PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

156 Chapter 156 The source of darkness.

′′ Desmond, how are you feeling? ′′ Having discarded her flaming whip, Sasha kept her wand in hand as she approached Desmond and inquired about his condition.

Desmond looked back at her and could see that the girl did not seem particularly physically tired but the vermilion glow in her eyes had diminished a couple of notches, given Sasha’s performance he guessed that she had expended a considerable amount of mana during the fight.

Truth be told, Desmond’s situation was not very different from Sasha’s, maintaining Full-Drive for so long had depleted both his mana reserves and his body; An interesting fact that Desmond had noticed is that since his body strengthened due to the potion this morning his mana reserves seemed to have increased significantly.

A better container can hold more energy, Desmond guessed, but it wasn’t much help with him abusing his mana reserves so heavily, after all, not only did he use Full-Drive throughout the fight, but he kept the Steel Claw ability activated while pouring a considerable amount of mana into it.

Of course, Desmond was still quite happy with the results because while both of them eliminated the small army of corrupt beasts he still managed to develop a new ability; Even so, to Sasha’s question, the young hunter responded by pouring a resistance potion down his throat.

′′ I thought so. ′′ Sasha did not seem bothered by Desmond’s lack of response, she seemed to understand that at this moment time was of the essence so she also resorted to her potions backpack and took out a sky blue potion from it.

It didn’t take long for Desmond to feel the effects of the resistance potion, his muscles exhausted from the continuous exertion quickly recovered, and soon some of his joints cracked as Desmond performed some simple stretches.

Sasha on the other hand regained the vigor in her eyes and a small fiery mist briefly manifested outside her before disappearing, unlike the potion that Desmond had consumed, the azure potion that Sasha consumed was intended for the recovery of manna.

′′ Do you need a mana potion? ′′ As soon as she felt the mana circulate through her body again, Sasha offered a potion of the same type to Desmond.

.....

But Desmond shakes his head rejecting the potion, when Sasha asked why Desmond explained that his speed of absorption of mana from the environment was fast enough; and actually, he didn’t lie.

Among the many advantages that Kyuru’s blessing gave to Desmond, the affinity to mana was the main one of these and because of this Desmond had a rather absurd mana gathering speed; it’s just that his mana consumption in combat was even more absurd.

In fact, Desmond did not know that his current problem was that his mana affinity was too high for his body, this allowed him to fight and use mana abilities of enormous power in a way that he could defeat creatures in levels higher than his own, but it also meant that his body could not tolerate being the conduit of such high amounts of mana that it had ended with Desmond suffering more self-inflicted injuries than injuries inflicted by others.

That was also the reason why as soon as his body got stronger Desmond had an almost direct increase in his mana pool, as ignorant as he was Desmond did not know that actually increasing mana reserves is a gradual process that takes quite extensive amounts of time.

′′ Do you think we should continue? I have the impression that these corrupt beasts are far from the most dangerous we will encounter. ′′ Sasha, unsure of continuing, ended up asking Desmond for his opinion on the matter.

′′ We have no choice unless you want to leave all this behind and simply go back to my world, with the materials you offered me and the half-ton of scales from the steel emperor serpent I have more than enough to complete my mission; it’s your decision Sasha. ′′ Desmond, who also had a bad feeling, left the decision in Sasha’s hands, for him this forest and what happened to it did not matter to him more than he did to a pebble on the ground; but he knew it was important to Sasha and had promised to help her.

Sasha was silent for almost a minute, but in the end, she decided to continue, just as she had told Desmond, she had grown up in this forest under the care of her mother and teacher; now that she was leaving this world she wanted at least to know that this forest was safe.

Desmond didn’t say anything, he just turned around and continued walking towards where they believed the source of the corruption was to be found, despite the lack of words Sasha was still quite moved; her teacher once told her that men would say all kinds of things to look good in front of a woman and that she should pay more attention to their actions instead of their words.

Now looking at Desmond’s back, Sasha thought her mother was right, Desmond didn’t say anything or make heroic promises or try to act gallantly; he simply took his weapon and marched into danger for her. . . In Sasha′s heart that said more than a thousand words.

They walked for at least two hours during which they were continuously attacked by herds of corrupt beasts, although all of these were smaller than the one they had faced at the beginning; It seemed that the entity in the forest was running out of soldiers.

The only moment of danger they passed was when a corrupted eagle-like beast attacked Desmond by surprise, but Sasha reacted with speed knocking the beast out of the air by slicing off its wing with her flaming whip.

Soon it was Desmond’s turn to return the favor when one when a beast emerged from under the ground near Sasha before attempting to devour her; Seeing this Desmond did not hesitate to push the Full-Drive limit and use overload on top of it.

Only then did Desmond achieve the ridiculous level of speed necessary to prevent Sasha from falling into the jaws of the corrupted skeletal worm-like beast.

Once out of harm’s way, Sasha rained fire on the skeletal worm, letting him feel hell on earth. . . good assuming the creature is capable of feeling anything.

Still, that little encounter cost Desmond another stamina potion and a healing potion to repair the damage done by the combination of Full-Drive and overload; Sasha, seeing him consume both potions, felt somewhat guilty and she promised herself that she would be more careful in the future.

Eventually, Sasha and Desmond made their way until they were out of a bizarre and suspicious looking cave, it really didn’t take a genius to know that this cave was what they were looking for; For God’s sake the cave seemed to scream “Malignant Den”

Of course, the giant minotaur-like necrotic creature at the entrance as a guard was also a good indicator that they were in the right place; now there was only one small problem. . . kill the four-meter tall beast that looked like a giant with bulging muscles and poisonous bone spikes.