Searching for a Pig in the Crowd

The dust and fog have dissipated quickly.

What appeared before Thomas were pigsties emerging from behind the fog, and fat pigs stunned by the loud explosion.

They were all fat and chubby, with big ears and wide bodies, huddled together looking silly and silly, and they all looked almost the same.

At a glance, the number of these fat pigs totaled as many as fifty or sixty.

Where is he?

Thomas stared at everything before him, somewhat bewildered.

But Li Qing had clearly become one of those fat pigs quite naturally.

He didn't know which pigsty he was hiding in. He deactivated the Digitization Mode, made the health bar above his head disappear, and then stood there blankly like an ordinary fat pig.

From this distance, you can't tell them apart at all.

Thomas hesitated for a moment, but eventually walked cautiously in that direction.

While cautiously guarding against Li Qing's sudden attack, he held his breath and walked slowly down the corridor, carefully observing each pig in the pigpen on both sides of the corridor.

The gazes of the human and the pig collided in mid-air.

Thomas's eyes held a natural intimidation as a hunter, but the pigs' gazes remained dull, wooden, and ignorant.

No matter how Thomas tried to probe them, they remained unmoved.

Can't tell, not at all.

"So, should we kill all these pigs?"

"No, I don't have enough ammunition on me to kill that many pigs."

"If we run out of ammunition before finding the real body, the situation will become quite tricky."

Thomas's gaze flickered uncertainly:

Even though Li Qing has turned into a pig, he still managed to come up with such a method to deal with a hunter who has a Stand ability and modern weapons.

Just as he thought, these guys who could leave even the boss helpless were all extraordinary.

If it's this kind of guy, then maybe there's real hope.

A slight ripple of emotion stirred within him, but the roar coming from the wireless earpiece interrupted his reverie:

"Idiot, what are you doing?!"

"Find that Li Qing right now. Otherwise, you can go and keep him company in the pigsty!"

The supervisor's voice was extremely angry.

Clearly, the difficult situation of the enemy's rapid advance and attack on his headquarters made him less calm than he appeared.

Thomas had no doubt that if he didn't still need to deal with Li Qing, his supervisor would have locked him up in the pigsty for his poor performance.

"I'm sorry, supervisor."

The supervisor was annoyed and uneasy because of the unfavorable changes in the battle situation, but Thomas, who had been cowering all along, became calm instead.

He apologized politely but firmly, and then said:

"I think I don't need to rush to find Li Qing right now."

"What do you mean?" The supervisor's voice choked.

He instinctively wanted to verbally abuse his subordinate who had subtly shown disrespect, but then he instantly realized:

"That's right, there's no rush."

As he spoke, the supervisor's annoying noise finally stopped for the time being.

"Li Qing."

Thomas calmed the supervisor down, then loudly called out Li Qing's name across the vast pig farm.

He didn't find Li Qing's true form, but continued walking slowly along the passageway, then shouted loudly at the circles of dumbfounded fat pigs beside him:

"You can continue to hide, for as long as you want."

"But let me tell you a secret, a secret you're probably already aware of."

Like an actor performing a one-man show on stage, Thomas was reciting his lines aloud all by himself:

"This Pig Farm, this entire building, is actually a stand-in for our technology team leader."

"As soon as you step into the gate of this pig farm, if you stay for more than two minutes, a living person will be turned into a pig by our supervisor with a single thought, just like you just experienced."

"So, you might be able to stay hidden here and not show your face."

"But what about your companions?"

Thomas continued to put pressure on Li Qing with words:

"They had already entered the pig farm, while the henchmen were desperately trying to slow them down."

"Two minutes, just two minutes and all your companions will turn into mindless fat pigs!"

"Li Qing— "

"Do you still want to keep hiding?"

There was no panic in his voice.

As he said, even though Li Qing temporarily concealed his presence with unexpected tactics, the advantage still lay entirely with the technology team.

After losing contact with the phone and hearing the explosion, Giorno and his friends would definitely break into the pig farm to find Li Qing.

So, without any warning, can they see through the true nature of this "Pig Factory"?

In those brief two minutes, could they successfully uncover the trap?

Li Qing dared not gamble.

In other words, his hiding technique was meaningless from the start.

What good is hiding? He can't break through Thomas's blockade, can't reunite with his companions and send out warnings, so the only purpose of hiding here is to prolong his already limited life by a few more minutes.

"Come out!"

Thomas gripped the butt of his rifle tightly and continued his simple yet effective psychological warfare tactics:

"Take a chance; you might still have a chance."

"If you keep hiding, you'll just be waiting in this pigsty for your friends to come and keep you company."

His response was a meaningless squeal like a pig.

Li Qing didn't seem to be swayed by him; the pigs still behaved like pigs, not a single one of them acting like a human.

Thomas wasn't in a hurry.

As long as Li Qing doesn't escape this area and fails to reach the front of the pig farm to reunite with his companions, he will still maintain an absolute advantage.

He paced slowly between the pigsties, quietly waiting for time to pass.

Finally, Li Qing seemed unable to hold on any longer.

As Thomas passed by a pigpen, a large, fat boar inside appeared restless.

It exhaled heavy breaths from its nostrils and stomped its front hooves heavily on the ground.

The next instant, the several-hundred-pound boar leaped out from behind the low gate of the pigpen and charged menacingly toward Thomas with its snout raised.

"It's finally here."

Thomas suddenly turned his head and locked his eyes, hidden behind orange goggles, onto the attacker.

After millions of years of domestication, pigs have become very docile animals.

These fat pigs, which have always lived in pig farms, have long lost the wildness of their ancestors and would never attack humans for no reason.

Therefore, in this situation, a pig might suddenly attack him.

"It can only be Li Qing!"

Gunshots rang out, and a dense rain of metal bullets shot out in an instant.

Instead of scattering naturally during flight like normal shotgun pellets, they condensed into a cluster in mid-air under the influence of a mysterious force, converging into a line before striking a single target point with focused force.

Such concentrated metal projectiles possess terrifying penetrating power.

Before the boar that suddenly leaped out of the pen towards Thomas could even regain its footing, its left foreleg was shattered and mangled by the dense barrage of projectiles.

Blood gushed out, and the joints were shattered into powder.

With its foreleg nearly severed by a bullet, the boar could no longer support its body, and collapsed to the ground with a painful squeal.

"Hmph hmph hmph—"

The boar let out a shrill, mournful cry, like a pig being slaughtered.

It was no longer able to move and could only lie paralyzed in its own pool of blood, howling helplessly.

"Um?"

"Is the bleeding this time because I didn't use my Stand ability?"

Thomas kept a close watch on the fat pig that was being beaten so badly that it couldn't fight back, paying it his utmost attention.

"Idiot!!"

The supervisor's yelling and cursing came through the wireless earpiece again.

He had been monitoring everything around him, so he noticed the problem for Thomas immediately:

You've mistaken the pig for something else!

"Look back— Li Qing is behind you!"