Hunter of Immortals

Chapter 48: Bad Man

Hook had been called up for this mission as well, not just because he was a collaborative partner, but most importantly, he really did excel at tracking down anomalies.

"Is that him?"

Hook took a glance at the person standing before him, then raised his head to look up at the sign on the stock exchange office, which read "Silver Dollar".

"May I ask who this is?"

"This is one of our employees. One person obviously can't get as much work done as two. Come in. We have lounge areas in our company, so we can do the treatment in there."

Peter always seemed to be quite urgent and short on time, so everyone skipped the small talk and followed him into the building.

As soon as they entered the stock exchange office, Adam was greeted by a cacophony of commotion. Even though many of the transactions were taking place on the internet, everyone still looked like a clowder of cats on a hot tin roof. The traders who were hooked up to the direct neural interface were making all types of strange sounds that expressed different emotions, such as dismay or excitement, and an atmosphere of anxiety was permeating the entire office.

Peter seemed to be quite a high-ranking employee here, and he led Adam and his group to a lounge area with great acoustic insulation.

The room was fitted with the best soundproofing door on the market, and the entire room fell silent as soon as the door was closed.

Inside the lounge area was a sofa and a variety of beverages were on offer, as well as a normal therapy clinic that was run by non-adapter therapists.

The group arrived in a separate quiet room, and Peter immediately laid down.

"Let's begin."

"Alright."

Everyone immediately got to work, with Kim Hee-cho setting up the projection device, while Adam and Hook infiltrated Peter's psychic world.

……

The first stop that they arrived at in Peter's psychic world was on a large bed with three completely nude women laying on it. A half-naked Peter was also on the bed, and from the looks of it, they had just finished doing the deed.

"Oh, this is a nice place to start."

"Let's get to work." Adam didn't have much interest in the scene before him. "They're not even half as hot as Karen."

"I wanted to stay and watch her dance that day, but you made me accompany Chloe back to the apartment. What a waste!" Hook sighed as he pulled out his magnifying glass and aimed it at the bed, upon which he immediately realized that something was wrong.

"Who are you?"

Their arrival had alerted the four people on the bed, but instead of displaying any panic at the sight of the intruders, expressions of bloodlust and excitement appeared on the faces of the three women.

"Those three are emotional aberrations!"

"You're talking about these three women?"

Before Hook had a chance to reply, Adam's question was answered as the three women's faces took on a twisted and sinister appearance, baring their sharp fangs as their eyes took on a bright red hue.

Adam immediately summoned Hellhound upon seeing this, and the anomaly stopped the three aberrations cold in their tracks as they tried to pounce on Adam.

As soon as Hellhound appeared, it let loose a ferocious howl and mercilessly destroyed one of the aberrations with a swipe of its claws. It then chomped down onto the necks of the other two women with its two heads before they had a chance to attack it with their fangs.

Two crisp cracks rang out, and the two emotional aberrations were each bitten into two.

"They're not very powerful."

The main difference between emotional aberrations and emotional anomalies laid in how powerful they were and how much of a threat they posed to the host.

Emotional anomalies could only arise as a result of extremely traumatic events, such as a little girl witnessing a human factory that was producing blank slates, or a young woman being lured into a dark alley before being assaulted repeatedly.

In contrast, emotional aberrations could arise far more easily. Being scolded at school by a teacher, having something stolen by a pickpocket, being scammed, or even the guilt that the scammer experienced... All of those could be catalysts for the emergence of emotional aberrations.

Everyone had emotional aberrations in their hearts, but these aberrations were very weak, and it was extremely difficult for them to mutate into anomalies under normal circumstances.

After the two emotional anomalies were mauled to death, Adam attempted to communicate with Hellhound, instructing it to absorb their power.

However, Hellhound seemed to be very picky, and it only absorbed a tiny amount of power from the aberrations before stopping. It was unclear whether it didn't want to absorb any further energy from them, or if that was simply all the energy that they had to offer.

In the psychic world, Peter was initially rather perplexed by the sight of Adam and Hook, but a thought then seemed to occur to him, and he asked, "You two are here to help me, right?"

"That's right."

People in the psychic world were just like people in dreams in that all of their memories of reality were very murky. However, Peter had already had these emotional cleanses performed on him many times in the past, so he had a recollection of this deep in his memory, which was why he was able to arrive at this conclusion right away.

"Alright, where do we begin?"

"Just leave it to us. Come inside me." Hook opened up his greasy cabin as he spoke. "Come in here so you don't get harmed by any aberrations. We'll take care of the rest."

"Got it."

Even in the psychic world, Peter was clearly just as averse to time-wasting as he was in the real world, and he immediately entered the greasy cabin without any hesitation.

"Oh, that's good, that's really good..."

With someone inside him, Hook was clearly very excited, and he was full of vigor.

After that, he began to pull out all types of surveillance equipment as he made his way out of the hotel room.

The scene transitioned, and after riding the elevator in the hotel down to the ground floor, they arrived in a trading hall, within which dozens of emotional aberrations were gathered. These aberrations resembled zombies, writhing incessantly with sickly green complexions, and they immediately converged at the sight of living people.

Are these the stressed traders in Peter's workplace?

Adam instructed Hellhound to mow down these aberrations.

With just a single Explosive Fireball, Hellhound was able to blow up the entire trading hall, killing around a dozen zombies in the process.

Immediately thereafter, Hellhound rushed into the horde of zombies and engaged them in melee combat.

These aberrations were nowhere near as powerful as emotional anomalies, so even Hook made a rare display of charging into battle. He swung his metallic arm through the air, knocking a zombie onto the ground with a single punch before putting an end to its existence with a barrage of punches.

He then did the exact same thing to a second zombie, but as he turned around to go after a third one, he discovered that all of the other zombies had already been eradicated by Hellhound.

"Wow, your pet seems to be growing more powerful by the day!"

After killing the dozens of zombies in the trading hall, Hellhound was able to absorb a bit more power, but it was far from a significant amount.

"How many more aberrations are there?"

"I'm not sure, but I'm guessing there's still..." The two of them made their way out of the trading hall while speaking with one another, and they were greeted by the sight of an entire street full of aberrations. "... A lot..."

"Why are there so many? My goodness, how much shady stuff has this guy done?"

"What do you think? Those three women looked like escorts, and even they turned into aberrations in his psychic world! That should tell you something."

"Did those three become aberrations because he used them but didn't pay them, or did he do something to hurt them?"

"Who cares? Look after yourself first. These aberrations seem to be more powerful than the ones we just dealt with, so take care not to get hurt."

Adam was feeling a little overwhelmed at the sight of the hordes of aberrations outside. Not only was there a massive number of aberrations on the streets, they were larger than the ones that had been previously dealt with as well.

The largest of these aberrations had bodies that were entirely formed by sludge that was releasing dense, black smoke. There was a good chance that these sludge aberrations were the manifestation of Peter's guilt. They devoured everything in their path, and even the other aberrations on the streets weren't spared from their gluttony.

However, Adam had noticed something from these aberrations that came as quite a pleasant surprise to him. The black mist-like substance rising up from the bodies of these sludge aberrations indicated that they already possessed anomalic power. If they weren't cleansed in a timely fashion, they would've eventually mutated into anomalies.