Gourmet Hunter - Chapter 313 (Patreon)

Chapter 313: Linne

In an extremely timely manner, Linne and her group encountered the Seiren Squad.

To replenish their energy, the Seiren Squad members and the artificial beasts were scavenging in the forest while retreating towards its edge. As they left the forest, the poison gas had already invaded most of the area.

To the north of the forest lay a vast grassland, where visibility was clear, and one could be seen from afar.

The Seiren Squad members emerging from the forest saw Linne and her group in the distance with just a glance.

They didn’t look like an army or poachers, but rather a family out for a picnic.

The eagle stopped the main force, picked up his phone, and dialed Dove’s number.

At that moment, Dove was standing on the back of a scaled lizard, flying high in the sky, watching the forest being slowly consumed by the poison gas.

His phone vibrated suddenly in his pocket. He took it out and pressed the answer button.

“There are five people to the north of the forest,” came the calm voice of the eagle.

“Poachers?” Dove asked.

“Not sure. Should we eliminate them?” the eagle inquired.

“Hmm, kill them,” Dove said indifferently.

“Understood.”

The call ended, and the Seiren Squad members and the artificial beasts immediately went into combat mode.

In the distance, Linne and her group also noticed the other side. They saw them change direction and come towards them.

“It’s probably them,” Linne said, focusing her gaze on the approaching Seiren Squad. Her entire demeanor changed.

Luo sent the enemy’s information via a text message, describing them objectively without any subjective judgment. Therefore, they needed to assess the artificial beasts' strength themselves.

No matter the situation, they couldn't afford to be careless.

Machi and the others released their nen, surrounding themselves, and stared at the enemies approaching aggressively.

The enemy outnumbered them twenty to one. If their strength was as troublesome as described by Luo, they couldn’t handle it with just a few people.

“Even with Linne here…” Machi glanced at Linne, who exuded an imposing aura. Despite knowing Linne’s unfathomable strength, the enemy numbers were overwhelming.

“Just a reminder, when the fight starts, I won't look after you,” Linne took a few steps forward, then turned back to Machi and the others, speaking in a deep voice, “If you feel you have no chance, don’t hesitate, run as far as you can.”

She paused for a moment, then added, “If I kill eight or ten, I’ll run immediately.”

Hearing Linne’s last words, which lacked the demeanor of a master, Machi and the others were stunned. It wasn’t a joke; she was serious.

So, killing ten and then running was Linne’s honest judgment?

Nobunaga drew his sword, channeling his nen around the blade.

“It should be able to cut through!”

He murmured to himself, as Luo’s objective assessment emphasized the defense of the artificial beasts.

Despite her small stature and over a hundred years of age, Linne moved to the front of the group, bearing the imposing aura created by the Seiren Squad.

She stood there, her eyes lifeless, hands slightly raised, like an old woman practicing Tai Chi in the park.

In this seemingly unimposing posture, she alone faced the oncoming artificial beasts, standing firm in the wind.

Perhaps only when she was serious did Linne’s gaze focus. She calmly observed the beasts spewing nen like fountains, her face devoid of emotion.

The first to approach was a five-meter-tall bear-like beast. Its speed on all fours far surpassed the other artificial beasts. It rushed towards Linne, instantly adjusting its stance, and swung its claw at her head.

Facing the terrifying power of the claw, Linne’s small body slightly shifted, her barely raised hand shot out like lightning, pressing on the bear-like beast’s wrist. There was no sign of force, yet a crisp sound of bone breaking echoed.

That seemingly gentle press penetrated the beast’s nen defense, breaking its wrist with an unknown technique.

In the next second, as the bear-like beast’s power peaked, Linne followed the force, pressing her hand down. The beast’s massive body crashed to the ground like a derailed train.

Boom!

The ground trembled slightly, and a large patch of green grass was flattened.

After toppling the beast, Linne didn’t wait for it to rise. She leapt up, landing on the beast’s back with a stomp!

Silence!

Linne’s stomp caused no noise, no wind, and no sign of power bursting out.

After a brief pause, a series of domino-like collapse sounds echoed, and the bear-like beast spat blood, quickly losing its strength. The nen surging on its body faded away.

With one lift and one stomp, an artificial beast was dead.

“This skin is quite thick.”

Linne lightly stomped on the beast, then suddenly leaped back, avoiding the artificial beasts attacking from both sides.

She retreated over two meters, while the two beasts missed their target, landing viciously on the corpse of the bear-like beast. With a loud crash, the bear-like beast’s body sank, and a strong wind swept through, bending the surrounding grass.

Using the momentum of the powerful stomp, the two artificial beasts lunged at Linne.

“Indeed, lacking flexibility.”

Linne looked up calmly at the two beasts descending like a mountain from the sky, their large shadows covering her small body.

Instead of retreating, she advanced, charging into the gap between the two beasts. Avoiding their wild swings, she extended her hands, pressing against their sides.

Silent, but nen waves emanated from her palms.

Time seemed to freeze as Linne and the two beasts paused briefly. In a blink, the two massive beasts flew to the sides.

They flew a hundred meters before landing heavily, plowing long trenches in the grass.

When the two beasts finally stopped, their weakening nen waves indicated they were near death.

The younger members, seeing Linne easily dispatch three artificial beasts, were dumbfounded.

Wasn’t this absolute strength overwhelming? Did they even need to fight?

On the surface, Linne’s light palm strikes seemed to kill the beasts effortlessly, but in reality, she gathered significant nen for each attack. This meant she consumed a lot of nen to break through the beasts’ defenses and achieve a killing effect.

If Machi and the others used the same amount of nen, they couldn’t achieve such powerful results. This was the difference between them and an experienced master like Linne.

Linne wasn’t joking when she said she’d kill ten and then run. She had already made a judgment before the battle. Killing three beasts immediately deviated slightly from her judgment, but not by much.

She could use half of her potential aura to kill about fifteen beasts with lightning speed, then retreat without putting herself in fatal danger.

Ultimately, the large portion of her life already buried in the ground deprived her of the luxury of recklessness.

...

In the forest, on the mountain.

Luo didn’t know that Linne and her group had reached the grassland outside the forest or that they had encountered the Seiren Squad.

He watched the many creatures charging towards the mountain top, hesitating between wasting nen to kill them or taking Sanbica and escaping the poison gas area by running out of the forest.

Seeing a tiger-like creature approaching their location, Luo didn’t hesitate anymore and began eliminating these temporarily escaped creatures.

In an instant, the creatures barely escaping the poison gas faced a new catastrophe.

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