Chapter 86: Hunting Part 1

I started my exploration of the first segment. My goal was to reach the tower, as that was where the trouble was headed. I wasn't sure yet if I wanted to actually enter it yet, as being outside the tower could provide me with useful advantages when it came to combat.

Heh, I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing that I don’t see any people around.

(“ Whatever option makes you sleep better ”)

And fuck you too.

I walked past the destroyed buildings; whatever fight happened here earlier must’ve been intense enough to cause these buildings to fold and crumble. 

There wasn’t much noise around; I did see a few sorry corpses on the ground, but there were thankfully less than one could fear. Hopefully, most were able to reach the safety bunkers below the surface or stayed locked in the reinforced buildings. A few larger buildings were built out of extra thick material and had more safety measures installed to act as an easy-to-access secure location. These buildings, like the stadium, still appeared to be standing, and they were known to have access ports to the bunkers in places like that.

I stopped thinking about the possibility of the residents; it was another minor distraction that was diverting a minor part of my attention, but I knew I had to be careful, and that required my full attention. After all, it was time for my hunt to continue.

After walking for a while longer, I finally found a sign of other people.

In the distance, I could hear the movement of multiple individuals; I had no clue if they were hostile or not, but it was safer to assume the latter.

I coated the arrow in starlight and had it stretched into the shape of a spear. It allowed me to grip differently if needed and kept the fact that it was an arrow a secret. I didn’t know if it was common knowledge among Dominous Hood members, but if they did know about it, they would definitely be cautious.

My starlight wrist blade was active on my left arm, while my right hand handled the arrow spear. I made sure to still grip a segment that contained the arrow so I wouldn’t lose it if the construct shattered. 

“Couldn’t you have landed that better?”

“What da ya want from me? All our engines and thrusters were both shot out.”

“And? That’s why you use the backup.” 

“What does dat simple mind of yours not-a understand about the simple world of ‘All’.”

(“ You going to kill them? ”)

Waiting. There is a small, insignificant, chance they are not pirates. 

The third voice, female, added some clarity for little old me. “Maybe accepting the deal to enter hostile airspace wasn’t the best idea…”  

The man replied, “Everything will be fine; now come on, let’s loot some shit.”

Well, thanks for that.

Within a moment, I leaped out from behind the buildings I was listening to and stabbed the first man through the chest with the arrow spear. The weapon so cleanly broke through the armour that I had even overextended, not expecting such little force to be required.

The lady screamed, “Calum!” 

However, neither of them was ready to take advantage of my momentary off-balance.

I swung my body up and flung the body off the spear, and with the rotation, I stabbed the lady in the arm before finishing her with the spear.

The final man nervously stumbled back. His panicky self raised his rifle and began to blast me.

I placed the lady’s armoured corpse between us to save Mana, and he increased his pace to create a greater distance between us.

Darkness rose up from the ground in an attempt to form a shield between me and him, and from the short-range [Star Mapping] I could tell he was also trying to go invisible to run away. 

I flung the arrow with my blade turned into a starlight chain at the end. 

The arrow pierced through the wall and punctuated the heart of the man, who had already moved out of the line of sight.

I flipped my wrist and flung the arrow back into my hand. The fight wasn’t over yet, because with [Star Mapping] I had noticed one more individual in the distance, around the corner of the street, who I believed had a very clear inkling about what was going on in my area.

The surrounding area was quiet, but then I kicked a rock to ricochet off a wall to where the individual was. “Are you going to stop doing a horror movie impression and show yourself, or do I have to chase you down like the rat you are?”

The man confidently walked out without a fuss. He was built like an elephant and had some of the heaviest plated armour I had ever seen. His black armour shone, and his black cloak barely concealed his figure.

I found another Dominous Hood member, and a beefy one at that. Standing at least two metres tall, he was about a third of a metre taller than me.

He looked over at the corpses and shrugged, and maybe he even sighed, but that wasn’t possible to tell with his bloody, large helmet.

I launched a fire arrow from above my head at the large man to test the waters.

He didn’t do anything as the arrow collided and did nothing. 

As expected.

My [Fire Arrows] didn’t tend to break through their armour easily. With the weaker armour, aiming for weak points was effective and had the chance for a kill if lucky, but their main use was a distraction and potential danger if used at the right time. Of course, that was not considered one of the two main methods of making them truly deadly, option one, loading them up with a stupid amount of mana, a perfect choice when I knew I needed to kill a target at a range quickly, or option two, just creating a ludicrous number and having them pelt the enemy until they broke. 

They seemed confident in their armour and defences, and to be fair, it was high-grade armour. The material was clearly extremely durable, and the mana coating created by the armour appeared to be resilient.

Aiming for weak points wasn’t that hard with [Star Mapping] supporting my vision on my arrows, but this specimen didn’t have any areas that screamed weak points.

He wasn’t even in a fighting stance, so I went to make the first move. I used [Burst] to close the distance, withdraw the spear, and tie it to my back with starlight; instead of the spear, I used two pointed gauntlets of starlight.

I got in close and prepared to trip him. First, I went for some helmet blows before I went for the trip.

The man figured out what I was trying to do and chose to deflect my fist and slap back.

His heavily armoured fist did not look like a nice thing to be hit by, so I went to parry the blow, but he lunged forward, smashing his body into me. 

I tried to counter by aligning my fist with his strike, but all that managed to do was shatter the starlight surrounding my hand.

Fuck. I should’ve done that better. 

My wrist was not happy with me.

I was easily pushed back in the exchange, but from his motion, I could tell he was surprised; he likely expected me to go flying.

“What?” I taunted him, “Thought I was a Mage?” 

He seemed overconfident, and I wanted to keep it that way, and being overtly cocky myself was the perfect way to do that.

We continued the exchange for half a minute. In and out running attacks on my part and easy blocks and parries on his. I watched his moves to learn his movements. He didn’t stay completely on the defensive. With sudden strikes in the air, he fired shockwaves of mana towards me. I was able to dodge these with well-timed [Burst] thanks to how telegraphed the attack was, but the first one hurt.

Then I [Burst] towards him again with my spear raised in a fiery tornado. The man raised another layer of shielding around their body and instantly went for a lethal counter–fully expecting the armour to block my assault–to finish me.

“Argh!” He crunched forward, but he still managed to complete his swing towards me. 

Thankfully, I swung my body down, and the forward movement of me piercing through his heart gave me barely enough room to dodge. Even if it hit, it wouldn't be as dangerous as it would've estimated. However, I wasn’t risking those resources and healing time at the moment, not to mention the armour damage.

To not risk anything, Starlight chains rose up and tied him to the ground. I pulled out my weapon and stabbed a few more times, easily breaking through the armour each time.

“Fuck, thankfully this thing is sharp, would’ve made this fight a lot more annoying.”

He barely heard my last words as I flung his body over after I was done stabbing. If he had been prepared, he could’ve gotten at least a couple deadly attacks in before he passed, but thankfully, he was not prepared at all to go down at that moment.