Chapter 798: Duel

Facing Albus's counter-question, Lu Mian "heh"ed and muttered in his heart:

This guy's senses are quite sharp...

I don't know when he was exiled to Morora, but he should be dining in this bar for the first time...

Did he discover that some people in Morora had certain abnormalities because they ate things from this bar, so he came over specifically to take a look?

As thoughts raced, Lu Mian slapped the bar table heavily.

He jumped off the high stool and said coldly to the bartender, whose expression had always been very ugly,

"Using this kind of meat to impersonate steak to fob me off?

"Get your boss out here!"

The bartender was stunned,

"Are you sure?"

He wasn't embarrassed or annoyed by Lu Mian's attitude, but instead showed a hint of surprise.

Lu Mian didn't answer, using his gaze to express the meaning of "make your boss get out here quickly."

The bartender immediately shouted at the top of his lungs,

"Boss! Boss! Someone wants to smash your bar!"

In just a few seconds, a figure rushed out from the kitchen direction.

That figure had messy hair, and his face was very fat, as if piled up with several layers of meat, squeezing his eyes small, but his body was very standard, and one couldn't see any fatness.

At this time, this figure was wearing a white apron and holding a thick-backed knife that seemed to be used for chopping bones, glaring at the two customers near the bar, and shouted in Lenburgian:

"Who? Who wants to smash my bar?"

Lu Mian pointed to the piece of steak on the white porcelain plate and sneered,

"Do you think I can't tell what kind of meat this is?"

"I say it's steak, so it's steak." The fat-faced boss responded without showing any weakness.

Lu Mian didn't argue with him, took out a black glove from the "Traveler's Bag," and threw it in front of him with a slap.

"I want to duel you." Lu Mian said in a very calm tone.

Throwing a glove to initiate a duel invitation is an Intisian custom.

The boss looked at the black glove on the ground, and the fat on his face unfolded layer by layer, revealing the light yellow beard tucked inside.

He was laughing.

He responded to Lu Mian's invitation,

"Sure."

As soon as he finished speaking, he had already raised the large bone-chopping knife in his hand and slashed violently at Lu Mian.

Lu Mian dodged this blow with a sidestep, but suddenly felt that he couldn't use the "Teleport" ability anymore.

This contract ability from the "Abscessed Hand" seemed to have been deprived by a strange force!

Lu Mian suddenly remembered Ludwig's introduction to the "Depriver," Sequence 5 of the "Gourmet" pathway, and suspected that this bar owner who worked part-time as a chef was an evil god's gift-receiver of this pathway.

"No wonder he can make brother Abscessed Hand's rotten meat look like real steak, both in appearance and aroma...

"Why not directly destroy an evil god's gift-receiver, but exile him to Morora?

"Don't just throw any garbage into Morora...

"Is this because they are afraid that Morora's population will decline and be insufficient to seal the '0-01' underground?"

While these thoughts flashed through Lu Mian's mind, his shoulders swung, his upper arms bulged, and he threw a right fist.

His fist ignited with bright scorching white flames, as if dragging a peacock's tail, and met the fat-faced bar owner.

Boom!

When his fist hit the side of that heavy bone-chopping knife, a violent explosion occurred.

The scorching white firelight instantly illuminated the entire bar, and the violent wind wave overturned the nearby high stools, throwing the strangely fat-faced boss away.

Albus was quick-eyed and fast-handed, jumping away from the high stool next to Lu Mian and sitting on the surface of the bar far away from this area.

He retracted one foot, stepped on the bar, and watched Lu Mian and the bar owner's duel with great interest.

The bartender was also affected by the explosion and was "pushed" onto the wine rack, bathing in the fragrant liquid flowing from the broken wine bottles.

He was almost ignited.

The bar owner who bore the brunt of the explosion had his clothes on his chest shattered, his flesh and blood blurred and charred, revealing white bones.

He also had similar wounds on his face, but because there were too many layers of fat, it hadn't affected his skull yet.

These wounds were squirming and growing at a strange, non-human state, seemingly not needing much time to heal completely.

"This is not an ability or trait that a 'Depriver' should have. The entire 'Gourmet' pathway's low-to-mid sequences shouldn't have it... Is this obtained by the 'Chef' through special food? This is a bit like the trait that brother Abscessed Hand's rotten meat can grow back after being eaten..." Lu Mian took a few steps back, taking advantage of the explosion just now, and opened the distance from the bar owner.

He discovered the other party's specialty, but also felt that he had lost another ability.

That was the "Hum-Ha Technique."

"Can 'Deprivers' feel which abilities and traits on me can bring them great danger? Although they don't know what those abilities and traits are specifically, they can deprive them according to the size of the danger?" Lu Mian didn't panic and condensed a huge, scorching white fireball, letting it fly toward the bar owner.

The bar owner didn't dodge, raised the bone-chopping knife that had been exploded with a gap and seemed to be about to shatter, and slashed directly at the scorching white fireball.

The fireball split into two, lost its forward speed and destructive aura, and was swallowed by the bar owner who opened his mouth wide, like a whale swallowing seawater, without suffering any damage.

At this moment, Lu Mian laughed.

In the void around him, one scorching white fireball after another condensed rapidly, rushing toward the bar owner with a whistling sound.

Behind him, one scorching white fire crow after another followed, circling toward the bar owner's back in a large arc.

He wanted to see how many fireballs this "Depriver" could cook at once, how many he could eat, and whether he would be stuffed!

The bar owner's eyes narrowed, and he immediately spat out the scorching white flames that were flowing into his stomach, turning them into a torrent to meet the fireball cluster that was coming like a landslide.

Seeing this scene, Albus supported himself with his palm and flipped behind the bar.

Boom, boom, boom!

The fireball cluster was detonated one after another by the scorching white fire flow spat out by the bar owner.

In the explosion, the bar was flattened, the wine rack collapsed silently, and mixed with the flowing wine, a raging fire burned.

The bartender who had escaped to Albus's position was very glad that he had made a response in time.

Other customers in the bar either shrank to the edge or flipped out of the hall, with very rich experience.

Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, those scorching white fire crows that specifically bypassed the front and were not dragged into the chain explosion landed on the bar owner's back one after another.

But at this time, the bar owner had been dyed with a translucent crimson, like solidified moonlight.

Boom, boom, boom!

Amidst the explosion and burning of the scorching white fire crows, the crimson moonlight-like bar owner not only didn't dim, but reflected the firelight and became a bit brighter.

After the star-like flames fell, the bar owner returned to his normal appearance. He raised the bone-chopping knife again and cast his gaze at the position where Lu Mian had just stood.

There was no one there.

There was also no figure of Lu Mian in the bar hall.

The bar owner was stunned for a moment.

Almost at the same time, a person emerged from the shadow under his feet.

Lu Mian, with iron-black eyes, had his right fist covered with scorching white flames covering his entire arm, and hit the bar owner's crotch with one strike.

Amidst the roaring sound, Lu Mian's fist hit the weakness, roared from the crotch directly into the interior of this "Depriver's" intestines, and the scorching white flames surged along with it.

He stood up straight, lifted the bar owner, and let the high-temperature flames carried by his fist surge toward the enemy's stomach.

Immediately after, Lu Mian retracted his right fist and threw the enemy to the ground.

Plop, the bar owner's crotch split completely, his intestines surged out inch by inch, and his stomach barely maintained integrity, just a bit charred, oozing yellow-green liquid.

Lu Mian looked at those two eyes that were squeezed very small and full of pain, and mocked with a smile,

"Did you eat your own brain as food too? After blocking a round of attacks and exiting the moonlight state, you actually stayed in place and didn't change your position.

"Did you never consider that I would use your shadow?"

The bar owner's expression twisted, and he said blankly,

"Can, one's own, brain, also, be, made, into, food..."

His voice grew lower, and he finally lost his breath, lying on the ground, motionless.

Lu Mian looked at the corpse of this "Depriver," thinking not about what was wrong with the other party's response just now, but about the abnormality he sensed from this battle:

"The abilities of a 'Depriver' are truly diverse. Although each is a very rough and primary application, not as good as contract abilities, they are still quite powerful when applied in actual combat...

"If it weren't for the fact that this guy's reaction after finding me suddenly disappeared wasn't agile enough and was a bit dull, I wouldn't have attacked his weakness so easily, and I might have had to use the magical items in the 'Traveler's Bag'...

"In comparison, the 'Thief' named Worms before didn't have this problem..."

Lu Mian thought while shaking his hands. The surface of his fist had appeared one wound after another caused by flesh being corroded, which brought intense pain.

This was caused by being splashed by the "gastric acid" oozing from inside when he hit the bar owner's stomach.

At that time, his hand was still protected by scorching white flames.

After thinking about it, although he couldn't stop the gift on the bar owner from returning to the giver, Lu Mian still squatted down, took out an ordinary straight sword from the "Traveler's Bag," and cooperated with his own scorching white flames to separate the stomach from the corpse.

He planned to ask Ludwig later if this could be made into dishes with special effects, or find an "Artisan" to see if it could be used as a special material.

After doing this, Lu Mian stood up straight and asked the bartender who had just come out of hiding and suffered not-so-light injuries,

"How many years has your boss been exiled to Morora?"

"Five or six years." The bartender could only say an approximate number.

Five or six years... The thief before looked younger, and he should have been exiled to Morora for only a year or two... The longer one stays in Morora, the more likely they are to show symptoms of experimental personnel such as dullness and numbness. Does this belong to one of the manifestations of "0-01" pollution? No, the seal data didn't mention this, and Trier doesn't have such things... Did the bar owner do something in Morora that caused him to start turning toward an experimental person? Lu Mian thought while looking around and said with a smile,

"Don't take my spoils."

This refers to the money on the bar owner.

Lu Mian then walked toward the aisle on the side of the bar.

According to the source of the "steak" and the position of the "chef," he reasonably suspected that the part of the "Abscessed Hand" corpse was in the kitchen.

Just as he entered the kitchen, he saw half a piece of blue-black swollen and highly rotten corpse placed openly on the cooking table.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 799 =====