PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

254 Chapter 254 Not My Style

“I really need a better repertoire of abilities,” Desmond muttered as he used and to increase his speed, apparently he didn′t enjoy the self-damage inflicted by the use of such abilities.

But with no other choice Desmond used a little trick he learned from Sasha to channel the medicinal power of a potion by using his mana to control the healing effects.

Interestingly, Desmond did not channel the healing effects onto his bleeding shoulder and instead redirected all the power of the potions to his legs.

This of course had a reason, as Desmond’s understanding of his innate ability allowed Desmond to push beyond his limits any ability that he was already capable of executing.

Although Desmond used to use this ability to amplify his physical abilities, this ability had many other applications as it was demonstrated when Desmond used it to amplify his control over mana in his battle against the idiot tiger that almost killed him or when he used it to amplify his nervous processes to carry out the shots that killed the guards outside a few minutes ago.

Desmond also knew that this ability had no theoretical limits and was limited only by Desmond’s body’s ability to tolerate the damage caused by using it.

And that was why Desmond drank a potion beforehand and channeled his medicinal abilities, as this time he used to push his legs beyond his tolerance threshold to rush out of the room at full speed.

Such a decision proved to be the correct one when Desmond felt multiple fractures form along his legs just from the initial burst of speed that pushed him out of the room.

Desmond could only be thankful that the effects of a healing potion channeled specifically for it was enough to prevent his bones from breaking completely while regenerating the multiple muscle tears occurring with each step Desmond took.

.....

Pain on the other hand was something Desmond wished he could stop feeling as it was far from what a normal human should be able to tolerate and the only reason he was able to do so was that his willpower was had tempered little by little from the continued use of this ability.

Desmond got halfway up when he heard Bai Mofeng’s furious scream come from the previous room: “Catch those sons of bitches.”

All that pompous demeanor and arrogant attitude completely disappeared when Bai Mofeng felt humiliated not only for being beaten by Xiauyue, a woman much younger than him; but also because the whole thing had made him look ridiculous in front of his men.

Of course, Desmond didn’t give a damn about this as he was too busy feeling the pain caused by having his muscles in a constant state of tearing and healing.

Xiauyue, on the other hand, remained with her eyes closed as she rested in Desmond’s arms, leaned her pretty face still a little pale against Desmond’s chest, and wanted to use Desmond’s heartbeat as a lullaby and even when Desmond’s heartbeat was intense and chaotic, she still managed to find rest on it.

Unaware of what was going through Xiauyue’s mind, Desmond arrived at that moment at the bottom of the stairs right at the entrance to the first floor and from there he could see, their pursuers had already covered at least a third of their way up.

Doing a quick mental calculation, Desmond trudged up to his right hand and decisively snapped, shattering the spark of metallic mana that he had held and accumulated so far; turning this metallic mana spark into a seemingly harmless faint wave of energy.

Or at least the assassins behind him thought, but unknown to them, as this wave of energy passed through to the last corner of this building multiple mechanical clicks occurred in where Desmond had placed the explosives created by Sasha.

With only three seconds before all hell broke loose Desmond just turned to see his pursuers one last time giving them the most mocking smile they had ever seen, before sprinting towards the exit on the first floor.

As he ran at full speed Desmond kept counting the time while muttering to himself, by the end of the first second Desmond had already reached the end of the hall from where he was looking at the exit.

Without even thinking about it Desmond used his body to smash the door not wanting to waste time opening it and kept running out, by the end of the next second Desmond had already made halfway to the alley through which they had come.

Hearing Desmond mutter, Xiauyue who was still trying to rest and regain as much Ki as possible, was curious and couldn’t help asking Desmond why he was counting.

But Desmond did not answer her and kept running, as soon as they both reached the alley Desmond turned around, and as the end of the third second approached Desmond caught a brief glimpse of the shadow of the assassins barely making their way down the hall in the direction of the Exit.

And from Desmond’s lips came a mockery: “Three, my regards to hell.”

Xiauyue wanted to ask him what he was referring to and why he had stopped running but before her thoughts turned into words she was interrupted by the loudest explosion she had ever heard.

Barely milliseconds apart, all the explosives Desmond had planted detonated, turning the former brothel into a gigantic pillar of flames and flying debris.

The sheer shock wave produced by the explosion was enough to push Desmond and Xiauyue away even as they were hiding in an alley dozens of meters away.

As for whether their enemies were still alive, Xiauyue did not even feel the need to question that, because among all the people she knew, probably only her father, the most powerful man in the sect, would be able to survive such an explosion and even he would not escape unscathed.

This is how ridiculous the power of the explosives designed by Sasha was, but not everything was positive about these devices because only in a matter of materials the cost already made Desmond want to cry tears of blood; Furthermore, although they now seemed very powerful, unleashing hell on earth, that was only because Desmond had used almost a dozen to detonate a single place.

Such a way of using them was not only a rare opportunity that doesn’t come along very often but it was also a huge waste of resources and if it weren’t for Desmond having a bad feeling about the whole thing; He would never have thought of using so many explosives in one place.

At the end of the day, Desmond was still extremely poor when it came to hunter credits and part of the reason he came to this world was so that he could get some of the resources he needed for free from this place rather than having to buy them from the association.

All unnecessary details aside, now both the purple crows’ base and all of its remaining members had turned to ash in front of Desmond and Xiauyue which meant that they were safe but also meant that they had lost all the information they came to search for so one could say that their mission had failed in a big way.

Although that was quite relative since neither Desmond nor Xiauyue felt like losers at the moment, although they did not feel particularly victorious either; humans were complex in that sense.

Seeing the gigantic crater on the ground and the flames still burning Xiauyue ended up saying to Desmond with a bit of derision: “Wasn’t it supposed to be a stealth mission?”

To which Desmond responded with a shrug as he replied, “Stealth has never been my style.”

The gesture of shrugging his shoulders was something quite common for him so he ended up doing it subconsciously but he did not expect the blast of pain that would come later because he had forgotten the huge cut on his right shoulder and the tension generated by carrying Xiauyue.

Xiauyue held back the small laugh that Desmond’s comment caused her when she saw him hurt and immediately fell out of his arms, weakened she still had to lean on Desmond a bit but now she could at least respond with humor by pointing to the place where the brothel used to be: “Desmond ... Certainly stealth is not your style”

Desmond declined to comment further as he was quite aware that ultimately the simple fact that he will ultimately end up solving his problems with explosions spoke volumes about his incompetence in the subtle art of stealth.

“Let’s go soon the place will be full of city guards” Xiauyue exclaimed trying to deflect Desmond’s discomfort.

“Well, at least we didn’t leave any witnesses,” Desmond replied mockingly.

Which caused Xiauyue to laugh for a moment leaving aside her always elegant attitude, her laugh was like the beautiful ringing of bells and Desmond thought it would be good if the girl laughed more often; that would make Mei very happy and he could enjoy the sight.

Lost in their respective thoughts, both of them undertook the journey back to the sect forgetting a crucial detail, Bai Zifeng who they had not seen from the moment they entered the building ... Ironically their carelessness did not change anything at all because Bai Zifeng who had been hiding in a hidden room underground, had been pulverized and buried by the explosion, dying almost instantly.

Desmond didn’t even know that his drastic solution of blowing everything to pieces ended up eliminating the one loose end that both he and Xiauyue missed; poor Bai Zifeng didn’t even know who the person attacking the base was before he died... truly an unfortunate fool.