PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

612 Chapter 612 Being a criminal used to be safer.

Seeing the group of men bound hand and foot lying on the ground in front of them, Claire couldn’t help but ask the question on everyone’s mind. “Fei Long, where did these guys come from?”

Fei Long, who had been missing for a mere two minutes, replied. “A mile south, offshore, hidden in a sea cave; don’t worry, from what I saw in the cave, these men are scum. You can break every one of their rotten bones without feeling guilty about it.”

Fei Long found no problem with her statement because her combat specialty consists of mind-blowing speed and devastating destructive power. It couldn’t say the same for the rest of the girls. According to Fei Long’s words, she had traveled a considerable distance looking for the criminals. After finding them, she proceeded to subdue everyone and bring them back within two minutes.

One could only imagine how absurdly fast she was. The strange thing was that she did not cause any sound when moving despite her exorbitant acceleration. Not many knew that all of Fei Long’s martial arts were related to sound, both in controlling, imitating, amplifying, and canceling it out.

Of course, it was easier to tell the exact nature of another person’s martial arts if you experienced it. Yet, given Fei Long’s strength, surviving that experience didn’t sound very likely.

Whatever the case, Fei Long was not interested in explaining; all she wanted was to see the result of the four girls’ training. Well, of the three girls, Fei Long didn’t need to see what Sasha would do.

As expected, Sasha was the first to offer to practice with the bandits, not out of enthusiasm but out of the mere need to finish her part so she could continue reading the alchemy book in her hands.

Although inwardly, Fei Log had already given the bandit a death sentence, she still said a few words to prevent him from simply fleeing disappointingly. “Things are quite simple, my friend, all you have to do is fight that vermilion-haired girl over there, and if you win, I’ll let you go.”

The bandit was not stupid and certainly did not believe anything he was told, but Fei Long’s next words forced him to comply. “Of course, you can refuse to fight her, but then you’ll have to deal with me. I’m sure you don’t want that.”

.....

Recalling how fifty of his companions burst into bloodstains without making a sound, after which the madwoman in front of him appeared, the bandit nodded like a chicken pecking at rice. In the bandit’s mind, anything was better than dealing with the crazy woman who seemed to have come out of hell itself.

Seeing the bandit so obedient, Fei Long was about to smile, but then she saw a flower in Sasha’s hand. Seeing the deceptively tiny flower in Sasha’s hands, Fei Long frowned and smiled, but wryly; it seemed that things would end much faster than she thought.

Claire, Cecilia, and Revna had been too busy with their respective training, so they didn’t know what the flower was about. They just watched with interest and recognized that it was made of fire and looked like a dandelion.

Knowing exactly what would happen, Fei Long lost interest in the fight and said a few words to the bandit. “At least try not to look pathetic in your last moments.” At the confused look of the bandit, Fei Long backed up at hyper speed just in time to evade what Sasha was about to do.

Not caring if the bandit was ready or not, Sasha did something very simple, she blew her sweet lips on the dandelion in her hands. The resulting explosion was like a shotgun blast of tiny spikes of fire that vaporized the bandit instantly, not even leaving ash behind.

Under the stunned gaze of Claire and the others, who were slightly deafened by the noise of the explosion, Sasha moved her lips, forming only a few words. “<Burning Garden – Dandelion>.”

And with that, Sasha ended her training in an incredibly anticlimactic way but not entirely unexpected for Xiauyue and Fei Long, who knew how strong and ruthless Sasha could be.

However, seeing the calm and friendly smile of Sasha, who had just used one of her ultimates to wipe someone out of existence, Xiauyue and Fei Long reinforced their overall impression of Sasha: she was a wolf in sheepskin.

In the case of Claire, Cecilia, and Revna, the three felt quite strange seeing their friend being so domineering and carefree. She didn’t fit in with the experiment-obsessed Sasha they knew or the lazy girl who watched magical girl cartoons in the living room.

Just as they used to say, people were complicated and couldn’t be described in a single sentence. Fei Long only wished that Sasha would have taken a less radical approach, or at least she would have waited for the other girls to have her turn. Now the bandits were shitting themselves in fear of what happened to their companion.

Knowing that she needed to do something so that this exercise wouldn’t lose meaning, Xiauyue helped her dear Fei. “Well, that was disappointing but not unexpected. I’ll be honest, none of you have the slightest chance of beating that girl, so it’s good that your partner died for you, so you don’t have to face her. The good news is that she won’t be playing this game of ours anymore, and the rest of the girls aren’t as unbeatable as she is; I reckon there’s at least a 10% chance that one of you will beat them.”

The bandits’ eyes lit up upon hearing Xiauyue’s last words. 10% might sound like little, but it was a world of difference compared to the 0% chance they had against Sasha or Fei Long. Furthermore, bandits were used to gambling with their own lives. As long as something was not impossible, these lunatics would take the risk.

Another thing to note was that upon a closer look, the bandits noticed that the only ones emitting dangerous energy ripples were Sasha, Xiauyue, and Fei Long, with the latter two radiating the most pressure. Claire, Cecilia, and Revna were far from emitting such overwhelming force and were strong at best, but not in a hopeless way.

With the hope of survival as bait, the remaining bandits screamed and kicked, asking to be the next to fight, hoping that with any luck, the next girl wouldn’t be as dangerous as the last.

Although eager to prove her abilities in front of her friends and to feel worthy of Desmond’s love again, Claire knew that her feelings of insecurity and selfishness had to take a backseat. She couldn’t just ignore Revna, who looked like she was about to go crazy.

In the Astryd residence, Revna’s case was very special, which was saying enough. Revna came to the family not as Desmond’s lover or friend but as a woman he rescued from a fate worse than death after suffering unspeakable humiliation and horrors at the hands of human traffickers.

Apart from Claire herself, it could be said that Revna was the one who loved Desmond the most, or in other words, the one who was most obsessed with him. On the other hand, even more than Cecilia herself, Revna had suffered the most. Revna harbored a darkness that was impossible to comprehend for anyone who had not suffered the same thing as her.

Claire knew that, as unhealthy as it was, Revna needed to deal with the scars from the past. The lives of bandits were too small a price to pay for such a thing.

Claire also knew that Revna’s self-discipline was second only to Desmond’s. So, she wouldn’t take the initiative to request a duel unless the rest of the girls gave her the go-ahead beforehand.

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Receiving a nod from Claire, Cecilia, and Sasha, Revna felt the darkness in her heart release the chains called discipline and loyalty. The feeling of release caused her to smile in a way that unsettled all who saw her.

Immediately, the bandit who had just jumped in to be the next to fight regretted his decision, wishing there was a regret pill so he wouldn’t be in his current situation. Having the bitter feeling that he would not leave this place alive, the bandit could not help asking a question to his companions, who looked at him with pity. “Hey guys, was being a criminal always this dangerous?”

The response was, of course, a group assent. All the bandits present were a bunch of lunatics, stragglers, and criminals. They were crazy and desperate enough to come here to hunt people down for trafficking in a place dominated by an absurdly dangerous, anti-human trafficking sect.

Within a week, at least one gang of bandits and slavers similar to them was eradicated entirely. On many occasions, criminals were tortured for hours before being executed by the mad women of the Eternal War Maiden sect, who hated slavers to death. In short: being a criminal in this place was the same as already having one foot in hell; one had to be stupid to think otherwise.

Seeing that no one tried to comfort him, the bandit gulped, took the weapon from him that was returned to him by Fei Long, and faced Revna, who was glaring at him with boundless hatred. Sensing the whole maelstrom of malevolence in Revna’s eyes, the bandit could only mutter bitterly. “I’m sure being a criminal used to be safer; the world has gone to hell.”