Becoming a Monster

Chapter 295: Chapter 295: Feeding The Beast Within

”Why is he doing that?” Eve ignored Ailetta messing up her hair, her puzzled expression deepening as she watched Kratos for the up tenth time pulverizing another corpse just to retrieve the core.

But Kratos didn’t know any better. After his first attempt, he looked over to the two who were hard at work extracting the cores. They merely glanced his way, one snorting, almost chuckling towards himself, while the other shook her head and continued with what they were doing.

Kratos didn’t know what to make sense of their actions, looking behind him, he had already acquired a handful of cores, wasn’t he being useful?

Yet seeing the other small mounds of cores the others collected made him realize that he was being inefficient. He glanced towards the one person he felt could help him understand, but when he met that calculating, amusing gaze, he turned away.

Still, he couldn’t understand why she made him so uncomfortable. That left him with no choice, if he was unsure if he wasn’t doing the job right, then he’ll just do it faster.

His explosive actions sparked tensions with the humans who were not knowledgeable of what was going on. Those who were too far away from Mark and the ones who could potentially protect them had either given up retrieving all of their loot or simply scooped up whatever was left as they rushed to group with everyone else again.

Hearing Eve’s earlier question, Ailetta was still smiling, but not just towards Kratos. Eve may not find Ailetta’s actions annoyingly disturbing, but there were a pair of eyes that were releasing a dangerous spark.

’Why exactly are you angry? Is it because you’re protective of Eve? Is it love? Jealousy? Or something even deeper?’

Ailetta didn’t voice her thoughts, but that didn’t stop her from maintaining eye contact with Ava throughout that entire time.

At first, Ailetta had grown bored trying to incite the creature, Ava’s lack of reaction besides her intense staredowns did nothing to entertain Ailetta’s speculations. However, it was different now. The moment she witnessed Ava acting on her own, Ailetta’s smile curved with renewed interest, like a child discovering a toy they hadn’t yet figured out how to break.

Meanwhile, Noah was finally done gathering all of his loot. The movement of him standing up caught not only his creatures’ attention but the humans as well.

The entire lot grew silent. Noah didn’t speak right away, nor did he look in any specific direction, his eyes were glued to his hand.

”Of course it wouldn’t work.” He spoke lightly to himself, his frown displaying his disappointment. In his hand was an item of science. The item was a crystal in the shape of a double-helix, that was inside a core of transparent grey material similar to mercury.

The helix was once dulled, but when Noah poured his mana into it he was able to grasp the essence of its usage. Simply, the item allowed him to pour one of his skills into one part of the helix and another skill in the second strand, where they would spin until they aligned to create one strand or essentially one skill.

The concept of the item was amazing in every sense. Noah believed that the item should’ve been loot that should only be possible to obtain from the obsidian chest. He had already had the idea of combining his ’Blood Pact’ ability with his skill to create vassals. If he could pull it off then he could essentially have every one of his vassals also gain the same benefits as his tamed creatures, even possibly being able to merge with them.

Yet the moment he tried to infuse the second spell, it backfired. And he was then given a warning.

Only abilities of the same element may be fused.

That had been the catch. He could combine taming abilities, or his other like-minded traits like his zombie abilities or his slime abilities, but those abilities could never mix.

Noahs’ initial disappointment stemmed from the fact that he had gotten his hopes up, but it quickly gave way to acceptance. A diamond’s loot wasn’t something that he found groundbreaking anymore. But that didn’t mean the item wasn’t useful. He didn’t really see a need to use it for himself, but he had already thought of someone with a set of skills that he believed would have more potential than skills of his own being fused.

Like all of his creatures, if they could benefit from it, then that means he did too.

Nevertheless, he put the item back into his ring. He had already absorbed the effects from the universal attribute orb he obtained that increased all of his attributes by fifty. What he didn’t realize was that it wasn’t just him, but the others who had received a diamond, even a platinum chest had received the same orb, almost as if someone was spurring on them to become powerful as quickly as possible.

As the item disappeared, another one materialized. An item that closely resembled an egg sat in his palm. It was ghostly white, leaking a faint mist. And inside it was a silhouette of something that moved fluidly, as if it was both a liquid and alive.

Just like before, Noah was about to attempt to imbue his mana into the object. That was when his thoughts were interrupted by the being that has been quiet since it lost its chance to absorb the divine energy from before.

Its urges for the egg influenced even Noah. Despite how much of a tantrum it stirred, its thrashing did little to the runic protection that now protected Noah’s soul, making the beings’ theatrics little more than background noise.

Still, Noah could feel its hunger. Contrary to how he should feel, he didn’t want to shun the being away. As long as he was able to prevent it from controlling him, he didn’t mind if his actions benefited it, because doing so would directly benefit him in the end.

His actions lacked any hesitation as he poured his mana into the egg, but his anticipation was clearly written on his face as he waited for something grand to happen. However, seconds passed, and nothing happened.

Experiencing something like this before, he tried placing the egg over his heart, then over his head, each time he poured out his mana into the egg without results. And during the time he was experimenting, the being’s theatrics were spiraling even more out of control.

”It’s not like I’m doing it on purpose...” Noah mumbled to himself as he began to clearly sense animosity towards him from the being inside. From the beings perspective, Noah was prolonging it on purpose.

”You better share what you got, otherwise this is the last time I do anything for you.”

Tilting his head back, Noah’s jaws slightly dislocated, allowing him to swallow the egg whole. He expected to feel the egg traveling through his organs, but instead he felt nothing.

With just a thought, Noah checked within his soul realm to find the egg being pulled up by the beings webs of tentacles while its other tentacles were poised to defend it, not trusting the runes that resided around Noah’s soul in case it steals its prize like last time.

Noah could do nothing now but watch as the egg was lifted towards one of its eyes where the being finally revealed what it planned to do.

Energy began to course through the entire soul realm, energy that released a pressure that made Noah understand where he stood when it came to his strength compared to the being.

Just from the pressure of the power alone, Noah could clearly sense that calling himself an ant compared to the being would be an overstatement.

Noah had believed that after his transformation, he would have bridged the gap between the two, but he had forgotten a key factor. Not only does he benefit from the being’s power, but it also benefited from his own.

Instead of despair, Noah was filled with agitation.

”!” But as soon as he was about to vocalize his feelings, he picked up on the egg returning back to him.

Noah heavily began to scrutinize it. Initially, he didn’t find anything wrong with it. But as it grew closer to his soul, he noticed that what changed was the fluid that was once inside of it.

Now what he could see was a silhouette of a creature he was very familiar with. Because the silhouette was a baby copy of the being itself.

Noah’s first reaction as the egg floated towards his core was to somehow repel it away. His instincts told him that whatever it was, it was going to benefit the being more than it benefited himself.

But inside, Noah began to feel eager to know what the egg was going to bring him. He wanted more power, no....He needed more power. He had already proven he was strong, but in the end he didn’t believe it was enough; the divine energy from before proved that his strength was just scratching the surface of what was actually considered strong.

Maybe it was because Noah’s will didn’t consider the egg a threat, but the ruins did nothing to prevent the egg from bypassing its defenses.

And so Noah welcomed the egg into his very soul.