Hunter of Immortals

Chapter 74: Lost

With Principal Howard and Emma leading the way, Adam arrived in an independent classroom, inside which was a boy who was staring absentmindedly out the window.

"Li Qi?"

Adam called out to the boy after arriving in the classroom, but the boy displayed no reaction and continued to look out the window.

Adam made his way over to where the boy was before also casting his gaze out the window, and he discovered that there was a nest of birds on a tree outside. The parent bird was in the process of feeding its chicks the bugs that it had gathered for them.

Adam then withdrew his gaze before taking a glance at the boy's arm, and he discovered that the skin on his arm was riddled with scratches. Judging from the direction of the scratches, they appeared to have been self-inflicted.

"I'm here to provide you with treatment," Adam declared.

"Don't bother. There's no need to sacrifice yourself for someone like me, it's not worth it."

Li Qi finally spoke, and there was a sense of maturity unbefitting of someone her age in his voice. Even in comparison with the likes of Kim Garcia and Chloe, he seemed to be excessively mature and jaded.

.

Of course, there were mature ways to deal with mature people.

"I have no intention of sacrificing myself, I'm here to earn money," Adam said. "Hurry up! Don't get in the way of my work. Besides, even if I didn't come here, your school would've found someone else to treat you anyway. If you don't want to cause trouble for more people, then cooperate with me and help me get my job done."

The boy was silent for a moment after hearing this, then nodded in response.

"Fine."

"There are beds in the school, right? A standalone room would be best."

"We can provide that. Come with me."

Emma led everyone to the infirmary, then instructed Li Qi to lay down onto the bed.

Kim Hee-cho didn't waste any time as he immediately connected the psychic projection device.

"Rest assured, I'll be on high alert, and I'll sever the connection if even the slightest problem arises. It's better to be safe than sorry."

"Alright, I'll be counting on you," Adam replied before turning to Shae. "Are you ready?"

"I was born ready!"

"Then let's go!"

There was no need for any further conversation, and the two of them began their work.

As soon as they entered Li Qi's psychic world, Adam was immediately struck by how dark it was.

The entire psychic world was filled with boundless darkness, and even the stars in the sky were dull and devoid of luster.

"Where are we?"

Shae's voice rang out from behind Adam, and she raised her head to look up at the sky, then carefully inspected her surroundings, and finally, with the faint light that was available, she was able to determine that they seemed to be situated on a plot of farmland.

"It looks like this is one of the farms around the town of Ash," Shae remarked. "It's so dark here. Why is it so dark?"

"Probably because he was put into solitary confinement so often. His fear and his anomaly were both born from the darkness, and he committed a terrible act after coming out of the darkness, so it's no surprise that his entire life is enshrouded in darkness." Adam invoked his anomalies as he spoke. "Go ahead and fuse with Hellhound."

Shae nodded in response, then made her way over to Hellhound before commencing the slow fusion process. Given how fearsome the anomaly that they were dealing with was, if they were to walk around in their base forms, there was a very good chance that they could be instantly killed by a sneak attack.

Hence, it was very much necessary for them to fuse with Adam's anomalies right away.

Outside in the real world, Kim Hee-cho was quite startled to see this.

……

In contrast with Emma and the others, he had a certain level of understanding of concepts related to adapters. Most importantly, he knew Adam's powers and abilities very well. Perhaps it was unclear to the others whether those invoked entities had come out of Shae's body or Adam's, but there was no such confusion for him.

The fact that Shae was able to fuse as one with Adam's invoked entities went against all conventional wisdom, and Kim Hee-cho felt this to be very bizarre.

He then turned to gauge the reactions of Howard and the others, but there was no reaction from them, so he quickly composed himself and refrained from speaking on the subject.

However, he had arrived at the conclusion that there seemed to be some time of secret involved here.

"Done!"

A twin-headed werewolf had appeared on the farm, and Adam nodded as he asked, "You know how to use its abilities, right?"

"Of course. I just tested them out a few nights ago, didn't I?"

Flames emerged from Shae's claws as she spoke, and the surrounding area instantly brightened significantly.

"Alright, I'll fuse with one of my anomalies as well, and we'll begin our search after that."

Adam jumped onto Mummy as he spoke, completing their fusion in an instant.

After fusing as one with Adam, Mummy became even more muscular and imposing.

Thus, the two giant fusion anomalies began their search with two smaller anomalies in tow.

They were quite patient and circumspect to begin with, performing a systematic search throughout the far while getting acclimated with the environment in Li Qi's psychic world.

They had thought that they wouldn't have been able to find anything of note on the farm, but as it turned out, they ran into some rather unexpected danger.

"Didn't we go down this path before?"

"Did we? Surely not. Everything looks the same in a plot of farmland."

"That's true."

Five minutes later...

"Are you sure we didn't go down this path before?"

"I feel like we have, but I can't be sure. Let's keep going and see what happens."

"Alright."

Another five minutes passed...

"Alright, I'm certain we've gone down this path before. It's completely identical to the one we walked down five minutes ago!"

"I agree. Let's make a mark here so we'll know if we end up here again."

"Good idea. I'll draw a triangle here."

Five minutes later...

"This is the exact same place!"

"Do you see the triangle anywhere?"

"I don't, but I'm certain we've been here before!"

"There's something really fishy about this place!"

It was rather surprising to Adam that they had found themselves in a dangerous situation as soon as they entered Li Qi's psychic world. This had never happened in any of the previous treatments that he had administered.

"Don't panic, I'll get Clown to go take a look."

At this point, Clown was still in its infantile ragdoll form. Even though it was sorely lacking in power, it still possessed all of its abilities, and it was quite cunning and adept at running away, so it made for a fine scout.

"You go as well."

This second instruction was issued to Vampire. Unsurprisingly, Adam's latest anomalic victim had been reborn in one of his flowerpots.

Vampire didn't possess exceptional scouting abilities, but it was still better than nothing, and it dove headfirst into the cornfield in another direction.

Adam had a psychic connection with all of his anomalies, so he was able to keep track of them while they were scouting the area.

He could clearly sense that after traveling for some time, the two anomalies seemed to have reached some type of tipping point. As soon as they reached that point, the psychic connection between them Adam abruptly vanished, and by the time the connection was restored, they were already very close to him.

They appeared behind me! They must've been transferred there by some type of unknown force!

As soon as the psychic connection was restored, the two anomalies immediately screamed in distress. Adam hurriedly withdrew them back into his body for fear of harm befalling them, but even so, his connection to one of them was still permanently severed.

Clown had returned to him as a streak of light, but Vampire had vanished into the ether.

"It's over there! Attack!"

Adam was greatly dismayed by the demise of Vampire. Adult anomalies would be reduced to infantile anomalies after death, but if an infantile anomaly were to die, then their death was permanent.

Adam felt like there was a great deal of room for development when it came to Vampire's ability to devour the power of its enemies for its own use, but it seemed that all of that potential was going to remain unfulfilled.

Under Adam's instructions, Shae blasted a constant stream of Explosive Fireballs out of her mouths, causing a series of explosions that set the cornfield alight.

A short while later, all of the corn stalks in that area had been incinerated into nothingness, revealing a scarecrow that was holding a lantern.