PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

552 Chapter 552 Countdown.

A widespread thought in many people’s minds was that, as they progressed through their student life, much of the knowledge they acquired was far from being applicable to daily life, remaining just another annoying and useless piece of theory.

Desmond shared such a point of view in the past, but he felt lucky to have paid attention in class. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to calculate the optimal angle of inclination that would offer the least resistance to deflect Aura’s beam that threatened to blow his head off.

A torrent of golden mana rushed in front of Desmond and condensed into a round shield. The shield, apparently made of golden crystal, was not planted to meet Rekna’s attack head-on. Instead, it was almost vertical in front of Desmond, only tilted slightly to the side.

The shield’s odd position was enough for both Aisha and Rekna to miss the slight tilt. It wasn’t until Aura’s beam collided with the shield that they both realized how cleverly placed it was.

Even though the impact left cracks across the shield, it was still strong enough to deflect Rekna’s sand-colored Aura beam, deflecting the attack a few degrees to the right. Desmond’s approach of deflecting rather than resisting took Rekna by surprise. But what really annoyed him was Desmond’s calm countenance. He didn’t even flinch as Aura’s beam passed mere inches from himself.

Aisha looked at Desmond’s calm and nonchalance, but she found it quite reassuring instead of seeing it annoying like Rekna. Although Aisha couldn’t move properly due to her injuries and didn’t dare to intervene for fear of being a burden, she could still observe and make judgments about the events unfolding in front of her.

Desmond was strong, which had been made abundantly clear, but Rekna was by no means less strong, which made Aisha all the more appreciative of the fact that Desmond seemed to control the pace of the battle, as this could only be done with skill.

Desmond, for his part, wasn’t as calm on the inside as he seemed on the outside. Desmond’s mana reserves simply couldn’t keep up. This was already quite surprising, given that his mana reserves were already much more ample than usual due to the elemental seeds within his heart.

Desmond couldn’t help but do some calculations inside his head. “I have less than 30% of my water mana left, just over half of my metal mana, and most of my wind mana.”

.....

Needless to say, the scenario did not look very hopeful. Water mana was the basis of Desmond’s primary abilities, followed by metal mana. It was reasonable to say that Desmond had less than half of his combat reserves left.

The only good thing was that, with the help of the potions he had consumed, Desmond had already recovered from the damage and physical strain he had previously been subjected to. Not that it would matter much to him if he ended up running out of mana, only to be cut in two by Rekna when that happened.

What Desmond didn’t know was that Rekna wasn’t much better. The werelion had been too arrogant and overconfident, using too much Aura in that last attack without considering the possibility of it missing. However, Rekna wasn’t as worried as Desmond. After all, he could still use his tyrannical physical power to crush Desmond, who was now looking a bit exhausted.

Although a little arrogant, Rekna had already experienced enough setbacks in the last few minutes. So, he no longer hesitated to unsheath a huge machete that he kept strapped to the back of his waist. Two things stood out about the weapon in Rekna’s hands, the first being that it appeared to be made of bone, the second being the runes carved along the blade.

“Be proud, brat. You forced the great Rekna to use his famous blade, the giant decapitator.” Rekna exclaimed, not bothering to hide the dangerous smile on his lips. It was evident that Rekna was quite confident about his weapon and that he should have already calculated that it would be enough to defeat Desmond.

Rekna’s assumptions weren’t entirely wrong either. Given the disparity between the parties, Rekna deciding to wield a high-level weapon was terrible news for Desmond.

“However, the alley cat still treats me like a poor banshee with no treasure to his name.” Desmond muttered under his breath before adding, “I guess there’s no need to hesitate anymore.”

As a multi-element mana user, Desmond possessed separate mana pools for each of them, making his total pools relatively coarse. During their battle, Desmond had barely touched his wind mana, partly because Desmond only used it for movement and detection abilities, and neither was really useful against Reina.

However, a more critical reason led Desmond to keep his wind mana reserves nearly intact... The sword, . With that in mind, Desmond raised his concentration to the max, one hand on the hilt of his sword as his eyes remained fixed on Rekna.

Like the enraged lion that he was, Rekna charged forward with savage momentum, her blade raised, ready to slice Desmond in two. This time, Rekna no longer bothered with subtleties or auxiliary methods. He just focused every drop of his Aura on amplifying his already terrifying physical power.

Desmond clicked his tongue in order to follow Rekna’s movements. He had been forced to rely on the combination of with , which plunged him into a world of pain where he barely managed to hold on to his sanity.

Desmond knew that clashing swords with Rekna was bloody madness, stupid suicide, even with the sword, in hand. So, before the berserker lion got close enough, Desmond lashed out with his draw technique.

“,” Desmond muttered to himself as the sword in his hand blurred, leaving behind only a green line that seemed to split the horizon in two. As the green power cut moved forward at lightning speed, Desmond muttered again, “Three.”

The worst-case scenario happened... Rekna’s massive blade slammed into Desmond’s with reckless abandon, destroying that thin green line after a brief pause. There was no refined technique or profound logic behind such a blade strike, just excessive force, but Rekna was far from finished.

The muscles in the werelion’s arms swell somewhat grotesquely, causing the newly swung blade to burst with new life in an upward slash aimed at splitting Desmond in two. At the same time, Desmond muttered, “Two.”

Six rivers of aqua-blue mana formed around Desmond’s sword, intermittently twisting, combining, and separating. “.”

Desmond’s final counterattack slammed into Rekna’s savage blade, barely standing on impact. The six currents converged into one at the point of impact between the two edges, creating a repulsive force that even the mighty Rekna could not entirely resist.

Desmond felt the bones of both arms nearly collapse from the impact. He didn’t expect that even the dampening effect of his couldn’t wholly nullify the impact force of Rekna’s sword.

Even with the tremendous mana investment and his exquisite sword skills, Desmond was almost getting crushed by Rekna. However, in a way, not being destroyed was quite an achievement considering one of them was a mana user and the another one from Aura.

Whatever the case, Desmond had already shown the defensive side of his sword skill. It was time to reveal his offensive side. The six streams of blue mana, now merged into one, followed Desmond’s sword swings, becoming a sharp whip aimed at the side of Rekna’s torso, threatening to split the latter in two.

Eyes bloodshot, Rekna erupted with physical power, forcing her massive blade back to intercept Desmond’s slash. Without any cushioning to help this time, Desmond almost went flying when the blades collided. However, he still managed to grit his teeth and mutter. “One.”

This time, Rekna managed to hear what Desmond was saying quietly, and seeing the latter trembling, barely standing, Rekna dared to ask. “What the hell have you been muttering all this time?”

Desmond didn’t respond immediately, which upset Rekna. Still, the latter could feel that Desmond was already a spent force, an arrow at the end of its flight, which calmed him down a bit until he heard Desmond’s belated response. “Those were the moments you had left in the world of the living... cero.”

Then Rekna saw something terrifying. Desmond turned pale in a second as if all the blood had been drained from his body, the mana from him seemed to have been devoured by a black hole with no trace to be found, but that wasn’t what scared Rekna; no, what frightened him was the sword in Desmond’s hands.

It was as if someone had ripped out a piece of the most terrifying storm in the world and imbued it into the blade of the sword now shrouded in a whirlwind. Though incredibly condensed around the sword, the light green whirlwind emanated an overwhelming pressure that inspired nothing but reverence and awe. If one looked closer, one would see that the wind pressure alone was already leaving Desmond’s arm covered in minor bloody cuts.

The last words Rekna heard were the following. “Rule the skies, .”