Chapter 262: Two Sides

Sure enough, Adam only had to search through two more psychic modules that contained this village before he discovered Shaun by that lake. In that memory, he was in the process of tying rocks to a little boy's corpse so that he could push the body into the lake and have it sink to the bottom.

There seemed to be certain species of carnivorous fish in the lake, and as soon as the child's body was pushed into the water, schools of fish were immediately attracted to it by the scent of blood.

"Hey!" Adam yelled out at the unsuspecting Shaun.

Shaun was greatly startled by Adam's sudden arrival, and he immediately tried to run, but he was far too slow to outrun Adam in his Clown form, and he was quickly captured.

"You like killing people, do you? Let's see how you like being killed yourself!"

Adam raised his dagger as if he were going to plunge it straight into Shaun's heart, and sure enough, the two-faced anomaly that had been lurking deep in the lake immediately sprang out to stop him.

In most cases, an anomaly would torment its host and try to drive them to suicide, but for someone as twisted and abhorrent as Shaun, he was completely under his anomaly's control and was essentially a puppet to his anomaly.

They were constantly influenced by their anomalies to do their bidding, such as killing or torturing others, and Shaun clearly fell into this category of mentally disturbed individuals.

Hence, his anomaly was inclined to protect his psychic body.

Adam had no intention of killing Shaun, but as soon as the anomaly appeared, he immediately began to plunge his dagger toward Shaun's heart even faster than before while also conjuring up a large number of clones to attack the two-faced anomaly.

Clown's signature sinister grin appeared on Adam's face as he was doing this.

"We're both anomalies. You screwed me over once, allow me to return the favor now!"

The two-faced anomaly had to make a decision. If it chose to save Shaun, then it wouldn't be able to adopt its insubstantial form and avoid sustaining damage.

However, if it chose to let Shaun die, then it would also be destroyed.

It was a difficult choice, but Adam knew what decision the anomaly was going to make.

"Fire!"

As soon as the two-faced anomaly drew close, Adam immediately issued the order for his clones to open fire. Sure enough, with Shaun's life under threat, it was unable to adopt its insubstantial form, and it was forced to charge through the barrage of attacks flying its way. Countless bullet holes were quickly punched into its body, inflicting a significant amount of damage.

The only unfortunate thing was that due to Adam's close proximity, his clones couldn't use its most powerful weapons, such as its explosives and rocket launchers. Hence, the firepower output wasn't as powerful as it otherwise could've been.

The two-faced anomaly displayed remarkable physical resistance, forcing its way through the barrage of attacks before engaging Adam in close-quarters combat. Clown's combat prowess wasn't its forte, and the injuries that Adam had previously sustained certainly weren't helping his cause. As a result, he was quickly forced onto the back foot.

With Adam situated so close to the two-faced anomaly, it became too risky for his clones to continue firing at the anomaly, so they had no choice but to pull out their daggers and enter the brawl as well.

Thus, a chaotic melee ensued.

Amid the chaos, Adam invoked Nun in secret so that it could use its Lights Out ability to plunge the entire surrounding area into darkness, then immediately possess Shaun.

As it turned out, this was the right decision.

Shaun's psychic body and his anomaly were already one entity, and the two-faced anomaly immediately attempted to fuse with Shaun to save him from Adam.

However, as it pounced onto Shaun, it was kept out by Nun, following which Shaun opened his mouth and released its Fountain of Contamination straight into the anomaly's face.

After being weakened by the Fountain of Contamination, the two-faced anomaly was struggling to withstand Adam's attacks, and it was finally resorting to adopting its insubstantial form.

After that, it immediately began to flee the scene, but Adam had already thought of a way to deal with this particular scenario.

.

This was the benefit of accruing battle experience. After developing a better understanding of his opponent, Adam was immediately able to develop countermeasures tailored to this opponent, rather than rushing in blind and trying to win through brute force.

Right as the two-faced anomaly turned to face Adam with its cowardly side, a clone that was lurking nearby immediately sprang out to confront the anomaly's cruel side.

Sure enough, from that angle, the anomaly's body possessed a substantial form.

"I've got you now, you bastard!"

The clone gleefully pulled out a large bundle of explosives, then rushed directly at the two-faced anomaly before setting off the explosives in a suicide attack.

A violent explosion rang out, and the clone's body was completely destroyed. Even with the two-faced anomaly's stellar defensive prowess, it was unable to withstand such a powerful attack, and it was sent flying through the air, while the skin and flesh on its chest had been completely peeled back to present a gruesome sight.

However, that wasn't the end of the assault. While the two-faced anomaly was still reeling from the explosion, more clones rushed around to its cruel side before blowing themselves up as well. At the same time, in order to prevent the anomaly from protecting itself by turning to its cowardly side, Adam ensured that his clones were surrounding it from all directions so it wouldn't be able to avoid the clones no matter which way it turned.

"I'll admit that you'll be very difficult to kill in a one-on-one battle, but my clones are a perfect countermeasure to your abilities!"

Adam was standing in the distance as he pulled out an old-school sniper rifle and casually opened fire at the anomaly over and over again with a gleeful expression. At this rate, it was only going to be a matter of time before the anomaly was forced to use its trump cards.

Sure enough, a level four anomaly wasn't going to be killed so easily. It had been forced into a dire situation by all of the self-detonating Clown clones, and all of a sudden, it tore off its cowardly face. Immediately thereafter, its body began to expand in stature, quickly becoming stronger and more imposing, and with a thunderous roar of fury, it was able to knock back all of the clones around it.

Despite this, Adam displayed no intention of backing down. He knew that the anomaly had been forced into a corner, and he couldn't afford to relent now.

In what seemed like no more than the blink of an eye, the two-faced anomaly had swelled from two meters in height to around five meters in stature. At the same time, its entire body had turned bright red, and a suit of bone armor and a series of bone spikes had appeared all over its body, transforming it into a complete juggernaut.

It kind of looks like Oni no Hanzou'a Aka Oni in this form,?Adam remarked internally as he hurriedly fled to somewhere further away, then continued to watch as the anomaly was swarmed by his clones.

In this new form, the two-faced anomaly's combat prowess was also comparable to Aka Oni's, and every single attack from its claws and bone spikes was able to kill one of Adam's clones.

However, Adam quickly adjusted his strategy accordingly. Seeing as it was no longer a viable option to engage the two-faced anomaly in close-quarters combat, he instructed his clones to attack from afar instead, using all types of explosives and firearms to target the anomaly's most vulnerable regions.

It seemed that Adam's clones were dominating the two-faced anomaly for now, but with such a vast wealth of battle experience under his belt, Adam knew that anomalies of this caliber generally had some type of signature ability or trump card.

Even as a level three anomaly, Nun had been quite difficult to deal with, and there was no way that this was the extent of the two-faced anomaly's powers.

With that in mind, Adam invoked Sludge as a precautionary measure.

"Make sure to protect me!"