Shoujo Hater-Chapter 57 - 52: A Bad Memory

The monster landed after absorbing the two suns, then pressed a piece of its weapon into the heart of its abyss.

The sharp part of the weapon turned black and began dripping a strange dark substance before the monster threw it onto the ground.

It and Escanor stared at each other, both waiting for the other to make the first move.

Escanor broke the silence. He could feel the monster planning something hidden, but he would not allow it to succeed.

He raised his right hand, forming a massive magic circle that grew wider and brighter.

His energy surged, shaking Nivara as he chanted:

“O molten star of Iskania, guardian of balance between chaos and light,

lend me your strength.

In the name of the blessing of the absolute lord of magma, Escanor, its first creator,

solar volcanic meteor, eradicate the darkness.”

Fiery meteoric suns began forming inside the circle and rained down from the sky, destroying everything they touched.

The ram masked monster lifted its weapon from the ground and split the massive meteor heading toward it. The explosion that followed shook the entire region.

Escanor gave it no time to recover. He launched a full assault and descended with such force that the land shattered beneath him.

He charged at the ram masked monster and hammered its face with blows blazing like molten fire.

Punches rained down like a storm, shattering the ice beneath their feet.

In an instant, Escanor vanished from in front of it and reappeared behind it, landing a strike to its ribs that made its body bend violently.

The monster tried to retreat, but Escanor grabbed its shoulders and slammed it into the ground with a strike that shook the area.

Boom.

The earth trembled and snow shot into the air.

Escanor did not wait for the monster to rise. He appeared above it and kicked its face with such force that the mask cracked further and pieces flew away.

The monster crashed into the mountain wall, leaving a long scar across it as it slid down.

Before it touched the ground, Escanor was already there.

He rushed into the stone fissure, and his punches came so fast that the rocks around them collapsed.

His blows thundered through the entire mountain.

After Escanor’s barrage, the right side of the ram mask ripped apart and its fragments scattered. The monster staggered.

Then suddenly, without Escanor realizing it,

the black lines engraved on the mask ignited and released a dark shockwave that shredded the ice around them and pushed the air violently away from Escanor.

The monster rose in one motion and seized Escanor’s right arm with dark strength.

It lifted its head slowly. From its eyes burst pure black energy, not ordinary power, but spears of molten darkness that pierced Escanor’s chest and hurled him backward.

“Aaaah!”

Escanor’s cry of pain echoed.

The ram masked monster did not waste the opening. It swung its horns, carving a massive gash across Escanor’s face, then rammed him and sent him flying.

Escanor was thrown two meters into the air before he planted his foot into the ground, carving a deep crater. He cut through the wave of darkness with a burning gaze that met the monster’s own.

Their auras clashed: the monster’s black aura against Escanor’s blazing orange.

Escanor charged and began punching.

Smash.

“Take this, you vile creature.

Boom.

Do you think I have never fought monsters like you before?

Crack.

You dare scratch me?

Damn you.”

The final blow from Escanor’s right hand hit the monster and pushed it a full meter back, but Escanor did not stop. He followed with a left punch and then a double strike that knocked the monster to the ground.

Escanor began kicking it with his right leg then his left, like a hammer rolling it over the ice.

Then he grabbed its mask, spread his wings, and began rising from deep within the mountain, smashing the monster’s body against the rocks as he ascended.

The jagged cliffs tore into the monster each time it struck them.

When Escanor reached the mountain peak, he grabbed the monster’s head from behind and crushed its skull along the mountain’s edge from the top to the deepest point, then spread his wings high.

“First flames of magma, shining sun of Iskania.”

He raised his hand and formed a solar sphere the size of the mountain’s crater, preparing to release it.

But before he could, the ram masked monster smiled beneath its cracked mask.

It had called its weapon to follow it into the air, and its power had remained unseen because of the abyssal core. Anything that core touched became undetectable, except to those who could sense annihilation energy.

Only high level Mahoul beasts possessed such senses.

It was a hunting technique of the ram masked beast tribe.

This had been the monster’s plan ever since Escanor took control of the sky.

It had exploited his focus on the battle to execute its attack.

The weapon shot forward and pierced Escanor’s arm, severing his left hand before flying away and exploding.

“Aaaaaah!”

Escanor screamed in agony and hurled the sun with his remaining hand as orange blood streamed down.

He exhaled a molten breath that pushed the sphere deeper into the mountain.

Escanor flew back as far as he could, avoiding the explosion of magma that erupted from the mountain’s depths into the sky.

The explosion began devouring everything.

“Hah... hah...

Damn it, that solar sphere was a third of my energy.

No... it does not matter. He must have died from that.”

At that moment, Escanor believed he had finished the monster and everything was finally over.

Or so he thought.

The solar magma explosion suddenly shifted into spreading black energy.

The mountain began dissolving. The monster’s mask shattered completely, revealing a face of deep black energy, red eyes glowing fiercely, and the symbol above it erased.

The monster had evolved, its power now impossible for Escanor to sense.

That meant it had reached Yossence 2 .

In that instant, Escanor saw a flashback from his journey in the Ma’hul.

He remembered a monster with the same form but with a mask far more terrifying and regal, a mask capable of planting nightmares.

It was a cracked black ram skull that breathed living darkness. Its long horns curled with perfect symmetry, marked with glowing crimson lines like omens of doom.

Despite the narrow openings of the mask, the monster’s eyes shone with a blood red light, like two dead stars in a stormy sky.

At the mask’s mouth was a vertical slit surrounded by curved markings resembling a demonic smile. Darkness pulsed through it, and the carved symbols on the forehead and cheeks blazed brighter as its power rose.

When that monster removed its mask while devouring a heart, it was sitting atop the corpse of a giant dragon.

It lifted the black ram skull slowly, and strands of darkness peeled away from it as though the mask were attached to its soul.

Once its face was exposed,

a thick swirling blackness appeared, without features... only shifting darkness with a sharp mouth dripping the blood of the heart it had torn apart.

One glance at that darkness was enough to crush Escanor’s chest and make his eyes weep blood.

He whispered, voice broken,

“Asaria...”

His tears fell without resistance.

Escanor snapped out of the nightmare.

His aura rose sharply with immense energy that covered most of Nevara, and his eyes overflowed with the desire for revenge.

He flew into the sky. He knew the monster had survived.

He headed toward the upper sun that was spreading outward and placed his hand on it, quickly absorbing it.

At that moment, this battle was no longer about maintaining balance for Escanor.

It had become a fight of life and death for someone precious to him, someone he had sworn to avenge.