Hunter of Immortals

Chapter 55: Origin of the Psychic Mutants

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In the instant that Adam detected the intrusion, his first thought was that he had run into another hitman.

Through the last incident, he had shown the underground world and all of the hitmen organizations that he was not to be messed with, but that clearly still wasn't enough, and it wasn't a surprise for him to run into another hitman. Having said that, he wasn't expecting this day to come so soon.

However, immediately thereafter, he realized that something wasn't right. He inspected his surroundings to discover that not only had Hook been dragged into the psychic world with him, Chloe and Karen were also here, as were all of the people on the dancefloor.

The psychic world was an independent world.

Thinking back to the last time his psychic world had been invaded by Oni no Hanzou and Cowboy, all of the surrounding streets had been empty without no other people around.

He had been the only one on the entire street on that occasion, which meant that this time, it wasn't his psychic world that had been invaded. Instead, everyone in this entire area had been dragged into the psychic world by some type of device, trapping them inside.

"What are you standing there for?" Hook hadn't trained his telegnosis before, so he still hadn't noticed anything amiss. "Let's go back and sleep."

"We've been dragged into someone's psychic world."

"What?"

Hook's eyes immediately widened upon hearing this, and he began to carefully inspect his surroundings. Even though he had never trained in telegnosis, he was still a student of Layton Academy. In addition to that, his scouting skillset made him very sharp and observant, and even though he wasn't able to immediately sense that something was wrong, he also noticed the problem after some careful inspection.

"You're right, we really have been dragged into the psychic world, and it looks like we're not the only ones; everyone here has been dragged in as well! How powerful does a synapse transmission device have to be to drag all of these people into the psychic world at once?" A slight chill ran down Hook's spine as he looked at all of the people on the dancefloor outside. "I'll try and find a way to get out."

Hook attempted to leave, but he was quickly repelled by a psychic boundary. Given the thickness of the psychic boundary, he concluded, "Judging from how thick this psychic boundary is, it has to have been established within a powerful adapter's psychic world. It'll take me at least half an hour to break it open so we can escape."

"You stay here and try to break open the boundary, I'll go and see what's happening outside."

"Alright."

With that, Hook returned to the office before casting his gaze toward the people in the room.

"Why are you back? Did you forget to take something with you?" Karen asked.

"No, I haven't forgotten anything. This isn't the real world. Instead, we're in the psychic world, and it seems like we may be in danger. Don't panic, just stay here for now..."

Hook gave her a patient explanation of the situation that they were in, while Adam passed through the dancefloor before arriving at the exit.

He didn't know who this psychic world belonged to, but he was guessing that perhaps it was established upon collective memories.

That was because the scene in this world was completely identical to the one in the real world, and that was very strange. Adam had never seen a scene in a psychic world that perfectly replicated its equivalent in the real world.

There was still an elevator outside the pub, and after taking the elevator to the surface, Adam found himself in that same dark alley in the industrial area.

The scene outside was also completely identical to the one in the real world. The more Adam saw, the more suspicious he became of this situation.

"What is that?"

"Help!"

Cries of help rang out from the pedestrians on a street in the distance.

As a precautionary measure, Adam immediately summoned Hellhound before fusing with it. Following the fusion, his senses and physical capabilities were all greatly enhanced, and he even activated his Hyperspeed ability.

Only after doing all of that did he sneak out of the dark alley.

After arriving on the wide street outside and witnessing the scene presented before him, he quickly realized that he was right to have been so cautious.

What are those things? Are they psychic mutants?

Hiding in a dark corner, Adam could see a series of very strange-looking "humans" on the street.

In reality, these things resembled emotional anomalies more so than they did humans. In fact, they were even more deformed and monstrous than anomalies. The majority of emotional anomalies that were manifested resembled certain things, such as clowns and scarecrows.

However, these "people" that had appeared on the street were conglomerations of things. For example, one of them was a septic polymerized creature with human faces growing all over its body, and there was another one that was a praying mantis monster with the body of a maggot.

These must be psychic mutants.

This was Adam's first time seeing psychic mutants in person, but prior to this, he had seen some information on them in his school textbooks.

If a normal person developed mental problems, many emotional aberrations would arise in their psychic world. If their condition became so severe that they were driven to the point of serious mental illness, then those emotional aberrations would further develop into emotional anomalies. If left untreated, those anomalies would gradually take over the host, forcing them to engage in extreme acts such as homicide, suicide, or going on mass sprees of destruction.

If Deranged Pig's daughter, Kim, had been left untreated, it was likely that she would've turned to suicide. If Chloe hadn't been treated, then there was a good chance that she would've developed into a murderer.

However, adapters were different from normal people. If an adapter fell prey to a mental illness, the consequences would be even more terrifying. They could discover the anomalies in their hearts at an early stage and eradicate those anomalies themselves, but if they couldn't address the root cause of their condition, then the anomalies would always be able to respawn.

As they continued to eradicate their anomalies over and over again, their psychic bodies would slowly be corrupted. They would begin to slowly understand their anomalies, to communicate with them, and be dragged down into a slow descent, ultimately leading to mutation.

There were even some cases of particularly deranged individuals, such as a certain adapter whose lover was killed, leading to the emergence of an emotional anomaly, but instead of eradicating the anomaly, they embraced it and willingly became a psychic mutant.

Pain gave one power, and psychic mutants that arose from obsessions with painful thoughts and emotions were more powerful than ordinary adapters of the same level.

"What the hell are these things? There are monsters here! Call Mechguard!"

"That's not going to work. I don't think Mechguard can take care of these monsters. We're in the psychic world right now, aren't we?"

"What's the psychic world? Is that something to do with adapters? I thought normal people like us never get to come into contact with adapters!"

"Exactly! What does this have to do with people like us?"

On the street, some of the people who saw the psychic mutants were so frightened that they fled for their lives in all directions while screaming in horror, while others remained where they were, engaging in heated discussions.

Even though it was already very late at night and Area 9 was an industrial area with a relatively small population, Sandrise City was a metropolis with a population in the hundreds of millions, so it was bound to be a city that never slept.

There were many night owls roaming the streets, and the old industrial neon lights on the streets were still flashing as the crowd down below erupted into panic and chaos.

Amid all the commotion, a massive psychic mutant picked up a person before swallowing them whole.

"It's so noisy here..."

After devouring a person whole, the giant psychic mutant picked up a car before hurling it through the air, flattening a group of people to the ground.

After that, he commenced a one-sided killing spree on the crowd of people.

"They're committing murder! These monsters are killing people!"

The people who were discussing the situation among themselves immediately began to run for their lives at the sight of people around them being killed, thereby further exacerbating the chaos.

"What are you all standing there for? Weren't we sent here to kill people?" the giant psychic mutant urged as he continued his merciless killing spree.

"I do whatever I want, I don't follow orders from anyone," another psychic mutant said, and countless mice scurried out of his mouth as he spoke. The mice surged onto the streets and began to sink their teeth into everyone in sight. "Having said that, I do enjoy killing. If it isn't for the fact that we get to kill to our hearts' content, I wouldn't have come here in the first place!"

The psychic mutant burst into maniacal laughter.

The infestation of mice washed over the street, and the carnage taking place instantly reached a climax.