PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

There were drug stores for cultivation, blacksmiths where all kinds of weapons and armor were forged with special materials, clothing stores made with the finest and most exotic of materials, restaurants, and much more.

And since this was the most prominent city of the sect it was obvious that many of these businesses were either owned by some of the most influential families within the sect or were run directly by the sect like the heavenly treasure pavilion that was an incredibly famous auction house across different kingdoms.

Of course, such a city was full of businesses whose purpose was to attend to the diverse needs of the disciples of the roaming cloud sect, and being these mostly adults; such services included the company rent.

The lily garden was one of the most famous brothels in the city but for all the wrong reasons, exorbitant prices, poor quality women, theft, and drugs were just some of the problems with the place; It almost seemed that they had no intention of running a business.

Not only that, this establishment was in the poorest sector of the city where all kinds of criminals and people of all kinds of dubious origins mixed, in this place it was a common event to find corpses abandoned in the alleys and it was well known that the sect tended to ignore the events that occurred in this place due to powerful forces and criminal syndicates running the place.

At the end of the day, there could be no light without darkness and it was inevitable that certain forces were interested in obtaining a piece of the cake that the roaming cloud city represented, and not even the sect could ignore these forces so they decided to keep an eye closed to their criminal activities as long as they kept them under control in that specific sector of the city.

When two hooded figures hidden in an alley in the distance saw their target enter such an establishment, they came to the understanding that this place was most likely just a cover for something else.

In fact, the hooded figures had only reached this place after a long and tedious monitoring period, it turned out that after using their superior speed the couple managed to reach the person they were tracking but they did not expect this person to go directly to the city.

.....

That changed things a bit, unlike when they escaped from the sect under the cover of darkness, they could not enter the city in the same way, there were simply too many people active even to be hours at night in the city; people like them completely dressed in black would stand out.

So they both had to put on a pair of capes that were discreet but not obviously designed for stealth, on top of that after a heated discussion they came to an understanding of what kind of role they should play.

The reason for the discussion was that the female figure flatly refused to play along with the male figure, but the latter insisted that the most discreet way to go through the city was to pretend to be a couple looking for a place to make their love nest.

After all, this was such a common sight that no one would pay any additional attention to such a couple, in the end, the female figure reluctantly agreed when she understood the logic behind the act; especially when she herself was the reason they had to be extra careful to attract attention due to her identity.

Very reluctantly the female figure hugged one of her partner’s arms intimately as he used his arm to encircle her waist, drawing her even closer to him and thus maintaining their apparently flirtatious and intimate act as they followed their target.

Sometimes they would stop to kiss passionately without any concern for who could see them ... of course, this is what it looked like from the outside but what was actually happening was that their target was quite nervous and sometimes turned around with paranoia.

In those moments the male figure dragged his partner to a discreet point out of sight of their target and acted for anyone else who might be watching, it was also obvious that they weren’t really kissing it just seemed this way because their hoods bonded with each other but actually they only argued with each other with their faces really close to each other.

Only when their objective entered the most dangerous area of ??the city was that they were able to leave the act and immediately return to their hooded and dressed in black appearances, after all in this area of ??the city such a thing would not attract anyone’s attention; in that way, they tracked their target to the brothel where they were currently waiting.

Just a couple of minutes later the hooded couple saw how the almost non-existent customers were expelled from the place and as immediately the atmosphere of the place changed, counting the number of guards now visible one would have to wonder what kind of treasure they guarded in this place ... or in this particular case, what kind of secrets did they keep?

“Did you know about this place?” Asked the male figure.

“Only from its bad reputation” replied the female figure.

“Any relationship with the Bai family?” the man asked again.

“Not that I know of, it is normal that the three families want to keep some businesses secret but this ... I don’t think they are baking cupcakes in there” The woman replied as she took off her hood revealing her delicate face.

Seeing Xiauyue reveal her face, her partner came to an understanding and replied while he removed his hood: “It seems that the Miao family has been neglected if they did not notice this kind of place.”

Xiauyue was annoyed by the sarcasm in her partner’s words but looking at those cold blue eyes she understood that it was not the time to fight.

“Rather, it is the Bai family who was careless today to reveal such a well-kept secret just because one of their spoiled children had their fingers cut off,” Xiauyue said mockingly.

Desmond smiled with a very slight tinge of sadism and replied: “That person can consider himself lucky that I didn’t cut off his head, that’s no way to talk to a lady”

Xiauyue raised an eyebrow in surprise at Desmond’s response and couldn’t help but comment: “Oh, I didn’t know you considered me a lady.”

To which Desmond replied while he shrugged: “I was talking about Mei.”

Resisting the urge to hit Desmond, Xiauyue asked, “Any ideas?”

Desmond was silent, he observed the position of the guards and seemed to do some mental calculations for himself before answering: “That depends, but I need you to confirm one thing first.”

Xiauyue looked at him with interest and replied: “What thing?”

“This is an assassination mission, right?” Desmond said directly.

But Xiauyue didn’t answer, maybe it’s because she hadn’t thought about it until now or because she was trying to measure the weight of her actions; but in the end, she looked at Desmond with determination and nodded slowly but firmly.

“In that case, follow my lead,” Desmond replied.

Taking the bow from him again, Desmond made his way to the roof of a building some one hundred and fifty feet away from the brothel, still partially hidden Desmond closely watched the guards outside the brothel.

After two minutes of studying their movement patterns Desmond made his move, using an overload to optimize his nervous processes and neural synapses Desmond performed the calculations in his mind as his body prepared to fire.

One silent arrow after another shot out of his bow, each flying in a parabola calculated with terrifying precision, at the moment of impact the three arrows fired by Desmond penetrated the skull of each of the guards just a fraction of a second apart between each blow without even giving any of the guards a chance to react.

As if that were not enough, each one of the arrows hit his target at a specific angle and moment, causing it to remain nailed to some kind of support, preventing the bodies from making noise when they hit the ground; With the impact of the arrow itself suppressed by the mana of wind used on them Desmond managed to take out all the guards in one silent movement.

Such a feat left Xiauyue completely stunned because although she did not consider any of those arrows a threat to someone as strong as her; she even had to admit that she had never seen someone with such terrifying precision and control.

Desmond for his part drank a healing potion to deal with the small nerve damage he suffered as payment for his ability to execute that shot.

Still, with the bitter taste of the potion on his taste buds, Desmond muttered: “Are you skilled in any weapon?”

Xiauyue nodded pointing to the long sword that was firmly tied at the back of her waist but Desmond only shook his head at the sight of the weapon, without even waiting for Xiauyue to reply Desmond took out the pair of daggers hidden in his robe and made his way quickly to the brothel.

Recalling Desmond’s stealth abilities and seeing the daggers he carried, Xiauyue came to an understanding and tracked him down, she could only sigh inwardly when she thought how little she had contributed so far in this mission.

Nor is it that she could be blamed, after all, she was the daughter of the sect master, an expert in martial arts and a medical expert; she hadn’t been trained as an assassin and the fact that she was doing so well so far was a matter for applause.

She could only hope that she had something to contribute before the night was over or her pride wouldn’t let her sleep knowing she had only been a burden to Desmond on a mission that should have been his in the first place.