PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

505 Chapter 505 Verimar.

Faithfully doing his duty, the soldier at the city’s gate glanced at new visitors, always asking for some kind of confirmation regarding identity and intentions in the city. “Identification, please.”

Like everyone else, the person at the front of the entrance line handed over a small piece of identification before being let through.

After a quick check to verify that he was not carrying weapons, the new visitor managed to enter the city.

This was the city of Verimar, one of the few megacities that Country C had in its domain. Due to its border position, the town of Verimar had its own importance, especially after the beginning of the war. But that did not seem to be reflected in the city’s atmosphere.

To the new visitor’s eyes, even for a city in a country at war, Verimar seemed too desolate and sad. There weren’t many people walking the streets, most of the businesses appeared to be closed for a long time, and the spirits in the city couldn’t be lower.

The visitor’s sapphire blue eyes did not stop looking around questioningly, scanning his surroundings, trying to take in as much information as possible before rejoining his companions.

As he made his way through the city, it became increasingly clear to the visitor that something seemed to be wrong with the city. It took some time, as there was no one on the streets to ask, but the visitor eventually discovered why the town was in such a mood.

As expected, it was all due to the war. Based on what the visitor heard, almost everyone who died during the skirmish in the forest nearly two weeks ago came from this city. One could imagine the number of widows and orphans that arose from that incident.

To make matters worse, after that day’s defeat, Country C had become stricter and more aggressive with its recruiting, and Verimar was one of the first cities to fall victim to that change in attitude.

.....

“I thought our country was bad enough, but I didn’t think I’d find a place in an even worse position.”

A few words and little empathy were all the visitor had for the city of Verimar. War was always this cruel; they could only blame themselves for being citizens of a country that took the reckless initiative to start a war.

Advancing through the alleys, the visitor finally reached his destination, a small abandoned bar in the slums of the city. Upon opening the door, what greeted the visitor was a group of four people.

“Claire, Silvia, Morales, I hope I’m not too late. Black Lotus, I appreciate your services for this mission.”

The people in the room greeted the visitor’s presence with a smile; after all, he was the reason they were here. Seeing his boss enter the room, Morales greeted him with a sincere smile. “Desmond, you took your time.”

Desmond returned that and other greetings before turning his attention to the figure of the fourth person in the room. An individual with an almost indiscernible appearance due to the continuous layer of shadows over his body. Beneath the cloak of shadows, Revna kept her composure; Desmond had gone to some trouble to disguise her identity to allow her to be a part of this operation openly.

Morales could not keep his mouth shut and asked because he was the most naive and reckless of the group. “Boss, was it really necessary to bring in this suspicious-looking fellow? We are more than enough for this mission; I don’t see why we must bring someone who refuses to show his identity.”

Morales thought Desmond would immediately agree with him, but that was not the case. “I’m afraid this mission requires skills that we lack. We are on enemy land; we need access and stealth, both of which are Miss Black Lotus’s specialty, which is why I hired her services for this mission.”

Morales, being someone simple-minded, agreed as soon as Desmond gave an explanation, though he was surprised to discover that the Black Lotus was a woman. Claire and Silvia were indifferent; they knew perfectly well who Black Lotus was, and there was no need to say anything more about it.

Almost two weeks had passed since Desmond had been given the mission to cause chaos within C country. It was only expected that Desmond would go to the trouble of explaining many of the details to people he trusted.

Desmond spent a great deal of time supporting Claire’s training during those two weeks for two reasons. First of all, Claire lacked combat experience, and Desmond wanted to help her with it. The other reason was Desmond trying to spend time with her to make it up to her for the Revna thing.

Speaking of the Revna thing, Claire had once again proven that she was too good for Desmond by not picking a fight or making a claim on the subject. Claire only asked Desmond, for one thing, something that she had already asked him in the past: that he would always keep a place for her in his heart.

That night, Desmond spent hours showering Claire with warmth, love, and pleasure. Claire always had that effect on Desmond; whenever she was so tolerant and loving towards Desmond’s mistakes, he just wanted to make love to her until she passed out.

On this occasion, the effect lasted for several days, the irony being that at some point, the satisfied but incredibly exhausted Claire had to beg for mercy and send Desmond to Sasha’s room. Claire just couldn’t take any more without being afraid of breaking down physically and mentally.

The night that happened, Sasha didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of the situation; eventually, she wept tears of pleasure as Desmond ravaged her. That night, Desmond caressed, kissed, licked, and invaded every corner of Sasha’s body, who stopped thinking about her laboratory and her experiments. However, it would be more accurate to say that she lost all her ability to think during those hours she spent in bed with Desmond.

Whatever the case, the Revna issue has since been settled, and neither Claire nor Sasha had anything to say; they just accepted the matter. Since then, Revna took the initiative to spend less time in the shadows and could occasionally be seen doing yoga on the house’s patio in the early morning.

With that and other matters finished, Desmond had used the information he got from the spy he captured to set up this operation. It was a bit tricky, but Natalie eventually broke the spy’s mind, allowing them to use him as a puppet to make some arrangements.

Though the spy eventually became brain dead, by then, Desmond had gotten what he wanted from him, including the IDs to sneak into Verimar City.

Verimar City was the equivalent of Green Seed in Country C, so much of the military force in the area was concentrated in this city; hence Desmond selected it as a target. Since his mission was to create chaos and assassinate enemy officers, Verimar was the best option.

From what Desmond discovered, Country C was well aware of the resources they had placed in the city of Verimar and had prepared for a possible attack in retaliation for the assassinations they had ordered to be carried out. However, this did not deter Desmond; on the contrary, such preparations only increased the number of officers and powers in the city. For Desmond, it was like having more sheep in the corral.

On a battlefield where hundreds if not thousands of soldiers were involved in the carnage, Desmond wouldn’t have had the confidence to go off on his own and do something crazy; he wasn’t immortal or inexhaustible. Still, things changed when the fight took place in a city.

In a city, especially an enemy one, Desmond could go berserk and fight wildly without fear of being surrounded by an army. Also, Desmond could fight without fear of collateral damage, while his enemies had to worry about destruction and civilian casualties. It might sound cold-blooded, but that was Desmond’s point of view; he planned to fully exploit every advantage he could gain.

Still, Desmond was aware of his limitations, and his plan wasn’t as simple as charging like a bull and destroying everything in his path. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have brought allies with him.

Desmond’s plan was to attack the headquarters in the city with a large-scale destruction ability, killing as many military officers as possible in one hit, then fighting the powerful esper that was left alive. Claire, Silvia, and Morales’ role in the plan was to ambush the reinforcements with their most potent abilities. Meanwhile, Revna’s role was to assassinate high-ranking civil officials in the city while the chaos ensued.

Unlike Green Seed, where Desmond had to consider many factors when it came to Verimar, an enemy city, he could simply use the path of violence and power. There was no need for conspiracies, deception, kidnapping, or extortion; everything would be resolved in the bloodiest and simplest way possible.