Chapter 363: Minor Victory

All of a sudden, a burst of rhythmic rumbling rang out within the town. The rumbling wasn't coming from any explosions. Instead, it was the sound of something of an enormous weight stomping its way through the town.

A stone giant that was 12 meters in height was rushing toward the center of the town, flattening all of the houses and cars in its path.

All of the town's residents were fleeing in panic and horror in the face of the stone giant, and those who didn't manage to get away in time were stomped into the ground alongside the wreckage of the houses and vehicles.

From the instant that Ogress discovered Liu Teng, Adam had reverted back to his original size before rushing toward the center of the town.

Thanks to his massive frame, he had an enormous stride length that granted him extraordinary speed, and he arrived on the scene right when Nun was being detonated.

The shockwaves from the explosion swept over Adam's body, and it felt like nothing more than a light breeze.

What a weak explosion.

For a purely defensive-type level six anomaly, this explosion was severely lacking in power, and Adam was slightly disappointed to find that his opponent most likely wasn't as powerful as what he had hoped for.

It seems to be somewhere between a level four and a level five anomaly, Adam thought to himself as he swept a hand through the air, razing the wreckage of the cattle ranch to the ground so he could see what was happening inside.

Upon catching sight of the anomaly, he discovered something quite intriguing.

It seemed that the fusion between Liu Teng's psychic body and his anomaly wasn't quite complete, as evidenced by the fact that its face still belonged to Liu Teng. Adam had witnessed this type of anomaly once before in the form of the two-faced anomaly in Sean's psychic world.

For people like them, flashes of humanity still occasionally peeked through their depravity, but when fused with their anomalies, they were completely powerless to deny their depraved urges.

Adam heaved a disappointed sigh upon making this observation.

An anomaly of this caliber really couldn't enhance his powers by much.

Having said that, it was certainly still better than nothing, and he had many useful low-level anomalies that were waiting to be evolved.

With that in mind, he reached out to crush the anomaly, but before he could reach it, Nun began her retaliation.

Thankfully, there wasn't much of a disparity in power between the two anomalies, so even though Nun had been severely injured by the injection of white fluid, it still retained its combat prowess.

Following its latest evolution, Nun had become even more ferocious than before, and it instinctively retaliated even without requiring any instructions from Adam.

First, it unleashed its Lights Out ability, which affected a larger area and lasted a longer duration thanks to its latest evolution. Following that came its signature claw attacks, and by the time the Lights Out ability ran its course, Nun was revealed to be straddling atop the anomaly's head, spewing forth its Fountain of Contamination to corrode the anomaly's body.

The anomaly raised its catheters again to retaliate, but Adam grabbed onto the catheters and waved off Nun before lifting the anomaly into the air.

He looked down at the helpless anomaly in his hands, and he couldn't help but feel a little sentimental.

The first elite adapter that he had ever encountered as an enemy was Oni no Hanzou.

At the time, Oni no Hanzou had seemed like an insurmountable mountain to him, yet now...

An anomaly of this caliber should be around the same level of power as Oni no Hanzou. Granted, adapters possess more intelligence and abilities than anomalies, so he would've most likely been able to defeat this thing, but purely in terms of power, there's not much of a gap between them.

An opponent that would've once seemed completely beyond his reach was now so far beneath him that it may as well have been a helpless infant.

As these thoughts were running through Adam's mind, he brought his palms together to flatten the anomaly's body, then quickly tore it into shreds.

The anomaly was completely powerless to resist, and its body was torn into pieces, spilling a large volume of sticky fluid in all directions.

The fluid clung to Adam's arms, quickly sprouting mushrooms that exploded violently, but the explosions were barely even able to leave a mark on his body.

After completely tearing the anomaly's body apart, Adam hurled its remains onto the ground, then began pummeling it repeatedly with his enormous fists.

Soon, a deep crater had been smashed into the ground from Adam's repeated blows, and anomalic power slowly began to seep out of the crater.

Nun and Ogress immediately pounced toward the anomalic power, but Adam didn't allow them to devour the feast.

Nun had only recently evolved into a level four anomaly, so devouring the anomalic power of another level four anomaly most likely wasn't going to allow it to evolve further.

Ogress was very useful as a scout, but its combat prowess was rather mediocre, and if it were to be used purely as a scout, then its current set of abilities as a level one anomaly sufficed for that purpose. Hence, it was better to prioritize the horse-faced anomaly in this case.

Horse Face's abilities were very unique, and its emotional attacks were very effective even against opponents who excelled in physical defenses.

Furthermore, it was once a level six anomaly, so it would recover very quickly without having to evolve one level at a time, and for those reasons, Adam decided that it was the best anomaly to evolve in this scenario.

After invoking Horse Face, which was in its infantile ragdoll form, it immediately pounced onto the anomalic power in a feeding frenzy like a wild boar that had caught a whiff of corn.

Basked within the cloud of anomalic power, Horse Face's body was expending incessantly as it completed one evolution after another. In the end, its body swelled to over three meters in height, which was still slightly smaller than its peak stature, but its brush had already taken shape, so it was clearly not going to be an easy opponent to deal with.

Not bad, looks like this trip was worthwhile, after all.

The reward reaped by Adam from this battle certainly wasn't significant, but there wasn't much that he could do about that, and he promptly departed from Liu Teng's psychic world right as it was about to collapse.

After dragging his victim out of the cubicle, Adam accepted the sharp steel object offered to him by Mole, then plunged the object into the inmate's eye socket without a second thought.

Blood splattered onto his face, striking him with a warm sensation.

What was supposed to be rank and putrid blood was somehow smelling rather sweet and appealing to him at this moment, but he didn't think much of this as he turned his attention to the final inmate.

𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Only one left. I hope he has something good for me.

Every time Adam didn't something like this, it was like opening a mystery box, and he could only pray for good luck.

At the moment, the best "mystery box" for him would be one that contained a level six anomaly like Horse Face.

An anomaly of this caliber would be able to significantly advance his powers while also being something that he was still able to deal with. In fact, he wouldn't even have been opposed to the idea of encountering a level seven anomaly. It was definitely going to be quite dangerous, and there was a decent chance that he would die, but having endured so many life-and-death battles, Adam was confident in his own abilities, even if he were to be pitted against a level seven anomaly.

The worst case scenario would be to go up against an ultra-powerful anomaly like the Angel of Death, or a piece of small fry like Liu Teng's anomaly. The former was like a chest full of treasures that was too heavy for him to move, while the other one was like picking up some spare change from the ground, making no significant contribution to Adam's powers.

After dragging the third inmate into the cubicle, Adam wasted no time before invading his psychic world.