PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

640 Chapter 640 The True Ability Of Lilith’s Bloodline

One lesson Desmond had to learn the hard way was that no matter how loud one roared, what really mattered was the muscle one had to back one’s ferocity. In the particular case of Emerard, or the beast that Emerard had become, well, Desmond had no intention of competing with that thing.

Using the boost he got from burning the drop of essential blood he drained from Mathias Lupan, Desmond continued to scamper around the huge necrotic beast. Unlike the rest of the Darkblood, whose powers were quite diverse, Desmond had only one ability bestowed by his lineage on top of an above-average physique.

This ability was something that Nicolai had called <Crimson Gift>, apparently having copied Lilith’s way of calling said ability. The way this ability worked was very simple; as long as Desmond drank a large amount of blood from another species, he would be able to refine a drop of essential blood that would contain a tremendous amount of life energy or blood energy, as Nicolai and Lilith called it. Furthermore, this drop of blood would contain many of the innate gifts from whom the blood was taken.

The prerequisites to form this drop of essential blood were somewhat vague. Yet, roughly speaking, a large amount of blood was needed from a life form as strong or stronger than Desmond. In the same way, the blood had to have enough potential, something more to do with the lineage and species the blood came from rather than how strong a source Desmond drew it from.

That way, no matter how much blood Desmond drank from those weaker than him, he would get nothing. The same would happen if he drank the blood of ordinary humans without any particular lineage or innate ability since the human race did not have enough potential to form a drop of essential blood.

In the same way, Desmond could not drink the blood of a life form whose strength or potential was too far away from his own, an act that could even be dangerous, even lethal in some cases. This made attempting to steal the blood of beings as powerful as Katya or Titania through unorthodox means a rather unsuccessful or even suicidal act.

All the related details were something Desmond knew basically instinctively, something he also applied to how to use essential blood. Roughly speaking, refined essential blood was a one-use energy source and skill store.

In this instance, Desmond had burned the drop of blood that he refined from Mathias’s vitality; hence he acquired some physical features that leaned towards Mathias’s wolfish appearance. In the same way, Desmond gained a huge boost in his physical abilities and regeneration, the core abilities of the Lupan clan lineage.

.....

Unfortunately, despite the increased power brought by Mathias’s blood, Desmond was not a suitable match for the necrotic beast that Emerard had become. Unable to match the ridiculous reach of the necrotic beast’s bone whip, Desmond was hit square in the chest.

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Desmond flew like a rag doll, hitting the colossal mural and leaving a huge bloodstain that stained the hair of Lilith’s portrait. Vision blurring from the impact, Desmond trusted his instincts and dodged to the side just in time to dodge a second blow from the bone whip.

A second later, after clearing his vision, Desmond had the urge to curse the last ancestor of the Licht clan as he saw how a bunch of giant tentacles of rotting flesh and bone had grown somewhere on the necrotic beast’s back.

“You got to be kidding. <Leviathan’s Wrath – Yamata No Orochi>.” Unable to deal with so many necrotic matter whips, Desmond immediately went on the offensive, attempting to block as many tentacles as possible.

The collision of the water snakes and the tentacles created chaos, devastating much of the environment. Still, Desmond quickly began to find himself overwhelmed.

Adding to the vast difference in strength, the unholy essence oozing from Emerard’s rotting flesh saturated the catacomb, rapidly corroding any mana from Desmond’s body.

Seeing the ever-mutating mass of flesh and blood that Emerard had become, Desmond decided to change his approach. Drawing out his sword, < Sky’s End>, in addition to maintaining the summoning of the eight serpents, Desmond began pouring massive amounts of wind mana into his legs and metallic mana into the sword.

Desmond’s figure was quickly engulfed in an emerald green gale while his sword was covered in a deep golden glow. Finally, when the bone tentacles completely destroyed Desmond’s water summoning, he erupted with a perfect blend of martial prowess and mana summoning.

Desmond’s wolfish transformation became more intense for a second as all of Mathias’s remaining blood essence burned to ashes driving Desmond’s physical power to the extreme. At the same time, Desmond’s figure was covered by a wolf’s head made of blades of cutting wind while his sword was engulfed in an almost blinding golden glow.

In an instant, Desmond was converted in a flash of power and speed, appearing almost instantly within the attack area of Emerard’s tentacles, quickly maneuvering masterfully through the barrier of bone whips.

A second later, pouring a monstrous amount of physical power behind his sword and allowing it to devour all the wind mana he brought with him, Desmond unleashed a single sword slash that far exceeded any skill he had used in the past.

The combination of all the power contained within the blood of the Lupan clan heir, combined with a tremendous amount of wind and metallic mana, all channeled within the sword, <Sky’s End>, resulted in a single sword slash that without any doubt had reached the standards of a three-star class existence.

Harboring enough hatred in his heart for everything that existed in this world, especially someone like Emerard, Desmond roared with pride and desire for destruction at the top of his lungs as he delivered the crystallization of all of his prowess and ability with that one blow of his sword. “Someone like you, you old bag of rotting bones, belongs to the same place I sent that son of a bitch Nicolai to, to the past. <Astryd Swordplay – Sirius’ Punishment>.”

Out of nowhere, what used to be Emerard’s chest exploded with hundreds of bone spears and innards filled with that strange black substance that seemed to be a condensed version of the necrotic essence of this place.

All the power in the edge of Desmond’s sword condensed into a kind of brilliant star that radiated a savage ferocity like a wolf crashed head-on into the torrent of mutated flesh and bone.

At first, the pinnacle of Desmond’s current prowess seemed to overwhelm Emerard’s strange mutant reaction, but that began to change as the increasingly dense unholy essence in the air started to eat away at excessive speeds in Desmond’s attack.

Desmond was already feeding his sword with everything he had on hand since burning the remaining blood essences within him was a move he wasn’t willing to make. Without those remaining blood essences, Desmond could not open the complicated door mechanism to Lilith’s tomb.

As if in response to the situation Desmond found himself in, a tremendous wave of lightning shot from Desmond’s heart, quickly turning into a spiral of power that traveled all the way to Desmond’s sword.

Out of nowhere, the scales on the blade, <Sky’s End>, burst with vitality, absorbing the yellow lightning and refining it into emerald green lightning. The next instant, a shower of green lightning emanated from Desmond’s sword, bombarding the necrotic beast, destroying its flesh, and vaporizing the unholy essence in the air around it.

Seizing the opportunity, Desmond used his blood to fuel his strengthening ability, <Full-Drive >. Covered in a reddish glow, Desmond poured every ounce of power in his body onto his sword, finally overwhelming Emerard’s defenses.

As the transformation caused by the blood of the Lupan clan was reversed, Desmond finally managed to find a way for his sword to strike the center of the mutant mass that Emerard had become.

For a moment, it was as if the brilliant golden star on the sword’s edge went out, only to explode as a supernova of metallic mana. Thousands of tiny needles of metallic mana coated in wind blades created expansive absolute destruction.

Desmond saw with his own eyes how the core of the necrotic beast was almost completely disintegrated. He couldn’t help but feel surprised by his own power, or rather by the power of Lilith’s and Nicolai’s blood.

Although it might seem that most of that last attack came from Desmond’s own mana, Desmond himself knew that this ability was the crystallization of much more than his mastery over mana and the power he had drawn from the blood of the clan Lupan heir had been a big part of it.

For starters, without the transformation to his physique, Desmond would not have been able to withstand the strain of executing an ability that far exceeded his mana manipulation threshold, not to mention that it was the conceptualization and intent within that blood that gave it shape to his ability.

Although it was a borrowed power that didn’t last long, Desmond still saw a lot of potential within this ability; there was no doubt that this had been Lilith and Nicolai’s hidden trump card in the past. Considering that this was just an innate ability and Lilith still had her enormous mastery of the Arcana, Desmond couldn’t help but imagine how tremendously powerful that woman who was betrayed and imprisoned all those years ago once was.