Hunter of Immortals

Chapter 153: Suspended Animation

All of a sudden, it occurred to Adam that this man was different from all of the other patients that he had treated in the past.

Firstly, he possessed multiple personalities, and each of those personalities possessed different traits.

Secondly, he was far more heavily affected by his anomalies than anyone that Adam had ever encountered, to the extent that many of the personas in his psychic world had already transformed into anomalies.

The anomaly in Li Qi's psychic world had been his mother, who had inflicted severe psychological trauma upon him during his childhood.

The anomaly in Wang Shuai's psychic world had been his wife, who was trying to bleed him dry in their divorce proceedings.

The anomaly in Chloe's psychic world had been the fraudster from the bar who had deceived and hurt her...

In all of these cases, the anomalies in their hearts had been someone else, whereas this man had already become one with his anomalies, so essentially, they were one and the same.

With that in mind, a possibility had arisen to Adam, which was that as he and his group were preparing to invade the man's psychic world, he was able to somehow pass on this information from the real world to his personas in the psychic world. As a result, his anomalies were notified in advance, and they were able to prepare an ambush.

"What are you planning to do next?" Fighter Li asked, bringing Adam out of his train of thought. "Are you going back in, or are you going to wait until your friends have their injuries attended to first?"

"I'll wait for everyone to receive treatment first. As for this piece of scum, I'll get Jiang to take care of him later. They've already prepared all of the stuff required to cut up and dissolve his body."

Adam intentionally took a glance at the man chained to the wall as he spoke, and sure enough, even though he was already in a very feeble state, he suddenly perked up and began to yell frantically in a panicked voice after overhearing Adam.

"You can't kill me! I still have many secrets! I'm sure you'll want to hear them! I still have several young women locked up in Sandrise City. I have more than one underground dungeon! If I die, they'll all starve to death, and I'm the only one who knows where those underground dungeons are!"

"So what?" Adam shook his head as he picked Shae up from the ground. "I don't work for Mechguard or the government. In fact, I'm a fugitive on the run. What does it matter to me if those women die or not?"

After that, Adam began to carry his friends out of the underground chamber one by one.

Outside the underground chamber was the Green Gang's teahouse, and Jiang Junior was greatly alarmed by the sight of Adam carrying out his friends. "Did something happen?"

"Yes. It wasn't anything serious, but everyone's injured."

"Where's Big Sister Nie?"

"She's still in there."

"I'll go get here."

Jiang Junior made his way into the underground chamber as he spoke, then carried Nie Yiyi out into the teahouse before contacting Uncle Fu and the doctor to have everyone treated.

"What do we do that guy?"

After carrying Nie Yiyi into the teahouse, Jiang Junior began to brew some revitalizing tea.

This was a very bitter type of tea, so much so that it gave off an extremely bitter and rank odor even during the brewing process, but it was a favorite among members of the Green Gang, and it was said to be able to sharpen focus and raise alertness.

"Pretend to have him killed."

"What do you mean pretend to have him killed?"

Jiang Junior held a cup of revitalizing tea right under Nie Yiyi's nose, and she slowly awakened, seemingly from the stimulative effects of the tea's strong smell.

"Adam, you're still alive!"

"I wouldn't die that easily."

"Did you leave the psychic world before you fell to your death?"

The best thing about fighting in the psychic world as an adapter was that one could leave at any moment, but the disconnection process required a bit of time.

"No. I managed to kill that anomaly. What happened on your end? Li only gave me a rough rundown of what happened."

"After I was attacked by that alien anomaly, I sustained some rather severe injuries, but I managed to hold it off until Li arrived. After that, we forced the alien anomaly into retreat before going off to search for the others. The opponents were extremely difficult to deal with, so as soon as we found an opportunity to leave the psychic world, we..."

Nie Yiyi also burst into a coughing fit before she had a chance to finish.

"Save your breath, Big Sister Nie. Give us the full story after you've had some time to recover." Jiang Junior hurriedly interjected with a concerned expression, then turned to Adam before asking, "By the way, what did you mean when you said you wanted me to pretend to kill him?"

"I'm going to go to him with a knife, then make a shallow gash on his throat so he feels pain, but I won't actually sever his throat or any of his arteries. At the same time, I'll hit him with a strong sedative. Do you have any injectable sedatives here?"

"We do. My father used to be an enforcer at Shadow Castle, and members of our gang also frequently get injured, so we have a lot of that stuff prepared at all times," Jiang Junior replied. "But I still don't understand what's the point in pretending to kill him!"

"We're trying to fool him."

"What's that going to achieve?"

"It'll make it so that he won't know in advance when we're going to invade his consciousness."

……

At this point, Adam's scheduled match against Oni no Hanzou was only less than 30 hours away.

Everyone was still yet to recover to peak psychic condition, but Adam wasn't going to wait any longer. If he were to sustain injuries while inside Sithu's psychic world, then he would also require time to recover before the match.

Hence, after some consideration, Adam decided that it was best to act as soon as possible.

That night, Jiang Senior arrived with the required tools.

"Leave this stuff to the professionals. You're too inexperienced to know how deep of an incision you can make before you slice into his throat."

With that, Jiang Senior opened the door to the underground chamber before making his way inside with his toolbox.

A horrified look immediately appeared on Sithu's face at the sight of Jiang Senior.

He was extremely fearful of this man. To put it more accurately, one of his personalities was terrified of this man.

He desperately pleaded for mercy, but to no avail.

Jiang Senior pulled out a small knife, then rested its blade against Sithu's throat without any sympathy, as if he were about to butcher a pig.

"Everyone dies eventually, although in this day and age, that's a bit of an outdated saying..."

Jiang Senior slashed his knife across Sithu's throat in one quick motion as he spoke, and blood immediately came gushing out of the gash amid a burst of sharp pain.

Sithu sobbed and howled at the top of his lungs, and in his state of fear and agonized delirium, he failed to notice the small electronic injection device that had slid out of Jiang Senior's sleeve into his hand.

The injection device rested momentarily against the gash on the man's throat, and that was all it took for it to expel its contents into the man's body.

After that, Jiang Senior packed up his tools, then tossed his blood-splattered gloves into one of the plastic bags that he always carried with him before turning to depart.

"Enjoy the feeling of impending death."

……

Outside the underground chamber, Jiang Senior gave Adam a slight nod before departing. Standing outside the underground chamber, Adam could hear Sithu screaming and swearing at the top of his lungs, but his voice quickly grew feebler and feebler before fading completely.

He knew that it was time to act.

"How are you feeling?" he asked as he turned to Fighter Li's bed.

"I'm good to go again. My injuries weren't all that severe to begin with, and I've learned some valuable lessons from that last battle."

"You're developing so quickly that it's almost like you're using real-life hacks!" Adam remarked as he shook his head in amazement.

Out of all of the adapters that Adam knew, Fighter Li was the one who displayed the fastest rate of improvement aside from himself.

However, his rapid development was thanks to the unique abilities that he possessed, but Fighter Li's development was solely a result of his conviction and self-belief.

"It's going to be just the two of us this time."

"That just makes it more of a challenge."

"In that case, I won't waste any more time."

Adam wheeled his bed down into the underground chamber before closing the door.