Chapter 99: First-person Perspective

Not even two minutes had passed by when a "spider" climbed up the wall outside the school building, then leaped up and arrived right before Adam on the fourth floor.

"Why are you here?" Adam asked as he looked at Red Spider with a surprised expression.

"What? Am I here too early?" Red Spider was still as casual and lackadaisical as ever. "There wasn't much happening on May's end, so I decided to come over and check on you. Did I make it here on time?"

"Were you the one who killed the psychic mutant?"

"No, he was killed by the Mechguard officers. They arrived as soon as the electronic eye resumed normal operation, but I helped them track down the culprit. He was hiding beside a nearby subway station. Oh, there he is."

Red Spider pointed at the front gate of the school as she spoke, and Adam turned to discover several Mechguard officers carrying a body along.

Adam was too far away to clearly see the psychic mutant, but he could tell that it was quite a portly individual, and he appeared to be no different from the average person.

"It's strange to think that such a normal person could be so terrifying in the psychic world. Is he dead?"

"Yep. The Mechguard officers blew a hole into the back of his head. Looks like I got here right in the nick of time, didn't I? What's the situation in there right now?"

"You definitely did come right on time. If you had come even a little later, there would've been mass student casualties. Even now, there are probably a few dozen casualties. Unfortunately, we were unable to protect everyone. Also, there's something else I have to tell you..." Adam drew closer to Red Spider and lowered his voice before continuing, "There's a representative from the southern congress in our group, and he was assisting the psychic mutants during the battle."

"Do you have evidence of that?"

"We do. Hook filmed everything."

"Good. Don't raise the alarm, and leave the rest to us. All you have to do is take the footage and get out of here." Red Spider paused to contemplate the situation momentarily, then continued, "I'll accompany you and your friends, and we'll go find May together."

"What about the situation at the other locations?"

"Forget that! You wouldn't have anything to worry about if you didn't have footage, but now that you're in possession of video evidence, that bastard from the southern congress will definitely come after you to silence you. There's no time to waste, we have to leave right now!"

Red Spider immediately instructed Adam to contact the others as she spoke.

The two of them made their way down from the fourth floor, and they quickly found their allies on the other levels of the building. Aside from Hook, Shae, and Nie Yiyi, there was also the sole survivor from the Psychic Church, Shota Sato, and Shi Feng from the northern congress.

Once everyone was gathered together, Red Spider made them aware of the dangerous situation that they were in, but before she even had a chance to talk about how they were going to proceed from here, she was immediately met with a dissenting voice.

"There are so many of us, why do we have to be scared of Prince? On top of that, there are Mechguard officers here, so wouldn't it actually be more dangerous to leave the school now?"

The person raising the objections was Shota Sato. In real life, he was a middle-aged man who appeared to be around 30 years of age with a completely unremarkable appearance. If it weren't for the fact that he was wearing a Psychic Church robe, he could've easily passed for a normal office worker walking on the streets.

"If it's just him, then there would obviously be nothing for us to fear. However, as I'm sure you're already aware by now, he's on the same side as the psychic mutants. Right now, this area is extremely chaotic, and as far as I'm aware, at least six places have been attacked, and there are most likely quite a few psychic mutants who are still in hiding and haven't revealed themselves. At this point, there's a good chance that he's already informed his co-conspirators of what's happened here, so we can't stay here any longer. The threat that Mechguard officers pose to adapters is very limited."

"But what about the students? We can't just leave them!"

Shota Sato's combat prowess was quite mediocre, and he wasn't very smart, either, but his heart seemed to be in the right place.

"This location has already been attacked, so there won't be anyone else coming anytime soon. After all, given what just happened, if someone else had come to provide reinforcements to the enemy, they would've already succeeded in their mission. On top of that, Mechguard's video signal here has already been restored, but there are still many blind spots in Area 66. If I were a psychic mutant, I would choose to attack one of the blind spots. Psychic mutants are deranged, but they're not stupid."

"Alright, I agree with what you're saying, but I still think we should take down Prince first!"

"You do realize you're talking about taking down a congressman." Red Spider pointed at a mechanical eye that was hovering alongside the Mechguard officers on the playground. "You see that thing? If it catches us committing any violence against a congressman, we'll have already broken the law. They don't care if our actions are justified. Without any evidence and before any court rulings, he's considered to be innocent. Given how rigidly Mechguard officers carry out the law, if we're caught attacking a congressman, we'll be executed on the spot!"

Red Spider feigned a pistol with her hand and pressed it against her temple as she spoke.

"Alright, I've run out of patience, we can't afford to waste any more time here. If you want to stay, then be my guest. Everyone else come with me!"

Red Spider had quite a short temper, and if it weren't for the fact that Shota Satou was an ally, she wouldn’t have wasted so much time answering his questions at all.

After that, she turned to depart without delay.

Shota considered the situation momentarily before leaving with everyone else. Meanwhile, Prince was standing under the electronic eye, and a faint smile appeared on his face as he watched Adam and his group depart.

"They're a sharp bunch, but that's not going to help them. Nowadays, power and infallible planning are the keys to everything."

His arm sprang open as he spoke, revealing a miniature computer inside. An image was projected in front of him from the computer, depicting the battle that had just taken place.

However, this footage was captured from Prince's first-person perspective, and initially, it showed everyone attacking the psychic mutant together.

However, Shi Feng suddenly began to denounce him, seemingly out of the blue, following which Nie Yiyi launched a vicious assault against him, yelling for him to die as she did so, and she was quickly joined in her efforts by Shae and Adam.

From his perspective, the sequence of events initially consisted of everyone working together in battle, but all of a sudden, his allies collectively turned on him and tried to kill him.

𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

In the footage, something invisible like a gravitational field was essentially non-existent, and throughout the entire process, he didn't say anything to expose himself, and he had manipulated the angles perfectly so that he was cleared of all wrongdoing. From his perspective, he had actively participated throughout the entire battle, helping everyone ward off the psychic mutant.

"All we need to do now is destroy the other piece of footage. Without a third-person perspective, things will go without a hitch." A "warm" smile appeared on Prince's face as he mused to himself, "The legal system is truly a marvelous thing. As long as there's sufficient evidence, you can tell any story and have it be acknowledged as the truth."

……

Meanwhile, Adam and his group were traversing through the streets in a special bulletproof car.

The Mechguard officers that had been laying in ambush earlier had already been deployed onto the streets, so there were very few cars and pedestrians around.

Even though none of the general public hadn't received any information, it didn't exactly take a genius to figure out something was happening given the situation on the streets.

Given the context of the psychic mutant incidents that had been frequently taking place of late, everyone had retreated to the safety of their homes unless they had urgent matters to attend to.

Red Spider was driving extremely fast, and instead of traveling out of Area 66, she was driving toward the central region of the area. Just as Shota had said, Area 66 was a safe haven of sorts. At the very least, their physical safety was assured given the prevalence of Mechguard officers in the area.

"Slow down! What if we're suddenly dragged into the psychic world and we end up in a car crash?"

"That's not a problem, the car has a self-driving function!"

Right as Red Spider's voice trailed off, everyone suddenly felt a burst of violent tremors run through the entire car, as if it had crashed into an obstacle.