Bear School Astartes

The Old Hunter’s face, usually calm to the point of indifference, suddenly paused for a moment but soon returned to normal.

Only his eyes revealed a peculiar expression of reminiscence, unique to the elderly.

”Hmm, yes.” He mumbled indistinctly without much hesitation, ”I am Henrik, Lady Maria.”

Seeing Maria’s dazed, somewhat unrealistic look, Henrik smiled indifferently.

Even seeing someone long dead, appearing as they did in their youth, felt unreal.

Let alone for Maria herself, who was experiencing it firsthand.

”It has been decades since the day you died; isn’t it normal for me to look like this?”

”Normal...” The Female Hunter murmured softly, as if trying to convince herself, ”Yes, it’s very normal.”

She tried to convince herself, but the feeling of unreality still clung to her.

After all, from her perspective, she had just spent that burning night with Lann and Adeline, the night that destroyed Old Yan’an.

Henrik and his friends had just met them on their way to sanctuary, young and naive at the time.

Yet in an instant, the naive youth had turned into the elderly figure among the hunters considered ’very old.’

And just without hostility looking at her made her feel a danger like a knife pressed against her skin.

Anyone with such an experience would undoubtedly feel unreal.

But at the same time, Maria’s somewhat dazed eyes glanced over Henrik for a moment.

The expression of this indifferent and dangerous Old Hunter was as complex as Maria’s.

Regret, joy, and... relief and acceptance.

Seeing the eyes of the Yan’an Old Hunter, who should have always been cold like a blade, now looked at, Maria seemed to understand something through time.

”You liked me, Henrik?”

Subconsciously, Maria asked.

But the moment after she spoke, she realized her abruptness and rudeness, opened her mouth to try to say something to make amends.

However, the Old Hunter himself, simply laughed indifferently.

He took his ochre-colored hat and ’patted’ the dust off his body, speaking freely and relaxed.

”You are Lady Maria, a beautiful and strong hunter, student of the First Hunter... perhaps you didn’t know? In the past, most young hunters would always see you as an ideal object of admiration.”

”I was no exception.”

When people grow old, speaking of their youthful feelings or embarrassment, they carry a unique light-heartedness.

As a hunter, Henrik’s ’looking indifferent’ feeling was even more apparent.

Everything had passed, former feelings and aspirations had turned into a photograph in memory. He certainly remembered, but there was little emotional connection left.

Compared to that...

Henrik turned to look at Viola telling stories with her two daughters, and silent Gascogne standing aside.

These things were now, all that he cared about.

Maria also felt Henrik’s mood of having already accepted and let go, and her heart gradually relaxed.

”I truly didn’t know, those young hunters would... admire me more.”

For some reason, Maria felt a sense of relief as she spoke and her tone relaxed.

”And your friend? Is he named Mark? After all this time, are you still on good terms?”

”Mark.” Speaking of his old friend, Henrik paused while patting dust off his hat but quickly resumed. ”He died.”

”Just earlier tonight, turned into a beast, hunted by Lann and myself... personally.”

”...”

Maria’s face lost its previous relaxation in an instant.

The long night, the blood moon overhead, pushed the cruel reality upon everyone’s hearts again.

The Blood Nobility-born Female Hunter pursed her lips, strapped the blood vial band, and looked toward the path Henrik pointed, which Lann took.

If that outsider took this path to the place she imagined... then undoubtedly, she bore responsibility for it.

The atmosphere of light-hearted reminiscence vanished, leaving only heaviness.

Maria’s boots made a crisp, stepping sound on the stone floor, heading to the side door of the small chapel.

Before entering, Maria paused one last time.

She lowered her head without turning.

”Then, your friend, Mark... did he go peacefully?”

”He died quickly.” Henrik didn’t stand or turn, just answered deeply. ”After that night, he became very afraid of fire. We used this to... let him die quickly.”

Maria pursed her lips, nodded silently, and walked into the small door.

She searched, comparing her memory, in this building that bore faint traces of the past but had ultimately changed with time.

After a winding journey, she finally found that familiar path... the road leading to her teacher, the path to the Hunter Workshop established by the First Hunter, Gremman, in days of yore.

Maria walked all the way in; the familiar scenes in her memory had long become dilapidated due to a lack of caretakers.

But now, the Blood Nobility who had become a Hunter did not indulge in nostalgic thoughts like her far-off kin in Cainhurst.

She was more pragmatic, more responsible... She felt a responsibility to finish what she should do.

Entering the workshop akin to a small chapel, in the empty rooms, there was only a barely closed fracture floating mid-air.

Without hesitation, Maria walked straight in.

-----------------

”Your ability to regenerate is getting weaker, Gremman.”

In a dazzling fast-paced sword duel, Lann’s left leg suddenly struck Gremman’s wooden prosthetic right leg, and at the moment of his imbalance, he followed up with a spinning kick.

With a loud ’bang’ explosion!

The force of the spinning kick was powerful enough to shatter a boulder! The hardness of the Smaug scale armor doubled the lethality.

Gremman’s chest, hit by this kick, visibly underwent a severe deformation, as if the ribs supporting his chest cavity no longer existed.

The Old Hunter spun around, skimming the surface like a skipping stone, bouncing several times before finally crashing into the base of the large tree where he had previously rested.

By now, the originally tranquil and beautiful sea of white flowers had been ravaged into gully after gully under the moonlight due to the battle between the two.

Gremman’s Acceleration Technique even allowed him to create a menacing trench just by turning his weapon to the side and starting to run.

Lann’s Qi Flow Blade further expanded his attack range by several times.

With his current mastery of Swordsmanship and physical prowess, his freely unleashed Qi Flow Blade was already much stronger than Iwami Yixin’s.

Without using specific techniques, his casually wielded Qi Flow Blade was about as powerful as the previously technique-driven Dragon Flash.

Grass, wood, earth, and stone all had no choice but to be sliced under this sharp Qi Blade.

Every time the Old Hunter hit the ground, it would scatter a large amount of stones and dirt.

Dug out a patch of earth on the white flower sea.

When he finally crashed into the tree root, the wood burst with myriad splinters due to external pressure.

Nonetheless, the area of the Old Hunter’s chest, turned to mush from the kick, now recovered at a speed visible to the naked eye. His originally unchanged clothes upon injury now even restored only after his flesh recovered.

But Lann wasn’t unscathed either.

He reached for the back of his neck with the glove plated with dragon scale armor.

When brought before his eyes, his palm was already crimson, and under the armor, his back felt as if being gently washed by liquid.

In an instant clash, he had determined that the opponent’s scythe only bore steel and no strange blood, prompting a decisive choice.

He injured his neck but avoided a headshot, also managing to sever the Old Hunter’s hand once again.

Although Gremman’s Funeral Blade couldn’t breach Smaug’s defense, Lann’s speed was definitely not in the same league as Gremman’s.

Aiming relentless assaults at the unarmored head and neck, Gremman nearly succeeded in using his scythe to take off Lann’s head on several occasions.

The Demon Hunter wore impenetrable armor but was relatively slower and had an exposed neck.

The Old Hunter, though unable to penetrate his armor, was fast enough and treated normally fatal injuries with utter disregard.

Overall, the situation was actually in Gremman’s favor.

But now...

”Does His support still suffice, old fellow?”

The Lady of the Lake’s Sword twirled a dazzling blade flower in Lann’s hand as the young man calmly and collectedly walked and asked.

His face was somewhat pale; it was the trait displayed when a Demon Hunter’s body system absorbed magic potions while enduring toxicity.

Under the joint effects of the Belisario Furnace and Advanced Swallow, the cut nearly slicing through to his neck cervical vertebra was rapidly healing.

The high temperature from the intense biological activity at the wound site even created a sizzling sound in the air.

Advanced Lightning granted even more strength to his already fortified muscles.

The heightened reactions bestowed by Advanced Blizzard ensured Lann’s nerve responses weren’t lagged behind by Gremman’s speed during several engagements, even if his body couldn’t keep up.

Getting up from the dent made by his crash into the tree root, Gremman himself remained unaffected by any injury or pain.

One might wonder if he could still be considered human?

Or if beneath that human shell, there existed only a body filled with power by a higher being, subject to manipulation?

”If you want to know the answer, why don’t you ’open your eyes’ and see for yourself, dear child?”

The old man’s hoarse voice spoke indifferently.

’Open your eyes’... Lann understood what he meant.

He wanted him to activate his Spiritual Vision.