Facts unfolded precisely as Gang Du had anticipated. These dozens of Grandmasters, each capable of dominating any nation, were annihilated by Qin Xuan in less than twenty minutes.
Gang Du himself did not escape, despite possessing spatial abilities. After a few exchanges with Qin Xuan, he was slain. Qin Xuan's fire elemental techniques left no trace of his remains.
Confirming no one had slipped through, Qin Xuan proceeded forward, guided by the factory's prompts. Based on the numbers, he had largely dealt with the low-level Grandmasters. This meant his next challenge would involve intermediate or even advanced Grandmasters.
"What's this? It's like a game level," Qin Xuan grumbled, but he had already reached the entrance to the next stage.
This workshop was different from the previous one. As soon as he stepped inside, Qin Xuan detected no human presence. A slight smile touched his lips, a spark of interest igniting within him. After all, for an assassin organization like the Dark Web, relying solely on frontal assaults with their low-level Grandmasters seemed rather weak. It was the hidden, stealthy assassinations that truly held appeal.
Muting his inner thoughts, Qin Xuan stepped directly into the workshop. He had no idea where the occupants were, only that this workshop housed twenty intermediate Grandmasters.
"It's about time this started!" Qin Xuan exclaimed, a surge of excitement coursing through him. At this moment, he craved for them to attack him with all their might, for only then could he feel pressure and experience the joy of combat.
As if on cue, the instant Qin Xuan's right foot landed in the center of the workshop, a pair of large black hands emerged from the floor without warning, seizing his ankle. Qin Xuan didn't immediately break free. Instead, he scanned his surroundings, his gaze falling upon the area behind a nearby machine. Indeed, a figure flickered behind the machinery and vanished. The hands beneath him tightened their grip, attempting to drag him underground.
"Is that all the strength you have?" Qin Xuan scoffed. "Does your King of Assassins starve you?" With a light laugh, he yanked his right foot free. Then, with a sharp pull, he dragged half a body out from beneath the floor.
"Is burrowing fun?" Qin Xuan chuckled, facing the terrified expression of a Black man. He then delivered a swift kick to the man's head, crushing it like a watermelon. With a flick of his wrist, he seized another Grandmaster who had appeared beside a steel machine, crushing his throat. Disguise, burrowing – two moves, two deaths. The entire workshop fell silent once more.
Qin Xuan paused for a moment, then leaped, grabbing onto the steel frame of the ceiling. Beside him, a blonde young man with green eyes clung to the wall.
"Spider-Man?" Qin Xuan asked. "Can you shoot webs?" The young man looked bewildered by the question. But the moment Qin Xuan moved, the youth sprang away, quickly returning to the ground. He then shot a white substance towards Qin Xuan. Qin Xuan almost cried out in surprise. This thin, sticky substance was indeed like spider silk!
"Damn, I was just kidding," Qin Xuan exclaimed. "Are you really the legendary Spider-Man?" He deflected the webbing with a burst of fire elemental magic and lunged forward again. As the saying goes, the rich rely on technology, the poor on mutation. In American blockbusters, Spider-Man was a prime example of the mutated. Now that he had encountered someone similar, Qin Xuan was eager to test his mettle.
To his disappointment, while the opponent's abilities were strikingly similar to Spider-Man's, his strength was far from the formidable level depicted in the movies. Wall-crawling, spider-sense – these enhanced survival and adaptability but lacked true offensive power without the web-shooters and super strength. Qin Xuan made short work of him, severing his arm with a palm strike and then lightly slitting his throat.
"Three," Qin Xuan murmured, returning to the ground and counting his kills. His voice, though soft, was like a blast of cold air that swept through the entire workshop. Three of the most elite intermediate Grandmaster assassins had fallen before him without even lasting a single round. Anyone witnessing this would have been terrified.
As a result, Qin Xuan stood motionless within the workshop as if nothing had happened. The remaining intermediate Grandmasters remained hidden, neither attacking nor revealing themselves, as if Qin Xuan were the only person present.
After a long wait, Qin Xuan grew impatient. He retrieved dozens of Five Elements Spirit Talismans from his myriad artifact and scattered them into the air. Channeling his essence, dozens of massive fireballs, each over a meter in diameter, ignited.
*Boom!*
"Ah!" As the flames erupted within the workshop, several intermediate Grandmasters, caught off guard, were immediately exposed. In an instant, sword light flashed, and these intermediate Grandmasters were silenced forever.
"Eight." The fallen bodies were instantly pulverized by the explosive flames, their remains scattered within seconds. Simultaneously, the smoke and dust revealed two more figures. Qin Xuan transformed his sword into a spear and effortlessly dispatched them.
"Ten," Qin Xuan muttered. Thus, half of the twenty intermediate Grandmasters had been eliminated. The remaining ten, unable to withstand the scorching heat of the inferno, gradually revealed themselves as the flames intensified. Just as Qin Xuan's spear was aimed at the closest female Grandmaster, the space around her suddenly distorted. The female Grandmaster vanished before Qin Xuan's eyes.
"Spatial ability?" Having already defeated a spatial ability user, Qin Xuan recognized the fluctuation immediately. As he frowned, preparing to strike others, the spatial distortion appeared around the others, one by one. Ten times the distortion occurred, and all ten surviving intermediate Grandmasters were teleported away in rapid succession.
Qin Xuan stood motionless for a long time where the last person had disappeared. Then, he unleashed his water elemental techniques, extinguishing the raging fires he had started. The spatial ability displayed earlier was far superior in both intensity and experience compared to Gang Du's. If he wasn't mistaken, the one who had intervened was likely an advanced Grandmaster with spatial abilities. It seemed the opponent knew the intermediate Grandmasters were no longer of use against him and had decided to intervene to prevent further unnecessary casualties.
"However, it's not that simple," Qin Xuan mused. "You save them here, but what if I reach your side later? Will you still be able to protect them?" A smile played on his lips; he was not disheartened by the escape of his targets. Stepping over the scorched earth and ruins, he finally arrived at the abandoned warehouse where Amy and Sophia were located.