Chapter 75: First Time Working Together

A scarecrow again?

Adam had already faced an enemy in the form of a scarecrow in the past.

However, this scarecrow was clearly different from Kim Garcia's Anomaly of Fear. This scarecrow was far thinner and frailer in stature, and there was a cane stuck vertically through its body. It was holding an oil lantern in one hand with a straw hat sitting on its head, and it was a very typical ordinary scarecrow used by farmers to scare away birds.

"It doesn't seem to be alive..."

The scarecrow didn't appear to be an emotional aberration or anomaly. It possessed no blood or flesh, nor any signs of life. It appeared to just be an inanimate scarecrow.

However, there was a huge cloud of black smoke permeating through the air all around it, as if it had been possessed by someone.

Thinking back to the footage of the first failed treatment that he had watched, a thought seemed to have occurred to Adam.

"Forget it, let's just focus on destroying it first!"

Adam raised his carving knife and rushed toward the scarecrow as he spoke.

In his current form, Adam was virtually a cheat code when it came to close-quarters combat.

Compared with Mummy's original form, he was even more massive and possessed greater defensive prowess. Most importantly, he also had a vampiric ability, making him virtually unkillable unless he was facing an opponent far more powerful than himself.

He stepped into the section of the cornfield that had just been incinerated, then lashed out at the scarecrow with his carving knife.

The air was buzzing incessantly from the wind pressure generated by the tremendous force behind the blade, and the scarecrow seemed to be quite eager to gauge Adam's powers. Not only was it not bothering to take any evasive action, it raised its oil lantern to oppose Adam's blade.

Clang!

The giant carving knife clashed with the oil lantern, and in a world with normal physics and common sense, the fragile little lantern would've been instantly shattered by the giant blade.

However, in the psychic world, psychic power transcended beyond physical construct.

The oil lantern was imbued with immense power by the cloud of dense black mist that it was enshrouded in, and not only was it able to withstand Adam's attack, it was even able to knock back the massive carving knife.

After knocking away Adam's blade, the scarecrow pounced forward, swinging its lantern into Adam's abdomen in a backhand strike. The scarecrow was only around the same height as the average adult human, so that was the highest point on Adam's body that it could reach without jumping up.

Thump!

The sound of the impact resembled the dull strike of a drum, and the scarecrow's attack was buffered by the viscous substance on Mummy's bandages, the iron and steel-like bandages themselves, and the thick and dense layers of fat stored in Mummy's body. As a result, the effect that the attack had on Adam was quite minimal.

Even so, he was still forced back quite a few steps.

The fact that the scarecrow was able to force him back despite such a massive disparity in size indicated that there was quite a large gap in their power.

After withstanding that attack, Adam was able to gauge the scarecrow's power, and he hurriedly cautioned, "Make sure you don't get hit by a direct attack from that thing!"

At this point, Adam had already accumulated a great deal of battle experience. Not only had he fought opponents weaker than or around the same level as himself, he had even faced foes far more powerful than himself like Oni no Hanzou and the anomaly of fear.

Thus, after just a single exchange, he was able to roughly determine how powerful his opponent was.

In his fused form with Mummy, Adam's powers would've been in a very high percentile among level two anomalies, and that was particularly true for his defensive prowess. In fact, it was likely that his defensive capabilities would've matched or even exceeded those of some level three anomalies. However, even so, he was still feeling quite winded after receiving that blow, and the position of some of his internal organs had been shifted slightly.

The offensive prowess being put on display definitely belonged to a level three anomaly.

This also verified Adam's theory that the nun anomaly had a possession ability. Not only was it able to possess that oil painting, it was also able to possess other objects.

Hence, this scarecrow was none other than the nun anomaly itself.

Compared with Adam, Shae's battle experience was far more limited, and even though she had clearly heard what Adam had said, she was still far too careless for her own good, conjuring up flames on her claws before swiping them at the scarecrow.

While Adam was still catching his breath after being sent flying by the scarecrow's attack, Shae's fiery claws had already reached the back of the scarecrow's head. However, right at this moment, its body suddenly folded at an impossible angle, and not only did that allow it to evade Shae's attack, it was also able to swing its lantern directly into one of Shae's faces.

A loud clang rang out as Shae was sent flying back for close to 20 meters, and as she stood up again, it was revealed that the face that had been struck had been severely injured, having completely caved in from the blow.

"I told you not to get close to it!"

"How was I supposed to know that it's this strong? You looked like you were fine after taking that attack! Besides, if I don't get close to it, all I'll be able to do is blast fire at it, and you'll get caught in my flames as well!"

Even though Shae was still arguing stubbornly with her remaining functioning mouth, she had learned her lesson and was keeping her distance.

If she were to receive another attack like that, then neither of her mouths would've been capable of speech.

"How do we do this?"

"You attack it from afar with your fire, and I'll take it on from up close. If we're talking purely about how much of a beating we can take, this thing doesn't necessarily have the upper hand on me."

Adam raised his carving knife and charged forward again as he spoke.

The giant carving knife came swinging down with full force, but this time, the scarecrow didn't oppose the attack head-on. Instead, it reverted back to its original posture, following which its body folded again at the waist at another strange angle to evade the attack.

After that came its retaliation in the form of a strike from its lantern and a vicious swipe from the claws of its other hand.

The battle was quickly becoming very one-sided.

Even though Adam possessed strength and defenses that were comparable with the scarecrow's, his opponent was far more agile and offensively adept than he was, and it was running circles around him while peppering him with attacks.

Adam was made to look like a fat and cumbersome pig, while his opponent was like a lithe and agile lynx. No matter how viciously he swung his blade, he was unable to land a single strike on the scarecrow, while in contrast, every single one of the scarecrow's attacks was able to inflict a new injury on him.

Even though the battle was nothing more than a one-sided beating, Adam's exceptional defenses ensured that he wouldn't fall anytime soon.

What do I do?

Shae was watching the unfolding battle anxiously from afar.

She tried to blast Explosive Fireballs at the scarecrow on several occasions, but it was far too fast and avoided the fireballs with ease. To make matters worse, it was able to position itself in a way that allowed it to use Adam's enormous body as a shield, so Adam was made to bear the brunt of the flames and shockwaves from the Explosive Fireballs.

After racking her brains for a viable course of action, Shae decided that continuing to attack from afar was not the way to go. Hence, she activated her Hyperspeed ability before entering the fray once again.

𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

With such an agile fighter entering the fray, the scarecrow was unable to do as it pleased. In her werewolf form, Shae possessed sufficient speed and offensive firepower to pose a threat to the scarecrow, and after withstanding a swipe from her fiery claws, the scarecrow immediately focused more of its attention on dodging her attacks, preferring to withstand strikes from Adam's blade over being struck by Shae's attacks.

The battle wore on for a while longer when all of a sudden, the scarecrow abruptly twisted its own body into a form that resembled a pretzel, allowing it to dodge both Adam and Shae's attacks.

At the same time, it burrowed its way into the ground, and upon its re-emergence, it was directly behind Shae.

It then condensed all of its anomalic power into its lamp before swinging it viciously into Shae's back with all its might.

A sickening crack rang out from the devastating attack, and Shae's spinal column was shattered along with countless other bones, while her body was also sent flying forward for close to 20 meters.

In the wake of that all-out attack, not only had the scarecrow left itself completely exposed to a counterattack, much of the anomalic power around its body had also faded.

However, the scarecrow wasn't concerned at all. In its eyes, Adam didn't possess sufficient offensive prowess to pose a substantial threat, so it would be able to easily hold its own until it recovered from its weakened state.

However, it was mistaken.

Li Qi was still too young and naive, and that naivety was reflected in his emotional anomaly.

In the instant that Shae was sent flying by the scarecrow's attack, countless strips of greasy bandages suddenly appeared right before it.