Adrian’s damaged soul returned to his body. Sharp pain shot through his brain, more blood surged from his organs, and the agony of his torn soul continuously tormented his nerves.
The wounded, battered side fell into exhausted sleep as [Gate of Rebirth] was passively triggered.
Adrian’s eyes suddenly opened.
These eyes now held nothing but resentment, anger, and gloom—like a stagnant, profound abyss.
He quietly observed the world around him, the memory of being brutally beaten to death still clearly etched in his hippocampus.
He’d never suffered such severe harm, never died so miserably at an opponent’s hands.
He truly despised the bright side’s forbearance, tolerance, and virtue—these meaningless qualities that imprisoned his soul, hindered his strength, and locked him in a cage of suppressed desires and constrained heart.
Now he finally had the chance to release his hidden darkness. The harm he’d suffered needed to be repaid double. Anyone who displeased him would die without a complete corpse.
Revenge, vengeance, blood for blood, violence for violence—these were natural laws.
So Adrian raised his hand and shattered the light blue barrier before him with one palm.
Zhan Pingchuan pulled Lance back several steps, watching Adrian warily as his temperament completely changed: “Shit, this is bad—my uncle’s gone dark evolution!”
Adrian’s two personalities had gone to complete extremes—ultimate humility versus ultimate madness, ultimate restraint versus ultimate indulgence. The brighter the light side’s adherence to principles, the more the dark side defied convention. Since the light side was too civilized and always left room for others, the dark side had no bottom line and devastating destructive power.
Adrian gained control of the body and wiped blood from his lips. He had no time for Zhan Pingchuan right now—he still had surging anger to vent. He only wanted to smash Asmodeus into pulp.
With this thought, Adrian turned and walked away.
“Uncle! Uncle, wait!” Zhan Pingchuan maintained a safe distance, flashing in front of Adrian. “First tell us what happened—is Uncle Lucas okay?”
Adrian radiated killing intent, looking at Zhan Pingchuan with displeasure: “Noisy.”
Zhan Pingchuan was stunned, his face falling: “Uncle, you used to say I was especially talkative, sunny, and cheerful. So this is what your other side really thinks of me.”
“That side is too hypocritical. This is the truth,” Adrian said bluntly.
Zhan Pingchuan: “…”
Zhan Pingchuan: “I don’t believe it. You’re lying. Uncle, this side of you has no social skills. Why don’t you go back to sleep?”
Adrian’s face darkened, his fingers slowly tightening: “Keep babbling and I’ll kill you first.”
Zhan Pingchuan: “Wouldn’t that break your heart?”
The more emotionally stable the light side, the less patient the dark side. Adrian’s knuckles cracked as his pheromones turned violent.
Zhan Pingchuan quickly retreated, making a peace gesture: “Okay, okay, I won’t waste words. Tell me how Uncle Lucas is and I’ll let you go.”
“Not dead.” Adrian coldly spat out two words. Brown wings suddenly sprouted from his back. He flapped them, leaped to the fifth floor, and vanished instantly.
Lance raised an eyebrow in surprise: “Adrian is animal-type?”
Zhan Pingchuan nodded: “My uncle is a bird-of-paradise Awakened. When fully transformed, his tail feathers are long and fluffy, absolutely beautiful. Legend says phoenixes were created based on this bird type.”
Lance looked toward where Adrian had disappeared: “That fits. Birds-of-paradise are naturally solitary, antisocial, but extremely loyal.”
“The old madman definitely won’t let him easily find Asmodeus. I’m really afraid he’ll slaughter the entire prison in a fit of anger.” Zhan Pingchuan spread his hands helplessly.
Atiya was shocked: “Ahhhhh, no! Our Utopians are still on the third level!”
Lance said to Zhan Pingchuan: “We’ll open the seventh-level cell doors. You take Popov to find Mad Clown. Remember, the most changeable positions in each corridor are the head and tail—the middle is probably a blind spot. Try walking through the middle.”
This was just Lance’s rough guess. After all, he hadn’t observed enough samples, but there was no time to verify now—they had to gamble.
Zhan Pingchuan was reluctant to leave the little fox, looking back every few steps: “Be careful, wife.”
Lance nodded: “I’ll be fine.”
Only then did Zhan Pingchuan use [Linear Bending], leaping in two or three bounds to the fifth floor and chasing after Adrian.
Atiya jogged to keep up with Lance: “Who exactly is this old madman you’re talking about?”
Lance explained as they walked, briefly recounting what had happened since breaking into the AGW Special Dangerous Death Row Prison.
Atiya listened in stunned amazement, looking thoughtful.
On the prison’s second level, Lucas was still running frantically.
But the rare lead ore shackles were his biggest constraint—if he took slightly larger steps, the ankle chains would trip him.
He hadn’t heard any sounds from behind and didn’t know how Adrian was doing.
He kept telling himself everything was fine while unable to stop worrying.
“Damn! Why am I thinking about him? That’s just a shell he’s wearing, not his real body—he won’t die anyway.” Lucas muttered as he turned another corner into a new corridor.
Looking at the long, narrow hallway, he finally slowly stopped. Prisoners on both sides stared at him curiously, their faces showing either schadenfreude or extreme greed.
The second level held the most vicious criminals. Since these inmates were too dangerous and had relatively high awakening levels, most were housed two per cell.
“Hehe, why are you back again? Missing daddy?”
“Can’t even find your way during a jailbreak, little beauty? Come here and daddy will teach you.”
“Oh ho, he must have fallen for someone’s pheromones, keeps looking this way.”
“Mine’s musk-scented—he’s definitely fallen for me, looking for action during heat.”
Obscene words filled the air. Lucas finally confirmed he’d been circling the same few corridors on the second level, even though he thought he was running toward the center.
Because he wore rare lead ore, he wasn’t affected by visual distortions, but repeatedly ending up in the same place could only mean someone was moving the spatial structure.
“Seems they really don’t want to let me out.”
Understanding this, he suddenly lost interest in being played like a monkey.
Lucas wiped the sweat from his forehead, walked toward those filthy things with a dark expression, pulled a sinister smile, and fired several shots, blowing apart several heads.
Those criminals’ heads exploded like flowers, their lewd smiles still frozen on their faces as blood and brains mixed and flowed down, covering their mouths.
The dozen or so surrounding cells fell instantly silent. They looked at Lucas in terror, afraid the next bullet would hit them.
Even having lost their freedom and being locked in this godforsaken place, they still didn’t want to die.
“Say one more word and I’ll feed you their brains,” Lucas kicked at the bars.
Clap, clap, clap.
Leisurely applause sounded perfectly timed behind him: “Worthy of Mad Clown, so ruthless. Compared to you, I still lack some creativity.”
Asmodeus walked over with a dark laugh, blood still on his gums and lips from what he’d just licked.
Lucas bristled like a hedgehog facing a great enemy. He saw Asmodeus’s bronze knuckle duster had turned dark red—the color of dried blood.
He didn’t want to imagine what Adrian’s shell looked like, so he awkwardly looked away.
“Don’t you care about your teammate?” Asmodeus asked curiously.
He enjoyed torturing people and finding someone to appreciate his masterpieces. When the audience showed pain and fear, he was especially excited.
“I shattered his cervical spine—bang! He started convulsing, blood splashed high. I think the spikes pierced into his bone gaps.”
Lucas stared at him intently, killing intent blazing in his eyes.
Though these injuries were on Doctor Bai’s body, Adrian would feel the pain acutely.
The lofty Adrian could only be bullied by him—an ugly, vulgar bug like Asmodeus didn’t deserve it!
“He held back from crying out. I thought maybe it wasn’t painful enough, so I smashed his left face. Hehe… you didn’t see it—his entire jaw dislocated, blood gushing from his ears, his eyeball nearly exploded.”
Lucas’s forearms trembled, his knuckles white with tension.
“He rolled on the ground in pain like a stray dog. He struggled to get up, so I had to shatter his kneecap. Too bad you didn’t hear how beautifully he screamed—I enjoyed it for a long time.”
Asmodeus mockingly glanced at Lucas’s empty gun, raising his right hand. An arm suddenly appeared behind Lucas, grabbing his right wrist and twisting hard!
“Ah!” Lucas cried out in surprise, his wrist dislocating as the gun fell from his hand.
Cold sweat instantly covered his back, his wrist nearly numb with pain: “Fuck your ancestors! Ugly freak! One-eye!”
Asmodeus walked toward Lucas step by step: “He really couldn’t take a beating, and his blood was so fishy. So for my final blow, I broke his spine—the spikes pierced his stomach wall and he died completely.”
“Son of a bitch!” Lucas cursed while supporting his wrist and retreating.
Every nerve was taut, adrenaline at its peak. He couldn’t think of any way to escape—he couldn’t beat Asmodeus.
But his companions had already fought their way here. How could he die so early?
“For the first blow, how about I pierce your gland? I’ve always been curious how long someone can live with a shattered gland.” Asmodeus’s smile vanished as he raised his knuckle duster and quickened his pace toward Lucas.
His eyes flashed with brutal excitement, the excitement making his temples twitch constantly.
Lucas turned and ran, but the shackles constrained him. After just a few meters, he lost his balance and fell forward heavily.
It’s over!
As soon as the thought arose, tears poured out.
He felt wronged, angry, unwilling—he didn’t want to die alone.
The fierce wind was already at the back of his head. The metallic stench of the knuckle duster mixed with blood, raised high and smashing down with force.
Lucas finally broke down emotionally. He squeezed his eyes shut and sobbed: “Brother! Come save me!”
At the critical moment, the knuckle duster suddenly stopped.
All around fell silent. The corridor, prison, and criminals instantly vanished. Before him was a scene of bright sunshine and lush greenery.
Carousel horses rose and fell, roller coasters flipped up and down, jungle adventure trains raised their steam stacks high, and ice cream houses wafted with rum fragrance.
The golden-roofed palace never dimmed its lights or ceased its laughter.
Plant-type S-level third-tier ability [Virtual Realm] activated!
Instantly, all visual distortions and spatial movements were forced to stop. The entire prison fell into stasis. Only Oliver himself and Adrian in his fourth-tier state remained unaffected.
—
**
(advanced chapters available on kofi)
Sam Williams On TYMIMA Chapter 152