“Thump, thump, thump!” The White Giant ran forward with large strides, his immense strength leaving clear footprints on the park ground with every step.
However, he soon noticed that Qin Lun, who had been constantly dodging and avoiding a direct confrontation, was no longer fleeing. Instead, Qin Lun stretched out a hand and made a grasping motion in his direction.
Leo’s heart tightened, and he immediately braked, crossing his arms to shield his face. His impression of this Nazi was too vivid—in his mind, Gerthard had no sense of honor like ordinary German soldiers and would stop at nothing to win.
During World War II, this man had sworn an oath on his Iron Cross Medal, only to break his promise in the end. Leo had never encountered a German soldier so cunning and shameless to the extreme.
Because of this, Leo had been extremely cautious from the very beginning of this battle. He was not afraid of death, but he feared that his own mistakes would allow this enemy to escape once again.
After a few rounds of probing attacks, Leo realized that the evolutionary path he had chosen was correct. Unless Qin Lun’s powerful black-and-white twin guns hit his eyes or earlobes, they could not inflict fatal damage.
Therefore, Leo paid close attention to protecting these two vulnerable body parts during his attacks. As time passed, he gradually gained a sliver of confidence that he could defeat and kill this enemy.
However, while in a defensive stance, Leo soon sensed that something seemed off about his surroundings. In just a few seconds, a layer of fog had formed around him, growing increasingly dense until he could no longer see his own hand in front of his face.
“His presence hasn’t moved far away, but the fog is obscuring his exact location!” Leo did not immediately lower his hands. His nostrils twitched slightly, and the muscles all over his body, hard as granite, tensed even more, ready to strike.
If measured by the combat strength of an Apostle, the White Giant was equivalent to a peak Second Order professional. If not for his limited attack methods, his protection and raw power alone were nearly at the High Rank level.
On the other side, the two Fairy Tale Maidens, Little Red Riding Hood Liv and Black Queen Mira, were also at the Second Order level, comparable to Kathleen, who had been killed by Qin Lun during World War II. However, back then, Kathleen had lost all her equipment due to the sudden artillery strike from the battleship Gneisenau. When she fought Qin Lun to the death, she only had two ordinary revolvers in her hands.
In contrast, Liv and Mira were now armed to the teeth and had also used Blood Crystals. Moreover, Kathleen had been fighting alone, whereas the Fairy Tale Girls Team had years of teamwork and complementary skills. Even the current Qin Lun would find it hard to predict the outcome against them. It was no surprise that Grant and Luke were being suppressed so heavily.
The White Giant’s formidable defensive power gave Leo the confidence to wait calmly for Qin Lun to make a move. Given their respective combat styles, his strategy of counterattacking after the opponent’s move was not wrong. However, when facing someone like Qin Lun, simply reacting to his moves was useless—one had to constantly anticipate and predict his intentions.
It was like a game of Go between two masters: after each move the opponent made, one had to consider the overall situation and calculate all possible follow-up moves.
The White Giant’s evolutionary path was indeed a strong counter to Qin Lun, but just because Qin Lun couldn’t harm the White Giant didn’t mean he had no advantages in other aspects.
Was Qin Lun’s attack power strong? Of course it was. Setting aside his “Demon Transformation,” both his long-range and close-range attacks were highly distinctive. The Hunter Profession itself was a high-damage combat class.
However, one must never forget that there were many combat professions with strong attack power, and this was not the Hunter Profession’s most defining characteristic. The Hunter Profession’s greatest strength was reconnaissance—all hunting efforts were based on first discovering the prey, followed by a series of subsequent actions.
Being able to detect Qin Lun’s presence nearby meant the White Giant’s Perception was not poor. However, compared to Qin Lun, who possessed the Clock Eye and a Perception close to a hundred, it was like comparing a small stream to a vast ocean.
If someone were hovering above Qin Lun and the White Giant at that moment, they would discover that the fog covered an extremely wide area, spanning nearly tens of thousands of square meters. Its diameter reached several hundred meters, enveloping nearly half of the park and even affecting the battlefield where Grant and the others were fighting.
This was a Sixth Tier spell stored in Qin Lun’s Glove of Sacrifice—the Great Fog Technique!
That’s right, Qin Lun’s target at this moment was not the White Giant but the Fairy Tale Girls Team. From the very beginning of this battle, he had never considered the thick-skinned White Giant as his target. From start to finish, his prey had always been one of the Fairy Tale Maidens.
This scene felt all too familiar—Qin Lun had pulled off a similar move quite brilliantly in the Hunter World. At that time, after falling into the Troupe’s trap, he and Kurapika were intercepted by two female Troupe members, Pakunoda and Shizuku.
On the surface, Qin Lun abandoned Kurapika and escaped alone, but in reality, he lured Pakunoda away, used various tricks to double back, and, with Kurapika’s help, captured Shizuku. This incident was also the main reason why Pakunoda eventually died and became an Artifact Spirit figurine.
…
The rolling thick fog made Liv instinctively feel uneasy. However, not only could she not let her guard down, but she also had to concentrate even more and speed up her attack rhythm due to the fog’s spread.
Grant, surrounded by layers of red afterimages, was now drenched in blood. The exoskeleton armor formed by viral keratin on his body’s surface had been completely shattered, making him look like a boiled lobster.
With each swing of the Death Scythe, blood and shredded flesh flew off his body, as if he were at the center of a red meat grinder, a truly gruesome sight.
Despite her absolute advantage, Liv showed no sign of relaxation on her face. Her extensive combat experience sternly reminded her that although her opponent, who could only defend himself, seemed severely injured and on the verge of death, he had not yet sustained any critical damage. Like a spring compressed to its limit, he was merely waiting for the right moment to strike back.
Liv’s intuition was correct. Just as the Death Scythe once again drew a spray of blood from Grant’s body, a bloodied arm reached through the blind spot of the scythe’s attack, as if foreseeing the move, and penetrated her defense circle. With lightning speed, it grabbed her ankle.
Grant, who had been keeping a low posture and minimizing his defense area, now straightened his body. His face, hidden behind the Human Skin Mask, twisted into a strange, clown-like grin. “Got you, you little flea!”
Staring at the bloodied hand on her ankle, Liv’s mind went blank for a moment. Memories of the battle in Casablanca resurfaced in her mind.
Every member of the first-generation Fairy Tale Girls Team was considered a prodigy among her peers, each with her own pride.
Since their youth, they had combined multifunctional Weapon Cases and Blood Crystal evolution to develop their own Superpower combat style. In a way, each member of the Fairy Tale Girls Team was like a martial arts master who had created her own unique fighting style.
However, during Liv’s growth, she had suffered a major setback—the battle against Clown Grant in Casablanca. At that time, her immature “Death Moon Dance” was completely dismantled by Grant’s “Joker’s Gift.”
From start to finish of that battle, the entire Fairy Tale Girls Team had been plunged into confusion due to the deaths of Kathleen and Vice President David. However, comparatively speaking, two of them were hit even harder, to the point of developing psychological scars.
One was Black Queen Mira, who had witnessed her companions being slaughtered but was powerless to stop it. The other was Little Red Riding Hood Liv, whose self-created martial art had been completely countered, leading her to question herself severely. This was also the main reason why the two of them insisted on coming after Qin Lun and Grant.
After that battle, Liv dedicated herself to perfecting her self-created martial art, gradually developing this set of “Death Waltz,” which revolved around extreme speed, with dazzling and intricate attack patterns that seemed to follow no logical order.
At the beginning of this battle, Liv had chosen to face the Clown, confronting her own psychological shadow. She believed that this martial art could no longer be imitated by anyone.
Liv’s judgment was correct. The “Death Waltz,” combined with the unique Death Scythe and its exceedingly complex attack sequences, made it impossible for Grant to mimic it using “Joker’s Gift.” He had realized this shortly after their encounter.
However, what kind of person was the Clown? If Liv could be called a prodigy combat girl, then Clown Grant was a prodigy among prodigies. Among the five major Serial Killers, the ones with the highest combat talent were not Qin Lun but The Disciple Hansen and Clown Grant.
However, a significant part of The Disciple’s combat talent came from conditioned reflexes formed through training, whereas the Clown possessed a natural gift for combat. The reason his Life-Taking Relic, the Human Skin Mask, formed such an exaggerated ability as “Joker’s Gift” was the best proof of this talent.
Unlike Qin Lun, who fought with his mind, the Clown had an unparalleled instinct for head-on combat. He intuitively knew how to respond in any situation. In this regard, after obtaining Uvogin’s Big Bang Impact, he had embarked on a path leaning toward that of a Martial Artist with MT-like qualities.
After just a few exchanges with Liv, Grant knew that Little Red Riding Hood’s combat rank surpassed his own. Unless he activated “Joker’s Gift,” it would be difficult to confront her directly. He had remained rooted to the spot, not using Big Bang Impact to break through, all to personally experience the attack patterns of the “Death Waltz” with his own body.
The “Death Waltz” had nearly endless movement patterns, making it difficult to decipher. However, if the opponent maintained a defensive posture, becoming like a stationary target, then the “Death Waltz” would inevitably produce repeated moves.
Of course, with Liv’s extreme speed, it would be hard for an average fighter to exploit the flaws in her techniques. However, Grant was no ordinary person. Even during his earlier defense, he had already spotted several repeated patterns in the Death Waltz.
However, he had to bide his time until the conditions were ripe. Only then did he strike like lightning, reaching through the blind spots of the Death Waltz to seize Liv.