Book 11: Chapter 26: Mission Debut

Qin Lun ran in a somewhat sorry state, occasionally dodging the long tongues shot from the Primordial Tabanus behind him.

Glancing back occasionally at the behemoth behind him, he still found it hard to believe. The Primordial Tabanus that Mastashia mentioned was actually a large frog, or to be more precise, a giant toad.

The Tabanus’s skin had the camouflage color of a reptile. After jumping onto the shore, its pale green skin, originally the same color as the lake, gradually turned grayish-black, blending with the tones of the surrounding environment.

Its skin was covered with raised pustules everywhere. Even without Mastashia’s warning, Qin Lun could guess that the liquid splashing out from them contained deadly poison. Perhaps the only difference from a toad was the two small horns on the Tabanus’s head, resembling a child’s hair buns, which were said to be proof of their primordial bloodline.

The one thing the Highland Elf got wrong, which was also the reason everyone could still be alive and kicking so far, was that this Primordial Tabanus was still a juvenile, not yet a Legendary Creature, lacking a terrifying Legendary Domain.

But such a large primordial creature, even without a Legendary Domain, was very different from humanoid Legendary Powerhouses, at least not on the same level in terms of defense.

After the Primordial Tabanus appeared, Winnie, Hill, and Rand, who practiced both magic and martial arts, all threw long-range attack skills at it.

Winnie’s big fireball hitting it confirmed Mastashia’s earlier judgment about swamp creatures. As water-type beings, they had extremely high fire resistance. The big fireball thrown at it didn’t even leave a scorch mark.

The Lava Sphere Rand used again had a small effect, but unfortunately, the Primordial Tabanus was not a low-rank Dragonfly. The extremely high-temperature Lava Sphere only made it groan in pain twice. Then, it was extinguished by the venom flowing from its pustules, making everyone’s hearts sink, completely abandoning any intention of using higher-level magic.

“Can we shoot its eyes blind?” Qin Lun shouted while running, towards the Highland Elf speeding ahead.

“You can try!” Mastashia replied without turning her head.

From the slightly mocking tone of the Highland Elf, Qin Lun guessed that physical attacks wouldn’t be very effective either. But not trying at all felt a bit frustrating.

He tilted his head and thought for a moment, a glint flashing in his eyes. He slung the World Tree Longbow over his back, light appearing in his hands as the legendary dual guns “Burial of Light and Darkness” slid from his Storage Space into his palms.

“Bang! Bang!” Qin Lun raised his hands and fired two shots immediately. Angel’s Praise and Demon’s Song each shot a bullet simultaneously.

The black and white bullets flew side by side in the air, quickly sparking dense electric arcs between them, merging instantly like magnets, turning into a spiral electric drill. This was the strongest innate skill of the legendary weapons—Burial of Light and Darkness!

The fused bullet caused a violent reaction in the humid air, leaving a trail of visible steam and white smoke wherever it passed, like a mist dragon surrounded by lightning, emitting a sharp friction sound as it shot explosively towards the Primordial Tabanus.

The commotion from Qin Lun’s attack startled his running companions ahead. Everyone slowed down slightly in surprise, observing the final effect of this attack.

Perhaps sensing the threat of this attack, the Primordial Tabanus paused its strong hind limbs, its huge webbed feet dragging a wide trench in the moist muddy ground, forcibly turning halfway on the spot to avoid the direction of the bullet.

“What a smart giant beast!” Qin Lun’s pupils contracted. His right eye, fixed on the bullet, instantly burst into a silver dial, three needles slightly twitching. “Bang!” He raised his hand and fired another shot.

Unlike the powerful “Burial of Light and Darkness” skill, after this white bullet from Angel’s Praise was shot, a hazy light shadow of a holy Unicorn appeared on its surface.

The Unicorn neighed in the air, bursting with extreme speed, catching up from behind, drawing a beautiful arc, and colliding from the side with the previously fired “Burial of Light and Darkness.”

D+ rank gun technique—Ballistic Refraction, combined with the holy gun Angel’s Praise’s exclusive enchantment skill—Unicorn Charge!

This time, the Primordial Tabanus could no longer dodge the bullet. Its size was just too big. Burial of Light and Darkness shot like lightning into the giant beast’s left eye socket. “Roar…” The beast’s head was pushed back as if by a large hand, involuntarily jerking upward, a burst of dark green liquid splattering from its eye socket.

“Well done!” Everyone couldn’t help but stop, the Rogue even shouting excitedly.

“Don’t stop, run!” However, Qin Lun, who had successfully attacked, showed no joy on his face at this moment. Taking advantage of the giant beast’s pause, he turned and ran, his face full of a bitter smile.

The Clock Eye gave him a time-delay effect. With his excellent vision, he had clearly seen the effect of that shot. In the slow-motion replay, the bullet wrapped in electric light struck the giant beast’s eyeball.

However, the Primordial Tabanus’s eyeball was like a huge rubber ball. Even after the bullet penetrated nearly a foot deep, it could only deform the eyeball without piercing it, and was finally bounced off… bounced off!!!

The splashed dark green blood was just from the soft inner membrane of the beast’s eye socket being scratched. Seeing this, Qin Lun didn’t even feel like complaining. This was the innate skill of a legendary weapon!

The physical talents of such giant magical beasts were too abnormal. If attacking the vital eyeball was like this, what other method could harm its other body parts?

If Qin Lun had originally been confident in the few powerful trump cards they possessed, now he had completely lost the heart to continue fighting. Even if they used the three Apostles’ trump cards, so what? After killing this giant beast, it wasn’t like they would face no more dangers ahead.

Moreover, this Primordial Tabanus hadn’t become a Legendary Creature yet, so presumably Shattered Starry Sky wouldn’t give legendary equipment or skill rewards.

“Shooting it blind is useless. The Primordial Tabanus itself is half-blind. Many swamp creatures rely on smell to search for enemies.” Mastashia, running at the front, said quietly, “Even if it’s not a mature form, only Forbidden Spell-level magic can kill this giant beast.”

“Roar…” The Primordial Tabanus behind everyone had recovered by now, letting out an angry roar. Its strong hind limbs pushed off, almost ignoring its huge weight, leaping high into the air. Upon landing, it instantly closed the distance between them.

“It jumps so far and is so fast. How can we escape? We’ll be caught eventually, right?” Sif, dragged along by Rand, stumbled and asked breathlessly.

“Push harder, we just need to escape its territory range!” the Highland Elf reminded loudly. “You need to know this is the core of the Death Lands. There’s more than one Legendary-level creature here. It won’t dare chase into another giant beast’s territory!”

“Oh!” Everyone felt a wave of helplessness. No one asked what would happen if they entered another giant beast’s territory. They probably could only rely on luck.

…

Two quarters later, everyone stopped breathlessly in another clearing. The Primordial Tabanus behind them had disappeared.

Just as Mastashia said, after running into another swamp territory with a somewhat strange atmosphere, the giant beast finally hesitated, let out a reluctant cry, and disappeared into the mist.

“Finally got rid of it!” Everyone was somewhat exhausted, ignoring the muddy ground, sitting down cross-legged covered in stinky sweat.

“Hill, how are you feeling now?” Rand supported the pale-faced Shepherd, handing him a recovery potion.

The Primordial Tabanus was faster than them. Being able to escape this giant beast came at a considerable cost for everyone.

Qin Lun shot three Magic Mithril Arrows. Two of them were retrieved using the Dagger of Sin’s built-in consciousness “Soul Chain.” The last one penetrated too deep into the Tabanus’s body and couldn’t be pulled out, counting as a permanent loss.

Hill used the Mind Blast ability of his Mind Flayer Bloodline for the first time. This high-rank mental magic finally dealt significant damage to the Tabanus. At that time, everyone could even see the pustules on the Tabanus rupturing over a large area, making it look utterly miserable for a while.

As for the other three with long-range attack abilities, Winnie and Rand had consumed a huge amount of mana, and Mastashia had shot all the specially made magic arrows in her quiver.

“For the first time, I felt we might die here!” Hill laughed, finding joy in hardship. “The feeling of completely losing control of fate is really bad, but it also gave me unprecedented excitement. Qin Lun, should I thank you or curse you?”

“Let’s talk about it after we get out!” Qin Lun showed a smile, then looked back and immediately frowned, shouting, “Mastashia, what are you doing?”

Everyone then noticed the Highland Elf’s current behavior was somewhat strange. The Harper Master was squatting on the ground, digging at the soil as if making a hole.

“Hey, found it!” Mastashia quickly lifted her dusty, pretty face, triumphantly waving a cloth bag in her hand. “Look, these are the clues Iristin left behind back then. There are also relics of the Legendary Pirate Balduran inside.”

The Highland Elf wasn’t lying. At that time, following Iristin’s trail, she indeed found some things. Because the items left by Balduran were too important, she didn’t take them out of the Death Lands but sorted them and buried them here.

Everyone gathered around curiously, watching Mastashia open the cloth bag. However, they were soon disappointed. There were only two items inside. One was a fragment of an upper garment. From the color, it seemed to belong to a woman’s clothing.

The other was a string of golden wood bracelet, looking very ancient, with old inscriptions carved on it. Except for Mastashia, no one else recognized this script, so they couldn’t verify if it was a relic of the Legendary Pirate Balduran.

However, Qin Lun, Hill, and Rand, the three Apostles, all had a glint flash in their eyes at this moment. The three looked at each other in surprise. Their world mission had finally appeared at this unexpected moment