Hunter of Immortals

Chapter 285: Dissolution

While Adam was still caught up in his own thoughts, Armadillo quickly brought Shae to him.

He was holding Shae between his jaws as Shae's arms and legs were broken, thereby rendering her unable to move. Furthermore, due to the fact that she wasn't a psychic mutant, she didn't possess any exceptional regenerative abilities, and it was very difficult for her to make any meaningful progress in her recovery before she left the psychic world.

Adam instructed Hellhound to undo its fusion with Shae, and it duly obliged. At the end of the day, it was his anomaly, so even though Shae was using it on loan, it was still more obedient to him.

As soon as Shae separated from Hellhound, she immediately began to cough violently, and given the severity of her injuries, it seemed that she wasn't going to be able to last much longer.

"Get out of here. We've already won, it would be terrible if you died now."

Adam could tell that after splitting up from Hellhound, Shae was only just barely clinging onto life.

"I'll be fine... I want to see... how powerful it becomes..." Shae said in a feeble voice.

Ever since their return from Shadow City, Shae had been just as intent on growing stronger as Adam.

She wanted to stay and see how many times Hellhound could evolve and how powerful it could become.

She wasn't a genius, so in order to become stronger, she had to rely primarily on Hellhound.

"Alright, but if you feel like you're about to die, get out of here right away."

Adam didn't waste any more time as he turned to Hellhound, which had already pounced onto the anomalic power.

It was devouring the anomalic power voraciously with its two heads, and it didn't take long before a transformation commenced.

First, its body began to expand while also growing stronger. After that, a third head finally sprouted in between its two existing heads, transforming it into a Cerberus-like creature.

I wonder if it was always supposed to grow an additional head upon evolution, or if it was affected by the spider anomaly.

Devouring anomalic power from different anomalies resulted in the development of different attributes during evolution. This was something that Adam had already verified.

The spider anomaly was a creature with multiple heads, as was the case for Hellhound.

After growing a third head, Hellhound's aura had clearly become significantly more powerful, but that was the extent of its transformation.

"That's it? You didn't even eat as much as Sludge!"

Sludge had devoured roughly a third of the total mass of anomalic power, but Hellhound had only devoured about a sixth at most, leaving around half of the anomalic power remaining.

"Alright, next up, it's your turn, Distortion."

This was an anomaly that Adam had always wanted to evolve, but for one reason or another, he had always been forced to prioritize other anomalies over it. Now, there was finally sufficient anomalic power to spare for it.

"Everyone, get back! Don't get so close, Armadillo!"

After instructing everyone to get back, Adam invoked Distortion. As soon as it appeared, it immediately detected the massive feast of anomalic power next to it, and a feeding frenzy quickly ensued.

Distortion resembled a living shadow, and the more anomalic power it absorbed, the larger the shadow became until finally, it evolved amid a flash of warped light.

In Adam's past experience, his anomalies could generally only evolve once per intake of anomalic power, unless they had perished once before and were reduced back to their ragdoll form.

This had always been the case, and the two most recent examples to support this pattern were Sludge and Hellhound, which had displayed no further interest in the anomalic power after evolving only once each. Adam didn't know how long it was going to take before they would be ready to take in more anomalic power.

However, Distortion proved to be an exception to this rule. Following its first evolution, it continued to devour anomalic power, and the shadow expanded even further before gradually fading until it was completely invisible.

After evolving twice, not only had Distortion's powers been enhanced, it had also become more stealthy and mysterious.

Adam was very pleased to see this transformation.

Even though Distortion couldn't discern between friend and foe, it was extremely powerful and could completely crush other anomalies of the same level. In fact, even as a level two anomaly, it had been capable of restricting the movements of level three and even level four anomalies.

Most importantly, due to its insubstantial form, it didn't possess any weaknesses, and it was very difficult to kill. Due to its unique attributes, only large-scale technomantic attacks could harm it.

It's definitely one of my most powerful anomalies, but it sure does eat a lot!

During its two consecutive evolutions, it had devoured virtually all of the remaining anomalic power.

Hellhound had only devoured around a sixth of the total quantity of anomalic power to evolve from level three to level four, while Sludge had devoured around a third to evolve from level four to level five.

Thus, around half of the total quantity of anomalic power still remained, yet almost all of it was devoured by Distortion during its evolution from level two to level four.

Let me see what new abilities you've attained.

Using the method taught to him by Sadou, Adam placed a hand onto the invisible anomaly, using his telegnosis to sense its abilities.

Within a distance of roughly 100 meters, it can now directly appear from a target's shadow to attack them. I'll call this ability "Shadow Strike". It's also retained its original ability of twisting and locking the joints of its target, but that ability has become stronger with its evolution. I'll call that ability "Physical Shackles".

On top of that, it seems to now be able to twist the target's mind in addition to their body. I'll call that new ability "Spiritual Shackles". These three abilities and its innate concealment ability are all extremely useful, especially for controlling opponents or assisting other allies.

Adam was very pleased by the transformation that Distortion had undergone, and he was confident that if used correctly, Distortion was going to be an extremely powerful ally in battle.

After withdrawing Distortion, Adam invoked Camera to devour the remaining anomalic power. There wasn't much left, but he wasn't about to let any of it go to waste.

As he was doing this, Shae suddenly said in a feeble voice, "I want... to try..."

"Ah, of course!"

Shae was risking her life to stay here solely because she wanted to see how much more powerful Hellhound had become.

Adam instructed Hellhound to go to Shae, and they were just about to fuse when he noticed that the rocks up above were disintegrating.

They weren't crumbling away or collapsing. Instead, they were slowly dissolving into nothingness, and that was a clear indication that this psychic world was falling apart.

"What's going on?" Adam was rather bewildered to see this, but a thought then suddenly occurred to him. "Could it be that Sima Kai's psychic body had already completely fused with his anomaly?"

"What does that mean?"

"It means that by killing Sima Kai's anomaly, we've killed his psychic body as well. Following his psychic death, the memories stored in his brain will slowly fade, and that's why his psychic world is falling apart. We're only able to stay here for now as there's still some chemical buildup remaining in his hippocampus, but it looks like he's already dead. This is the last thing I need right now!"

Adam was feeling rather frustrated. He had to maintain a squeaky clean reputation, and killing a prison inmate certainly wasn't going to help his cause.

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