Hunter of Immortals

Chapter 163: Shadow Clones

The blade was extremely fast and just as sharp.

Adam had experimented with Camera's scythe arms in the past, and its offensive firepower was so potent that even Mummy's defenses had struggled to keep up. If Mummy were to withstand such an attack head-on, then it would've at least been severely wounded, if not killed on the spot.

In his base form, there was no way that Oni no Hanzou would possess superior defenses to Mummy.

Hence, the scythe arm passed through his body without any impediment, instantly splitting him into two.

All of the spectators outside were quite surprised to see this, but the ones who were most shocked were Oni no Miko and Adam's friends.

They were more aware than anyone else of how massive the power gap between Adam and Oni no Hanzou was, so none of them had anticipated this astonishing turn of events. All of a sudden, the complexion of the battle had become rather murky.

One of the subordinates behind Oni no Miko immediately stepped forward with a concerned expression upon seeing this, only to be stopped by her. "Don't be rash. Even if he's fallen for this trap, he won't be defeated so easily."

She was more astonished than anyone, but she still forced herself to maintain her composure and continue watching.

All advanced adapters possessed exceptional telegnosis, and the more powerful an adapter was, the more sensitive their telegnosis would be. Even though the sensitivity of their telegnosis had been negatively affected by the cyberhexes cast onto them by the director, Oni no Miko was confident that Oni no Hanzou wouldn't have completely failed to sense that attack ahead of time.

Inside the psychic world.

This attack was one that Adam had been preparing for a long time. He had allowed himself to sustain severe injuries in the snowstorm, then sprung his first trap only to have it fail, all so that he could lull Oni no Hanzou into this one moment of false security.

If the attack were to land as intended, then there was no way that Oni no Hanzou would've been able to survive, despite all his powers.

However, as Adam watched half of Oni no Hanzou's body fall onto the ground before him, he noticed that it was only half of his chest along with the full arm that was attached to it.

The wound was extremely smooth and even, reflecting the immense offensive power of the attacker.

Did it not work?

Adam was rather disappointed as he saw the position of the wound. If the attack had been three more centimeters closer to the midline of Oni no Hanzou's body, then he would've been dead for sure, but it appeared that he had managed to dodge just enough at the last moment.

Sure enough, after that half of Oni no Hanzou's body fell to the ground, he immediately made a hand seal to stop his bleeding. Camera's scythe arm came slashing down again, but at that point, Oni no Hanzou had already fled the scene.

Now that Oni no Hanzou's guard was back up, it was very difficult even for Camera to land an attack.

"You're a very cunning little brat. To think that even I would fall into your trap... That invoked entity of yours is very powerful, and it's one that I've never seen before."

Oni no Hanzou's voice was coming from within the snow on the ground, and Adam hurriedly instructed Camera to retreat to his side.

He knew that this sneak attack had partially succeeded not because of how cunning he was. Oni no Hanzou had been working as a hitman for several decades, building up a vast wealth of experience during that time, and there was no way that Adam could've outsmarted him.

Instead, the main factor behind the successful sneak attack was Camera's incredible set of abilities and attributes.

Even back when it had only been a level two anomaly, Adam had almost fallen prey to the combination of its Time Stop ability and its monstrous offensive prowess.

If someone were unaware of this lethal combination, then there was a very good chance that they would be caught off guard. The fact that Oni no Hanzou was able to survive the attack was already a testament to his exceptional skills.

However, a sneak attack could only work once. After the element of surprise wore off, it was next to useless, and Adam knew that the truly grueling part of the battle was about to come.

Thump!

While his mind was still racing, the snow on the ground in front of him erupted, and Oni no Hanzou shot out from within before swinging his katana at Camera.

Despite the fact that Adam was in terrible physical condition, Oni no Hanzou had chosen to ignore him and target Camera instead.

"Come back!"

Adam hurriedly withdrew his trump card in the face of Oni no Hanzou's attack.

Camera was too frail, and there was a very good chance that it would be killed on the spot by one of Oni no Hanzou's attacks.

Thus, Oni no Hanzou's katana struck nothing but empty air.

At this moment, his missing shoulder and arm had already been replaced by a massive red arm that was a complete mismatch with the rest of his body.

If Adam weren't mistaken, that arm was most likely one that Oni no Hanzou had borrowed from Aka Oni.

Having fought Oni no Hanzou on several occasions, he had seen Hanzou in both his base form and his Aka Oni form, but he had never seen this semi Aka Oni form.

"It's been a very long time since I sustained such a severe injury..."

Oni no Hanzou was swinging his katana with his massive oni arm, which was stronger and more offensively powerful than his original arm.

Furthermore, in this form, he was more agile than he was in his full Aka Oni form.

It could be said that this was Oni no Hanzou's ultimate form.

"Are you still not going to invoke that scarecrow of yours?" On the surface, Oni no Hanzou appeared to be looking at Adam, but another pair of eyes had opened up on his oni arm, and it was inspecting the surrounding area in a wary manner. "Where is it hiding? If it's still not going to come out, then the battle's going to end soon!"

Having fallen into Adam's trap once, Oni no Hanzou had become extremely wary of Adam's invoked entities.

Even though he was speaking to Adam, he had already activated his telegnosis to its fullest extent.

"Is it still not going to appear?"

The scarecrow was the thing that Oni no Hanzou feared the most. It was the most powerful anomaly in Adam's body, and in terms of pure combat prowess, it wasn't inferior to Ono no Hanzou.

However, unbeknownst to Oni no Hanzou, Adam had no way of invoking the scarecrow anomaly.

"If you're going to keep hiding your trump card, then you can take it to the grave!"

After cautiously inspecting his surroundings for some time, Oni no Hanzou finally ran out of patience and attacked again. On this occasion, he unleashed his shadow clone technique at a severe cost to his psychic power.

Countless oni-armed Hanzous instantly appeared on the battlefield.

In this semi Aka Oni form, these shadow clones were more powerful than his normal shadow clones, but they also required more psychic power to conjure up. However, this was not the time to be sparing his psychic power.

After unleashing his shadow clone technique, not only would he be better equipped to deal with the scarecrow, it would also be able to confuse the camera anomaly. He had no intention of tempting fate by taking the risk of falling prey to another one of those sneak attacks.

"It's over." Both Shae and Nie Yiyi closed their eyes in despair upon seeing this. "He doesn't even have any weaknesses to exploit now."

"Is he going to lose?"

"It's pretty much a done deal at this point."

Hailey immediately burst into loud sobs, but his sobbing was quickly drowned out by the screams of excitement from the surrounding spectators.

The shadow clone technique unleashed by Oni no Hanzou had completely ignited everyone's excitement. Even in S tier matches, it was very rare to see such spectacular techniques.

During his prior matches, Oni no Hanzou had never used such advanced techniques. All of his opponents had been dispatched in seconds, so there had never been a need for him to turn to such techniques.

With the way that this match was shaping up, everyone felt as if they had well and truly gotten their money's worth.

"The end is close now!"

"To be honest, Lean Mean Killing Machine is pretty strong..."

"Yeah, he almost won. That attack only missed Shadow Ninja's heart by a tiny margin."

"Nah, he had no chance. Shadow Ninja may have fallen prey to a sneak attack, but there was always a massive power gap between them."

"Nonetheless, I've been very impressed with Lean Mean Killing Machine. At first, I thought he was an assassin build, then I thought he was a tank, but now, it 'looks like he's an invocator." There was no lack of knowledgeable personnel among the spectators. "He's definitely worthy of being promoted to the S rank, but he's still a long way away from reaching Shadow Ninja's level. Unless he has some other trump cards up his sleeve, I struggle to see him winning this match."

"Do you think he has other trump cards?"

"Who knows? He's always been full of surprises. That's why so many people were willing to bet on him even though he's up against Shadow Ninja."

"What other abilities could he possibly have? It'll have to be a really powerful trump card to overcome such a massive power gap."