Book 11: Chapter 17: Cold Moonlit Night

Qin Lun stood on a giant Swamp Banyan Tree, his figure hidden behind the leaves. His palm glowed with a faint green light invisible to others, pressed tightly against the tree trunk. This was a manifestation of Elf Whispers.

The Death Marsh had sparse trees and heavy moisture. Even Elf Whispers could only gather blurry information here. It could roughly locate the opponent’s position, but not clearly. Qin Lun needed to scout every stretch of the way.

“Tap…” Qin Lun pushed hard with his feet, his body drawing a graceful arc in the air, landing on another banyan tree not far away.

Although this was only the outskirts of the Death Lands, the ground soil was muddy with many inconspicuous small puddles. Even if one fell in, it wouldn’t be over their head, but it would certainly make a lot of noise, alerting the follower in the distance.

When skilled Elven Rangers tracked enemies in the forest, they usually acted like Qin Lun, using tall trees as pivots to slowly approach the enemy. Because there was wind in the woods, any occasional movements on the branches were easily overlooked.

After leaping a distance through the woods, Qin Lun pressed his palm against the banyan tree trunk beneath him again. This time, he slightly raised his eyebrows. The opponent seemed to have keenly noticed something and began changing hiding spots, playing hide-and-seek with him.

A little while later, Qin Lun finally showed a surprised expression.

“Mobile hunting… a High Rank Ranger?” From these several Elf Whispers probes, the opponent’s movement path wasn’t scattered but followed a regular arc.

Back in the Qundar Moon Elf tribe, Qin Lun had received an Ancient Inheritance from an ancient Elven Hunter. This included memory fragments and martial skills from that ancient Elf. Combined with the inherited memories, he could see the opponent’s movement style was exactly the mobile hunting behavior of a High Rank Ranger or Elven Hunter.

The so-called mobile hunting was a combat method unique to the Sapient Races of the grasslands and forests, originally originating from the Centaur race. Centaurs had the highest mobility speed in the forest, and their archery and javelin skills were no less than the Elven Race.

Due to their large size, they couldn’t stealthily approach prey during hunts. They had to rely on their strong, powerful four hooves, constantly running in pursuit, maintaining a certain distance to avoid being harmed by the prey, while also blocking the prey’s escape routes from all sides, ultimately killing with arrows and javelins.

By now, the mobile hunting combat style was no longer exclusive to the Centaur race. Elves and humans systematized this skill, turning it into a specialized ability for three combat professions: Ranger, Hunter, and nomadic Knight.

“Interesting!” A faint smile appeared on Qin Lun’s face. He began to feel excited.

Since becoming a Jungle Hunter, this was the first time he was fighting a jungle battle against another Ranger-type profession.

Even back in the Nals World, when he fought that low-rank female archer Qingming, it wasn’t truly a Hunter battle. With a Hunter’s Heart, Qin Lun naturally wouldn’t refuse to compete with such an opponent.

“Should I call out Venus?” Qin Lun tilted his head in thought, but ultimately decided not to summon his two hunting partners for now.

Cerberus was an Inferno Hound, not very suited to terrain like the Death Marsh. Moreover, after reaching the seventh rank, its size had become even larger, and its speed decreased. In a mobile hunting combat style, it simply couldn’t keep up.

The Shadow Gale Panther would be the best helper for this kind of fight, but Venus had already shown itself once in the underground temple of Umberlee’s Church.

Although it was unlikely the opponent was from Umberlee’s Church, they could still be a hired vanguard sent to test him. Without absolute certainty of a sniper kill, it was better not to expose it yet.

Realizing the opponent wouldn’t flee like in the past few days, Qin Lun became even more cautious. While approaching the opponent, he paid more attention to hiding his traces. When stationary, he immediately used the Hunter’s camouflage and hiding skills.

In the jungle, Elven Hunters had advantages over Rangers and Hunters of other races because of their excellent night vision and Elf Whispers. However, this didn’t mean Rangers and Hunters of other races had no advantages in the jungle.

Human Rangers often trained in Mage and Rogue skills, using Light Body Technique, detection spells, and stealth to compensate for weaknesses. By now, Elven Hunters no longer held an absolute advantage.

Qin Lun and the opponent circled each other, slowly closing in. The quiet night of the Death Lands suddenly filled with a murderous atmosphere. Even some underground insects and ants stopped chirping.

The cold moonlight cast mottled shadows in a sparse woodland on the outskirts of the Death Lands. Everything in the woods seemed ghostly, with leaves swaying in the night wind like demons and monsters, a night parade of a hundred ghosts.

“Whoosh…” Suddenly, a black streak shot like lightning through countless shrubs, blasting towards a dark shadow in the woods. It strangely curved in an arc, brilliantly bypassing several obstructing banyan trees.

The dark shadow, which looked like a tree stump to ordinary people, suddenly leaped up, narrowly avoiding the black streak. At the same time, a bright silver glow burst in front of it, racing towards the direction the black streak came from.

“Thud, thud!” Two crisp sounds rang out almost simultaneously.

With these two light sounds, the black and silver streaks from opposite directions began to constantly crisscross. Although the direction of attack kept changing, the only constant was the increasingly tense atmosphere between the two.

Qin Lun focused intently, staring ahead. What he originally considered a game-like fight had now changed in nature. Several silver arrows that almost hit his throat and forehead made him realize the enemy opposite was very powerful, at least in ranged combat, not inferior to him at all.

The silver dial in Qin Lun’s right eye and the Yin-Yang Fish Pattern in his left eye had both appeared. In fact, regarding the mobile hunting combat style alone, he was at a disadvantage. Without the help of his two Eye Techniques, he hadn’t been able to spot the opponent first earlier. Moreover, his dodging of the silver arrows relied entirely on the time-stop effect of Clock Eye.

In other words, his evasion ability was inferior to the opponent’s, or he lacked that innate talent for predicting and avoiding danger.

A point of silver light gradually enlarged in Qin Lun’s vision. Under the effect of the Clock Eye skill, the silver arrow’s speed slowed down, and the magic engravings plated with Mithril on it were clearly visible.

“Hmph!” Once he understood he couldn’t win in mobile hunting, Qin Lun decided not to drag it out further. He took a deep breath, stood up from the bushes, and slowly drew the World Tree Longbow.

Of course, this slow-motion effect under Clock Eye, when returned to the real world, appeared extremely swift.

A light flashed in Qin Lun’s eyes as he drew a black arrow from the quiver on his back, nocking it on the longbow and shooting it towards the silver light. The black arrow and silver arrow passed each other by a hair’s breadth.

Qin Lun tilted his head slightly. The silver light almost brushed past his cheek. A few strands of silver hair from the young man’s temple fluttered down, the sharp arrow wind making his skin sting.

The opposing Hunter seemed not to have expected Qin Lun to dodge the silver arrow in such a risky way. For a moment, its movements actually hesitated, and it didn’t follow up with another shot.

However, it quickly reacted, bending backward in an iron bridge pose.

“Thud…” The black arrow Qin Lun shot made a light sound. A small round hole appeared on the banyan tree trunk where the Hunter had been hiding. Perhaps because Qin Lun wasn’t shooting while running this time, this black arrow contained sufficient power, almost ignoring obstacles as it passed over its belly.

Having gained the initiative for the first time, a fierce light surged in Qin Lun’s eyes. Black arrows flowed smoothly one after another from his quiver onto the longbow, almost forming a continuous whip-like barrage shooting relentlessly towards the opponent.

Most crucially, Qin Lun was slowly advancing towards the opponent. With the enhancement of Clock Eye, he completely feared the silver arrows shot towards him, evading the silver light with only the smallest body movements.

“Bad!” As an experienced Ranger, the opponent realized the situation had taken a sharp turn for the worse. It suddenly threw down its own longbow, drew a pair of gleaming curved blades from its waist, and using the alternating cover of banyan trees in the woods, rushed rapidly towards Qin Lun.

Qin Lun’s combat style was called “face shot,” meaning face to face.

When two High Rank Rangers or Hunters felt they couldn’t decide the outcome through mobile hunting, they would adopt this duel mode. No longer relying on cover, they would evade each other’s arrows with minimal body movements, then slowly close in to decide life and death in the shortest time.

However, “face shot” combat was extremely dangerous. Even a Legendary Ranger could be killed by an opponent’s arrow in this duel style. And the enemy Qin Lun faced now, for some reason, didn’t seem willing to engage in a “face shot” duel with him.

Of course, although Qin Lun had received the Ancient Inheritance of an Elven Hunter, he hadn’t truly mastered this skill. Most of his “face shot” relied on the assistance of Clock Eye.

But tonight’s thrilling arrow battle seemed to fully awaken the inherited memories of the ancient Elven Hunter. Under this stimulation, Qin Lun finally gradually comprehended the archery skills of the ancient Elven Hunter. Bits of Star Void information quietly appeared in the Death Notice’s prompt bar.

“Close combat?” Watching the opponent gradually approach, Qin Lun’s focused gaze finally cleared. The consciousness that had been immersed in the inherited memories receded like a tide, making him lick his dry lips somewhat annoyed.

Two gleaming silver arcs of blade light came down overhead, but Qin Lun’s face instead showed a slight smile. His close combat martial skills were indeed weak, but the opponent wasn’t a warrior skilled in martial techniques either. Moreover, through the earlier arrow battle, he had already identified this opponent’s biggest weakness.

Qin Lun raised the World Tree Longbow directly to meet the blade light. His World Tree Longbow was now quite different from before; the bow body still had attached metal feathers from the decomposed Frostwind Chaser, completely unafraid of being cut by the curved blades.

“Clang!” With a crisp sound, the opponent immediately staggered. Although it had struck first, it was directly forced back by Qin Lun’s immense strength. Its weakness was obvious – insufficient strength. Qin Lun’s Explosive Power exceeding a hundred attributes was enough to crush a Ranger primarily focused on ranged attacks.

“I hope you can continue to surprise me!” A cold glint flashed in Qin Lun’s eyes. The World Tree Longbow, taking advantage of the opponent’s loss of balance, viciously chopped forward. The bow’s metal feathers glinted in the moonlight.