Becoming a Monster

Chapter 171: Chapter 171: Failed Creation?

Noah ignored her. Leaning over to allow the blood to flow into her mouth, but a presence suddenly appeared next to him with a heavy aura that accompanied it.

”Noah, my dear, that action should only be reserved for me.”

Noah looked over to Ailetta, his gaze holding the same expression that caused the woman to cower in terror, but Ailetta welcomed his gaze. She cupped his chin with her hand, running a slim finger along the trail of blood before bringing it to her lips for a taste.

She then continued to match his stare that was turning more into a glare before her hand slowly advanced towards him again. This time, her hand mysteriously shifted and stretched, reforming itself into a makeshift cup that was still connected to her arm.

Her gaze never parted from his while his blood continuously dripped into the cup, a notable platter sounded when it first entered that suggested the ’cup’ actually had a physical substance, different from her normal form. All the while, the woman was forced to watch. If a devil wasn’t terrifying enough, the devil’s mistress intensified her fear even more.

Both Ailetta and Noah seemed to act in sync the moment the woman grasped Noah’s arm, trying to escape. He pulled the woman towards them even more while Ailetta forcibly pressed the edge of the cup into her mouth. Even with the intent to turn her head, or even closing her mouth was impossible to achieve. After the woman first dared to resist, the excrutiable pain in her jaw made her relent.

But she wasn’t going to give up completely. She had already made up her mind to spit out the blood as soon as it entered her mouth. The cup was quickly forced into the woman’s lips, the viscous blood threatening to spill over.

This was the woman’s chance. She doubted that what she was about to do would change anything. Yet, she wanted to show these monsters that her life wasn’t something they could exert their dominion over. She wanted to spit the blood back in their faces, to at least see their enraged expressions that continued to toy with her like some lab rat, enraging them enough that maybe they would kill her out of their anger by mistake instead of the plan they had for her.

As soon as the blood touched her tongue, her entire body flinched with an intensity that almost damaged her spine. All this time, she ignored the smell coming from the blood; the rotten sweetness in the air that made her feel much more ’alive’ than before. But the moment her body was subjected to it, she began to fear the blood more than Noah himself. Her body exploded with a twisted euphoria she couldn’t comprehend. Every nerve in her body surged with an invigorating torture that made her forget to spit out the blood. It was as if she was on cusp from dying from dehydration, only to be forced to drink acid.

The pain, the power, the fear. She could constantly feel her body changing from the inside. She could trace everywhere the blood flowed within her, tearing through her, binding itself to her and transforming her into whatever the monsters were so anxious to see. Her anger, her despair, her memories of family; all began to fade, until eventually, she had no self-awareness left at all.

Ailetta stood silently behind him, her eyes gleaming with fascination. She watched as the woman’s body began to convulse, her muscles tightening and twitching uncontrollably as Noah’s blood coursed through her veins. The transformation had begun.

Her flesh trembled as it began to warp, her bones shifting painfully as if rearranging themselves to accommodate the new force within her. In a surprising twist, her skin began to recede, almost taking on a somewhat ghastly appearance. Her pale skin now hugged her frame that shimmered against the dull light, resembling a thin layer of tissue instead of skin. Her skin was now almost a translucent substance, her veins were vastly more noticeable underneath while her larger veins protruded from underneath.

With her tightened skin, her features became more pronounced. Her cheekbones rose sharply, and her eyes more sunken, making her appearance more skeletal than ghostly. Her sunken eyes and exposed cheeks accentuated her softly glowing white eyes that were devoid of anything within them.

Her pure grey hair shifted and flowed like tendrils of smoke, as they twisted, the lights reflected not only grey shades, but also white that seemed to move with an unseen force.

With her transformation nearly finished, Noah and Ailetta noticed a drop in temperature in the room. Their bodies subtly tensed as they felt something touching against them, almost embracing them.

Noah’s eyes dangerously narrowed towards the perpetrator, not forgetting that even though he’s the one that initiated her monster transformation, triggering the mutation with his blood doesn’t necessarily correlate to having control of the creature.

Unlike Noah, Ailetta grinned widely, her excitement barely contained. ”This....its going better than I thought!”

Both of their reactions remained unnoticed by the woman, now a monster, who’s next action caused Noah to question if he did something wrong. The monster began to silently weep, blood filled tears trailed out of her eyes, and yet if one looked closely enough, her face wasn’t of someone who was crying at all; her face was dull, almost vacant.

With the monster’s cries, Noah observed any other changes, noticing that her body no longer showed any hints of further mutation. In his perspective, the monster he was seeing now was the finished version, but it made him question what he was seeing now. Why out of all the zombies that he has encountered that it had to be the one that he created that could cry?

”This is....different than what I expected...” Noah’s face deadpanned, his unease at creating a flawed monster amplifying under Ailetta’s words. ”I thought that her transformation would be...you know?”

”No, Le, I don’t know.” Noah replied bitterly, and yet Ailetta continued on, ignoring his sour tone.

”I thought it would be easy to tell what her unique ability was after her transformation.” Ailetta continued to observe with an almost fantasizing outlook. Noah’s brows furrowed, not wanting to accept that his expectation for his first creation was a failure. He tried to change his way of thinking, if the woman could still cry, then maybe the zombie he created held a sense of sentience, just maybe, it could still speak.

”Can you understand me?” Noah questioned. The zombie’s weeps hesitated slightly to his voice before its usually rhythmic tears continued. If not for the bloody tears, Noah would assuredly assume that its cries were being faked. He had hoped that with his ability to communicate with any creature that held the same racial traits as his own creatures that he could get answers. Even if the zombie couldn’t effectively speak, he should be able to communicate with it on a primitive level, maybe even understand it through intent. Yet, he received nothing but annoyance.

”What is it?” Ailetta’s expression changed as she picked up on this fact.

Noah only dismissively shook his head. His footsteps sounded, making his way closer to the zombie. The closer he neared, he noticed that the cries grew louder while the intentions radiating from her grew even more stronger, more urging.

Although he knew what to expect, Noah pressed on. This was his chance to maybe see what skill the zombie obtained. At this moment he slightly admonished himself for not getting the information from the woman when she was still ’alive’.

He had reached a distance of almost two feet that separated them when the zombie finally took to action. Her whimpers quickly changed to a feral screech, her still human-like hands extending to grab hold of him. The choice of attack was....lackluster compared to what Noah was expecting, but not even a second later he was forced to change his view. The protruding veins from her body bulged, threatening to break out of her skin, and then, it did. Not only did the veins shoot out of her, they whipped out and stretched, attacking Noah with intentions that were still unknown.

During the entire attack, Noah stood rooted in place. Not only did he have complete trust in his own capabilities, but he also knew that no matter what type of transformation the woman had gone through, even as a zombie, her stats would be abysmal compared to his, especially since the women had only ever killed three zombies, making her level 3 at best.

The expectation Noah had lost had finally appeared in his gaze again, hoping that whatever the zombie was going to do would be a significant change. The veins latched onto different areas of his body. Nothing transpired in the places that were covered by his exoskeleton, the veins only impacted against the hard shelling, attacking again as if it was trying to pierce its way through.

But it was the veins that had encountered his skin that gave Noah a glimpse of what she could do. The veins penetrated a thin layer of his skin, branching out, creating miniature pathways of veins. And through those veins Noah could feel his vitality slightly declining.