PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

And that was when Xiauyue saw it, an almost insensitive coldness shining in her partner’s blue eyes, the calm and simplicity with which Desmond extinguished a human life disturbed her.

Death was common in this world and she would not be so hypocritical as to say that she had never taken someone’s life but there was still a fundamental difference between killing or dying in a duel against a powerful adversary and simply cutting the throat of a stranger and then watch him slowly bleed out.

But there was something else that Xiauyue saw in Desmond’s eyes, something that bothered her deeply, it was not exactly defiance but it was not very distant from that feeling and so she knew that Desmond was evaluating her, watching her reaction to determine if she was something more than just a spoiled child who was born with a silver spoon in her mouth... and it infuriated her.

He infuriated her but also made her feel humiliated, not because she sought to gain the approval of the man in front of her but because for a moment she felt bad when the guard’s life was over.

That weakness was not something that she could afford, this place was not only filled with what was probably the worst scum she had ever known but it was also related to people who aimed to harm her family; she couldn’t afford this kind of weakness.

Only a couple of seconds passed but Desmond could see any remaining doubt and uncertainty in Xiauyue’s eyes transform into unwavering determination.

And for a second it was truly a single instant Xiauyue would swear she saw Desmond smile warmly, but that moment was so brief that she almost made her wonder if she was imagining things.

In any case, neither of them had time to lose, the clock started ticking from the moment Desmond made a move pulling the guards outside the second floor and both were aware that they had to move quickly.

.....

Desmond immediately took the corpse in his arms and pulled it out of the line of sight of the corridor that ran into the building, after which he went inside the second floor with a dagger in hand.

Xiauyue did not hesitate for a second and followed Desmond into the building, only she didn′t expect to find Desmond just a couple of meters from the entrance with his back leaning against a wall; he held his raised fist signaling to her the need to stop.

Even now she Xiauyue didn’t understand how Desmond managed to detect her enemies even without seeing them but after seeing him tracking their target only by following the scent of blood left behind; she had come to accept that Desmond’s perception was truly godly.

Desmond only paused for a couple of seconds before making a couple of signals to Xiauyue telling her there were two guards in the next corridor both at a considerable distance from their entry point and with good line of sight to it; at this point, one had to wonder if this was a coincidence or the building was planned quite meticulously.

Given the construction of the corridor and the distance between the entry point and the two guards who were posted with a distance between them and a mutual line of sight; Desmond had no way of removing both guards without alerting the rest of the people in the building.

Unless he... could assassinate one of them without entering the hall, as this thought took hold in Desmond’s mind a plan quickly emerged, and although it required him to trust Xiauyue; at this point, he didn’t think she would let him down.

After explaining the plan to Xiauyue, she looked at him a bit speechless for a moment before nodding, what else could she do? she could only accept that no matter how much stronger she was compared to Desmond she still lacked much vision and experience in real life.

Quickly Desmond went to take the position to execute the plan while keeping a countdown in his mind, Xiauyue on the part of her emptied her mind and began to circulate the Ki inside her in preparation.

3 ... 2 ... 1 Instantly Xiauyue used her movement ability and a small translucent blue Ki wave spread out from the soles of her feet before she magically appeared in front of the guard closest to the hallway entrance.

Without even time to react, the guard only heard Xiauyue’s almost imperceptible murmur: “”

Xiauyue’s delicate hands blurred for an instant leaving nothing but residual shadows behind while multiple blue Ki waves appeared on the guard’s torso.

When Xiauyue’s hands returned to normal, he didn’t collapse or spew blood everywhere or anything like that; instead, he just stood there like he was frozen.

Xiauyue breathed a slight sigh of relief before turning around to see what had happened to the other guard, to her surprise a golden blade no thicker than her sword had pierced the other guard’s face right at the level of forehead; there was no need to even wonder if such a guard had died.

Xiauyue could only imagine Desmond standing outside the building just beyond the wall where the guard was standing holding the blade with a cold expression on his face.

That’s right, after turning the matter over in his mind, Desmond realized that he had no way of assassinating the guards in the hall without causing a ruckus, but as he worked out a simulation in his mind, he realized a detail that he had overlooked.

When Desmond and Xiauyue first arrived outside this building they spent a brief period observing the outside of the building while taking note of the visibly posted guards and its general construction.

Once on the second floor, with the guards outside, Desmond had stopped thinking about the external construction and had begun to concentrate on the internal structure of the building.

That line of thought had subconsciously taken him away from a very simple fact, many walls inside the building face the outside, when he remembered this Desmond immediately remembered the approximate position of the guard in relation to the outside of the building.

Knowing this, Desmond only had to stand on the terrace and stand right behind the guard without him knowing it, Desmond used his amplified senses to track the guard’s heartbeat and thus ensure his exact position, And once that was done Desmond only had to wait for the agreed moment and activate the runes on his dagger to make it create a powerful metallic mana blade.

All of this might seem extremely complicated and at the same time extremely simple once its reasoning was understood but one had to keep in mind that neither Desmond nor Xiauyue was actually trained assassins; to some extent, one would have to applaud their current progress.

Seconds later Desmond appeared again inside the building next to Xiauyue and looked at her for a moment before returning his gaze to the paralyzed guard.

Sensing his doubts, she explained: “With the difference in strength between us, he will be paralyzed for at least an hour, it will be more than enough for us to finish our work here.”

Desmond nodded in understanding but Xiauyue only saw a flash of silver before one of Desmond’s daggers made its way into the heart of the paralyzed guard who didn’t even get a chance to express his pain before he died.

Xiauyue just stood there watching Desmond simply remove the dagger from the guard’s chest and before she had a chance to say anything about it; she heard Desmond whisper, “It’s an assassination mission, remember?”

At that moment it did not matter whether or not Desmond intended to make fun of her with that comment, she still felt very humiliated by her incompetence, not only had Desmond contributed almost all of what they had achieved so far but due to her lack of mental strength, she was becoming a hindrance.

But Desmond never complained about it, not that he wanted to do it in the first place, Xiauyue couldn’t understand it, but Desmond felt better by having someone like her around because from Desmond’s point of view he was not an emotionally stable person, so having someone else whose behavior was similar to his didn’t bring him any confidence at all.

But all these problems existed only within their minds and they knew there were more important things to do, as they progressed inside the building they encountered some additional guards but none presented a problem for the duo.

It seems that most of the defensive and surveillance arrangements were focused on avoiding threats from the outside and were not entirely prepared to face such a strong assassin duo which was quite ironic.

Even with that, Desmond still had a bad feeling, he had no valid reason for it but he couldn’t help but think that there was something wrong with this place, it was almost ... almost as if it were too easy.

As soon as that thought came to his mind Desmond immediately began to plan countermeasures but without knowing exactly what was wrong with this place there was not much to work with; In the end, he decided to use a trick that he had already used in the past whereby he began to leave small metal objects well hidden as he and Xiauyue continued to enter the building.