PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

345 Chapter 345 A Pyrrhic Victory

(Athena POV)

GROOOOOWL

“WAAAAH, wolf, wolf clan, it’s bad with Athena”

I woke up and looked around, confused, almost forgetting that I was no longer in my old forest, now my house was safe and comfortable, so there should be no bad wolves... yes, that was just a dream.

I was tempted to go back to sleep, but I felt that there was something wrong with the environment besides the cold, I pushed my feathered head through the dense foliage surrounding my room, and I saw in the sky a giant shadow made of many stupid birds.

“Stupid birds, out of my garden, their stupid black feathers and ugly beaks, I have never seen uglier birds. Kurururu, there is no doubt that my husband is the most beautiful bird of all... even if he is not a bird”

Athena can’t believe that those stupid birds also live around here, Athena has never liked them. They are ugly and weak but they are very malicious and always take advantage when they are in a group to harass people.

Still wondering where they go? Should I follow them? But they’re going to the city, and Desmond told me not to go near the city... Hmm, wait, those birds shouldn’t go to the city. They’re sure to do ugly things.

“Kurururu, if I stop them, Desmond sure will be happy and be nice to me”

.....

With this cute thought, I quickly flew away, and in a matter of moments, I came to see the city... I didn’t remember it looking like this, those huge black pillars look weird, and there are many holes everywhere... oh I see. Many animals attacked the city like the last time; I wonder if Desmond will be around.

The good thing is that Athena has always had good eyesight so I quickly found Desmond; he seemed to be playing with a kitten... wait... he’s not playing and that’s not a kitten it’s one of those shadow things that you always walk next to the Wolves.

Wait, there is a big bad wolf. What do I do? very dangerous bad wolves, Athena is scared... but... but... they are hurting Desmond.

Stupid shadow cat... I’M GOING TO CUT HIM IN HALF.

(Third Person POV)

From the sky, Athena swooped down at full speed, using a layer of aura around her feathers to increase her acceleration as she flapped her wings a few times.

Her predatory eyes were sharp and focused, her vision tunneling to the werepanther fighting Desmond. All those instincts deeply rooted in her fundamental basis as a species helped Athena to exercise sublime control over her flight path, not missing any movement of the werepanther at all while she adjusted her route without losing control.

At some point during her short-lived fall flight, Desmond briefly appeared in Athena’s predatory vision, causing an adorable owl song to fall from her lips.

The next instant Athena finished her descent and quickly adjusted her angle of flight, forming an inverse parabola with her going from a vertical fall to a horizontal flight while using her wings to change her flight posture.

While before she swooped down like the traditional bird of prey, Athena was at the end of the day different from a real owl, she was broadly a harpy now and both her mental processes and her hunting methods were different now.

With her claws in front of her and her wings spread wide, Athena was guided only by her instincts to deliver the deadliest blow possible, and her instincts told her that even more lethal was possible.

Trusting her instincts, Athena adjusted the angle of her wings, causing her body to spiral a couple of times as the aura covered one of her heels, and with a brutal movement, just as Athena passed by the werepanther side; she delivered the culmination of her skills as a hunter.

The combination of the speed plus the centrifugal force that Athena’s body was carrying at the time added to her enormous kick force in conjunction with the terrifying edge of her claws that were reinforced with mana; it was not at all something that the werepanther could take.

In fact, Athena herself did not know it. Still, despite the inelegance of her movement, it carried the apex of her abilities as a hunter, and its lethality could well be enough to kill in one blow the bad wolf she was so afraid of, assuming that the wolf did not dodge the blow.

Whatever the case, the were-panther didn’t even notice Athena’s presence until he felt the strong wind pressure behind him. Then... then his world was spinning many times as the black panther looked at half of his body from the waist down, still standing on the ground with a fountain of blood coming out of it.

Until its last moments, the panther did not know what killed it, it could only follow the trail of blood to itself and understand that something had split it in half before its consciousness was switched off.

Only then did Athena snap out of her weird hunting trance and realize that even though she had killed that cat, the big bad wolf was still there: “Desmond, go away, that bad wolf is dangerous.”

Smirking, Desmond found it amusing that Athena had just killed an enemy as powerful as the Werepanther so easily that it was a bit anticlimactic to watch, and now she trembled as she stared at the dying werewolf.

Understanding that the harpy’s mind was simple enough and her fear might be something instinctive, Desmond explained, “His name is Keneth, and I’ll be making a cloak out of his fur soon, anyway; why did you come here if you are afraid of him?”

Slightly distracted by Desmond’s question, Athena seemed to forget her fear for a moment as a childish look of concentration appeared on her face briefly before she replied, “Kururu, that cat was hurting you. That pissed me off, so I came and killed the kitten.”

Even Desmond was somewhat touched by the harpy’s sincere and innocent intentions, but that didn’t distract him from his current situation, although it was true that the vast majority of the defensive forces in the city were busy dealing with the rest of the mutated beasts; that didn’t mean no one was watching, so it wasn’t good for Athena to stay.

“Thank you for coming, Athena; you are the best and the cutest. Now I’m fine, and that bad wolf can’t hurt me anymore, so you should come home, I promise I’ll go soon and spend a lot of time with you.”

Athena found it strange but didn’t think too much about it as she nodded, clearly mesmerized by the notion of spending much time with Desmond, after which she flew away not before briefly glancing fearfully at the bad wolf to make sure he wasn’t dangerous as Desmond had said.

With her ridiculous flight speed that could compete with an airplane, Athena disappeared high into the sky in a matter of seconds, after which Desmond just looked at Keneth, who was still on his knees, breathing heavily.

“She’s gone. You can stop pretending; I know you’re not dying, you wolf bastard.” Desmond exclaimed with disdain flooding his words.

However, Keneth felt no shame when his intentions were discovered. He was not human after all, so things like honor or a fair fight were never a real notion in his mind; hence he felt nothing when he ordered the panther to hide in his shadow to attack Desmond.

“I guess you have strength left for one last try, and I know you shouldn’t waste your remaining energy trying to escape; You know you won’t get far with your lungs in that state... So let’s make it interesting, don’t you think so, Keneth?”

As his speech continued, a wind vortex had already formed with Desmond as its epicenter, tornadoes covering his four limbs reinforced by metallic mana; Desmond had to use to push his mana control abilities far enough to add water mana to the mix.

Soon a maelstrom of wind that glowed metallic blue enveloped Desmond as he looked at Keneth, who now seemed to be made entirely of electricity.

Keneth’s physical form was barely visible at this point, where he just looked like a wolf made entirely of pure lightning, but the low growls of pain were still audible even under all the static, so it was obvious that this ability was of the suicide type.

“To think that you want to self-destruct and take me with you, you really are a bastard wolf; Isn’t Kenneth?” Slightly annoyed and excited, Desmond exclaimed as he eyed the suicidal Keneth intently.

Then something that neither Keneth nor Desmond expected happened. It was something strange for Desmond; it was like going into a trance. For some reason, the whole fight he had with Keneth flashed in front of his eyes, every movement, every gesture, the way Keneth fought, the very construction of his physique, and even his attitude; there was something in it all.

Something that sparked within Desmond’s mind, something that ignited completely when Desmond saw Keneth’s final form... It was an inspiration.

That inspiration was like adding wings to a tiger, as Desmond’s control over mana strengthened by leaps and bounds, and the concept of a wolf permeated everything he did, giving way not to a simple way of using mana but to the creation of true ability.

The maelstrom of metallic blue wind around Desmond soon condensed into a wolf’s head form that covered the entirety of his body rather than the space of several meters around him. In his final form, even Keneth felt the pressure exerted by the almost corporeal mana entity in front of him.

At that moment, Keneth knew today he would be the one to perish, and he would not even be able to take the life of the man in front of him.

They both seemed to understand that truth, but neither Desmond nor Keneth backed away and instead moved forward.

At first, it seemed like it would be a titanic showdown that would shake heaven and earth, but it was just the opposite. The mighty wolf made of lightning was swallowed whole by the wolf’s head made of a ripping maelstrom of water storms.

Keneth’s body, already on the verge of collapse, was almost completely destroyed by Desmond’s attack, leaving behind only a bloody electro-charged breeze.

It seemed that way for a few seconds as Desmond’s ability ended. There it was, Keneth’s head mercilessly biting into Desmond’s right shoulder, Keneth’s fangs penetrating all the way to the bone, and blood spurting from Desmond, who fell on one knee.

Seeing Keneth’s head with some remaining fur hanging off it, Desmond ignored his bleeding for a second and commented, “And I thought today wasn’t my lucky day, but it looks like I’ll get that wolfskin cloak that wanted... Keneth, you wolf bastard, you were strong, but I suppose this Pyrrhic victory is mine.”