PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

To be precise, Desmond was able to defeat Zi because Desmond was willing to pay the price. While Zi had always been ruthless towards his enemies, Desmond was willing to go one step ahead and be ruthless towards himself as well.

In this way, Desmond was willing to accept the tremendous backlash caused by the excessive use of in the same way that he was willing to completely discard any defensive notion to concentrate every ounce of his strength on one single devastating attack.

With all of the above, Desmond was still in a precarious state by the time he finished making his way out of the arena, his arm nearly destroyed and the wound Zi had been able to inflict on him; Unless Desmond received immediate medical attention and some kind of powerful medication, he would be unable to participate in the finals of this tournament.

At the end of the day, Desmond was a mana user and not a ki user, which is why he was at a natural disadvantage when engaging in close combat against other ki users, but this couldn’t be helped, until now, Desmond’s most powerful abilities centered around archery and melee combat as he lacked time to further his abilities as an Elementalist.

No matter how talented Desmond is, the reality was that it had only been a couple of months since he obtained the hunter’s book and his strength was progressing far too quickly, unlike normal elemental users who progressed as their mastery and understanding of the elements deepened; Desmond had advanced depending on his ridiculous affinity for mana and the consumption of powerful resources.

It was due to his unconventional way of increasing his strength and his background that Desmond turned out to be such an unorthodox Elementalist and while this did not make him in any way weak; it was also true that this prevented him from fully exploiting the strengths of being an Elementalist.

Unfortunately, such matters would have to wait until later, for now, Desmond concentrated on trying to channel the medicinal energy he obtained from a high-level healing pill Mei Fei Long bestowed on him.

And it was here that pills trumped potions, with pills generally having more intense and prolonged effects but taking longer to digest while potions have more near-instantaneous effects but more limited not to mention putting more stress on the body of the consumer.

.....

Each with their pros and cons, this just strangely reflected that those Ki-based alchemy systems followed a different trend but not contrary to the mana-based systems; this made Desmond wonder what arcana-based systems would be like.

With all of the above, Desmond reckoned that he should be in fighting shape by the time the finals came around since there would be a couple of hours break between the semi-finals and the finals.

In a way it was Mei Fei Long who ended up worrying more than she should about Desmond’s injuries, such a thing was inevitable as only she had seen how close Zi’s attack came to be fatal.

Sensing the concerned look but also being aware of the slightly tense atmosphere between him and Mei Fei Long, Desmond took the initiative to comment, “It’s not as bad as it looks, the armor took the brunt.”

The comment was quite simple and was said with the same carefree tone as always, hearing it Mei couldn’t help but take a look at Desmond’s armor remembering something she noticed in the past; the massive amount of damage that armor had taken since she’d known Desmond.

Likewise, Mei also remembered that practically every dent, chip, or fracture in that armor was in some way related to herself, for there were few conflicts Desmond had gotten himself into if one put aside the matter of Feng Sho.

And it was that realization that made Mei realize how childish her anger was, she had shared so many good times with Desmond and Desmond had done so much for her that it was ridiculous that she was upset with him.

That was, even more, the case when she remembered the reason this tournament was taking place and what Desmond had done behind the scenes to ensure that the future between her and Xiauyue was not in danger of being destroyed.

Once all these thoughts took place, a feeling of longing and fondness filled Mei’s heart causing her to be eager to apologize to Desmond for her fight the day before.

It was a pity that she didn’t even have time to apologize when the announcer in the arena announced the start of the next match where Mei Fei Long’s name was listed as one of the participants.

Annoyed but resigned, Mei Fei Long had no choice but to go on stage and fight, she did not expect that when she turned around it was Desmond’s voice that reached her ears with a clear and proud: “Finish that cocky kid”

The phrase as such had nothing special and could only be considered as Desmond expressing his contempt for the self-proclaimed holy son but that did not prevent a smile beautiful as spring flowers from taking shape on Mei’s face.

With that little distraction taking a couple of seconds, Mei was surprised when she saw that the Sacred Lotus Sect disciple was already waiting for her in the arena with an air of nonchalance.

Different from Mei’s tyrannical arrogance, the holy son’s arrogance was calm but extremely nonchalant, as if nothing in this world could be put in his eyes... Needless to say, someone as proud as Mei would not take kindly to being scorned by the arrogant jerk in front of her.

Little did Mei know that as soon as she hit the ground in the arena, the holy son named Bao Tantian would give her a perfunctory glance before making an outrageous statement: “You should give up, you are not my opponent.”

When that statement left Bao Tantian’s lips, Desmond could swear he heard the sound of the ground beneath Mei’s feet crunching from the pressure exerted, clearly Mei didn’t take her opponent’s scorn kindly.

Still, Mei had lived and experienced enough not to be provoked by something so trivial and instead, she responded by releasing her Ki as she said, “Who wins and who loses is far from decided.”

Who would have thought that Bao Tantian would not reject what Mei said and would instead choose to touch another sore spot of the young maiden: “Even if you were to defeat me and go through to the finals to emerge victorious again, then what would happen, you are just a woman your place is in the home having and raising the children of a powerful man; a deviant love like yours is nothing more than a mockery”

Hearing Bao Tantian’s cruel but realistic statements, only one thought crossed Desmond’s mind who was watching from afar and that was that Bao Tantian didn’t know how to spell the word death.

Counterintuitively, Mei Fei Long actually didn’t seem all that upset on the surface by the comment made to her and instead, she simply replied, “As long as I’m strong enough, the world will have to tolerate my deviant love.”

As cynical as this comment seemed to apply to endless contexts, the truth was that Mei was not wrong and Bao Tantian knew it and decided that trying to provoke Mei Fei Long was a waste of time at this point.

How could poor idiot Bao Tantian know that his provocations had been quite successful and Mei Fei Long was already planning to deliver a hell of a pain to him?

Although each of them had their thoughts in mind, neither their dialogue nor their opinions would change what had to happen when the bell rang.

As soon as the sharp metallic sound reverberated in the place, both Mei Fei Long and Bao Tantian burst into Ki flames ready to engage in brutal combat.

Knowing in advance how dangerous it was to allow Mei to build up strength and momentum, it was Bao Tantian who made the first move by unleashing a powerful martial art as soon as the duel began.

From the shouts in the crowd, Desmond learned that this martial art was known as and the most powerful martial art of the Sacred Lotus Sect.

Describing the skill was also not that complicated as it was somewhat similar to Miao Xiauyue’s where Ki was condensed to recreate a human figure capable of fighting but unlike Xiauyue’s technique which was meant to be used briefly for deal with large groups of enemies; Bao Tantian’s technique was something clearly intended for dueling.

Now covered in what looked like a fuzzy giant version of himself made of white jade, the holy son Bao Tantian didn’t bother to hide his arrogance as he poured all of his Ki into his technique and charged at Mei Fei Long.