Death Notice

Qin Lun stopped in place, looking far off toward the direction where the Arrowhog Beast and Casey disappeared. His eyes flickered slightly, as if he was thinking about something. Only when Casey’s cries for help became nearly inaudible did he turn around, resolutely running back toward the Hill Giant’s den.

“Hill, how is it going over there?” Qin Lun asked in the Team Channel as he dashed.

“Hansen is leading the big one toward the ambush site. The young giant indeed couldn’t follow. But be careful, there was a slight deviation from the original plan. When we reached the den, the big one seemed to be alerted early!” Hill said calmly.

“Mm, I got it!” Qin Lun estimated the time and quickened his pace.

The Hill Giant’s slope den soon came into view again. Qin Lun carefully used the trees as cover, approaching the open area in front of the cave. At that moment, a chubby little giant was sitting cross-legged on the ground in the open area, its head drooping in frustration.

There was a large bleeding bump on the young Hill Giant’s forehead, apparently a recent injury. Perhaps it was precisely because its child was hurt that the adult Hill Giant became exceptionally furious, chasing after Hansen and the others relentlessly. The young Hill Giant couldn’t keep up the pace. After chasing for a while, it likely fell behind and had to return to its den.

Next to the little giant’s feet lay a thick animal thigh bone. The end of the bone was wrapped in soft fur, and the front had a sharp stone tied on with vines, making a crude stone axe. The little giant didn’t seem to be in high spirits and was viciously chewing on a piece of salted meat wrapped in fresh green leaves.

“Heh, it even knows to pair with vegetables. Is this a hamburger or a sandwich?” Qin Lun chuckled lightly. It seemed the Hill Giant’s intelligence was indeed very high, as described in the intel.

Hill Giants looked quite ugly, with arms reaching past their knees and a highly arched spine, making them naturally hunchbacked. Their foreheads protruded high, their skulls were pointed, their eye sockets deeply set, and their brains were disproportionate to their bodies, somewhat resembling a large macaque.

Hill Giants living in the jungle had grayish-brown skin, sparse hair, mostly brown or black in color. Jungle-dwelling Hill Giants were smaller in size among giants. Adult giants stood between 14-16 feet tall, weighing 4500-5500 pounds. Converted, that was five meters tall and over two tons. According to intel, the little giant before Qin Lun was under ten years old, with intelligence roughly equivalent to a two or three-year-old child. Its standing height was about two and a half meters tall. However, this little giant was well-nourished under its mother’s care, growing sturdy and chubby, with a potbelly like a ball.

The Hill Giant’s slope den was about ten kilometers from the Sanctuary Camp, making it a relatively nearby high-rank creature den. The main reason this pair of Hill Giants hadn’t been hunted down by camp members was mostly that no one wanted to bother.

High-rank powerhouses in the camp didn’t want to act because the gains didn’t outweigh the losses. Hill Giants had no magical abilities, so they didn’t have a Magic Core formed by condensed Magic Element. Their bones and skin were less useful for making equipment compared to Fifth Tier Howling Wind Wolves or Fourth Tier Shaggy Bears.

Moreover, Hill Giants possessed considerable intelligence and never harassed the Sanctuary Camp. Some high-rank powerhouses even hired them for physical labor occasionally, so killing them wasn’t absolutely necessary.

Most crucially, Hill Giants worshipped all forest gods and earth gods. Anna Artemis of the Silent Forest was one of their worshipped deities.

Although Anna Artemis wouldn’t interfere with the hunting of Hill Giants, she bestowed upon them powerful magic immunity. As long as they were within the Silent Forest area, apart from Forbidden Spells, even twelfth-level magic was just like tickling a Hill Giant.

Unable to use magic, sweating to kill a giant offered no benefits, plus there was the risk of offending the Forest Goddess. Thus, which high-rank powerhouse in the camp would have nothing better to do than trouble the Hill Giants.

As for Apostle teams, quite a few in the camp wanted to try and kill this pair of giant mother and child. Even a weak team like Qin Lun’s, by luring the giant into a trap and using favorable terrain and teamwork, had a certain chance of wearing down a Hill Giant.

However, the actual situation was that so far, no team or individual had truly succeeded.

Adult Hill Giants had high intelligence, at least equivalent to a human teenager of thirteen or fourteen, and they were very familiar with the terrain in this area. Unless it was an intricately designed series of traps, Hill Giants wouldn’t fall for it, and might even trap themselves instead.

Another problem was that Hill Giants were, after all, Eighth Tier creatures. Even without magical abilities, they were immensely strong, thick-skinned, and possessed incredibly tenacious vitality.

Killing one required a very long time. It was important to know that their magic immunity wasn’t just effective against high-rank powerhouses in the Inner World. The magical skills Apostles could use in the Inner World were also within this scope.

With such a long consumption of time, many problems arose when trying to hunt a Hill Giant. For example: other Apostle teams hearing the news and coming, other high-rank predators in the jungle…

Therefore, to plan to kill a Hill Giant, just one Black Iron Team wasn’t enough; at least two teams needed to closely cooperate. One team would be responsible for the hunting task, while the other would block those who came after hearing the news, the ill-intentioned onlookers.

Precisely because of this, Cora subconsciously sensed something off about the team’s plan and became suspicious of the three Serial Killers’ scheme.

Unfortunately, because the three Serial Killers had shown good team spirit and fair profit distribution during the previous Crystal Lake task, she hesitated amidst her conflicting feelings, missing the final chance to choose.

Actually, in the three Serial Killers’ plan, hunting the adult Hill Giant was only a preliminary step. Only when this step introduced other variables would the real plan begin. Of course, besides serving to introduce variables, this preliminary step also had a small, genuine goal: to create an opportunity for Qin Lun to hunt the young Hill Giant.

In this preliminary step, only Qin Lun’s side could not fail. As for the other side, apart from the unsuspecting Sas couple and Frank who had already completed his trial task, Hill and Hansen were actually mentally prepared for the Main Quest to fail.

Running through the whole plan in his mind once more, Qin Lun put away his disguise, his face gradually turning expressionless. He bent low, rushed out from his hiding spot, and charged toward the young Hill Giant sitting cross-legged in the open area.

“Oh…” Seeing a creature charging fiercely at him from the woods, the young Hill Giant was momentarily stunned but immediately reacted as any jungle creature would.

Using both hands and feet, its chubby body rolled up. It grabbed the stone axe by its feet with one hand, crouched, then leaped, its large body soaring into the air. This jump by the young Hill Giant easily exceeded five meters in height. When it landed, there was a loud “boom,” shaking the entire ground of the open area.

This leg strength was the main reason why Hill Giants were as high as Eighth Tier. Their powerful leg muscles gave them extraordinary leaping ability. Adult Hill Giants could even leap over twenty meters high.

Just imagine, how big a trap pit would be needed to trap a Hill Giant five meters tall, with arms over three meters long, and a jumping ability exceeding twenty meters. It could be said that apart from using a series of mechanisms to first severely injure a Hill Giant’s legs, there was almost no way to trap an adult Hill Giant.

As for using arrows and other ranged physical attacks to kite an adult Hill Giant to death, that was even more of a joke.

The forest was full of trees. Hill Giants were incredibly strong and could easily uproot a tree as thick as an adult’s thigh. You use a bow; it uses a big tree. It gets hit by an arrow, like a mosquito bite. You get hit by a big tree, instantly turning into a meat patty. How could you play like that?

Feeling the ground shake beneath his feet, Qin Lun didn’t even glance at the young giant leaping aside. He directly rushed past it, sprinting toward the cave at the end of the open area.

Since Qin Lun dared to come alone to kill the young giant, he had of course done his homework beforehand.

In Hill and Qin Lun’s analysis, although the young Hill Giant was only Sixth Tier, with intelligence and leaping ability far inferior to an adult Hill Giant, trying to kill the young Hill Giant alone in an open area was almost an impossible mission. Furthermore, they had to consider that if the fight dragged on, the adult Hill Giant might abandon Hill and the others and return to its den.

Therefore, Qin Lun set the battlefield inside the Hill Giant’s lair, within the slope cave.

The interior space of the slope cave was limited, basically restricting the young Hill Giant’s jumping ability. Additionally, doing this had an extra benefit: the enraged young Hill Giant wouldn’t easily flee and would definitely fight Qin Lun to the death to protect its home.

Of course, the narrow cave also restricted Qin Lun’s dodging space. However, he had a tough-skinned Inferno Hound as a meat shield, so he wasn’t afraid of close contact with the young Hill Giant.

“Wah wah wah!” Seeing Qin Lun charging toward its den, the young Hill Giant indeed became very angry, twisted its fleshy big buttocks, and chased after him.

Qin Lun’s expressionless face remained calm. The moment he rushed into the cave entrance, his right hand flicked, scattering several small, silkworm bean-sized items in front of him, which were then stepped into the dark brown soil by his Leather Army Boots.

The cave where the Hill Giant lived seemed a bit too spacious for humans. The cave was about six meters high, seven meters wide, and over ten meters deep. The innermost part was covered with a thick layer of dry grass and dead leaves.

The giant cave was even more foul-smelling than the outside open area. Not only was there the smell of rotting meat, but also a nauseating stench of feces. In the corners of the cave were a few relatively intact skeletons, which, judging by their shape, were actually humanoid.

Probably some camp newcomers who had troubled the Hill Giants before, possibly Apostles from the previous batch who entered Nals Inner World.