PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

Harmony was gone, and there was no chance of picking up her trail. Camila knew; still, that didn’t stop her from sprinting forward as she converged her strength and mana into her sword. Harmony might be gone, but the gargantuan blue snake was still here, and someone had to deal with it.

The runic sphere on the pommel of her sword ignited, devouring the mana at a tremendous rate, fueling the runes hidden in the beautiful design of the blade. Even with her bloodline activated, Camila used all her power to deal with the snake.

There was a reason she was being so rigorous. That was, the snake seemed alive, unlike any other mana construct Camila had seen in the past.

Responding to the aggression, the colossal serpent coils around its body, showing only its big head and fanged maw. The more compact the snake’s form became, the more intense the fluctuations of mana it emitted became.

At this point, Camila’s body was already covered with a vast gray flame that gave off a feeling of immeasurable weight. Every step Camila took was like a titan stepping on the earth, sending intense tremors encompassing the entire city.

Even if only a slight tremor reached the farthest parts of the city, this still spoke of the enormous power or weight behind Camila’s next attack. It was precisely this effect that occurred every time Camila fought with her full strength, which earned her the nickname of the Gray Colossus.

As if there was some kind of implicit agreement, both sides attacked simultaneously. The coiled snake exploded with almost godlike speed, clashing against Camila’s sword.

Once again, Camila only saw a flash of blue, still unable to keep up with the snake’s speed; but she didn’t need to be able to keep up with its speed. Knowing precisely the snake’s target, Camila relied on her instincts to time her sword strike against the snake’s charge.

.....

Camila swept the sword away from her; the grayish mana flare surrounding her was instantly devoured by the blade’s edge. It was as if the world had lost all color for a brief moment. The weight of Camila’s sword created a gravitational pull that devoured all light and mana in the atmosphere for a tiny fraction of a second, creating this phenomenon.

“Go back to your maker. ”

Camila’s beautiful feminine voice didn’t stop her war cry from being loud as thunder, nearly drowning out the blue snake’s roar.

At the moment of impact, a horrible shock wave was generated that devoured almost everything within a dozen meters. These were just the aftermath of the attack, but it was already enough to turn the entire stone floor for ten meters around into fine sand.

Having lost ground, Camila had to use mana to anchor herself in the air. Fortunately, after the initial shock, the snake lost most of its power, so Camila didn’t feel so pressured anymore.

This was more or less what Camila expected; the snake might have the full power of a three-star class attack. But this was, at the end of the day, an independent entity unable to maintain its existence without a user to keep it stable and supply mana.

Without Harmony, the snake had no real chance of defeating Camila. As for why Harmony didn’t stay, Camila already had some ideas. Given what Harmony had said, there were two possibilities.

The first was that Harmony, this entity resulting from the combination of two beings, could only exist for a limited time. The second was that Harmony could only unleash four individual attacks on the three-star class, one for each mana prism that made up his wings.

Taking one step into the air at a time, Camila managed to put pressure on the gigantic snake, not knowing that her deductions about Harmony’s abilities were correct. By the time Camila took her tenth step, the ferocity of the snake was nowhere to be seen.

Camila no longer felt pressured as the water snake’s colossal body shook, destroying its surroundings. In an attempt to survive, the snake began to condense its gigantic body, thus reducing its size but increasing its mana intensity. However, it was in vain; Camila already had this situation in her hands.

Just as Camila thought the snake would make one last desperate fight, the beast opened its jaws, and a familiar voice came out of her aquatic interior. “It was fun. Thanks for everything, Camila.”

This was entirely out of Camila’s expectations; that was Harmony’s voice with a message telling her that even now, that beautiful existence was still having fun with her. As if that wasn’t enough, a stream of water shot out of the snake’s jaws, hitting Camila right in her face, at which point the snake erupted into blue mana particles of its own.

Camila could only stand there with a stunned expression on her beautiful face. A stream of water, just that, without any mana or energy of any kind, was such a harmless move that Camila’s instincts weren’t alerted to it.

Now, with her face and hair soaked, Camila didn’t even have anyone to take it out on for the childish prank. Between laughter and tears, amusement and anger, Camila left the gigantic crater of what had once been the plaza.

Within seconds, the rest of the military forces within the city converged on the location where the battle occurred. The fight only took a few minutes from start to finish, but Camila spent hours dealing with the aftermath.

As the commander of the royal knights and the most potent existence below the royal family, Camila had many responsibilities on her hands. Fortunately for Camila, due to the death of the royal knight who opposed her. In addition to the wise silence of anyone present, she was not held responsible for Cecilia’s escape.

After all, who wanted to antagonize a monster like Camila after seeing the full extent of her power? Other than stupid people or someone with a suicidal wish, no one would do that.

As for Cecilia’s escape, although the royal family found it a pity, this still didn’t change the overall scenario much; it just made things a little more inconvenient. Perhaps, by fate, Xavier’s capture had somewhat compensated for the loss of Cecilia, so in terms of results, the royal family was not upset with Camila.

More importantly, Camila had fought single-handedly against an unknown existence of immense power that snuck into the city and managed to get rid of it. Even if Camila didn’t destroy this intruder, the mere act of repelling such a dangerous entity out of the city earned Camila a lot of goodwill and rewards.

For the next few days, the city of Serith was in chaos. As an envoy from the royal family broke the news to the citizens regarding the previous day’s mess, a punitive force from the royal family was already on its way to exterminate the remnants of the Church.

For this malignant cancer that had poisoned the city, the royal family had not the slightest mercy. Taking advantage of the historical fall of the church forces at the hands of Desmond, it was time to remove this tumor.

Camila left that day for the Church with a sword in hand, in command of a dozen royal knights and almost two hundred soldiers. Even after the death of all their holy knights, the Church fought; they had the numbers and the resources to somewhat make up for the lack of quality. But none of that was of any use against the strongest of the royal knights.

One could ignore even the royal knights; everything was meaningless in front of Camila’s strength. She strode across the church grounds like a gray titan, her gigantic sword and voluminous armor bathed in blood until it became difficult to determine the original color.

Strapped to Camila’s back was a beautiful thick red cloak with the royal family crest. This was the treasure given to Camila for her achievement the day before. No matter how hard Camila fought, the cape never got damaged or dirty; even blood didn’t stick to this cape.

Feeling the fiery vitality that the cloak kept pouring into her, Camila didn’t feel tired or fatigued no matter how hard she fought. The cloak’s effects were worthy of belonging to a royal family artifact. However, Camila thought wearing it while cleaning waste was a shame.

With Camila at the forefront, Church barely lasted a couple hours in battle. The battle was over when the sun reached the top of the sky. At Camila’s suggestion, only the high ranks of the Church were purged, while the middle levels would be heavily investigated.

Camila did it thinking of Cecilia, believing that not every Church member was corrupt. To convince the king and his advisers, Camila argued that it was better to preserve the lower bases of the Church. Then found a religious body that would serve the royal family, more easily replacing the current Church. Camila’s suggestion was welcomed and even earned some praise from the king’s advisors.

After personally cutting off the heads of all the high ranks of the Church, including the head of the source of all Cecilia’s suffering, Camila put away her sword and left. She was not a bloodthirsty woman, and that massacre was carried out under the king’s orders; now that she was done, she had nothing else to do.

As she retreated and used mana to cleanse the blood from her body, Camila’s mind couldn’t help but wonder. She was thinking of her benefactor, Cecilia, and the man who took her, Desmond. Camila wondered if letting Desmond take Cecilia was the right decision. Still, thinking back to Harmony, Camila had to accept that in the end, even she couldn’t have stopped Cecilia from being taken.

“I just hope she’s happy. This kingdom is rotten to the core; I think it’s time to take my family and move south. I heard that the port city of Roa is quite nice this time of year.”