Chapter 336: An Intelligent Battle
Chapter 336: An Intelligent Battle
"I see."
After hearing what the vampire had to say, Adam thought of Dead Wood and his two disciple brothers, as well as Medusa and the others.
North America wasn't the only continent in this world, and there were more psychic training methods out there than just the "scientifically sound" methods proposed by the Psychic Church. The psychic world was a domain that had only seen exploration for the past few decades, and there were many strange things that hadn't been revealed to the public.
Perhaps those strange things were inherently evil, so even if they had been discovered by the Psychic Church, these things weren't going to be made public knowledge.
"Shall we have a chat?"
"About what?"
"You just said that there's no bad blood between us, so I'm sure you don't necessarily have to kill me. In that case, why can't you choose another target?"
Instead of attacking right away, Adam was happy to continue this discussion.
"It's not easy to find a straggler in here. I may only have two or three opportunities to strike tonight, what makes you think I'll let you go?"
The fact that he was willing to speak to the anomaly indicated a sense of wariness, stemming primarily from the fact that he couldn't tell just how powerful this opponent was.
"Indeed, many negotiations have only come about at the conclusions of wars. We can battle it out first, and if you feel like killing me wouldn't be worth the price you'd have to pay to do so, then please let me go. Of course, I assure you that I won't leak what happened here to anyone."
Despite the peril that he was in, the vampire was very calm and collected, and its demeanor reminded Adam of Raven.
"You can rest assured that I'll keep my promise. Those who don't keep their promises won't be able to go very far in life, wouldn't you agree?"
Adam crouched down so that his massive head was visible to the vampire, and he then nodded in response.
"If you win, then you'll naturally get to live!"
As soon as his voice trailed off, Adam immediately threw a punch at the vampire, which was evaded by the anomaly amid a flash of red light.
Adam followed up with a barrage of attacks, all of which also failed to hit their mark.
These rooms are really annoying!
In this massive form, fighting indoors was quite a disadvantage for Adam. Thankfully, the cannibal club had been constructed on a massive estate, and with Adam intentionally going on a spree of destruction, all of the walls were quickly knocked down, reducing the entire club to a huge pile of rubble.
Much better now.
With all of the rooms knocked down, the island outside was completely visible again, and Adam continued in his attack. He had thought that things would be easier this time, but to his surprise, the vampire was able to dodge his attacks far more easily than before, as if it had grown accustomed to the rhythm of his attacks.
In fact, not only was it dodging all of Adam's attacks with ease, it was even beginning to retaliate, sending several crimson blades flashing through the air.
The crimson blades crashed into Adam's giant body, but were only able to inflict several shallow marks.
The penetrative power of its technomantic attacks was far inferior to that of the guardian angel in that woman's psychic world.
"Your defenses are exceptional. Are you a defensive-type adapter?"
Instead of persisting with a mode of attack that clearly wasn't going to work, the vampire quickly changed its strategy. Instead of unleashing any further destructive technomantic abilities, red light began to glow from its body.
"I've done a lot of homework on defensive-type adapters like yourselves. Generally speaking, all of you are quite weak to debilitating abilities."
The vampire raised its arms as it spoke, and as it did so, red light began to radiate from Adam's body as well. The light was constantly emerging from his body like some kind of radiant mist before being drawn into the vampire's body.
From that instant, Adam could feel his own life force seeping away at a slow but steady rate.
"That's a very sound strategy."
Indeed, this type of life force leeching ability was most effective against highly destructive tanks like Sludge.
Adam wanted to retaliate, but the vampire drew an array in the air, following which the earth beneath Adam's feet immediately became as soft and viscous as a pit of blood. The technomantic array itself also possessed restrictive properties, thereby severely restricting Adam's mobility.
Following that initial clash, Adam was able to roughly gauge the power level of this anomaly.
It was roughly a level six anomaly, possessing superior overall power to Sludge. Adam felt like he would be able to gain the upper hand with the help of all of his other anomalies, but it was most likely going to be very difficult to take down such a formidable opponent.
Thankfully, he wasn't here alone.
"Can we negotiate now?"
Even after completely restricting Adam's movements, the vampire still wanted to negotiate, but right as it thought that it had weathered the storm, the lake, the ground, and the rubble beneath him exploded in unison as a three-headed werewolf, an armadillo, and a rabbit pounced at him at once from three different directions.
"You have allies?"
For the first time, a fearful look appeared on the anomaly's face, breaking through his calm and elegant facade.
To his horror, he discovered that the three-headed werewolf seemed to be an even more formidable opponent than the stone giant.
Even though the three of them had sprung forth at once, Shae was the first one to reach their target.
Following Hellhound's latest evolution, Shae's powers had received a significant boost, allowing her to stand toe to toe against level five anomalies. Furthermore, Hellhound's offensive prowess far exceeded that of Sludge, making it far more useful in one-on-one battles.
This feels awesome!
As she sped through the air, Shae could feel unprecedented power coursing through her veins as she latched onto the vampire's cape.
The vampire immediately tried to get away once again by transforming into a burst of crimson light, but Shae appeared directly above it in a flash.
"You're not getting away!"
In this classic battle between the vampire and the werewolf, it was the latter that gained the upper hand, with Shae's largest head chomping down onto the vampire's shoulder.
Following its latest evolution, Hellhound's bite force had become even more formidable, instantly biting through the vampire's shoulder with a loud crack as if it were nothing more than a piece of hard candy.
The vampire gave a pained groan, and it released a burst of red light out of its hand to immobilize Shae. At the same time, the wound on its shoulder was constantly squirming and healing from the life force that it was absorbing from Adam.
Up to this point, the vampire had been forced onto the back foot, but it was still able to hold its own. Unfortunately, it was facing four opponents rather than just two.
The third one to arrive on the scene was Rabbit. She had sprung out of the rubble of the destroyed cannibal clubhouse before slamming a palm against the vampire's head, shattering its skull with her tremendous power.
The final one to join the party was Armadillo, and he was lashing out repeatedly with his sharp claws while yellow sand swirled all around him, and it didn't take long before the sand was saturated with the vampire's blood.
With Adam and his three companions attacking the vampire at once, the situation was quickly becoming dire.
In a battle of life and death like this, once an advantage of this magnitude was secured by either side, the losing side was prone to be killed at any moment, particularly when their psychic body didn't possess exceptional physical resistance.
The vampire was a very intelligent anomaly, and it knew that if things were to continue like this, then it wasn't going to be able to last much longer. Hence, it immediately unleashed all of its power at once, initiating a blood explosion at the cost of an immense amount of psychic power.
Everyone was blown back by the force of the explosion with the exception of a single person, whom the vampire had grabbed onto.
Rabbit's been captured!
Adam was furthest away from the battle, so he was able to see everything that was happening.