PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

Grinning wryly, the trio said goodbye trying not to think too much about the image of Kryzsha reducing armies to ashes for some whim the creature came up with.

Feeling that some of her stone maidens were clinging to her by beckoning, Kryzsha communicated with them quickly before nodding with a smile and turning her attention to Desmond and communicating a message with mana: “Before you return... your world... see me once again ... a gift ... and a favor ”

Recognizing the message and having some curiosity about it, Desmond nodded in response and began his journey back to the roaming cloud sect accompanied by the girls.

Following the advice previously given by Kryzsha, the trio swiftly advanced, easily evading the territories where the most dangerous creatures of these mountains often move, and directly ignored the rest.

Since the trio already carried such an abundant harvest with them, it seemed unnecessary to them to continue hunting the beasts of this forest or to continue harvesting its resources just out of greed.

Because of this, the trio advanced at a rather accelerated pace through the forest until they ran into a not entirely unexpected obstacle when they began to encounter some squads of disciples from the Blood Scorpion Sect who were apparently at this moment trying to track down the people who massacred so many of their own.

But the delay was not too significant, not when Mei Fei Long was like an enraged dragon whenever she saw the Blood Scorpion Sect members ruthlessly slaying them as soon as she saw them and given her past this was only natural.

Probably only the poor bastards who were killed by her wondered how the hell they had enraged this woman of inordinate destructive power.

.....

Such a process of discovery and slaughter lasted at least a couple of hours until the group finally managed to get out of the area that adjoined the Blood Scorpion sect and found themselves in the vicinity of the roaming cloud sect.

Reaching the point where their group would start meeting other members of their sect, the trio had to remove some things from Desmond’s storage to appear and pay tribute to the sect; a tedious but necessary task to keep up appearances.

Soon the group found themselves more and more often with some lonely disciple or small group of disciples who were making their way back to the sect with some treasures.

Sure with Xiauyue being the daughter of the sect master and number one disciple, it was Desmond’s group that garnered the most attention but the trio was too lazy at this point to do anything about it and they just tried to reach the meeting point as soon as possible.

And it was because of all the time that the group was saved with the help of the Kryzsha councils that they managed to reach the meeting point before dark on the sixth day.

The assembly point consisted mainly of portable tents under which the wounded were kept to be treated by the sect’s medical staff but there were also some tents where the sect’s administrative staff were carrying out the death count, handing out rewards for hunting disciples of other sects and collecting the percentage of the treasures required by the sect.

There was even a small area dedicated exclusively to alchemists and blacksmiths who decided to come to the place hoping to directly trade the treasures of their choice with the disciples who arrived at the place.

Of course, it was this last place that most caught Desmond’s attention as his main suspect so far was right there reluctantly carrying out some bartering and exchanges with the disciples.

Even Ai Zuling was here, with her elegant looking tent lazily waiting for something interesting to come her way, as soon as she saw Desmond she tried to get up and head towards him with a small spark of excitement in her eyes but stopped on her way as if listening to something before returning to her place and continuing to wait with a lazy attitude.

Feng Sho who was watching from his position gave Ai Zuling a brief look confused by her behavior but not finding anything peculiar, he withdrew his direct gaze from her before continuing to observe her discreetly.

After using mana to transmit a message to Ai Zuling without anyone noticing, Desmond followed his way accompanied by the girls to the post where they were supposed to deliver almost a third of their treasures but with tons of things stored in the hunter’s book; Desmond and the girls paid for their part without even bothering about it.

After which the trio chose a secluded location within the Miao family’s temporary headquarters placed at the meeting place to wait for the harvest festival to officially end.

Of course, the group didn′t stay simply for leisure and instead had two reasons to stay, the first was to wait for the harvest festival to end to attend the gigantic auction that was held every year in different cities of different sects; this time was the turn of the roaming cloud sect to host the event.

According to Mei and Xiauyue, even if their group had collected all kinds of precious treasures, there was still a chance that they would find something interesting within the auction not to mention that it was also the perfect opportunity for them to sell all the treasures that were not useful to them and exchange it for better things.

But as interesting as this seemed it was the second reason that kept the group in place and this was to keep a close eye on Feng Sho.

After all with all the sect’s medical personnel out in the open without walls and other defensive measures to guard them, this was the perfect opportunity for someone to target these girls who seemed to be the serial killer’s favorite prey so if Feng Sho was the predator Desmond thought he was so there was a good chance he would act tonight.

Thus, as carefree as the trio seemed, Xiauyue already had some of her trusted people awaiting any irregularities in the camp as they tried to leave Feng Sho alone to give him a chance to act.

It was not until the third hour after midnight that one of Xiauyue’s men came to deliver the news that a girl from the medical department seemed to have disappeared just a few minutes ago, with the disappearance time being so short it was possible that the girl just got lost or wanted to take care of something in private and she ended showing up in a matter of minutes but the trio didn′t think so and that is why Xiauyue had given the order that she will be notified of any incident no matter how small it seems.

Seeing Desmond don a dark cloak and mask as he drew his bow, Xiauyue immediately asked, “Are you planning to go alone?”

“You have your own reasons why getting involved in this is not a good idea, not even I dare to go without a mask; I don’t want you to get into trouble. “Knowing that neither Xiauyue nor Mei would sit idly by without a good answer Desmond tried to explain his reasoning but it fell on deaf ears when he watched in disbelief as both girls took off a couple of dark cloaks and simple matching masks.

Noticing Desmond’s reaction to seeing their preparations, both girls giggled mischievously before Mei commented, “We both assumed you would say something like that so we prepared in advance... we won’t take no for an answer.”

Helpless, Desmond just put the mask on his face before commenting in a clearly altered voice: “Forget it, we don’t have time for this; just be careful ”

Covered in black and wearing masks to cover their faces, the trio quickly left the camp through an area that happened to be clear of guards, the Miao family being one of the families in charge of the camp’s security, this was not that difficult to achieve for Xiauyue.

After that, it took Mei and Desmond just a few minutes to find a couple of suspicious trails that they followed with speed only to witness what they already expected.

Covered completely in black covering her face with a dark mask, a male figure stood straight with torture tools in hand over a girl with delicate features who lay on the ground gagged with tears running down her already battered cheeks.

Not wanting to lose the element of surprise, the trio moved carefully to avoid alerting their target as they prepared to attack in unison when Desmond gave the signal.

Taking a deep breath Desmond tried to adjust his mood as he tried to ignore the poor girl who lay helplessly on the ground as he drew his bow and prepared to shoot with all of his power.

With the coldness in his gaze growing by the moment, Desmond gathered all the mana at his disposal and pushed his body to its maximum limit to execute an even more powerful version of the shot that nearly killed that core disciple of the Bloody Scorpion Sect.

Having put every last ounce of his strength into this shot he watched his target crouch down to continue torturing the defenseless girl and Desmond muttered, “This ends here.”