Chapter 345: Venomous Vipers

"Even so, we have to conduct a manual search. What if he's carrying non-metallic objects?"

"With the technology we have nowadays, even non-metallic objects can't escape the detectors."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that. I need to conduct a manual search to be safe."

The burly warden had close ties to Chief Warden Emmanuel, so he didn't fear Ryan, and he had been told by the chief warden that he had to prepare a "special welcome" for this internet celebrity.

Thus, he began to search Adam again as he spoke, but he was more restrained with Ryan watching from the side, thereby allowing Adam to get through without too much trouble.

Following the departure of the burly warden, Ryan took over from him and led Adam to his cell.

"How are you feeling?"

Ryan could tell that Adam was receiving special treatment from the burly warden, so he had brought some medical supplies with him. Following the burly warden's departure, Ryan sprayed something onto Adam's head to stop the bleeding.

Adam shook his head from side to side. The blow from the baton just now had given him a minor concussion, so he was feeling a little dizzy as he shook his head, but this degree of pain was nothing for an adapter with exceptional mental fortitude like him.

"I'm fine, I have a very high pain tolerance. You must've come here because you have questions for me, right? Go ahead."

"Are you a psychic deviant?"

Ryan strongly detested psychic deviants as members of his family had been hurt by psychic deviants in the past, and similarly, that was also why he held such a high level of reverence for Adam.

After all, in his eyes, Adam was a good cop leading the fight against psychic deviants in society.

Even though he had been prosecuted with concrete evidence supporting the prosecution, Ryan was still quite skeptical, just like most people on the internet invested in his story.

"I don't know if I count as a psychic deviant, but I am quite obsessive when it comes to my goals."

Adam had a clear understanding of his own personality. Ever since discovering his own identity as a blank slate, he had been constantly and tirelessly working toward a single objective, and his behavior could’ve easily been seen as obsessive or extreme.

"However, I'm not a cannibal, and I didn't kill those people," Adam said in a calm manner.

Even if he had actually been framed and wasn't just putting on an act as part of Thilan's scheme, it would still have been in character for him to profess his own innocence.

"I believe you." In contrast with the people on the internet, Ryan had previously met Adam in the real world, and he didn't think that Adam was a cannibal. "However, I'm afraid I can't offer you much help."

"It's fine, just take me to my cell."

After emerging from the lavatory and putting on his clothes, Adam followed Ryan through the wire fence and arrived in the internal area of the prison.

"This is the outdoor activity area, and all inmates are allowed to come out here for a period of time every day. This is the safest place in the prison," Ryan said as he pointed at the surrounding Mechguard units as an explanation for why this area was safer than others.

"Are there lots of factions in here? Most of the inmates are psychic deviants, right?"

Due to the fact that the plan had been hatched on very short notice, Adam only had a very basic understanding of the environment in Darvaza Prison.

All of the content on the internet had to be taken with a grain of salt, and Ryan much preferred to hear from Adam himself.

"Yes, there are a lot of psychic deviants and factions in the prison."

"Can you go into more detail?"

"I'll use the two people you saw last time as examples. Prior to being arrested, Sima Kai was still able to go to his job as a university professor as normal. He was able to blend into society, and no one had any reason to suspect that he was a criminal. As for Dwight, he has bipolar disorder and violent tendencies, but when those conditions don't flare up, he's also no different from a normal person.

“These people have different wants and needs, just like every other person, so this prison shares many similarities with normal prison. It has everything a normal prison has, and it also has things that other prisons don't have. Essentially, there are two worlds in here, one on the surface, and one in the darkness."

"How are the factions here different from the factions in other prisons?"

"They're a lot more brutal and vicious!"

Ryan hadn't been a warden at Darvaza Prison for very long, but he had clearly already seen some traumatic things during his time here. His face paled significantly as he spoke, and he couldn't help but gulp down some saliva.

.

Having been to the cannibal club recently, Adam could tell that Ryan was gulping down saliva to suppress his nausea and prevent himself from throwing up on the spot.

"In other prisons, the factions only exist to do things like smuggle food, drugs, and cigarettes into the prison, or at the very most, make some trades with the outside world. However, there are all types of twisted individuals in this prison, like cannibals, human head collectors, eyeball collectors, foot fetishists...

“The majority of the people locked up in here will never see the light of day, and they've dedicated all of their time and energy to fulfilling their twisted hobbies, so the conflicts between factions are more like conflicts between cults."

"Sounds like this place is even more dangerous than I imagined."

In Darvaza Prison, adapters weren't as powerful as they were in the real world. Virtually all of the inmates here were psychic deviants harboring powerful anomalies, essentially protecting them from psychic invasions.

Furthermore, he had lost his prosthetics, so he was only roughly at an average level when it came to physical brawling prowess.

If I want to keep myself safe, I need to find some backers.

As this thought sprang into Adam's mind, he had already passed through the activity area and arrived in the indoor area of the prison.

At the moment, all of the inmates were locked up in their cells, and upon seeing a new arrival, there was no rowdy "welcome" as one would expect in a normal prison.

In most prisons, new inmates were welcomed with torrents of amused or ironic cheers, but it was completely silent here, menacingly so.

It was so quiet that it was as if anyone who broke the silence would instantly drop dead on the spot.

Adam looked around, and all he could see were pairs of vicious eyes looking back at him from beyond the metal bars of the cells.

If the inmates locked up in the cells of normal prisons were like ferocious dogs, then these inmates were like venomous vipers, giving off an air of sinister brutality that could drive a normal person insane.

"God, I hate this place."

Ryan involuntarily shuddered as he sped up in his footsteps.

The two of them arrived at a cell on the second floor, and Adam was locked up in cell number 207.

"Be careful. Aside from certain mandatory tasks that we have to perform, wardens like myself rarely ever come here, so you're on your own from here onward."

After delivering Adam to his cell, Ryan locked the door before departing.

Adam looked at the poor environment of the cell, and he was just about to heave a faint sigh when he detected a hint of danger through his telegnosis. He immediately turned around, upon which he spotted an emaciated figure huddled in a corner.

He was so thin and gaunt that it was impossible to make out his appearance, and he smiled at Adam, revealing a mouthful of rotten teeth as he greeted, "Hello."