Hunter of Immortals

Chapter 54: Hoarder

After killing the clown anomaly, Adam began to absorb the anomalic power that it released, and Distortion was also greedily lapping up the black mist in the surrounding area.

Hold on a minute...

Looking at Distortion, a thought suddenly occurred to Adam, and he withdrew Distortion back into his body. According to Sadou, these anomalies were manifestations of his personality and emotions, so as long as he possessed sufficient control, he could summon them out of his body and also store them back into himself.

After withdrawing Distortion, Adam devoured some of the anomalic power himself. However, his digestive abilities were quite limited, and he could only absorb so much anomalic power on a single occasion. As for the remaining anomalic power, he summoned Mummy for a feast.

"Eat up, little guy."

Adam was quite emotionally attached to this anomaly. It had saved him on many occasions, and it possessed outstanding defensive prowess, making it a strong life-saving option in perilous situations. Most importantly, it was far more user-friendly than Distortion.

Distortion was very powerful, and it could even be said that it was the most powerful anomaly among ones of the same level as itself. However, it couldn't understand instructions, couldn't work with Adam effectively in battle, and couldn't even discern between friend or foe, so it was a bit wasteful to allow it to absorb the anomalic power here.

Looks like targeted feeding is a viable strategy. Also, its digestive abilities are incredible! Is it because it's been far more powerful in the past?

Adam was holding the ragdoll-sized Mummy as it devoured the anomalic power, and during the process, its body gradually began to grow. After absorbing all of the remaining anomalic power left behind by the clown, its height had swelled to close to 170 centimeters.

This was already close to the stature that Mummy stood at prior to the battle against the scarecrow.

While Adam was inspecting the new Mummy, he suddenly sensed something, and he invoked another entity. This time, what he invoked was a ragdoll-sized clown anomaly.

We've got another new member!

Adam decided to invoke Distortion as well, then also split up from Hellhound so that he could gather the four anomalies together.

There are a total of five anomalies within my body. Scarecrow is too powerful, so it won't listen to my instructions and can't be invoked, but the rest are all here.

Adam had once thought that the defeated anomaly appearing in his body was only a chance occurrence, but this proved beyond a doubt that it was a sure thing.

Furthermore, he discovered that the reason for his inability to invoke Scarecrow wasn't because it was a foreign anomaly, but instead, it was because he was too weak.

Aren't invoked entities supposed to be manifestations of my psyche? Why is it that I'm able to control this clown?

Adam attempted to fuse as one with the Clown, and he was successfully able to do so, transforming into a rather stunted clown that stood at only around 120 centimeters tall.

At the same time, he also attained the abilities "Illusory Clones" and "Ephemeral Invisibility".

These are very useful abilities if I want to run away from something, but it's still too weak right now. In its current form, I'd say it's still only at an infantile stage.

After splitting up from Clown, Adam began to assign the anomalies before him with different power classifications.

Ragdoll-sized anomalies are at the infant stage, so they possess virtually no battle capability. Standing at 170 centimeters, Mummy can be classified as a level one anomaly. Its power is rather lackluster, and it can contend with student adapters or normal emotional aberrations, but I wouldn't count on it to take on anything more powerful than that. Having said that, the more anomalies I have, the better. It can still be useful in cleaning up small fry, and on top of that, it still has potential for growth. Hellhound and Distortion should be classified as level two anomalies. Individually, their battle capabilities are comparable with those of a normal adapter.

Adam thought back to all of the combinations of hitmen that he had been hunted by, and aside from elite masters like Cowboy and Oni no Hanzou, the average power level of everyone else was roughly equivalent to Hellhound.

Going by this system, Scarecrow should be a level four or level five anomaly. Its individual battle capabilities are far superior to Hellhound's, and at that level, it can take on Oni no Hanzou on its own. However, due to the fact that it's an anomaly, its abilities won't be as diverse as someone as Oni no Hanzou, but overall, it should be able to hold its own against an opponent of that caliber.

Looking at the bunch of anomalies before him, Adam felt very safe and assured. In fact, he was feeling the joy that would only be experienced by a hoarder when adding something new to their collection. He wanted to collect all of the emotional anomalies into the flowerpots, nurturing the full spectrum of human emotions into powerful fighters that can help him uncover his past and exact vengeance on those who had wronged him.

"Alright, that should do it for now. Come back, all of you!"

Adam patted one of Hellhound's heads, then withdrew all of his anomalies before departing from Chloe's psychic world.

As soon as Adam opened his eyes, he was immediately approached by an anxious Karen. "How did it go?"

"I got the job done. You saw what happened last time. The things that made the anomaly so troublesome were its clones and its tendency to run away. After trapping it in one place, taking care of it became a very simple task," Adam replied, then turned to look at Hook. "How are you feeling?"

"Not great after that burst of friendly fire." Hook's complexion was a little pale. He had been dragged out of bed, so he hadn't fully recovered his psychic power, and to further compound his woes, he had been tormented briefly by Adam's anomaly of distortion. "If the job's done, then let's hurry back so I can sleep."

"Are you sure that the anomaly is dead?"

Karen was still feeling a little anxious. After all, she had spent her life savings on this job, and her daughter's emotional well-being, and potentially even her life, were at stake here.

"I'm certain. Where's Kim Hee-cho when you need him? If only he was here to project everything for you to see."

"He said he had some other things to take care of."

"I see. Rest assured, it states clearly on the contract that if we take your money but don't successfully complete the job, you'll be compensated with five times the sum that you paid. If you're still concerned, you can go to any therapy clinic and get them to conduct an examination. Alternatively, I could visit you with the projection device in few days and conduct a comprehensive check on your daughter again."

"That would be fantastic," Karen said with a grateful expression, and she was truly grateful to Adam. "To be honest, I trust you. I know you're not the type of person who would stoop to deceit for monetary gain. Otherwise, you wouldn't have convinced your business partner to treat my daughter for such a low price. I know that what I'm paying is far below the market price."

"It's alright. You are our clinic's first client, and in the east, it's traditionally very important for businesses to get off to a good start."

Adam didn't excel at making conversation, and after exchanging some pleasantries, the conversation soon began to feel a little awkward. Kim Hee-cho was supposed to be the one taking care of talking and negotiations.

"I'll get the device and visit you at your apartment in a few days. It's already quite late today, so we'll be leaving now."

"Yeah, let's go back and sleep already," Hook urged with a tired yawn.

"We're going now."

Adam waved as he took a glance at the handsome man that was the equivalent of the clown anomaly in the real world, and he wondered what Karen was going to do with the man after he left. Perhaps she would hand him over to Mechguard, or perhaps she would do something else. In any case, he didn't want to ask, nor did he want to be involved in this. After all, just having knowledge of certain things was enough to be incriminating.

"Bye, Uncle Adam."

Chloe stood up and followed Adam with her eyes as he departed. She was at an age where she was old enough to know who had her best interests in mind.

Under the grateful gaze of Karen and her daughter, Adam opened the door of the office, and in the instant that he did so, the sounds from the dancefloor outside immediately washed over him. However, the music then suddenly faltered.

Having trained his telegnosis for so long under Sadou, Adam was able to use his five senses to detect very slight changes in his surroundings when transitioning from reality to the psychic world, such as changes in the wind and sounds, and in that instant, he could clearly tell that something was off about the music.

Someone's infiltrated my psychic world again!