Chapter 324: Vendetta Clause

"Don't kill him!" Raven yelled from afar, and Hebi no Miko immediately stopped what she was doing.

She then turned to the rapidly approaching Raven as she asked, "Why?"

At this point, letting Phil go wasn't going to do them any good.

Not only would killing Phil prevent him from exacting vengeance against them in the future, it would also hide what they had done here. A dead man couldn't talk, so no one would be able to find out who had killed him.

"I'll tell you the reason later. We've already stayed here for too long, and his reinforcements are about to arrive."

"Alright, I'll trust you on this one."

There was no bad blood between Phil and Hebi no Miko, so it didn't matter to her whether he was killed or not. Thus, the trio promptly departed from Phil's psychic world.

Upon returning to the real world, the three of them immediately mingled themselves into the crowd.

Due to the excessive psychic damage that he had sustained, Phil almost fell unconscious as soon as he returned to the real world. Hence, he was completely powerless to stop the trio from getting away. All he could do was wait until he recovered somewhat, then report what had happened to him to his higher-ups.

"Why did you stop me from killing him?"

Among the crowd, three hippies were strolling along next to one another. To be more accurate, two of them were walking alongside one another, while the third one was trailing along behind those two as he didn't feel worthy of walking beside them.

"Firstly, I found many interesting things in his memories. Secondly, if we kill him, I have a feeling that we won't be able to live much longer."

"Really?"

Hebi no Miko was rather unconvinced.

"There's a very good chance that we'll die," Raven replied with a nod. "The Guild of Immortality is an even more complex and powerful organization than we imagined. Their forces are spread out across the entire world, and they have a vendetta clause in place, which means that anyone who kills a member of the Guild of Immortality will be hunted by the entire guild in retaliation."

"But we've already made an enemy out of him, isn't that the same thing?"

In Hebi no Miko's mind, anyone who dared to cross her had to be killed. She possessed a very extreme personality, and there was often no compromise or middle ground in the way that she did things.

"Just making an enemy out of him is fine. Through his memories, I was able to gather some information, and given that the Guild of Immortality is a worldwide organization, it's sure to be quite lax and decentralized. The more massive an organization is, the more convoluted the relationships between its members will be, that's simply an inevitable reality.

“Let me put it this way: say we're both in the guild, and I'm in North America, while you're in Asia. I run a business in the electronics industry, while you're dealing in energy resources. Even if we want to help each other, is there a need to make things so meticulous and elaborate? All of the members of the guild are extremely important figures, and they're all dealing with their own problems.

“Even if we're allies from the same guild, am I expected to resolve every single one of your problems for you? If you can sort out any of your problems on your own, you wouldn't have had the right to join the guild in the first place."

"I guess that makes some sense," Hebi no Miko replied with a thoughtful nod. "So what is this vendetta clause?"

𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

"The vendetta clause is something that's implemented as a deterrent against anyone considering opposing the Guild of Immortality. It's a rule that states that anyone who kills an official member of the Guild of Immortality will be met with retaliation from the entire guild, which will only cease when the target is dead."

"Then what about those people we killed?"

"Phil's lackeys don't count. They're just his employees, and even the old fox behind us isn't an official member of the guild."

Chen Yiran's footsteps faltered slightly upon hearing this.

Indeed, even though he possessed enormous wealth and influence that he had built up over the course of a century, he was still nothing but small fry compared with the official guild members, to the extent that just being targeted by a special psychic police officer was enough to force him into hiding.

"However, Phil is different. Lamp Keepers are considered to be administrators of sorts in the Guild of Immortality. They don't possess much power or influence themselves, but all of them are extremely capable at their job and formidable adapters to boot.

“Most importantly, they're all official guild members, so we'll be in massive trouble if we kill Phil. We can let Adam do things like this, but let's not take such massive risks ourselves," Raven said as an expectant smile appeared on his face.

"Adam? What is he going to be able to do? He's not even as powerful as Phil. How could he possibly shake the foundation of the Guild of Immortality if he can't even beat one of the guild's fringe administrators? Compared with hoping that someone else kills him, I much prefer the feeling of exacting vengeance with my own two hands."

"There's more to Adam than meets the eye. He's harboring some type of secret..."

……

Raven and Hebi no Miko had very contrasting opinions of Adam, and at the moment, it seemed that Hebi no Miko's appraisal of Adam was more accurate because he was currently on the verge of death.

In fact, it was only thanks to a massive stroke of luck that he wasn't dead.

Following Hellhound's most recent evolution, it had attained a rather strange howling ability, which was partially inherited from that seven-headed spider anomaly. The ability was called "Infernal Howl", and it was an extremely practical ability.

Once unleashed, Infernal Howl granted Hellhound borderline miraculous self-regenerative powers, while also simultaneously enhancing the combat prowess of its allies, thereby making it a multi-purpose ability.

At this moment, a symbol suddenly appeared on Adam's decapitated third head, and even though the head wasn't attached to any lungs, it was still able to open its mouth and let loose a strange howl.

Immediately thereafter, Adam's body began to rapidly regenerate, with his heads reconnecting with his body as if they were separate sentient entities.

Under the effects of Infernal Howl, it was as if all of Adam's other anomalies had been injected with stimulants that significantly enhanced their speed, to the point that Sludge was almost able to grab onto Herman.

While Herman was dodging Sludge's attack, Adam completed his regeneration.

Following his resurrection, his body had become significantly more depleted compared with before, and it was clear that this ability was extremely taxing to use.

I'm alive again...

There was a hint of lingering fear in Adam's heart following his miraculous revival.

He didn't fear death, but he was terrified of the prospect of dying when there were still so many things that he still hadn't done.

He was a clone, so his days were numbered to begin with. If he couldn't even uncover the truth about his own past before he died, then that would be a true tragedy in his eyes.

Meanwhile, Herman was calculating the amount of time that had elapsed, and he knew that the three minutes were going to be up soon.

Furthermore, he had already exhausted all of the sand in his hourglass, so it was no longer possible for him to kill Adam.

With that in mind, he arrived before Adam using his speed advantage, then opened up a psychic passageway before tossing Adam out of his psychic world.

Following the departure of Adam's psychic body, all of his anomalies also vanished from Herman's psychic world.

"You're very strong, but you're not going to be so lucky next time," Herman remarked upon returning to the real world.

"Indeed," Adam replied as he turned his gaze toward Herman.

At the same time, he had already begun a process of self-reflection.

Ever since he first arrived in Shadow City, and even before then, he had always benefited from great luck. Not only had he been able to survive near-death situations on many occasions, there had always been people helping him for one reason or another in his hour of need.

However, luck was one of the flimsiest things that one could rely on, and Adam knew that his luck would inevitably run out someday.

After winning the Shadow City battle royale and surviving those two encounters with Hebi no Miko, Adam had thought that he had already joined the ranks of the world's top adapters.

However, reality had issued him another brutal wake-up call.

If I don't become more powerful, the road ahead is only going to become more and more arduous.