PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

In the middle of his delight, Elvar was caught off guard by Desmond’s next comment, which seemed to come out of nowhere. “You know, Elvar, I have always loved children.” With a calm but grim countenance, Desmond exclaimed.

Not only did he find the comment strange, but the word “love” was awkward for Elvar. Yet, Desmond was far from done. “It has always been like this. Even when I was just a child, I felt responsible for caring for and protecting those younger than me. I never knew what it was; I can only assume it’s some latent parental instinct or something. I only know that I have not changed; I still love children, although I continue to find excuses not to have children with the woman I love.”

For some reason, Elvar was starting to get a bad feeling; there was something that didn’t feel right about Desmond’s presence at the moment despite the fond and reminiscent look on his face. However, Desmond gave him no leeway to end the conversation. “Of course, eventually, I would like to have my own children. Now doesn’t seem like the right time. Not only am I too young, as is my wife, but our circumstances could be better. But one day, when the time is right, I would like to start a family, have children with my loving and energetic Claire, with my shy but passionate Sasha, with my loyal and slightly crazy Revna, and maybe with Cecilia on how our relationship progresses. I have to admit that the prospect of starting such a big family scares me a bit, but it also excites me. Sometimes I feel like I can’t wait to see that future realized, but days like this, moments like this, remind me that I’m not ready yet. Will you wonder why? In the same way, you will wonder why you have not been able to move for a minute when you wanted to interrupt this conversation?”

Desmond paused, his cold gaze filled with a cruel feeling of indifference as he looked at Elvar, who seemed to be frozen in place, with his once purplish skin now filled with an unhealthy shade of blue. Knowing that Elvar was in no condition to reply, Desmond continued. “Although I despised sharing this conversation with someone like you, I needed to buy time. Otherwise, the poison wouldn’t have finished taking effect. You see, Elvar, I love children, a feeling you would never be able to understand, just as you would never understand what I felt as I fed a dozen children lethal doses of delayed-acting poison. A poison now runs through the veins of the son of a bitch who ate those dozen children this morning.”

Desmond’s heart ached as he spoke; the memory of spending nearly an hour feeding the children that Elvar kept in store for him was something Desmond would rather not remember.

No matter how rotten this world was or how damned the sentient races in this place were, the children still looked like children. Although Desmond knew that their hearts weren’t even slightly less dark than those of adults, he still couldn’t easily accept what he had to do to get to Elvar.

“Of all the heirs, you are by far the most paranoid and careful of all. I knew that trying to kill you would be quite a challenge, jeopardizing all my plans if it was not executed with the greatest possible discretion, something almost impossible with the amount of security you have in this place. But I’ve always been a cautious man who carries a lot of dangerous things in his backpack, and poison was one of those things. Imagine my surprise when your sister told me about your food preferences; you probably shouldn’t have shared the location of your children’s farm with her. Although the security of the place was pretty high, at least I didn’t really have to fight anyone, so the infiltration was easy; the hard part would be getting the kids to swallow the poison without fighting. Imagine my surprise when those seemingly innocent children practically begged me to give them the poison after explaining my plan. There wasn’t a single kid in that place who didn’t want you dead, Elvar, and since most of them would die at your hands in less than a couple of days, they all volunteered to be my tools of murder against you.”

With a self-deprecating smile that bordered dangerously with madness, Desmond explained his plan the way an evil villain would; the reality was that he just wanted to vent. “Once that was settled, all I had to do was plan a visit well so I’d be there when the poison completely paralyzed your nervous system. At this point, it feels like every nerve in your body is being flooded with acid; at least, I hope you can feel it. I made sure to use plenty of poison just for that. As you feel your body shutting down little by little, don’t forget to thank your sister, she was vitally important in all of this, without her not only would I not have known about your personal little farm, but I will also continue to believe those rumors about the Clan Tremor. I was quite surprised after I learned that the spider family is afraid of poison.”

.....

Although he was letting off steam, Desmond couldn’t calm down. Even if they were a bunch of demons dressed as little children, their actions still weighed on his conscience. What he had to do was the worst nightmare of a child lover with strong parental instincts like he. Desmond’s only consolation was that during their brief interaction; he had seen just how insane and twisted the minds of these little ones were, not even slightly different from all the evil Desmond had seen in adults. “A world like this should not exist.” Desmond commented, seemingly out of nowhere, not realizing how right he was.

Having a good idea of how absurd the regeneration abilities and vitality of the members of the five clans were, Desmond decided not to prolong things anymore. The last thing he wanted was for Elvar to recover and call his guards on him.

“You don’t deserve the quick death I’m about to give you.” Desmond commented before pulling his sword, < Heaven’s End>, from his hunter’s book. With a slash, Elvar’s head flew from his body, a look of intense agony still plastered on his face. Desmond swung his sword twice more to vent his anger, cutting Elvar’s body in four, leaving him to crumble to pieces.

Though he used the sword for barely two seconds, Desmond felt the consciousness within the blade, the source of its spirituality, screaming in agony as it was eaten away by the unholy essence that plagued the air of this world. Desmond immediately put the weapon back away, thus preventing it from further corroding and eventually losing his spirituality, which would be a horrible loss for Desmond.

In his mind, Desmond kept complaining about how damaging and inconvenient the environment in this world was for both him and his weapons. From the effects he observed when he attempted to use his sword, < Heaven’s End>, and his bow, renamed, <Vampiric Thorn>, whatever plagued the atmosphere of this place seemed to strongly corrode any life form, both on a level physical as spiritual. That was very dangerous for the structural stability of objects with essential spirituality but no consciousness or will to defend against corrosion.

From what Desmond had learned about spirited items, they weren’t just extremely rare due to the strict conditions under which they were born or the powerful unique abilities they displayed without the need for runes or energy circuits; the biggest advantage of an item with spirit was its ability to evolve.

Although the medium varied depending on the item and its birth conditions as well as the materials it was created with, an item with spirituality could evolve, becoming more powerful over time and further developing its unique abilities.

Within the same category, an item with spirituality would always be more powerful than an item without due to the existence of unique abilities. After all, an item with spirituality could also be inscribed with runes and energy circuits, depending on its structure. Adding the ability to evolve, items with spirituality were a rare treasure that no hunter would ever turn down.

For Desmond, a hunter who, in the grand scheme of things, could be considered a newborn, having two spiritual items was already a great blessing that testified to how lucky the hunter was. Desmond was ready to vomit blood for three days in a row if anything were to happen to any of his spiritual items, be it the sword or the bow.

However, it wasn’t just the sword and bow that were kept in the hunter’s book. Although the effect was different, the energies from this place had also attempted to corrode the power circuits and gems within the ring, <Fated Star>, leaving Desmond with nothing but his hands to deal with his enemies should it burst in a prolonged fight.

Due to the absurd vitality and abilities of the five clans, Desmond was forced to resort to schemes, trickery, and traps to deal with the heirs since murdering them in one move without a proper weapon or support gear was unrealistic.

Unable to use his mana or equipment, Desmond was at a great disadvantage against the heritors who had been born and spent a lifetime using the abilities of their powerful bloodlines when Desmond had to fight with his physical power alone while keeping the true origin of his lineage hidden. It was truly an uphill battle as environment and circumstance tied Desmond’s hands behind his back.

Remembering the work that remained for him to do, as well as his appointment with the heir to the Lupan clan, Desmond approached Elvar’s corpse and took the key from his neck. “Two more keys, then I’ll be one step closer to getting out of that hellish place.”