MOBA Game Apocalypse-Chapter 205: Biggest Evidence

Dead.

Everything in front of Adam folded inward. Not the walls. Not the fake houses or the artificial sky above. Something inside him. Something inside him that his body couldn't fix.

Dead.

She'd been dead for more than a month.

Adam tried to speak, to say something, but very much like the slowly withering expression on his face, nothing came out. He should feel something, he should feel a lot of things… but any word that he would utter now felt like it would belong to someone else, not him.

Dead…? Was that… why Bjorn wrote, in his own blood, those two words? Doctor. Alive.

Was that why he wrote it…? Because Dr. Aniston died, and the only one alive was Katherine? It made sense… Bjorn wouldn't have written that out of nowhere.

Dr. Aniston—no. Tomoe Adams, had just died a few days ago then. Adams… Adams. Was that… where she got it from?

What was the point, then? What was the use of raiding the Hospital?

No. He went here to erase them. He told Grace he would. He promised. But Dr—Tomoe was already—Hm?

A sharp prick hit the side of his neck.

Adam's spiraling thoughts stopped for a moment. Something small bounced off his skin and clinked against the concrete at his feet. He looked down. A tranquilizer dart, its needle bent at a right angle, where it had failed to penetrate.

Adam raised his head.

"W-what the…" The new Dr. Aniston stood twenty feet away, both hands around a tranquilizer pistol. The barrel trembled.

The two Heroes behind Aniston didn't share his surprise. The one in the suit just sighed. The one in casual clothes just shook his head and grabbed the back of Aniston's lab coat, yanking the doctor backward like a dog on a leash.

"That was stupid," the casual one said. "That was really, really stupid."

Jimmy, who'd been standing three feet to Adam's left, quickly bolted. He threw himself behind one of the fake houses, making sure he was away from the impending fight, but still close enough to watch.

But then… nothing happened.

Adam didn't move. Didn't flinch. Didn't even raise his fists. He stood exactly where he was, the tranq dart at his feet, his arms hanging at his sides like they weighed nothing at all.

The casual Hero noticed this, and a smirk crept on his face. He released Aniston's coat, letting the doctor stumble.

"See, this is exactly why it should've been that Katherine doctor running the Hospital," he said, gesturing loosely toward Dr. Aniston. "She's a Hero, and would at least prove a help here."

He cracked his neck.

"Don't worry, though. We'll grab her after we're done here. Bring her back in. Just a little… negotiation, and the whole family will be reunited."

Adam's eyes moved at those words, just barely. But the casual-looking Hero caught it, and the smirk on his face widened.

"Oh. That got something out of you." He spread his arms wide. "Name's Dean. Dean, the Arrow Rain. B-tier Hero, if you care about that sort of thing."

He jerked his thumb toward the suited man behind him. "Big quiet one's Paul. Paul, the Terrain Ironer. A-tier. Previous head of security before becoming a member of the board.

"You—" Dean was about to say something else, but then Dr. Aniston stepped forward again. He straightened his coat. Smoothed his hair. The trembling was still there, but he became more confident with the Heroes beside him.

"We're going to have so much fun together, Zero," he said. "So much we can learn. So much we can do together."

He took a step closer. Then another.

"I'll use you the way you were meant to be used. Not as some wasted tortured pet sitting in a cage. Not like they kept you." The doctor almost spat out in disgust. "I was so close to Bjorn. So close. If I had you here, then I would've created a cure for death. You don't—"

Then, all of a sudden, Adam lunged at him.

"E-eek?!" The doctor screamed, and his hands flew up to cover his face.

But Adam blew past him. The air displaced by Adam's movement shoved Aniston sideways, spinning him.

Dr. Aniston looked back, only to see Dean there with Adam blocking his hand.

"Heh…" Dean leaped back. "You're going to be trouble, Patient Zero."

Adam ignored him and instead grabbed Aniston by the collar of his coat. And with one hand, hurled him toward one of the fake houses. Dr. Aniston screamed, but it was drowned out by the sound of him crashing through the window.

Dean landed next to Paul. He looked at his right hand. The fingers twitched, throbbing where Adam's passing grip had grazed the tendons.

Then the smirk came back. Smaller now

"Well," Dean said, glancing at the fake house where Dr. Aniston was. "That Indian was a fool. The Hospital's done for. All that's left now is erasing the evidence."

His eyes locked onto Adam.

"And you're the biggest evidence there is."

And then, once again, he lunged.

Orbs of light bloomed around him—a dozen, two dozen. Marbles that materialized from nothing and hung in the air like frozen fireflies. Dean vanished to the left, his body dissolving into a blur of motion, but the orbs stayed. They rotated once. Twice. Then they stretched, elongated, sharpened, and became arrows.

All of them fired at once… but Adam didn't react.

Not because he couldn't. But because the numbness had returned—thicker this time, heavier, pressing down on him. His arms stayed at his sides. His feet stayed planted on the fake sidewalk.

…And he just let the arrows pierce him.

They penetrated into his torso, his shoulders, his thighs. Not clean through—they buried themselves halfway, lodging in muscle and bone, their glowing shafts protruding from his body at jagged angles.

"Hm…" Adam looked down at himself.

"Well…" Dean's voice came from behind him. "That's incredibly stupid."

The arrows embedded in Adam's body shuddered. Then they split. Each shaft fractured, budded, multiplied—one becoming three, three becoming nine. They grew outward from his flesh like fractals until Adam's silhouette bristled like a white sea urchin.

And slowly, Adam dropped to his knees.

But even then… his face was completely empty.