Death Notice

“Crack!” A purple armor-piercing bullet shot through with lightning speed. It entered Qingming’s front and exited her back. Blood sprayed as a finger-thick hole was punched through her shoulder.

Gritting against the pain, Qingming punched Qin Lun staggering with her free left hand. At the same time, she pushed off with her feet, disengaging from the fight.

Here, the difference in their physical attributes became clear. Qin Lun had only experienced three Quest Worlds. His enhancements were too few, leaving his basic stats lagging considerably behind Qingming’s. Whether strength or Agility, the female Elf held the advantage.

But superior physical attributes did not guarantee victory in close combat.

Her Bow Dance Technique, paired with a bow-blade enhanced with Wind Blade, was indeed a lethal melee tool. However, Qingming’s longbow was still 1.2 meters long. In tight, close-quarters fighting, its rhythm and agility were no match for Qin Lun’s Combat Gunmanship. After a long fight, she inevitably became overwhelmed and finally left an opening. With one strike from Qin Lun, her shoulder was wounded.

“Gun Fu!” Qingming clutched her injured shoulder, her gaze complicated.

When she had first entered the Shattered Starry Sky, she was once given a book of Gun Fu. However, compared to archery, she had little interest in firearms. Qingming believed guns were merely transitional gear, while a bow enchanted with magic was a true archer’s primary weapon.

Thus, Qingming traded that book of Gun Fu, plus twenty thousand Shattered Crystals, for her current Bow Dance Technique. The Bow Dance empowered by Wind Blade was indeed exceptionally sharp. It compensated for an archer’s weak close combat ability, allowing her to hold her own independently within a team.

Yet today, facing Qin Lun’s Combat Gunmanship, Qingming finally realized that this close-quarter method – blending gunfire with blocks – was the true combat art. Her Bow Dance Technique, however, was merely an auxiliary fighting skill.

It wasn’t that the Bow Dance lost to Combat Gunmanship, but rather that the two techniques served fundamentally different purposes. How could an auxiliary combat skill compete with a true fighting art? From the very start of this battle, her defeat was likely foreordained. “Heh, the Dark Crystal Rock Crab of the Dark affinity, complete mastery over Wind Blades… you’re a Night Elf!” Qin Lun wore a gentle, almost shy-looking smile. “Within Devil’s Horn, our bloodlines should belong to opposing factions, shouldn’t they?”

“Don’t be so smug. You haven’t won yet!” Qingming clutched her shoulder, her face pale, responding coolly. “I’ve alerted my companion. If you’re smart, you’ll drop the vine wall now. Otherwise, you won’t have time to escape!”

Hearing Qingming’s lie, Qin Lun couldn’t help but chuckle silently. He was in constant contact with Hill via the Team Channel. How could he not know the situation over there? Qingming’s companion absolutely could not arrive soon. Most likely, the female Elf hadn’t even classified him as part of Hill’s team yet.

“Heheh! I admire your spirit. However, I will win, and it won’t take long!” Qin Lun pointed at Qingming’s wounded shoulder. “A bow is fundamentally incompatible with close combat techniques. When you wield your bow with your right hand, your fighting technique poses no issue. But now you’ve switched to your left hand. How much of that Bow Dance skill can you still muster?”

“You’ll find out by how much remains when you experience it!” The knuckles of Qingming’s hand gripping the bow turned white instantly. Her face devoid of expression, she said coldly, “Fail to kill me, and you will die.”

A flicker of regret crossed Qin Lun’s eyes, and he shook his head slightly. Though stubborn, this woman before him had truly reached a dead end.

If wounding her right shoulder wasn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back, then the Bow Dance—which required the Wind Blade enhancement to be effective in attack—possessed another fatal weakness.

The bow dance empowered by Wind Blade was indeed fierce. But this fierceness came at the cost of immense mana consumption. Maintaining Wind Blade over a long period was never easy. Moreover, Qingming had already used five armor-piercing arrows earlier. Despite supplementing with potions, her mana reserves remained below the warning line. By now, she should have reached her absolute limit.

Without the Wind Blade enhancement, Qin Lun wouldn’t have needed to bother with the Bow Dance at all. A direct melee clash would be enough to kill Qingming.

Seeing Qin Lun’s gaze, Qingming suddenly shuddered. Her willow-leaf-like eyebrows arched defiantly as she resolutely threw herself towards the young man. “I desire no pity from an enemy! The last person to die shall still be you!”

Watching Qingming gamble with her life, a flash of red light swiftly vanished deep within Qin Lun’s eyes. He flipped his hand, sheathing Demon’s Song. Switching Angel’s Praise to his left hand, the Dagger of Sin slid silently from his right sleeve into his palm.

He had no intention of dragging this out any longer. From their previous clashes, Qin Lun had discovered that Night Elves possessed resistance to the dark corruption of Demon’s Song, whereas the holy attribute of Angel’s Praise dealt increased damage.

True, the purple armor-piercing rounds from Burial of Light and Darkness, unlike the Dark Gold Bullets that required manual reloading, were unlikely to inflict a fatal blow on Qingming. But that didn’t matter. Qin Lun still had the Dagger of Sin—this was the true melee weapon!

…

Several kilometers from the hill cave, in a clearing within the forest, a hulking Hill Giant knelt on one knee. Both hands gripped a massive bone club, its chin resting on its clasped hands. Wounds littered its entire body. Even the animal hide skirt wrapped around its waist had turned a deep, stained crimson.

Upon closer observation, one could see that the adult Hill Giant’s eyes held no light—it had clearly been dead for some time.

The forest clearing centered around it appeared ravaged by a furious storm. Dark slime spread in concentric, wave-like rings. Rows of tall trees surrounding the clearing leaned precariously outwards, their thick roots exposed from the gouged earth. They looked like frail women violently shoved over by burly men.

The battle between Hill’s team and the adult Hill Giant had ended even earlier than Qin Lun’s fight with its offspring. This wasn’t because the adult was weaker; rather, the team had meticulously prepared a trap specifically for this giant—one that was far more elaborate and insidious. After all, they had spent three full days setting it up.

Just as their rivals suspected, Hill’s team had used Qin Lun’s Elf Whispers to bypass the surveillance of the Rogue Yu Mo. They had quietly transformed part of this forest clearing into a mire specifically designed to trap the Hill Giant.

Creating an artificial swamp in the forest capable of trapping a Hill Giant was no simple task. The dense trees rendered pre-watering for three days ineffective; even a sizable pond would be absorbed into the soil and roots within half a day. Watering just before the battle wasn’t feasible either—they lacked the time.

Moreover, even if they could create a swamp before the fight, disguising something that large was impossible. Expecting a highly intelligent adult Hill Giant to willingly wander into a swamp was like hoping a pig could climb a tree.

The solution concocted by Hill’s team was to simulate a swamp effect with semi-bog conditions. First, they dug countless pits—each half a meter in diameter and no more than fifty or sixty centimeters deep—across this clearing. Then, they drove poisoned bamboo spikes into the pit bottoms and placed water skins on top.

These pits were shallow and easily obvious; the Hill Giant wouldn’t take special notice. Its thick footpads ensured the spikes couldn’t pierce its skin. The pit depth only reached its knees—like trudging through deep snow—so it could only slow the giant down slightly, maybe prevent it from jumping high, not truly trap it.

However, possessing an intellect similar to a human thirteen or fourteen-year-old, the Hill Giant finally grasped the insidious, poisonous nature of these traps towards the middle of the battle.

Whenever it stepped into a pit, the water skin would rupture, instantly filling the pit. Its skin, tough as rawhide, soaked for too long, would allow the bamboo spikes to eventually pierce it. Worse, the poison coating the spikes contaminated the muddy water and slowly seeped into the giant’s body during combat.

By the time the giant understood the danger, it was too late. Its foes had cleverly lured it into stepping on and destroying the majority of the water skins. The clearing transformed into a genuine bog. The pits, originally only half a meter deep, overflowed with filthy water; their bottoms turned into thick, sucking sludge.

With every step the two-ton Hill Giant took, the mud swallowed its leg past the knee, sometimes even reaching its thigh. Meanwhile, the accumulating toxin inside its body slowly impaired its mind and movement.

When the giant realized its desperate need to escape the bog, it could do nothing. Sas and Frank, the two “MTs” (Main Tanks), blocked its path in relentless, life-risking relays. As the battle wore on, not only could it no longer jump, it became dizzy, sluggish, and fell into a vicious cycle.

Even so, Hill’s team paid a heavy price. Beyond consuming vast amounts of healing items, when the fight ended, every team member suffered injuries of varying severity. Frank, the least powerful, had even lost an arm, his “Skullcrusher” weapon now impossible to lift.

The rival team, hiding and observing, was utterly dumbfounded. The toxins continuously ravaged the giant’s core, making it impossible for them to calculate its exact Health Points. Moreover, they feared intervening prematurely could backfire—allowing Hill’s team to escape amidst the chaos. So they waited, only emerging from concealment to launch a sudden ambush on Hill’s group after the Hill Giant finally died.

This timing coincided with the latter part of Qin Lun and Qingming’s attempt to flank the juvenile giant. Although Qingming remained unable to confirm Qin Lun’s true identity, neither she nor their crafty Leader were concerned about him anymore.

By this phase of the battle, Hill’s team displayed obvious exhaustion – something impossible to fake convincingly. Qin Lun was still deep within the hill cave, showing no sign whatsoever of turning back to assist. They dismissed him as a threat internally; even if he was an Apostle, he likely wasn’t allied with Hill’s people.

This was precisely why Qingming had dropped her guard and focused solely on attacking the juvenile Hill Giant. Hearing the distant battle’s intensity, she sensed Hill’s team was stubbornly tenacious. Hoping to return quickly and prevent unexpected developments, she instinctively ignored the potential danger lurking beside her.

In the grand plan Qin Lun and Hill devised, Qin Lun’s role was critical. Hill’s team, however, was prepared for the possibility of the main “hunt” mission failing.

Yet, thanks to Qingming’s sudden interference and the rival Leader’s caution, Hill’s side unexpectedly achieved their main objective. On Qin Lun’s end, Qingming’s subsequent damage to the juvenile giant, even exceeding Qin Lun’s own, pushed his personal “slay the giant” task to the brink of failure.

Two separate battlefields: Qin Lun and Hill’s team hunted their respective targets, seemingly disconnected. Yet through the synchronized execution by two Serial Killers, they smoothly navigated the plan’s first phase. Now, they faced the even more dangerous second phase.