PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

Though he sounded apologetic about his addiction to explosions and fire, Desmond didn’t break his heart when he dropped another incendiary grenade onto the second-story lobby after heading deeper into the mansion.

After barely a dozen yards, Desmond emptied the clips of his silver pistols onto another round of guards. Desmond’s overwhelming firepower took half a dozen lives. Though fairly ineffective against high-level experts, the Enhanced Silver Pistols were ideal for dealing with a sizeable number of low-level minions. The only drawback was that Desmond had to be very careful how long he kept weapons out of the hunter’s book to prevent corrosion.

The combination of Desmond’s terrifying speed with his <Phantom Step> and the enormous penetrating ability of the silver bullets made for an incredibly deadly combo that annihilated the Licht clansmen at a terrifying rate.

Mid-air somersault, from where Desmond was raining metallic mana-enhanced bullets down on another group of guards, pain struck the hunter again. It was like having thousands of needles piercing every muscle fiber and blood vessel into his heart, pain that completely paralyzed Desmond.

Like a puppet that has lost its strings, Desmond fell to the floor motionless, at the mercy of the few Licht clansmen still alive in the hallway. Although they did not quite understand what was happening, the members of the Licht clan did not hesitate to point their bone-covered hands at Desmond and attempt to incinerate the hunter with their spectral fire.

The electrifying paralysis was still inflicting Desmond’s body when the rain of green fire came. Still, the hunter gritted his teeth and took the only card he had left to play. A dome of sapphire blue water immediately covered Desmond, shielding him from the green flames, the vigorous water mana creating a whirlwind barrier that easily tore through the incoming attack reducing it to nothing more than a rather interesting play of light.

Immediately, Desmond felt the unholy essence of this world infiltrates his water-mana elemental seed like an infection. Although the corruption was almost imperceptible, Desmond could feel it, now affecting two of his three elemental seeds.

Angered, as soon as he regained control of his body, Desmond pounced with the ferocity of a wounded animal on his enemies. With the freedom to control his body again, Desmond was like a wolf on a roost once he got too close to members of the Licht clan, who were basically useless in hand-to-hand combat.

.....

After killing the last of the remaining enemies, Desmond quickly checked his current state. Two tainted elemental seeds, silver pistols on the verge of corruption, a slightly tainted sword, a slightly tainted bow, and less than half of the explosive arsenal still available.

As he advanced into the mansion and occasionally dropped a bomb or two to further set the place ablaze, Desmond commented. “I’m not at my best; I’d better hurry up.”

According to Murphy’s Law, when something can go wrong, it inevitably will, a very famous law on earth often used to describe how causality works; currently, Desmond wanted to curse the asshole who invented said law to death.

Not even a minute after his last clash with the manor’s security forces, Desmond again had another episode of pain and cardiac paralysis, this time more intense, burning through almost half of his mana reserves and even more of his physical resistance.

Desmond was barely recovering from said attack when he casually entered what looked like a party room in the heart of the mansion, a place he would have avoided at all costs if he had been able to think straight, as it was the perfect place to plant an ambush.

Almost predictably, Desmond was met with an ambush staged in a big way. In addition to the traditional rain of green fire organized by the Licht clan, Desmond also fell victim to many spears and bone arrows. With his body still weakened and unable to respond to the threat, Desmond cursed the goddess of fortune before allowing his last elemental seed to be touched by the darkness of this world.

The rancor was almost palpable the next time Desmond spoke. “Fuck you, glorified bags of bones. <Wolfhound >.”

With a burst of twin vortexes of wind engulfing Desmond’s legs, he accelerated at an alarming rate, just in time to get out of the attack area of the ambush against him. Using the last vestiges of wind mana on his legs, Desmond didn’t hesitate to kick a couple of Licht clansmen while he was at it.

Furious and genuinely concerned about his current situation, Desmond could no longer afford to be more careful in how he used his resources, not if he wanted to get out of that ballroom alive.

“I hope this doesn’t bite me in the butt.” Desmond muttered as he drew his sword, < Heaven’s End>, and let it devour almost all of his wind mana. This process left his elemental seed even more vulnerable to the corruption of this world.

The wind mana released by the sword, whose scales and feathered serpent head seemed about to come to life, turned a deep, almost emerald-green hue, creating a beautiful whirlwind around it. “Rule the skies and bring the wind, rain, and lightning with you. <Kukulkan >.”

The next instant, an immense four-winged feathered serpent made of emerald green mana invaded the meeting hall. The mana incarnation of a divine beast showed no mercy as it swept across the room instantly, reducing everyone except Desmond to nothing more than a breeze of blood. That was how deadly the unique ability hidden in the sword, < Heaven’s End>, was, even though Desmond couldn’t use it to his full potential.

Part of the reason why Desmond couldn’t use the full potential of said ability was related to the nature of the mana within him and the nature of the beast from which the sword was forged. Skaylos, the bringer of the storm, had been a creature that innately manipulated wind, rain, and lightning. After being forged into a weapon, the latter retained said affinities, of which Desmond covered only two.

After using the most powerful ability of his sword, one that mercilessly plundered the mana within his mana seeds, Desmond felt how they were being corroded at high speed this time. Though the effect was minimal compared to what thousands of years of corruption had done to this world, that this unholy essence was taking root within it was bad news for Desmond.

Around the same time that this near-omnipresent essence took it upon itself to invade Desmond, he experienced another bout of heart paralysis and mana-draining, only this time it was much, much worse than it had ever been.

This time, Desmond felt the pain more vividly and finally managed to identify where he had felt something very similar; It was that explosion during his escape from that bounty hunter that ripped off his arm and nearly killed him.

Back then, to defend himself against a strange electric weapon used by the bounty hunter, Desmond had used the piece of burnt wood given to him by Titania. This action saved his life but did not fully protect him.

Seemingly unable to withstand the magnitude of that attack, the burning piece of wood that had been the nemesis of electrical phenomena thus far collapsed, bursting into a heap of pieces. During the explosion, where a large amount of arcing electricity was released, many pieces of shrapnel and splinters from that burning wood hit Desmond.

Desmond still remembered seeing a flash of something yellow, similar to a piece of glass, it had hit him in the chest, more precisely in the heart, but at that time, he found no injury or anything similar, so he left the subject in the back of his head; it seemed that it had come to screw him.

As Desmond thought he had found the real cause of his strange heart affliction, the sword in his hand, < Heaven’s End>, suddenly became very animated, glowing with arcs of electricity.

Still not knowing what the hell was going on, Desmond suddenly felt a tremendous wave of electrical mana shoot out from his sword and head straight for his heart as if guided by something. A second later, Desmond felt, to his surprise, a fourth elemental seed formed within his heart, a seed of yellow lightning.

Before Desmond could celebrate or react, he realized that there was something strange with the fourth elemental seed; it didn’t seem to obey him in the slightest.

In fact, Desmond had the strange feeling that the seed wasn’t a part of him like the other three were; instead, it felt almost like… “Almost like something alive.” Desmond muttered before feeling his other elemental seeds bombarded with a hail of lightning.

Desmond spat out a mouthful of blood from the ravages inside his heart. Yet, his expression was not one of pain but disbelief and emotion. Once the conflict started by that rogue fourth seed was over, Desmond sensed the complete absence of corruption in his other three elemental seeds.

Although he didn’t understand what the hell was going on, Desmond could at least shake off the worry of having his elemental seeds, the source of all his mana, corrupted by the unholy essence of this world. Of course, Desmond did not lower his guard towards the electrical entity that, for some reason, had lodged in his heart, imitating the function of an artificial elemental seed out of control.