feel the need to hide any longer, and he immediately also came out of concealment before reaching out to grab the head of the sticky, black anomaly.

The anomaly wasn't very strong, and Adam could sense that it was only a level two anomaly. However, it seemed to possess some type of unique characteristics. Adam was trying to pry the anomaly away from the host's body, but it was extremely slippery, and it quickly slithered back into the host like an eel.

What the hell is that?

Adam reflexively raised a hand to kill the host, wanting to see if the anomaly would die with the host, but he managed to catch himself just in the nick of time.

I have to be more patient.

He was here to gather evidence to build a case against the host, and hunting for anomalies was only his secondary objective.

With that in mind, he lowered his hand, and while he was still thinking about how to proceed, the host brought the stone spike down viciously, plunging it straight into the girl's eye.