Only Wisdom Awakened - Chapter 257

Chapter 257: A Beast’s Face
After the huge explosion, the dust began to settle and Hans got back on his feet.

He immediately charged towards the center of the remaining dust, in search of the beast woman.

He hoped to find her badly injured at the least, if not dead, and he was happy to see she indeed was.

Charging forward, Hans surprised his opponent by releasing his aura with an aura blast, that hit the woman right on her hand, making two of her fingers fly off as blood flowed out of her knuckles.

Then, he immediately stopped, messing with the tempo of the already confused woman, just to start running again right after.

He jumped up, above the fog, and the beast who remained down there couldn’t locate him anymore.

The thick smell of blood and the annoying presence of the particles of dirt in the air blocked her keen senses, she couldn’t do anything apart from wait for Hans to appear once again.

Her bare flesh was exposed to the dirty air, but she showed no reaction, it seemed like the higher her ferocity, the higher the effort it would’ve taken for her to get back in her right mind.

Maybe because she was like a cornered animal, or maybe because she felt a hint of danger for the first time, the woman let out an ear-bursting roar that resounded throughout the room.

Her voice didn’t belong to a human anymore.

It was her skill {last scream}.

Hans immediately watched downwards as he floated atop the cloud of dust, the almost closed room and the thought passages to the surface made it difficult for the visibility to change for the better anytime soon.

He, however, was focused on something else.

His eyes perceived the woman’s ferocity stat as it increased, it didn’t give out any signs of stopping, and her ferocity had already far surpassed double what it normally was, coming now close to the two thousand threshold.

Hans reacted immediately to the change in the woman’s status as he saw:

{assimilation: Harpies’s wings (arms)}

He placed down another tornado spell where he was standing, and just a few seconds later, when the woman jumped out of the fog, he triggered the delayed casting as he moved out of the way.

The woman’s wings were caught up in the wind, and she was being dragged around by Hans’s spell.

This situation forced the Crimson lady to deactivate her assimilation and fall to the ground.

As she precipitated, Hans finally caught a glimpse of her body, she looked like a normal woman, her body was slightly more muscular, but nothing more.

Her long black hair covered her face, and Hans couldn’t help but admire her regal and seemingly noble clothes.

It was a black uniform embroidered with some silver decorations, and red fur covered her shoulders and the top of her arms, passing behind her neck.

When she fell, Hans immediately tried to pierce her head with his sword, failing because of her sideways movement.

He pierced the floor with his attack instead and had to waste a few instants pulling his sword out of it.

He soon got in the offense once again, slashing and striking the woman, trying with all his strength to pierce her heart or her head.

It was around that time that Emma landed in Naples, a flight that would’ve usually taken twice as much took just a bit more than twenty minutes.

Before the plane could even completely stop, the woman opened the door, bolted out of the vehicle, and disappeared in the distance.

Every single step she took cracked the ground, she ran as fast as she could the whole time.

Wherever she passed, a shockwave arrived just a few moments later, turning the whole place upside down.

But she wasn’t interested in any of that…. Losing Hans would’ve meant losing any hope she had to turn fate around.

‘Please… please tell me he is alive’

That was all she could repeat in her head.

And her hopes were real, Hans was alive and kicking, matter of fact, he was now winning in his desperate battle against the crimson lady.

The woman had been heavily affected by the explosions earlier, and her speed, strength, and reflexes, seemed to have been numbed.

Hans was managing to land most of his hits, and even if he couldn’t fully penetrate her skin coated with an exoskeleton she had ‘assimilated’ she was beginning to bleed.

Her whole body was full of scars.

However, not everything was as good as it appeared from an external point of view… because Hans… didn’t have much time left.

‘Two minutes….!’

He thought as he sped up his pace, slashing even more fiercely, and stabbing even more heavily.

The woman’s skin-coating exoskeleton was already heavily damaged, with cracks all over it, and Hans only had one minute to wrap things up.

“Swoosh!”

Hans slashed his sword horizontally from the right, but the woman managed to avoid it, however, before she could move any further, Hans lifted his left leg and continued his swing motion, kicking the woman right in the head with his heel.

She was sent flying, but Hans still gave her no rest, he couldn’t afford to waste a single second.

When he regained his stance, he dashed towards her and managed to reach her flying body before she could land.

He hit her back with his knee from underneath and then grabbed her ankle, pulling it above his shoulder before smacking her as hard as he could against the ground in front of him.

The woman was used like a mace to crack the ground, but she soon reacted.

Her legs assimilated from a sound chamois and her teeth from a dark dragon, the woman dashed towards Hans baring her teeth.

But as she closed the distance between her and the young man, an explosion suddenly hit her torso, she felt an excruciating pain and let out a suffocating scream that enveloped the whole room.

It didn’t look like a fight between a young man and the lady of crimson, it was now a fight between a wild beast with nothing but killing intent in her eyes and a vicious snake that laid his traps and had his tail wrapped around her neck to catch her.

The exoskeleton wrapped around the woman’s body cracked, and Hans was finally able to hit her…

‘Thirty-five seconds left…’

Hans was focused on one thing and one thing only… he had to kill her, thirty five seconds should be enough to kill her, he didn’t want to take any chances.

If his mama hyperboost ended, his body would probably take the recoil of pushing his stamina beyond his limits, meaning he would run the risk of dying just like that… but if such a thing happened during the battle, no matter how weakened his opponent may be, he would definitely die.

And… Hans did not want to die.

‘What have I gotten myself into?’

‘Why am I even here? This is my grandfather’s business, he hasn’t shown up in years…

He left me… a child, alone inside this confusing and enormous world, I could have ended up lost, I could have ended up dead…

He has never shown up, why am I doing this for him?

As for my grandmother… why would I feel angry? I never met her once in my life… I don’t think justice is worth dying for…

What… Am I doing here?’

These thoughts were relentlessly knocking on the door of Hans’s brain, but the young man pressed them down, he kept them out, he could whine and complain all he wanted when this thing ended, but not now.

His movements began slowing down, but the woman was now defenseless.

Slash…

The beast woman’s arm was slashed right off, blood pouring out of her torso as she tried to bite Hans’ head right off.

Then…

A river of blood dripped onto the ground… her abdomen had been cut in half.

One slash after the other, her body fell apart under the boy’s attacks.

With all his strength, Hans slammed the woman to the wall once again.

Just slightly more than five seconds were left to Hans’s boost, and he intended to end it in that time.

He rushed towards the wall where the woman was lying, his sword pointed right at her throat.

As he closed the distance between them, he stole one last glance at the person he was about to kill, and then he noticed… it was the first time he had seen the woman’s face.

The effect of the assimilation had worn off, and her facial features had returned to normal.

Hans immediately stopped, his face petrified at the sigh of the woman, her eyes were barely open, and she gazed upon him with no hate or killing intent.

At that moment… Hans almost teared up, as a few words came out of his mouth:

“Wh-

What…

What are you doing here?

…

Mom”