PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

“.” Desmond spoke in a deep voice, and a second later, his sword blurred as it was drawn. An emerald green wind blade ten meters long and only an inch wide shot out from Desmond’s sword. Accompanied by the faint hiss of a snake, the wind blade traveled at breakneck speed before smashing into the flaming flower.

Aisha almost couldn’t believe her eyes; the wind blade managed to slice through the pillar of fire around the huge flower and even made an extended cut on the stem of it. Bright orange sap spurted from the wound in the flower’s stem, but Desmond wasn’t satisfied.

Objectively speaking, regarding killing prowess, should be Desmond’s most powerful ability. This was a matter of the very nature of the skill, as well as the medium used to invoke it, the sword, .

However, based on past performance, the skill seemed lacking, and Desmond understood why. The skill, , was initially conceived to be used with fire mana, and the skill’s comprehension and intent were related to such a concept. Now that Desmond had given up fire mana and tried to use another type of mana to wield the ability, the result turned out to be inefficient.

With several of its petals and stem injured, the flower went into a frenzy, not caring what Desmond was thinking. Lines of magma along the petals erupted, and the flower began to shrink, submerging part of its injured stem under rocks.

Desmond felt everything around him go up in flames, and lines of magma spread all over the place from the root of the flower. Immediately, Desmond used to run out of the area of ??effect, but he was naive. Pillars of boiling magma erupt randomly around him, turning the entire place into a shifting and deadly maze.

Desmond nearly collided head-on with a pillar of magma, barely managing to reverse his momentum before becoming engulfed in lava. “Shit, that was close.” Desmond cursed as cold sweat trickled down his forehead.

“Desmond, jump.” Aisha’s scream alerted Desmond, who, without even thinking, flexed his legs and jumped as high as he could. As Desmond climbed up, Aisha flew past him, and Desmond had to admit that seeing the woman turn into a bloody meteor scared him a little.

.....

“I’m still here, shit flower. .” Aisha screamed from the bottom of her lungs as she fell like a meteor. Before finishing her descent, Aisha swung her fiery hammer down, crushing the ground near the flower’s roots. Looking at the new pillar of fire and scattered rocks, Desmond sighed in exasperation. “It looks like a fireworks competition.”

Although Desmond seems to be complaining, the appreciation in his eyes is not something that could be hidden. Aisha might at first glance seem like a brash and reckless girl who swung her hammer without thinking, but until now, all of her moves had been well thought out and executed. Aisha certainly lacked martial prowess and experience, but her battle instincts were quite sharp. Against the giant flower, that was enough.

Aisha’s last attack was aimed at the hidden weak point of the giant flower; its roots. With its sturdy build and resistance to fire, the flower was too difficult to damage with Aisha’s normal attacks. Even one of her best attacks only slightly hurt some of her petals. But seeing how the flower channeled massive amounts of mana through its roots, Aisha came up with the idea of ??attacking the roots.

No matter how tough the roots were, they would still be under much stress from channeling so much mana. So any amount of damage was magnified, which was why Aisha used all her strength to launch an attack trying to crush them. Mana-conducting organs were rarely very resistant, to begin with, with a few rare exceptions, so Aisha’s attack managed to deal a lot of damage.

The flower gave another high-pitched shriek of pain, and its petals burst open, exposing its core. Then, the brightness of the petals diminished at an alarming rate as the core of the flower gathered energy.

Desmond immediately recognized what the flower was doing. That attack had left a deep impression on him. Unfortunately, Aisha was too close to the flower. She was in no position to back down after launching her last attack. “Aisha might be resistant to fire, but even she can’t survive that thing.” Desmond thought to himself as he used to push his speed to the limit.

Seeing the glow at the flower’s core reach its apex, Desmond knew he didn’t have time, so he once again called upon one of the abilities stored in the ring, . Desmond appeared just to the right of where the stem and flower connect and placed his open right palm on the surface of the stem before muttering. “.”

The convergence of dozens of overlapping blue waves erupted at point-blank range. The attack blows off much of the stem and part of the area connecting to the flower, spraying orange sap everywhere.

Just from the force of the impact, the flower shook violently, its bolt of magma shooting aimlessly, destroying random sections of the cave as the flower writhed in pain. Aisha took the opportunity to step back, but Desmond didn’t have time to do so before he was hit by one of the flower’s petals.

Desmond crashed to the ground like a kite with a broken string, gusts of pain ripping through his body. Desmond cursed under his breath as he scrambled out of the rubble before cautiously glancing toward the now-crazed flower.

“That felt like getting hit by a truck.” Desmond commented before pulling out an injection device and injecting himself with a potion. The warm, gentle current of healing energy soon circulated through his blood system, regenerating damaged tissue.

Seeing that the flower seemed to have lost entirely any reason it had, attacking its surroundings at random, Desmond took the opportunity to use a spray potion on its burnt legs.

Feeling his flesh and skin heal at high speed, Desmond commented. “I never thought fighting a high-level fire creature would be so difficult. The residual heat was enough to damage me even dodging their attacks.”

“Are you okay?” At some point, Aisha appeared at Desmond’s side, her face showing how worried she was for him. Seeing how Aisha was almost as hurt as he was, Desmond smirked before handing her a vial with a healing potion in it. “Don’t worry; most of them are superficial wounds. Drink this; it should help you with your injuries.”

Aisha didn’t ask any further questions or show any signs of hesitation; she simply took the vial and confidently drank its contents. Desmond shook his head; Aisha was too trusting of his opinion, although he appreciated her attitude towards him. As Desmond showed one of his injection devices, he explained. “Unfortunately, I can’t give you any of these. They have a strong Water-type energy component.”

Aisha nodded understandingly; she had already felt the strong scent of the water in the potion inside the syringe. “My wounds aren’t that heavy either; this should be enough. Now the only problem is that flower that seemed to go crazy.”

The flower had practically unleashed armageddon in an area of ??a dozen meters around it, completely discarded defense or energy saving, and proceeded to devastate its surroundings madly.

Truth be told, Desmond and Aisha became apprehensive upon seeing the flower’s crazed attitude. When the flower was still trying to fight defensively, Desmond and Aisha could still cooperate with each other and exploit the flower’s weaknesses. Still, now it had become complete suicide to want to get close.

Desmond and Aisha shared a look before each took the initiative to speak. “My , I’m afraid, is the best I’ve got for a ranged attack, but even that won’t last long or do enough damage.” Desmond explained.

Aisha shrugged and replied. “I am worse. Almost every move in my arsenal with melee attacks, the ones that aren’t, are fire attacks. I don’t need to explain why using those would be a bad idea.”

Both adopted a meditative position while the chaos and destruction continued in the background. Although waiting for the now-injured flower to die down seemed the best option, this came with too many risks. After all, the chaos here couldn’t go unnoticed; it was only a matter of time before other explorers arrived. Once that happened, it would be too difficult to acquire the gem.

For some reason, as Desmond thought of a way to kill the stupid flower, his mind couldn’t help but wander to his unsatisfying use of his sword skill, . Basics and related concepts flashed through his mind quickly, and it wasn’t hard to see where the problem lay. But simply changing the type of mana used wouldn’t be a real solution.

Whether it was water, wind, or metal, none of them fit the concepts behind . “In that case, I just have to create a new skill with as a base.” Desmond muttered, but he knew how unrealistic such a thing was even for a genius like him.

Desmond was still thinking when Aisha suddenly covered his entire field of vision. Aisha’s curious eyes were watching him closely. She clearly found no solution to her situation, and in her boredom, she took an interest in Desmond’s thoughtful expression.

Strangely, instead of finding Aisha a distraction, Desmond’s mind processed the presence of the beautiful reddish-skinned girl in an entirely different way, like an inspiration. The tyrannical drive and ridiculous destructive power Aisha had when she launched herself like a meteor was still fresh in Desmond’s mind. “She is like a shooting star.” Desmond thought, and it was as if his mind lit up.

Desmond took all the understanding of the skill. Using his newly acquired inspiration, he began ripping out all the unnecessary parts, changing the usable ones, and adding a new understanding of another astral phenomenon. Desmond combined the functional aspects of with the control and condensation abilities of . Then, he added his new inspiration to all of that, giving birth to a new ability.

A strong image and understanding took shape in Desmond’s mind, and the name of his new ability came from his lips. “Reminds me of an old legend, I will call you: .”