Chapter 215: Awakening

"That's impossible! Even if he's not completely dead, how could he possibly recover? He's been turned into a rock!" Mole erupted into sobs as he pointed at the stone statue that Armadillo had been transformed into. "And he's been split open!"

"Here's what could save him." Adam pulled out his only advanced card as he spoke. "This is an advanced healing card, which contains the director's most powerful psychic blessing, also known as a counter-cyberhex. In theory, this card should be able to heal all injuries."

"Is that true?"

"We won't know until we give it a try."

"What are you doing, Mole? I can't handle them all on my own!"

With Mole's departure, the tables were instantly turned, and Rabbit alone was no match for Medusa's entire team.

"Hold on for a bit longer! I might be able to save Armadillo!"

Mole grabbed the card from Adam, then rushed over to the split stone statue before activating the card, releasing the powerful counter-cyberhex within.

Due to the enormous volume of power contained within the card, even Adam was able to sense something despite his lackluster telegnosis, and he finally understood why this card was known as a counter-cyberhex rather than a blessing.

The reason for this was because Adam couldn't sense any positive or beneficial psychic power being released from the card. Instead, it was giving off a type of extremely malicious energy.

Under normal circumstances, the energy imbued within the card would've been sufficient to pose a major threat even to a powerful adapter of Medusa's caliber, but after this malicious energy was released, its effects were somehow reversed so that what should've been an extremely harmful force was instead one that facilitated healing and regeneration.

Under the effects of the powerful counter-cyberhex, Armadillo's petrified body slowly returned to normal, and the two halves of body also slowly fused back together again. Before long, he had already regained consciousness.

"What happened just now? I felt like I was going to die..."

Armadillo looked around in a dazed manner following his resurrection, and it was Mole who answered his question.

"You were turned into stone just now, and you almost died! It's that smart brother over there who saved you! He's the one that we ran into at the airdrop site, the one who looked like a nun!"

"Oh, I remember him..." Armadillo turned to Adam as he spoke. "I can sense your aura."

"I'm glad you're alright now."

"I owe you my life, and I'll be sure to repay you at some point, but before that, I have to avenge myself!"

Despite the near-death experience that he had just suffered, Armadillo didn't seem to be suffering from any lingering fear or trauma, and his only thought was to kill those who had almost killed him. He turned to Medusa with a murderous look in his eyes, and his aura swelled even further.

Adam also directed his gaze toward Medusa to find that the psychic passageway had just about reached a sufficient size for her and her team to pass through. Hence, all he had to do was stall Armadillo and Mole for a moment longer and Medusa's team would be able to escape.

"By the way, everyone says that you see some things you don't normally see when you're on the brink of death. What did you see, Brother Armadillo?" historical

"That's a good question!" Not only was Armadillo distracted by the question, even Mole stopped to hear his answer. "What did you see?"

"I saw myself before I became an armadillo. I saw all of the people who mocked me for my looks..." Armadillo quickly lost himself in recollection of his past, and only after some time did he return to his senses. By then, Medusa and the others had already arrived beside the psychic passageway. "They're trying to get away! I'll tell you about it after we kill them!"

"Alright!"

Mole hurriedly followed along as a bolt of lightning.

Meanwhile, Anaconda and Rattlesnake had already departed, leaving Belcher and Medusa behind to hold off their assailants.

"You go first!" Medusa yelled while warding off Rabbit's attacks.

Belcher didn't hesitate at all as she blasted a cloud of venomous mist at Rabbit, then immediately slithered into the passageway. As soon as Rabbit was forced back by the venomous mist, Medusa also tried to enter the passageway, only to be stopped in her tracks by Mole, who threw a punch into her abdomen.

"You're not getting away after killing my friend!"

"We'll see about that!"

Medusa retaliated with her petrification attack, but Mole was able to evade the attack with his extraordinary speed. However, at the same time, Medusa activated a skill card.

Even though Medusa hadn't had a chance to plunder anything from the final zone, she had obtained a great deal of resources from elsewhere, and she had more than one skill card at her disposal. In this situation, she was using one of those cards to buy herself some time.

The card contained a cyberhex ability, releasing a large number of chains that were formed by black mist, which wound themselves around Mole's body to greatly hamper his speed.

Mole was extremely alarmed to have suddenly lost his speed advantage, and he was forced to retreat for fear of being struck by Medusa's petrification attack in his encumbered state. At the same time, he gathered all of the lightning around him to form a dense shield of electricity between himself and Medusa.

Of course, Medusa didn't continue to attack.

It was very difficult to take down an opponent of the same caliber as herself in a short time, and Rabbit was already closing in again, so she had no choice but to leave.

Prior to her departure, she took one final longing glance at the final zone, then directed her gaze toward Adam for a moment before slithering into the psychic passageway.

As soon as she vanished into the passageway, Rabbit immediately crashed into it, but it refused to grant her passage, seemingly able to identify Rabbit as someone who wasn't part of Medusa's team. Following Medusa's departure, the passageway began to slowly close.

"I was so close!" Rabbit was feeling quite frustrated. "I won't forget this! I'll get her back sooner or later!"

....

Outside the psychic world.

As soon as Medusa returned to her senses, she immediately removed the connector from her head before slowly sitting up.

Her teammates also quickly awakened one after another around her, but at this point, the majority of participants of the battle royale were never going to wake up again.

In the real world, Medusa was a beautiful middle-aged woman, and with her keen telegnosis, she could sense that close to 100 of the 136 battle royale participants were displaying extremely feeble yet consistent breathing patterns, indicating that they had entered a vegetative state.

Those people had all met their demise in the psychic world, thereby resulting in brain death.

Even though their bodies were technically still alive, they were nothing more than empty, soulless husks.

Perhaps some of them could be recycled and used as blank slates, but the majority of them weren't even going to be able to serve that purpose. Upon experiencing psychic death, an adapter's synapses would suffer different degrees of trauma. As a result, using them as blank slates carried an element of risk, much like purchasing a defective product.

"Are you alright, Mistress?"

Belcher made her way over to Medusa while the latter was still trying to count exactly how many battle royale participants had perished.

"I'm fine. It's just a pity that we made such terrible returns. The penultimate and final zones are always the most lucrative places in the battle royale, who could've anticipated that we would run into two teams of nutjobs?"

The two teams that she was referring to were the trior of psychic mutants and Dead Wood's team.

"Indeed. I don't think anyone could've anticipated Dead Wood's performance. He wasn't this powerful in the past."

"Individually, his powers are roughly on par with mine, I didn't think his powers would be so significantly enhanced just because he had those two helpers! It looks like the three of them use the same psychic training methods, so they were most likely taught by the same master. And they weren't even the biggest problem! Where the hell did those three idiots come from? I've never even heard of them before! Do they have some type of transformation ability?"

"I feel like they're psychic mutants," Rattlesnake remarked.

In the real world, she was a very composed and professional woman, looking much like a female researcher.