245: Chapter 246 Six hundred billion? Not even enough to fill a tooth gap!

The port fell silent for three seconds.

In those three seconds, no one spoke, no one moved, and even the sound of the wind seemed to die down.

All the powerful experts lurking in the shadows were staring at the youth standing in the center of the Han Family guards' perimeter, wearing a most ordinary casual jacket.

Six hundred billion.

That number tumbled through everyone's minds.

After three seconds, the first person who couldn't hold back made a move.

It was a beam of black light.

It shot out from the top of an abandoned crane on the east side of the port, silent and precise, piercing toward the back of Lin Qi's head. It was an armor-piercing crossbow bolt enchanted with "Void Erosion," its shaft wrapped in visible spatial cracks; it was said to be able to tear through the shields of Third-Turn experts.

Fast.

Too fast.

Second Elder Han Tiande didn't even have time to react, his pupils only halfway dilated—

"Ding."

A very light, crisp sound rang out.

That armor-piercing crossbow bolt, capable of penetrating a Third-Turn shield, stopped three inches behind Lin Qi's head.

It was caught between two fingers.

He hadn't even turned around.

"What's the rush?"

Lin Qi brought the crossbow bolt before his eyes to look at it, then lightly rubbed it with his thumb. The spatial cracks enchanted on the bolt's shaft seemed to encounter a natural enemy, dissipating after a few "chi chi" puffs of smoke. The entire bolt began to crack from the tip, crumbling into a handful of powder that spilled through his fingers.

Atop the crane, the sniper's hair stood on end.

He used a custom B-grade armor-piercing crossbow paired with S-grade enchanted bolts; he had sniped and killed Peak Second Transition bounty hunters from two hundred meters away.

Two fingers?

While he was hesitating whether to retreat, Lin Qi raised his right hand.

Bringing his index and middle fingers together, he gave a light flick.

The sound of the wind didn't even have time to ring out.

At the top of the crane, a fist-sized hole silently appeared in the steel plate floor. The sniper didn't even let out a scream before his entire body tumbled off the crane, his chest pierced by a finger force condensed to the extreme—entering through the front and exiting through the back, his heart directly vaporized.

"Thud."

The sound of the corpse hitting the ground was exceptionally jarring in the deathly silent port.

With this, everyone snapped to their senses.

Something was wrong.

This target was not right.

A six hundred billion bounty, looking at the numbers alone, could make any desperado charge forward with their life on the line. But the premise was—the target had to be human.

Is this thing in front of us even human?

Catching an enchanted armor-piercing crossbow bolt with two fingers. Killing someone two hundred meters away with a flick of a finger. And he hadn't even lifted an eyelid the whole time.

This is a fucking bug.

But six hundred billion was six hundred billion after all.

Once greed is ignited, it is very difficult to extinguish. Moreover, those present were not all lone wolves; there were also several small-scale joint suppression teams.

"Attack together! Don't give him a chance to breathe!"

A loud shout came from the warehouse cluster on the west side. Immediately after, seven or eight figures surged out simultaneously.

There were Mages.

Behind the containers in the distance, three System Mages wearing different colored robes began to chant. One Fire-type, one Ice-type, and one Shadow-type. Three distinct elements rapidly expanded in the air, and in just two seconds, the temperature underwent violent fluctuations from scorching heat to bitter cold and then to gloom.

There were Warriors.

Two tank-type warriors fully encased in heavy armor pressed in from the front, the ground beneath their feet cracking from their "Charge" skill.

And there were Assassins.

At least two. Their figures flickered in and out of Lin Qi's Martial Intent perception, flanking him from behind.

The coordination wasn't particularly sophisticated, but it was decisive.

This combination of attacks would be a fatal threat to an ordinary Second Transition or even a Third-Turn expert.

"Not bad, not bad."

Lin Qi nodded.

He finally turned around, facing these pouncing "hunters" head-on.

The moment he turned, Second Elder Han Tiande felt as if he had been granted a great amnesty; his legs went weak and he almost knelt down. He was grabbed by the guards beside him and retreated toward the convoy, scrambling and crawling.

No one cared about him.

Everyone's attention was drawn to the three Spells that were taking shape.

The Fire Mage was the first to complete his casting, a pillar of fire over two meters in diameter carrying high temperatures roared as it smashed toward Lin Qi. Following closely was the Ice Mage's "Extreme Cold Domain," instantly freezing the ground within a ten-meter radius of Lin Qi's feet. The Shadow Mage was the most ruthless; a large black net rose from the ground, attempting to bind Lin Qi's movements.

A three-element combination, fire and ice attacking together, coupled with shadow imprisonment.

A textbook-level joint mage strike.

Lin Qi stood in place, watching the fire pillar smash down.

He took a breath.

It wasn't a deep breath; it was just a normal breath.

Then he exhaled.

That breath transformed into a visible white Qi arrow, clashing directly against the fire pillar.

The fire pillar was split in half from the middle.

The momentum of that breath didn't diminish in the slightest; passing through the residual flames of the fire pillar and carrying a wisp of heat that hadn't yet dissipated, it went straight for the Fire Mage's face.

"Puff!"

The Fire Mage's magic shield was no different from paper in front of that Qi arrow. The Qi arrow pierced the shield, flew past his ear, and plowed a half-meter deep trench into the container behind him.

It flew past his ear.

He didn't die.

But his ear was gone. The left ear, along with a small patch of scalp, was sliced off by the Qi arrow, and blood sprayed out.

"Ah!" The Fire Mage screamed, clutching his head, his staff falling to the ground as he collapsed.

Lin Qi didn't kill him.

This detail was captured by everyone present, and the fear in their hearts deepened instead—he did it on purpose. He was controlling his strength. If that breath had been two centimeters off, the mage would have no head.

At the same time, the ice on the ground shattered into dust with a "crack."

It wasn't shattered by some force. It was the heat naturally radiating from Lin Qi's body that directly vaporized the Extreme Cold Domain.

An Organ Refining Realm human furnace, Five Elements circulating, endless and unceasing. A mere Ice-type Spell wanted to freeze his steps?

The Ice Mage's face turned pale.

And that large shadow net did indeed wrap around Lin Qi's body. The black threads tightened, attempting to trap him in place like a constricting python.

Lin Qi looked down at the shadow threads wrapped around him.

Protective Aura formed naturally.

A thin, pale gold film appeared on the surface of his skin. The moment the shadow threads touched that film, they were like ice cubes dropped into boiling oil, sizzling and smoking as they vaporized and dissipated.

Immune to all Spells.

They couldn't hurt him at all.

"Spells..." Lin Qi brushed off a bit of residual shadow debris from his sleeve, his tone as casual as if he were critiquing food from a roadside stall. "Hitting me with them is about the same as scratching an itch. Why don't you try physical attacks?"

The two heavy-armored warriors had already rushed in front of him.

One in front and one behind, one striking with a shield, the other leaping high and swinging a battle-axe.

Lin Qi took a step to the side.

Just one step.

The warrior charging with the shield brushed past his side, completely missing. Lin Qi casually slapped him on the back.

"Bang!"

That steel heavy shield, said to be able to withstand B-grade Spells, along with the warrior behind it, flew out. The entire person was like a cannonball embedded into a container fifty meters away, stuck tight with only two legs left twitching outside.

The other battle-axe warrior swinging down from the air didn't even have time to adjust his attack angle before Lin Qi reached out and grabbed the axe handle.

The warrior was suspended in mid-air.

He gripped the axe handle tightly, refusing to let go, his feet kicking wildly in the air.

Lin Qi held him like he was holding a fish.

"Quite heavy." He hefted the weight in his hand, evaluating it. "This set of iron skin must weigh at least four or five hundred pounds? Don't you get tired wearing this every day?"

Behind the warrior's visor, his face was already twisted into an indescribable expression of terror.

Lin Qi let go.

The warrior smashed onto the ground, rolling several times before stopping, spitting out a mouthful of blood with a "wah."

The remaining two assassins fared even worse.

They had already circled behind Lin Qi, two enchanted short daggers simultaneously stabbing toward his lower back and neck. The timing of their strike was perfect, the angles tricky, and their coordination seamless.

But the tips of their daggers, the moment they touched Lin Qi's skin—bent.

Literally bent.

The tips of the enchanted short daggers were like they had stabbed a piece of divine iron tempered ten thousand times; they made a tooth-aching sound of metal bending, the edges shattering, and the fragments bouncing back to pierce the assassins' own hands.

Organ Refining Dao Body.

Physical armor penetration: ineffective.

Before the two assassins could recover from their shock, two hands had already grabbed their heads.

Lin Qi brought the two heads together, lightly bumping them.

"Dong."

The two assassins' vision went black, and they fainted.

From beginning to end, it took less than thirty seconds.

The eight-man suppression team was completely wiped out. Not one died, but every single one had lost their ability to fight.

The port became quiet once again.

Zhang Wei stood by the truck, his mouth hanging open.

He had seen Lin Qi fight. He had seen him on campus, in the leagues, and in the live broadcast of the Prodigy Championship. But none of those times were like today—

Effortless.

Handling heavy weights as if they were light.

Those Spells and attacks that would be enough to give an ordinary Third-Turn expert a headache were like mosquito bites to him.

"This is fucking..." the fat man muttered to himself, "Brother Qi, what exactly did you eat in the Dragon Tomb?"

In the distance, more eyes were still peering from the shadows.

Lin Qi stood amidst the defeated foes, brushing non-existent dust off his hands.

"I have a suggestion."

His voice echoed over the port.

"You can come at me one by one. I don't mind waiting a bit longer."

He paused.

"Of course, you can also all come together. It would save me some time."

"You aren't going to get this bounty money. But to be honest, six hundred billion—" He tilted his head, his expression a bit too sincere, "I want it too."

"How about you help me find Li Qingcang and have him just transfer this six hundred billion directly into my account. Since it's going to be spent on me anyway, let's save the middleman's cut."

Zhang Wei: "..."

Second Elder Han Tiande and his guards had already climbed into the hovercar, the doors shut tight. Looking at this scene through the bulletproof glass window, Han Tiande's mouth twitched.

The Life-Taking Yama is even telling jokes.

This is even more hair-raising than killing people.

In the darkness, most of the peering eyes had already begun to retreat. No one who survived by begging for food in the black market was a fool. The performance of the "prey" before them had completely exceeded the prior intelligence estimates.

But some still didn't leave.

To the north of the port, in a semi-collapsed reinforced concrete warehouse, a hunchbacked old man slowly walked out.

He was wearing a faded old military uniform, his right eye was a dark red prosthetic, and his left hand was missing two fingers.

This destitute appearance made him look like a crippled veteran who had retired from the battlefield.

But as soon as he appeared, those powerful experts in the shadows who hadn't gone far retreated even faster.

Someone recognized him.

The Scavenger, Han Tie.

Top twenty on the black market bounty list, a retired Peak Second Transition sword-and-shield warrior. It was said that he had spent twelve whole years in the Northern Frontier Abyss Rift; only three people in total had crawled out of that Hell alive, and he was one of them.

The old man slowly walked to the center of the area, his cloudy left eye looking at the wounded scattered all over the ground, and he shook his head.

"Green-mouthed children who haven't even grown their feathers yet," his voice was dry and raspy, like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing against each other, "daring to take a Blood-Red Hunt Order."

He looked at Lin Qi.

"Kid."

"Hmm?"

"Who did you learn your skills from?"

This question caught everyone by surprise. With a six hundred billion bounty right in front of him, the old man's first words weren't "prepare to die," but asking about his master?

Lin Qi sized him up.

Old military uniform. Veteran of the Abyss battlefield. A left hand missing two fingers—that wasn't lost in battle; the cut was too neat, it was some kind of ritualistic self-mutilation. An old tradition of the Northern Frontier Legion: severing two fingers upon retirement, meaning "never again to hold a blade for the Federation in this life."

"Self-taught," Lin Qi replied.

Han Tie was silent for a while.

"You can reach this level by being self-taught?" His prosthetic eye turned slightly, as if scanning Lin Qi's body in some special way. "That move where you killed someone with a flick of your finger just now—the force rose from your waist, transmitted through your spine to your fingertips, and finally condensed into a single point to be released. This path of force generation... I've seen it in the Northern Frontier."

"Thirty years ago, there was a madman in the Northern Frontier Legion who also didn't rely on System skills, purely using his fists to fight Void Beasts. He called his own set of things 'Jin'."

Lin Qi raised an eyebrow.

Interesting.

As expected, he wasn't the only one in this world who had touched the threshold of ancient martial arts. Someone was already using "Jin" thirty years ago—though likely they had only scratched the surface.

"What happened to that madman later?"

"He died," Han Tie said. "In the twelfth year, the Rift expanded, and an S-grade Void Beast surged out. That madman held it off alone for three minutes, allowing the others to evacuate."

"His fists could shatter the carapace of an S-grade Void Beast. But his body couldn't hold out. By the third minute, his bones were all shattered."

Han Tie looked into Lin Qi's eyes.

"So I came to take a look. Thirty years later, another madman who fights with his fists has appeared. I want to know if you can go further than he did."

"By the way—"

The old man took an old shield covered in blade marks and scorch marks from his back, as well as a broken blade that was only half its original length.

"I want the bounty too."

"Six hundred billion is enough for me to drink wine for the rest of my life."