Hunter of Immortals

Chapter 198: Parting Ways

"Don't give up hope, buddy. For adapters like us, emotions like despair must be avoided at all costs."

While Adam was still looking into the distance, Medusa's voice suddenly rang out beside him.

She had slithered over to his side, and her face was pressed up right against his cheek as he whispered into his ear, "Your cause isn't a completely hopeless one."

"What do you mean? Are you going to help me?"

"No no no, I'm not going to take any further part in this mess," Medusa hurriedly replied. "However, you can still beat her without me."

"I don't understand."

"If you think about it, Miko may not be as powerful as she appears. You're a very powerful adapter. In fact, I'll even admit that you're more powerful than I am. However, I'm older than you, and I've probably got more battle experience than you as well. I have some insight that I can share with you. Would you like to hear it?"

Medusa was still whispering into Adam's ear, and no one else could hear what they were saying, so it appeared that they were being very intimate with each other, much to Nie Yiyi's chagrin.

"What the hell are you two doing?" she grumbled in a displeased voice.

"Nothing. We're just having a nice little chat." Medusa pressed her face even closer to Adam's as she spoke, even going as far as to lick his earlobe with her forked tongue, seemingly intentionally trying to irk Nie Yiyi. "I think someone's jealous!"

"Are you trying to drive a wedge between me and my teammates?" Adam opened up some distance between them as he spoke. "If you have something to say, then hurry up and say it."

"Jeez, you're no fun at all, are you? Why I wanted to tell you is that Miko isn't as infallible as she seems. At the very least, it has to be extremely taxing for her to maintain that state. Otherwise, she wouldn't have agreed to retreat. At the end of the battle, Diamond still retained most of his combat prowess, and the two Tigers were also still alive.

“Granted, they weren't in the best of condition, but they still could've put in some work. Most importantly, she hadn't suffered any severe injuries. If that Yamata no Orochi really was as powerful as it appeared, then she could've completely ignored me and taken us all out at once."

"That does make sense." Adam nodded in response. "However, maybe she's just trying to avoid trouble or doesn't want to sacrifice her subordinates."

"I have to disagree there. All high-level adapters are very decisive people, and Oni no Miko is no exception to that, particularly as the powerful assassin that she is. Does she look like the type of person who would cherish the lives of her subordinates? Besides, if she really was as powerful as she looked, then she could've killed all of us while saving her subordinates.

“The fact that she chose to retreat was a sign of weakness. With Diamond and the two Tigers still in the battle, they would've at least been able to hold off myself and my team for some time. In addition to that, the four mecha brothers were basically on their last legs, yet Miko still didn't have the courage to face you and your teammates.

"That can only mean one of two things: either her Yamata no Orochi isn't as powerful as it looks, or she can only maintain it for a very short time. Out of those two possibilities, I'm more inclined toward the latter. There's no reason to suggest that the serpent wasn't as powerful as it looked, but perhaps it was so powerful that it was beyond what Oni no Miko could handle. I think she was afraid that she would've exhausted her psychic power and perished before Yamata no Orochi could kill all of us."

"That does make sense."

Adam thought back to when Oni no Miko invoked Yamata no Orochi and the vast quantities of ghostly energy that had poured out of her body during the process. There was no way that such an invocation process wouldn't have taken a heavy toll on her.

Furthermore, after Yamata no Orochi appeared, she wasn't even able to maintain any of her other invoked entities, and she could only offer them to Yamata no Orochi to be devoured. This was a clear indication that she didn't have any leftover psychic power to spare, and even the shikigami that she had been relying on for her protection had been devoured, thereby further vindicating Medusa's theory.

"Another thing I want to point out is that apparently, there's a ranking for the eight Onis of the Oni Organization. On that ranking, Oni no Hanzou was sixth, while Oni no Miko is third. If she's really that powerful, then she wouldn't just be third."

"That's valid."

Adam recalled back to his last battle against Oni no Miko. At the time, Sadou had been present, so she didn't get to display much of her abilities at all.

"Even so, the road ahead is still going to be an arduous one."

Even if Oni no Miko couldn't invoke Yamata no Orochi for a long time, it was still going to be far from easy to bring her down.

The trio of Diamond, Oni no Miko, and the technomancer possessed far superior overall power to Adam's team.

In fact, if Medusa hadn't suddenly intervened, Oni no Miko would've been able to wipe out Adam's entire team even without summoning Yamata no Orochi.

"Of course it's not going to be easy to win the battle royale. I don't even dare to consider such a lofty goal." Only now did Medusa raise her voice slightly so that it was audible to everyone. "This is where we part ways. If you manage to survive, don't forget to treat me to a meal once we get out of here."

Medusa departed as she spoke, playing with the stack of cards in her hands as she did so.

"We're going now." Rattlesnake slithered over to Nie Yiyi before giving her a hug. "Once again, words cannot express my gratitude. I hope we get a chance to meet again."

It was clear that Rattlesnake was very fond of her savior.

"Aren't you going to leave the battle royale now that you have an exit card?"

"Why would we do that? Now that we've got an exit card, we have an extra layer of security. We'll keep searching for more cards until we encounter someone we can't beat. Bye for now, make sure you survive!"

With that, Rattlesnake slithered away with Anaconda and Belcher.

Following their departure, the four mecha brothers also rose to their feet, having mostly recovered from their injuries.

"Let's go as well."

"We can't go the same way as Medusa."

"Then we'll go in the opposite direction."

"The opposite direction is where Oni no Miko is!"

"I guess we won't go in either of those directions then..."

"In that case, the only option would be to approach the boundary of the zone."

"We don't really have much choice, do we? We can't beat anyone here, so we'll have to take some risk. In any case, leaving the zone will only mean a slow death, so we'll be fine as long as we find an exit card before we die. No one else will be outside the zone, so perhaps we'll be able to find some good supply points. Risk and reward always come hand in hand, do they not?"

Having made their decision, the four mecha brothers rose to their feet, then bade farewell to Adam and the others before departing.

There was danger at every turn in the battle royale, and even the most powerful adapters with enjoying the best of luck weren't guaranteed to be able to survive.

"It's about time that we left as well. We've already spent too much time here, and the zone's been shrinking this entire time."

Adam suppressed his disappointment as he took a glance at the ruins around him.

"After all that, we ended up with nothing. Even the cards that we gathered before coming here were taken by Medusa."

Indeed, not only had Hook given Medusa all of the cards that this supply point had to offer, he had to hand over all of the previously collected cards as well.

"Why did you give her all of the cards we collected earlier as well?" Nie Yiyi asked with furrowed brows. "Those skill cards are very important!"

"I didn't want to give her those cards! The situation was too urgent, so I didn't have time to hide the cards in two separate places. She only agreed to the deal after I revealed all the cards to her."

"It's fine. We're already very lucky just to be alive." King Arthur made his way over to the trio with his dragon steed in tow. "Medusa is a very cunning woman. If you didn't offer her enough cards, there's a very chance that she wouldn't have intervened. You really saved us there. Before this, I didn't think you deserved a place on this team, but it looks like I was wrong about you. It's extremely impressive that you were able to conceal yourself from the telegnosis so many powerful adapters."

"What can I say? I'm a coward, and my cowardly nature has given me a lot of strange abilities in the psychic world," Hook replied with a bashful smile.

"From here onward, our main objective is to secure skill cards. Without the help of those cards, there's no way we'll be able to defeat Oni no Miko and her team, so we're going to have to be more urgent in our collection of resources."

After establishing the objective, Adam departed from the small town with his team.

Not long after their departure, a white dove arrived at the supply point.

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