PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

The roars, hisses, and growls of the various beasts in the mountain range began to die down as the preamble to the new round of battles that would take place after dark when all the nocturnal creatures came out of their hiding places to fight for resources and survival.

This was nothing more than the change of day and night, beautiful in appearance but common by definition, perhaps the only strange thing in this landscape was the shadow that was speeding into the forest.

Bouncing like a rubber bullet, the shadow made its way through the treetops avoiding all the beasts that inhabited the ground at the same time that it used the foliage to avoid the flying beasts.

This shadow seemed to be heading in a fairly clear direction, only taking micro detours to evade certain high-level beasts or to find a route that had the necessary density of trees to still have support to move on.

This shadow was none other than Desmond who deftly traversed the forest only occasionally stepping on the side bark of the trees before using them as a pivot to continue forward.

Every time Desmond found a new foothold, he used a small amount of mana to essentially increase the pulling effect and used all of his -amplified physical strength to jump forward at full speed.

Desmond even went so far as to use small amounts of wind mana to reduce his falling speed by further increasing the length of his jumps, as well as using the same ability he used against Mei to temporarily anchor himself to the air itself with mana to have a certain degree of maneuverability even without a solid foothold.

Although simple, this little trick had a very high control requirement, as it required Desmond to slightly condense the wind mana around himself at the same time as using it to momentarily anchor himself, the problem arose if Desmond condensed too much mana by turning the area into the mana range a place where it’s hard to move around or if Desmond were to anchor himself too tightly then that wouldn’t be any different than chaining himself up like an idiot.

.....

Still just from the dexterity with which Desmond maneuvered in the air one could tell that he had no problem pulling off this trick, when it came to mana control and mana sensitivity Desmond was no different than a bloody genius.

One might wonder now, why had Desmond ventured into the Thousand Beast Mountain Range? well, even though his mission in this world was over and certain goodbyes had been made, Desmond still had to keep his word to a certain mountain god.

That′s right, Desmond was currently heading to the house or mountain of Kryzsha, that lazy and capricious creature that Desmond found quite endearing if somewhat arrogant.

Perhaps Desmond somehow related Kryzsha’s attitude to the childish and spoiled personality Kyuru used to exhibit, or perhaps it was simply because Desmond felt an affinity for members of the Natura race.

Still, it took Desmond nearly six hours to complete the journey even though he had already taken the fastest path possible at the fastest speed possible even expending a significant amount of his mana reserves.

Arriving at the foot of the Kryzsha Mountain with an exhausted expression, Desmond had to wipe the sweat from his brow as he caught his breath and commented to himself, “Maybe I should have brought a vehicle...a motorcycle would look great.”

As a man, Desmond was inevitably vulnerable to the vain allure of certain objects, such as firearms and bladed weapons, imposing vehicles and motorcycles among other things; but looking at the dense forest behind him, Desmond commented intrigued, “No motorcycle I know of could have crossed that road...perhaps a mount?”

“You are indeed a careless man.” A mature, sultry, lazy voice interrupted Desmond’s monologue with a mocking tone.

Rolling his eyes at Kryzsha’s antics, Desmond didn’t hesitate to reply, “If your mountain isn’t safe, nothing in this world is.”

Though slightly sarcastic, Desmond’s comment still largely satisfied Kryzsha’s ego who didn’t hesitate to express her agreement by nodding with a look that said no one dared to be arrogant before the great Kryzsha.

As for how Desmond could know with such certainty the thoughts of this draconic-looking creature? In fact, Desmond hadn’t read her facial expressions in such great detail or rather couldn’t as he wasn’t familiar with Kryzsha’s anatomy to a level where he could read micro-expressions.

So Desmond just relied on his instincts and his previous experience with Kyuru who constantly had these adorable delusions where she arrogantly proclaimed herself the great Kyuru.

Details aside, Desmond stopped caring about this self-proclaimed mountain goddess and without asking for any kind of permission just headed in the direction of the cave where Kryzsha’s residence was located.

Slightly annoyed at being ignored, Kryzsha thought about how to get back at Desmond before she put the matter aside, thinking about how she still had to ask Desmond for a favor.

At the top of the mountain and entering the cave, Desmond once again witnessed with great envy the small entourage of little maidens of marble and obsidian who existed to attend to the needs of Kryzsha.

Somehow these little stone maidens validated to a certain extent the ridiculous title of Kryzsha’s mountain goddess as it was not a lie that these adorable creatures existed with the only purpose of serving Kryzsha and worshiping her as their creator; for these creatures, Kryzhsa was the pillar of their existence, which was a concept that Desmond found difficult to accept or understand.

Trying to put those thoughts in the back of his head Desmond tried to look at Kryzsha who was the person who invited him here in the first place only to find Kryzsha already lying lazily on her nine sun jade bed while drinking fruity wine

Swallowing the insults that built up in his throat, Desmond took a couple of deep breaths before asking, “Why did you call me here? I’m guessing it wasn’t just for a couple of drinks together.”

The first part of his statement stemmed from his doubt while the second came because one of the stone maidens had approached him handing over a full cup of wine.

The lazy gleam in Kryzsha’s iridescent eyes seemed to dim slightly as the creature lifted her elegant face slightly before commenting, “I have a favor to ask of you.”

Needless to say, Desmond wasn’t expecting such a statement, not because he wasn’t willing to do Kryzsha a favor, quite the contrary Desmond felt indebted to this creature so he was more than willing to help her; the reason for his surprise was because given the ridiculous power of Kryzsha Desmond couldn’t imagine how he would be of any help to her.

As if reading Desmond’s mind, Kryzsha replied: “Don’t worry, it’s not about anything difficult but more about responsibility.”

The word responsibility certainly caught Desmond’s attention and he immediately asked for more details before making any promises. Curiously, instead of giving him an answer, Kryzsha only made a gesture with one of her claws, pointing to a place.

Shortly after Kryzsha pointed out, a small entourage of stone maidens made their entrance from a side cave carrying another stone maiden atop their arms who seemed to be asleep or something.

It was only when the little stone maidens got close enough and placed their burden on the ground that Desmond began to notice certain peculiarities, the first being that the stone maiden who was being carried a while ago didn’t seem to be asleep rather it didn’t seem to be alive at all while this one too had a slightly different appearance than its living counterparts though Desmond wasn’t sure what the difference was; he just believed that the texture of the materials they were made from seemed to vary.

Inevitably, Desmond asked Kryzsha about it and the answer left him quite surprised, it turned out that this stone maiden was quite special as she was only an embryo.

Perhaps the word embryo was not quite adequate to describe this construct that had not yet been brought to life, but Desmond had no better word to describe it.

According to what Kryzsha had told him, one of the main characteristics of as a species was the innate desire to create things from minerals and gems, which was especially the case when it came to creating more of their species but another of their characteristics was that they live to serve a powerful member of the Natura race.

Under normal circumstances, the would stop creating more of their kind once enough of them existed to satisfy their masters’ needs, once their masters had offspring the maidens would start creating more of themselves to care for the offspring of their masters.

And apparently, that was exactly the problem, Kryzsha had existed for at least a couple of thousand years with her life expectancy being quite absurd, something quite common in Natura especially in her species, however in all these years Kryzsha never had offspring nor did she plan to have any.

She just didn’t have that reproductive instinct, apparently, the species she belonged to was made up of only females and they only had offspring through a method unknown to Desmond when they felt they were at the end of their lives.

The problem was that although Kryzsha did not have the instinct to reproduce, the stone maidens did have the instinct to create more of their kind but they were also guided by their instinct to only exist in adequate numbers to serve Kryzsha; it was this clash of instincts that made the stone maidens miserable in recent years according to Kryzsha.