BXBX NOVEL Chapter 233: Clone
Chapter 233: Clone
Adam was very pleased to have secured the footage.
Not only would this allow him to clear his own name, he would also be able to complete certain other objectives thanks to this footage.
After fusing with Clown, Adam's desire for power had increased significantly, and he wanted to use the footage as leverage to work with the northern congress and completely transform his own identity.
He knew that he couldn't rely solely on his own strength if he wanted to exact revenge and uncover the secrets of his own past.
After enduring the battle royale, he had thought extensively about many things. Ultimately, the power of a single person was limited. No matter how powerful one was, there was still a chance that they could suffer an unfortunate fate due to unforeseen circumstances. Eyeless was clearly the most powerful battle royale participant, while Oni no Miko possessed a deity-like invoked entity, yet neither of them had been able to survive.
If he wanted to contend with those massive organizations, then he had to borrow the power of others. He needed a new identity, one that would allow him to break the law right under Mechguard's nose without any consequences and even break the law with Mechguard's help.
The law was a set of rules, and the rules were set by the powerful entities that he sought vengeance against, so he had to break free from these rules.
However, before that, he was very intrigued to hear the second secret that the director was going to tell him.
"This is the second secret."
The director removed his mask to reveal his face as he spoke.
It was the face of a middle-aged man who appeared to be around 50 to 60 years of age, but due to certain genetic modification factors, he was most likely older than he appeared.
"I suppose you're pretty handsome for an old man, but what does this have to do with the second secret?" Adam asked, but he quickly came to realize that something wasn't quite right.
"Hold on a second..." Adam approached the director to closely scrutinize his face, following which his eyes widened in shock. "You look so much like me!"
"No. To be precise, you are the one who looks like me!"
The director pressed a button on his cloak as he spoke, and an electronic DNA examination report was projected. The report clearly stated that the genetic similarity rate between Adam and the director was close to 100%.
"What does this mean? Am I your son?"
Adam was astonished. He had always thought that he had come out of the human farm, but now...
"No, this genetic similarity rate is even higher than what you would find between father and son. What's most likely the case here is that you're a clone of me."
This was an even more astonishing revelation to Adam.
"I don't believe you. I came from the human farm. Are you telling me that you have something to do with the human farm?"
"I'm afraid I can't answer that. You'll have to find out the answer for yourself."
With that, the director turned around and didn't say anything further.
After that, no matter what Adam said to try and provoke a response out of the director, he was completely ignored, and a short while later, he was evicted from the fort by the electronic butler.
Adam wanted to find out everything that the director knew, but in Shadow Fort, he was no match for the director, either in the real world or in the psychic world.
Thus, he could only allow himself to be escorted out of the fort by the electronic butler, even though he still had countless questions in his mind.
He felt as if he had fallen into an even deeper conspiracy.
Why had the delivery bee carried the footage to this place? If the director truly wasn't responsible for this, then who was? Was it the same person as the one who had been helping him? Had the director always been aware that Adam was a clone of him? If he hadn't been aware of this from the very beginning, how had he found out?
Was it simply due to the similarity in their physical appearance? Would the director have intervened if Adam had perished during the battle royale? Or was he just an expendable experimental subject in the director's eyes?
With all these questions in his mind, Adam conducted some internet research on his communicator to try and find some relevant information, but in the end, he was only able to find one very damning piece of information, which was that clones had very short lifespans, the exact length of which was dependent on the remaining lifespan of the cloned subject and some other factors.
"The director is already an old man! If my remaining lifespan is going to be even shorter than his, doesn't that mean I don't have many years left?" Adam smashed his communicator viciously onto the ground as a furious look appeared on his face. "How the fuck am I supposed to do so many things in such a short time? No wonder those rich bastards resort to creating blank slates rather than cloning themselves!"
As the thought of blank slates entered his mind, Adam realized that there was a way for him to extend his own lifespan. In the past, he definitely wouldn't have resorted to something like that, but he was no longer the same Adam that he once was.
After some deliberation, Adam decided to hold off on searching for a blank slate for himself for now. Theoretically, he still had a few more years left to live, and sharing the director's genes was a perk that he didn't want to give up yet, so it was best to delay the inevitable as much as possible.
With all these chaotic thoughts running through his mind, Adam returned to Uncle Lin's Fire Shop.
At this point, the artificial sky of Shadow City had already completely brightened. Following his victory in the battle royale, Adam had become the biggest celebrity in Shadow City, so he definitely wasn't going to be able to walk the streets without a disguise.
After returning to the shop, he was welcomed by a set of familiar faces, namely those of Baldie Lin, Hailey, Shota Sato, and Shae.
Unfortunately, there were a couple of missing faces that would never return.
Even though Adam's heart was filled with malice, he still wasn't purely an anomaly, and the remaining shreds of humanity in his heart were grieving over his lost friends.
"I'm so glad you survived!"
Hailey was the first one to rush over to Adam, and she hung off his body like a sloth as she sobbed in both grief and elation, congratulating Adam while telling him how much she missed Nie Yiyi, and how she had fulfilled her biggest goal in life as a manager.
Every manager wanted to see their combatant become champion, and Hailey was no exception to this.
However, only one team could come on top in the battle royale each year, and all of those teams had to claw their way up through mountains of bodies and rivers of blood.
Hailey was managing two combatants, but the other was lost forever.
"I heard that Jiang cried for a long time, and he's still out killing people..." Hailey sighed into Adam's ear.
Adam set her down onto the ground before turning to the others.
The next one to speak was Baldie Lin.
"You have to leave right away. There are informants for the southern congress everywhere, including Shadow City. God knows how many of them there were among the spectators on the day of the battle royale. After what you did, there's no way you can stay in this city anymore. Not only do you have to leave, I have to move as well." Baldie Lin was looking at his own equipment with a sad expression as he spoke. "Do any of you want to have any prosthetics retrofitted before you go?"
"Did you get the footage?" Shota interjected with an urgent expression.
"I did."
"Thank heavens! With that footage, all of us will be able to clear our names!"
"Not only do we have to clear our names, you should be using your status as an employee of the Psychic Church to exert pressure on the organization to punish those bastards from the southern congress!" Adam said. "Of course, I'll also be getting into contact with the northern congress. They may have cut ties with us while we've been on the run, but the good thing about politicians is how shameless they are.
“Now that we've obtained this key piece of evidence, we're no longer fugitives, we're heroes instead! Those shameless dogs will definitely be scrambling to lick our boots and welcome our return!"