Becoming a Monster

Chapter 155: Chapter 155: Foreboding Warning

”No one can take Noah away from me, not even you.” Ailetta mentally declared before her soul began to invade into Noah’s space.

”Ugrh! Darling...why are you so stubborn...” Before she could even get close enough to interact with Noah’s soul, she felt a heavy pressure surge against her. A crushing pressure bore down on her, not just pushing her away but threatening to obliterate her entirely.

But instead of retreating, Ailetta smiled inwardly with a crazed, unsettling intensity.

”But that is also a trait that I admire about you.”

She wasn’t deterred in the slightest. His resistance and raw display of power, even in his soul, made Ailetta desire to connect with him on a spiritual level even more.

Her soul twisted and reshaped, adapting to the crushing weight. Her fluid form was forced to continually reshape itself. Inch by inch, she moved closer, pressing through the overwhelming force. This wasn’t about just saving Noah anymore; it was about claiming Noah just as much as ensuring he wouldn’t be consumed by the monstrous entity that sought to control him.

Ailetta wasn’t afraid. In fact, she was thrilled. If Noah’s soul was this powerful, if he could resist even in her current state, then together, they could become something unstoppable, something with the potential to last a lifetime together.

When she began to slowly push through Noah’s resistance, suddenly everything shifted. The pressuring resistance completely stopped, accidentally making Ailetta move with an unintended speed during that moment before she also halted in her tracks. She should welcome the fact that Noah wasn’t resisting anymore, but her sense of danger was warning her that something was wrong.

That’s when Noah’s spiritual core erupted in a violent brilliance of his violet energy. His mana splurged out from his core, resembling a mutated ominous sun. The released energy was far beyond anything Ailetta had anticipated. The terrifying expansion of power brought about a drastic shift. Another force, stronger than the previous one, pressed onto Ailetta, however, Ailetta was now being forcibly pulled towards Noah’s soul.

Within the realm of consciousness, Ailetta was able to get a full grasp of Noah’s emotions. From what she could feel from his robust feelings, she could sense an overbearing desire to possess her.

Normally, Aieltta would revel in such desires directed towards her, but Noah’s obsessive desire was too extreme, even for her. It wasn’t filled with lust and love as her obsession contained; but his was a ravenous, obsessive need that threatened to swallow her entirely. His soul wasn’t merely reaching for her; it was demanding her, as if she were a possession he refused to let go of, a possession that he would make sure he would never lose again.

This was no longer love or even lust. It was control, entirely created from a potent sense of fear and lost.

And Ailetta wasn’t having it.

”Noah! you’re’ mine, not the other way around!”

_________

Even within his soul, Noah wasn’t consciously aware of himself or his surroundings. His conscious mind was nowhere to be found, imprisoned by the monstrous entity that had begun to place its hold on him. He was lost, driven purely by instinct and raw emotion, unaware of the destruction he was causing both inside and out.

Despite his state of being, the moment Ailetta’s presence came close enough. The proximity of her soul was able to stir something deep with him, his consciousness finally began to fight against the entity eroding his soul into something else. But as his consciousness was still trapped, his desires began to manifest itself into action. The soul wasn’t able to be mimicked, he was certain that Ailetta was near, and this time he would never allow himself to lose her again; they will be together...forever...

And if Ailetta’s situation couldn’t get any more dire, the violent surge of Noah’s energy caused the entity looming above him to finally stir. Its planetary eyes were shining, signaling that it was fully awakened to what was transpiring. Its silhouette slightly shifted itself, just that small movement was able to threaten the realm to completely collapse. Its awakening sent ripples of distortion through the realm.

The monstrous entity seemed to acknowledge her intrusion not with resistance, as Ailetta had initially feared, but with an eerie acceptance; as if it was welcoming her deeper within Noah’s chaotic abyss, tempting her to become one with Noah.

But Ailetta knew better. It wasn’t such a simple invitation but a trap, using Noah as bait. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact reasoning for the entity’s behavior, but she was sure that it was only wanting Noah to become stronger to increase its own strength.

With the entity’s awakening, the aberration seemed to be fueling Noah’s spiritual power with that of its own, causing the suction of his pull on her to become stronger, to the point that she found herself still being drawn in against her will.

”Heh! And here I thought I could do this without having to cash in on my only favor.” Ailetta still monologues to herself despite her foreboding situation. The massive entity was powerful, undeniably powerful, but she noticed that it wasn’t able to release the power it was bluntly emitting, that fact was pointed out when it had only acted to amplify Noah’s energy instead of forcing her itself.

”I know you are seeing this...” she continued to speak, seemingly to herself but her voice was actually being directed to someone with herself. But she was met with silence, a silence that Ailetta didn’t let affect her, she had already obtained a basic understanding of the particular existence personality.

”You said that you’ll help me once with anything I desire...well, I want that thing to stop interfering. You can do that much, right? In the end...what I’m asking for is nothing compared to the reason you made me what I am.”

For a moment, it seemed as though her plea would go unanswered. Meanwhile, the force pulling her towards Naoh intensified. Tendrils of violet and crimson energy began to miss and slowly twist its way towards her, ready to entrap her.

Then there was finally a reaction.

A voice whispered with the deepest recesses of her mind, as though amused by her request.

”Ah, silly child...always so bold. Your request isn’t as simple as you make it. I consume...It’s what I am, and it’s what I’m best at. But ’that’...it’s not something that even I would dare attempt to devour...”

Ailleta’s soul shivered from the entity’s words. What is that thing that could stop even ’it’ from being able to go against it? Despite the situation, Ailetta’s eye narrowed in defiance as she responded.

”Then you’ll need to find another way. I don’t need you to devour anything; I just need you to make that thing lose connection to Noah, even if it’s for a little while.”

The entity’s voice echoed again, this time less amused and more contemplative, though a faint, dark chuckle still lingered in its tone.

”I did say I would help you, once. But you ask me to sever a connection that was forged in a power far beyond your understanding, Ailetta. That thing doesn’t belong in our world; its existence is something even I cannot fully comprehend.”

By this time, the tendrils of energy had finally intercepted the tendrils of slime from Ailetta’s own soul. She was doing everything she could to resist her soul from being absorbed.

”You, promised,” She growled. ”You said anything! And I don’t care what it is or where it came from. It’s interfering with me and Noah! If you won’t devour it, then sever it, break it, twist it, fuck it! I don’t care. Just make sure it stops.”

A deep, resonant sigh filled her mind, a sound that reverberated through the very core of her being, as if the entity was tired of her persistence but knew it had no choice.

”Very well, child... But remember this: there are consequences even for what I am about to do. I can sense, even from here, that entity’s consciousness is connected to something far above the realms of figures that are even in my domain. In the grander scheme of things, we may both regret interfering with something that shouldn’t be meddled with.”

Moments after the slime’s words, Ailetta could sense a surge of power of her own erupting from the depths of her soul. The very essence of reality warped as the manifestation of energy warped itself into four tendrils, each as thick as the silhouetted aberration’s limbs. These tendrils moved with an explosive force, reaching through space as if space was relative before each spiritual created tendril drilled itself into the aberration’s four planetary eyes.

A deafening screech echoed through the spiritual plane; a sound so overwhelming that it threatened to shatter everything around them.

For a brief moment, every mutated spider thread unlatched itself from Noah’s soul. Not only did the power being fed into him disappear, but the abrupt isolation from the aberration’s energy caused Noah’s soul to significantly weaken.

For the first time, Ailetta found herself more powerful than Noah, enabling her to achieve her earlier goal: to establish a spiritual contract between them, completing the last spot of his contracted creatures. But witnessing how the entity of Noah’s soul was slowly trying to change him from within, she realized her initial plan was flawed. Even if she connected herself to him spiritually, the entity would still plague Noah’s soul, and she wouldn’t have the help of her benefactor to stop it again.

Although the odds were against her, Ailetta had devised a new plan. It wasn’t so much a strategy as it was a reflection of her refusal to let anyone else have Noah.

”If I can’t always be here to protect you from that thing, then that just means that I should never leave.”

Her voice became deranged as her possessiveness began to show in her actions. She doubled the number of slime tentacles converging on Noah’s soul, over taking the energy appendages in extended while her tentacles latched on every corner of his sphere.

While she held the higher ground in terms of dominance, Ailetta didn’t initiate merging with Noah’s soul or forcing him into her own. Instead, her core began to shift and stretch, her single large eye extending as it began to separate itself with the half extending towards Noah. The act was excruciating; every part of her essence strained as she divided herself. The pain should have been unbearable, but Ailetta reveled in the pain. It was a price she was more than willing to pay if it meant keeping Noah from ever leaving her.

With her tendrils securing its place on Noah’s soul, Ailetta eagerly worked through the pain. Her soul began to not only integrate with Noah’s but secure a place within his soul as its own.