Only Wisdom Awakened - Chapter 255

Chapter 255: A-1
‘I don’t think I’ve ever met her…

My grandmother… I don’t know, I don’t remember what she looked like.

But… something I do remember is my mother’s words, she used to talk about her, I would often hear stories about my grandmother, and how she was such a good and righteous person.

They didn’t mention Grandpa that much, since after his ‘death’, Mother couldn’t bear hearing his name.

So… why is it… why is it that I feel such rage towards someone who killed someone I’ve never met?’

These were Hans’s thoughts as he swung his sword against the woman’s fangs, little sparks of light illuminated the foggy room, and the both of them did their best to pierce the other’s heart.

The fog was slowly subsiding, but it still formed a thick enough barrier that stopped Hans from looking at the crimson lady’s face.

Hit after hit, Hans was overwhelmed by his opponent’s attacks, his aura enveloped his whole sword, but that was still far from enough to close the gap between his stats and the lady’s.

His balance was also compromised by his inability to move his left arm, so the only thing he could do was take the hits and buy as much time as he could while he figured out a way to beat the monstrous woman.

‘If there is one thing I am sure of… is that this woman’s mind is gone, she can’t think straight or remember anything she’s done till now, like a robot with a set code that acts on the sole command of attacking.

Which means… she will fall for it again if I were to pull a trick I’ve already shown…

Like the delayed casting for example.’

“Swoosh”

The woman’s claws aimed at the young man’s throat were suddenly stopped by a shiny silver-coloured sword.

“Clang”

Sparks created by the impact reached the young man’s face, but they weren’t enough to distract him from his objective.

His expression was calm, he had replaced his anger with an incredible sense of determination, and it could be told just by the look on his face.

The woman’s shadow changed shape, and Hans immediately relied on his skill to understand what she had done this time.

{Assimilation: nightmare tarantula(legs)}

Hans saw the figure in the fog rise above the height of a normal human, and a couple of little irregular pillars holding her up…

‘You’ve got to be shitting me’

Hans thought, not saying it out loud to preserve his breath.

Not even the time to reflect on a countermeasure, that a sharp and intimidating leg plummeted from the sky.

Hans raised his sword to parry, but as soon as the leg touched his sword, and his whole body was made victim of the incredible force, he understood he wouldn’t have been able to stop it.

He curved his sword by raising the hilt, and the pitch-black leg slid aside after screeching on the whole blade.

The black leg broke through the floor and buried itself in the dirt.

Comparing it to Hans, the leg was almost as thick as the boy’s torso.

Still fatigued, but driven by the desire to get out of there alive, Hans prepared one last slash to cut one of the woman’s monstrous legs right off.

But as he did that, another shadow appeared from the fog above him, and he was once again forced to change the attack’s trajectory with his sword.

As the sharp and threatful leg slid off his sword, Hans screamed out of desperation:

“Haaagh!”

The leg landed beside him, but his breathing became unstable… those weren’t things his body could handle, the limit of pushing himself beyond those limits would’ve ended soon.

….

In the meantime… somewhere under Rome…

In the underground tunnels, various shadows were cast upon the walls, interrupting the holden and feeble lights of the torches hung upon the opposite walls.

Five people were running without a stop, two of them were panting heavily, and the others also weren’t in their best condition.

Gianfranco was weighing himself down by carrying a man on his back, blood flowed out of the injured man’s body, dirtying the back of the old man’s clothes.

A few meters in front of them, a humanoid monster suddenly appeared, it looked similar to what a human would be without their skin, but its head was replaced by a devilish creature, with two jaws on both sides of the head, which split it open sideways.

“What…. What the fuck is that?”

Gianfranco asked, slowing down his running pace to avoid crossing paths with the creature, but right beside him, Emma sped up, passing by him and all their companions and ending up a few meters from the monster.

Then, she pulled a spear out of her necklace, it was a beautiful black weapon, it almost resembled a Halberd because of how long its pole was, but its single-purposed head, which was colored with a tint of dark purple, clearly categorized it as a spear.

She called out:

“Instans”

The path of the spearhead was impossible to see, the blade instantly disappeared and reappeared a few meters to the side, and as Emma looked back and told the others to catch up, blood sprayed and flushed out of the monster’s body before it fell to the ground lifeless.

The remnants of the beast were lying on the ground, the other five members passed by them as they caught up to Emma.

“Was there really a need to do that?”

Gianfranco asked with an uncertain face.

“He was still… a person, or what remained of them”

“Do you think we have the time to care about them? If we were to take pity on everyone we kill, we would drown in regret in just a few months…

We can’t do that, can we?”

That was Emma’s reply.

“I guess you’re right”

Still not so sure, the old man lowered his gaze.

“What do we do now? If the crimson lady isn’t here then…”

“Fuck”

Emma stopped.

She almost had a panic attack as she stared deep into Gianfranco’s eyes…

“What is it? What happened?”

It was the first time the old man had seen the woman so shocked….

“What happened? Hey! Is everything okay?”

Without even replying, she bolted forward, Gianfranco followed right behind, but because of the extra weight he had, and because of his lower dexterity stat, in just two minutes, he had already lost trace of the woman.

“Pant… pant… pant…”

The old man was out of breath…

He wanted to know what happened, but he didn’t have any way of following Emma.

The guys he had left behind caught up and asked what happened, but the old man couldn’t give a reply, he too was left in the dark about what was happening.

“Whatever it is… let’s think about getting out of here first, you haven’t forgotten what was on our tail right? We might’ve lost them, but there’s no telling when they might come back.”

One of the members of the team said, and the others agreed.

The old man now had no other options, he followed them and tried to find a way out of there…

Emma was still rushing, she pushed her body to the limit as she sprinted out of that place.

As soon as she got out of there, she bolted on a rooftop and began running towards the airport.

She was in such a hurry that she didn’t even care about the shingles she knocked down the roofs with how much strength she put in her every step.

She raised her arms and closed the distance between her and her electronic watch:

“I need a jet, from Rome to Naples… now!

Priority A-1”

She immediately hung up and continued her rush.

Every single hideout of the night market in Italy was caught up in panic.

When the snake invaded Manhattan, or when the basilisk and the golden dragon popped up all over the world, the lady classified these emergencies as B-1… even an A-3 rank priority had never been issued, but all of a sudden, an A-1 rank priority popped out of nowhere.

Half of the airports and air traffic in Italy were stopped, and every single flight that was supposed to land beside Naples was pushed back by a few hours.

As soon as the woman reached the airport, she entered a jet and was immediately transported to Naples, without any regard for the national speed limits or for the various air companies’ schedules.

‘The lady of crimson… she was supposed to be in Rome… what changed? What happened?’

Emma took a while to understand… when she was underground, she didn’t meet any of the two most dangerous people belonging to the crimson tyranny…

It wasn’t only the crimson lady, her right-hand man was nowhere to be seen…

Emma had taken for granted that she would appear since she knew that the crimson lady was supposed to be there… but if she really was in Naples…

“Hans… might die for real”