Chapter 258: Feeding Dogs

Having endured another near-death experience, Adam was unconscious for a very long time. By the time he slowly woke up and reopened his eyes, he discovered that he was still laying on the ground, surrounded by some Mechguard units and the three psychic mutants.

"How long was I out for?"

"About three hours." As usual, Armadillo was the one who was most concerned about Adam. "How are you feeling?"

"My head hurts, but aside from that, I'm fine. When did you wake up?"

"I woke up after only about half an hour. I recover quite a bit quicker than normal adapters, and even my headache is feeling a lot better now. That was a really close call though! I've never seen anyone as strong as that nasty hag. How about we run away? I was just discussing this with Mole and Rabbit just now."

Armadillo was clearly feeling quite rattled. Even a deranged person wasn't incapable of feeling fear, but the fear that he was experiencing wasn't so severe that it would result in a weakening of his psychic body.

"I'm not going anywhere," Adam replied with a firm shake of his head. "Even if I have to die here, I'm not going to run away anymore. What happened to Hebi no Miko in the end?"

"She got away! She went into the sewers to escape from the Mechguard units. She has a ton of super illegal prosthetics retrofitted onto her body, and they all seem to have cutting-edge Japanese technology. In any case, she was really fast in getting away, but she was still injured before she could make her escape."

"That's a pity. If only the Mechguard units were able to kill her."

Adam knew that Hebi no Miko was going to be an extremely formidable foe, but never did he think that she would this powerful, to the extent that Adam and his companions were completely no match for her, and it was an extremely difficult task just to survive long enough for the Mechguard units to arrive.

𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

I have a feeling we won't be able to survive the next attack so easily.

Having suffered this setback, Hebi no Miko definitely wasn't going to be so careless next time. She was going to choose a safer location to attack from, and she wasn't going to waste time torturing Adam as she had done on this occasion.

With that in mind, Adam struggled to his feet, then pulled out his communicator before sending a message to Hailey.

"Have you heard back from the director yet?"

"He says that if you die, then you deserve to die."

Hailey's response quickly came through, and it was clear that she had already met with the director, but she had refrained from contacting Adam due to the less-than-satisfactory response that she had received.

Adam heaved a forlorn sigh upon seeing this, and he knew that he could only rely on himself from here onward.

Using his jurisdictive power as a special psychic police officer, he released an arrest warrant for Hebi no Miko to Mechguard.

With Mechguard now on her case, Hebi no Miko was most likely going to be out of action for a while, particularly considering she had her own injuries to attend to as well. Adam had to take advantage of this period of respite to make some changes.

"What do we do from here?" Armadillo asked. "Should we go back for now? My dog has only been fed once today, I need to feed it again."

"You can go back for now."

Mole and the others were already extremely worked up, and Adam didn't want to place them under any further stress. After all, they were quite mentally unstable, and if they were to suffer mental breakdowns, that would not be good news for him.

"What about you?"

"I have to track down and arrest Shaun first. Given how close he is with Alan, he'll definitely quickly realize that something is wrong now that Alan has been detained. I can't let him get away."

Adam had to make full use of the time that was available to him, and even though he was currently in terrible psychic condition, dealing with a normal person was still going to be an easy task.

"Alright, we're going then. I have to feed my dog."

Even though they had just endured an extremely close brush with death, Armadillo was still thinking solely about his dog.

He approached Mole and Rabbit before saying something to them, following which the three of them waved at Adam before departing.

Adam stood up and dusted himself off, then made his way over to Diana.

She had been staring into the distance ever since Adam awakened, and as Adam approached her, he discovered that she was trembling.

He thought that she was trembling from fear, but after getting a little closer, he realized that she was trembling from fury rather than fear.

.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm... so useless..."

Only after a long while did Diana spit out a response through gritted teeth.

She was furious about how weak she was. She had finally gotten a long-awaited opportunity for vengeance, yet now that it was time to take action, she was completely overwhelmed, and that was utterly infuriating to her.

Due to the fact that she had completed her psychic mutation due to emotions of extreme rage, she had no concept of fear.

Adam was about to offer her some words of consolation, but a thought suddenly occurred to him.

As a psychic mutant, the power of Diana's psychic body stemmed from her anger, so theoretically speaking, the angrier she was, the more powerful she would become.

With that in mind, his words of consolation immediately turned to mockery.

"You're right, you really are useless. If you weren't so useless, King Arthur wouldn't have died. You've become more powerful now, but you're still just as useless as you were back then. King Arthur may have been killed by Oni no Miko, but she was only able to kill him thanks to Yamata no Orochi, so it's not a stretch to say that Hebi no Miko was actually the one who killed King Arthur. You had a perfect chance for vengeance served up to you on a silver platter, yet all you could do was squander it!"

Not only was Adam mocking Diana, he made sure to mention King Arthur's name repeatedly in order to spite her, and sure enough, it worked. Diana immediately reached out in a fit of fury before closing her hand around Adam's throat, trying to strangle him to death.

"Let go! There are Mechguard units here. Even if you're a special psychic police officer, you're still going to be detained!"

Adam was able to force Diana's hand away with ease. He was no match for her in the psychic world, but his strength was enhanced by his exoskeleton in the real world, so he was far stronger than she was.

"Why are you getting angry at me? I'm not your enemy!" All of a sudden, a thought occurred to Adam as he spoke. "Hold on, I have a good idea."

"What?"

"Hebi no Miko will definitely come back, but you're nowhere near powerful enough to face her. Hence, your priority should be to get stronger!"

"How?"

"I know someone really strong, perhaps even on the same level as Hebi no Miko. I trained under him for a while, and he's a true master. He'll teach you how to maximize your powers."

Adam was naturally referring to Sadou here. He was renowned as the most powerful invocator-class adapter, so he had to be quite formidable. As for whether he could actually stand toe-to-toe with Hebi no Miko, Adam had no idea as he had never witnessed Sadou's true power. He had only seen Sadou completely dominate Oni no Hanzou and Oni no Miko with ease, but that clearly wasn't the full extent of his power.

Sadou was unwilling to oppose Hebi no Miko, but given his ties with the northern congress, there was a decent chance that he would be willing to accept Diana as a student.