PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

Desmond stood tall with relentless momentum, his back looking as wide and imposing as a mountain and his shoulders looking as if they could carry the world’s weight. His night-black hair fluttered chaotically in contrast to the white armor he was wearing.

As deep and blue as the ocean, those eyes looked mercilessly at his enemies. The six rivers in the axis of his sword were mixing and churning violently; even steel would be crushed if caught in the pull of more than one river.

Archibald and the other knights could feel Desmond’s confidence almost palpable. He couldn’t be blamed; Desmond had been toying with them, planning their every move from the start.

Arm numb, the red-haired knight gritted his teeth and gripped his sword as he rose from the ground. At the same time, with a bang, a hand emerged from the rubble; soon, the other young holy knight found himself standing in line with his companions.

As expected, although beaten and blown about like rag dolls, both knights still had a lot to give. Desmond didn’t find it strange. He was fully aware that these people would not go down quickly.

Unlike Erigard, who was inherently weaker than other holy knights and was caught off guard, thus losing all ability to resist. Archibald and company had solid defenses and would not be easily defeated.

“Is that all you have, sons of Laezir?”

Desmond asked in a dismissive tone, step by step, approaching the three holy knights, his momentum growing exponentially, creating invisible pressure on Archibald and company.

.....

Strong, Desmond was extremely strong, beyond any prediction the church had; but the holy knights had their own pride. All details aside, not everyone could attain the strength they possessed, even if given all the resources. Each holy knight had his own convictions and had gone through his own tribulations. Even against an enemy that seemed to overwhelm the holy knights completely, they remained indomitable.

Like a star about to die, the light from each knight shone brighter, each of them looking at Desmond with nothing more than an unyielding will.

In an instant, the red-haired knight came forward, clashing swords with Desmond once more. As the blade of light energy collided with Desmond’s sword, the six streams of water converged at the point of impact, generating a tremendous repulsive force.

Like a shredder, Desmond’s sword tore through the light mana on his opponent’s sword before the force of the impact sent the latter flying all the way back to the wall at the far end of the room.

Archibald tried to seize the opportunity. His armor shone brightly, filled with golden patterns that seemed to contain molten gold. With amplified speed, Archibald tried to attack Desmond from behind, exploiting his blind spot.

Desmond only took a lateral step as if he had eyes in his back, slightly tilting his head to the side, thus dodging Archibald’s mighty blow. The blade of white energy pierced the ground like a hot knife through butter.

Archibald tried to retrieve his sword to continue with a horizontal slash. Still, Desmond’s left elbow had already found its way to his sternum before he could react.

At the same time, the average-looking, brown-haired young knight tried to attack Desmond from the side. Still, his attack was too predictable, and Desmond simply repelled him with a careless sword strike.

This time, the young knight felt his vision blur for an instant before an enormous pain invaded his entire body as he found himself pinned to the stone floor.

As the young knight plunged into a world of pain due to the way his face crashed to the stone floor after Desmond’s attack. Desmond was already continuing his attack on Archibald.

Like a whirlwind, Desmond spun around, landing a roundhouse kick right into Archibald’s temple, knocking the holy knight to the ground. Desmond prepared to finish Archibald, raising his sword above his head. He was ready to let the swirling water mana turn Archibald to scum, but he was forced to stop.

A significantly compressed bolt of light nearly ripped Desmond’s head off, who quickly stepped back only to find the source of the attack to be the red-haired knight. On the ground, barely supporting himself with the help of the wall behind him, the red-haired knight had one hand extended towards Desmond; in the palm of his hand was an artifact with a gem in the center.

Soon more bolts of light began to harass Desmond; these were fast to a fault. And only because of the almost perfectly circular holes these left in the surrounding stone walls; it was evident that these also had destructive solid power.

Even then, Desmond was far from being cornered by so little. He still had the leeway to continue attacking the other two knights. However, his attacks were sporadic, and he never had a chance to land a knockout blow.

This didn’t come without a cost; the red-haired knight was getting paler with every shot. It seemed like the artifact he was using was spending excruciating amounts of mana, and the boy couldn’t keep up the consumption.

On the other hand, Desmond was starting to get tired; keeping his sword skill active was costing too much mana and too much focus. It was a skill meant to make a single counterattack with devastating power in the first instance. It wasn’t something to be used continuously, so Desmond was already pushing the ability too hard.

Tired of dealing with these tough-as-cockroach holy knights, Desmond determined it was time to take down the weakest link. Lashing out at Archibald and causing Archibald to take his guard off him, Desmond used , and it became practically impossible for him to be tracked.

Archibald was sure that Desmond was coming for him; his experience in combat told him so. Archibald was horrified when he saw Desmond appear behind the brown-haired knight with the impulse of a grim reaper.

It was too late; The young holy knight lacked the experience and reflexes to react in time; he watched in confusion as his comrade, and his leader stared at him pale-faced.

A deadly sword fell on the young knight, with six stormy currents that soon turned everything they touched to slag. Desmond swung the blade at him as the god of death, and life was gone.

The young knight died a quick and painless death. Still, it was just as grotesque. Leaving the young boy’s corpse with a gigantic hole covering from where his head used to be to halfway up his waist, almost splitting his body in half vertically.

It didn’t even look like a clean-cut; instead, it was as if some primal beast had bitten the boy off all the missing pieces. The corpse fell to its knees the next instant as blood spread like rain before collapsing to the ground.

Desmond ignored the intestines spilling from inside the corpse and stared at Archibald before disappearing again. The alarms inside Archibald’s mind went off.

Immediately, Archibald played the last card in his deck, a forbidden technique he was reluctant to access. Spitting out a mouthful of blood, the veins around Archibald’s body visibly swell, emanating golden light.

Surprisingly, Archibald not only managed to spot Desmond while he was using . He also managed to outrun Desmond’s speed, reaching to intercept Desmond, who was heading towards the defenseless red-haired knight.

“”

With a cry of agony, Archibald pushed his body past his limits with an ability similar to Desmond’s . Sensing Archibald’s presence behind him, Desmond had to turn around and expend what was left of the mana in his sword to withstand the holy knight’s attack.

Having swung his sword multiple times to fight the three knights and then dealt the killing blow to one of them, the six rivers of mana in the sword’s shaft were already on the verge of extinction. Desmond barely managed to converge the last remaining bits of mana on his sword to block Archibald’s suicide attack.

Archibald didn’t expect that Desmond would use the repulsive force generated to propel himself towards the red-haired knight. Having already spent all of his mana to shoot beams of light with his artifact. The red-haired knight just stared in boundless terror at Desmond; while the latter appeared in front of him.

The remaining sword in the red-haired knight’s hand failed to do any good; the young knight’s pupils dilated with a flash of silver gleaming in his eyes for a second. Instinctively, the red-haired young man tried to cling to his throat as if trying to stop the abundant blood flow, even when he knew he was useless.

“ERICK!”

With a cry filled with unspeakable pain and loss, the holy knight Archibald fell to his knees, his tears falling like a waterfall. Desmond looked at the middle-aged man in confusion before noticing the slight physical resemblance between the two knights... They seemed to be father and son.