Becoming a Monster

Chapter 289: Chapter 289: What’s Her Goal?

The Skeletal mage raised its hand, its palm facing towards the ground when it released the same blue ember that dropped to the ground. The following moment, a path of blue fire began to spread towards Levi with an even speed. It was slow enough that Levi could easily out run it, at least initially.

Levi quickly noticed the flames’ pace increasing as it shortened the distance between them.

His thoughts heightened, thinking of a possible escape route. In the end, he could only think of two alternatives; to run away, hoping to outrun the flames long enough for someone to help him, or to create an attack strong enough to counter the spell.

In the end, he chose the latter. His clones centered before him began to circulate an ability that he hasn’t used before. A torrent of water flowed out of the other’s palms while the clone next to it was releasing streams of electricity into the condensing sphere of water. With time, Levi felt that his combination matter had no limits, but the creature before him made him realize that the skill did in fact have its own limitations, himself.

The water was surging more violently than before, waves of swirling water and lightning created a literal storm in the palm of his hands, and yet, tried as hard as he could, he wasn’t capable of making the ability stronger.

In the end, he could only hope that the ability was successful to stop the flames approaching. He held his breath the moment the moment the spell was released, his clones mimicking the same motion as they awaited the results.

The two forces collided midway.

For a moment, everything was still.

Then came the explosion. It was an explosion that created a miniature thunderstorm in the surrounding area. Dark clouds were formed above ground levels, electric currents shooting out to nearby areas, thunder raged within the storm.

Levi was left shielding his face, gritting his teeth as the shockwave knocked the breath from his lungs. The ground cracked and rumbled until the dust and clouds lost the energy maintaining it.

When the storm dissipated, everything within the area of the storm was charred. And deeper portions of the ground that were stricken multiple times by the lightning had melted and molded enough to start showing signs of becoming glass.

The destruction was far more than what Levi was expecting. He didn’t believe that he was capable of such a feat, but that proved just how powerful the flames really were.

Levi felt his body staggering, the sensation was familiar to him, his mana reserves were running low.

But he couldn’t rest, what he just did was merely escape death only temporarily. His gaze locked onto the unmoving creature on the other end of the explosion.

His eyes narrowed, unsure if what he was seeing was just his imagination. The creature’s skeletal face was devoid of any expression or emotion. Yet, the skeleton’s jaws moved in awkward motions, shifting up and down as if it was chuckling to itself. This creature showed signs of human intelligence that Levi had never encountered before.

But that wasn’t all that surprised him. The skeleton’s jaws stopped moving when it noticed Levi’s gaze. Its ember eyes flickered with interest, his arm moving in a way that made Levi’s heart almost completely stop.

The skeleton’s palm faced the ground once again, its eyes were mocking as a flame began to generate once again.

At this point, Levi was sure he wouldn’t survive this time around. With his clones staying to use their last bit of mana, Levi’s main body began to run as far away as he could.

Ominously, the scene caused the skeleton jaws to open wide into what could only be described as a grin.

The flames gathered more deliberately this time, all it needed to do was drop it and it was assured that it would kill the insignificant insect this time.

But the moment it was about to drop the flame, its body froze. Its head nearly broke off of its neck as it sharply turned to the direction of the danger it felt threatening its entire being.

It didn’t notice the figure itself, the skeleton’s vision was only filled with the glowing eyes locked onto him; more specifically, it was locked onto his core.

If Noah was interested in the Kaiju before, his interest in the skeleton was piqued even higher. He didn’t notice the special peculiarities of it before, its existence went unnoticed from his initial observations.

However, throughout the interaction between himself and the Kaiju, Noah constantly could see mana he has never encountered before flowing from the bodies of both zombies and humans that died being drawn to the same direction. It was perhaps this factor that led him to subjugate the Kaiju quicker than before as he speculated the mana to be souls. The ability was uniquely similar to his own.

Despite not being able to subjugate another zombie as his vassal, as long as he restrained the creature he could potentially level up his skill with the contents of the predetermined chest, or even with the items that the shop could provide. What mattered to him was the fact that he couldn’t let the creature go.

The ”danger” the skeleton was sensing in Noah’s eyes couldn’t be understood, all the skeleton understood was that Noah was above what it could handle. And unlike those before him who would blindly, and stupidly still decide to fight such a monster; the skeleton unhesitantly withdrew his flame.

His robes began to flutter as his body levitated into the air. By all means it was determined to leave and never return.

What it didn’t anticipate was that despite itself now being meters in the air, something still was able to reach it.

Claws pierced through its robes, digging deep into its bones. Four elongated fangs sunk into its collarbones, latching onto it as if it was attempting to drain it of all of its blood.

The skeleton only had time to look back to see a pair of crimson eyes, and one eye center above the two. The eyes were as horrific as Noah’s, but for some reason the very depths of its soul was frightened beyond belief.

It didn’t have time to understand the implications of its instincts, it felt its mana being drained, a mana that could consume most magical properties and it was being drained from its body as if the creature causing it was unaffected by the nature of its core.

This frightened it even more and made it resort to an action that he never wanted to do. While Ava was still attached to the skeleton’s nape, the skeleton’s body suddenly came crashing to the ground. With her fangs still clutched in its bones, Ava rebalanced herself the moment she was about to crash into the ground, leaping to an area that was devoid of both humans and zombies so she could finish feeding.

But suddenly her body jolted, the body in her mouth lifelessly collapsed on the ground when she loosened her jaws. A claw bent down to reveal the frontal side of the zombie to show that the orb centered in its chest was gone.

Her eyes shot up into the air the moment she realized, by then she could see a tiny speck in the air that was already too far to chase.

”AAAAARGRRRGHHHH”

Enraged, Ava made a sound for the first time, her shriek had stopped every zombie in the vicinity, and all this was observed by Noah.

Noah had noticed Ava sense the moment she began to move towards the skeleton, and he noticed the peculiar, confused expression on Eve’s face implying that she wasn’t the one to give the order for Ava to attack.

Although he was interested in the skeleton for his own interest, he was more interested in Ava’s actions, allowing her to do what she wanted in hopes to understand what her true purpose was.

Seeing Ava distraught emotions after her failure made Noah question the skeleton even more. Whatever the skeleton had was something that Ava desperately needed. Or it was something that the black energy figure that led to creating Ava desperately sought.

Because of this, Noah didn’t interfere when he noticed the core flying out on its own. But now he realized that he needed to keep a closer eye on the creature.

_________________

Hearing the shrilling cries of the creature, Levi turned behind for the first time to witness the skeleton that made him flee now lifelessly sprawled under another creature’s feet.

The cries also drew the others’ attention, and Mark was no different. It took him a moment, but he realized that the creature crying was one of the same creatures that followed Noah’s side.

Instinctively, the thought of Noah made him unable to hide his curiosity, looking towards Noah’s direction after noticing that the explosions were no longer rattling the battlefield.

Mark’s breath caught in his throat from the scene. His instincts screamed danger, but inwardly he was relieved....and then he awed.

”I really hate him...” he whispered, his bitter tone making it hard to decipher if his words were genuine or sarcastic.