Becoming a Monster

Chapter 317: Chapter 317: What is Submission?

An attack of such epic proportions being stopped should have elicited some sort of surprise or even a hint of apprehension from the person who put in the effort to make it.

But Noah showed no such traits. He didn’t even look back to the wall that was able to block it. With his attack released, he focused on the creature that has been antagonizing him all this time. But this time, the fly was upgraded to be considered a threat if left alone.

Just like the skeleton wielding the shield, the phantom zombie experienced a change. The swords were now emitting a holy sheen across their edges. When it went intangible, any attack that went through its body was retaliated against by a searing backlash of divine energy.

Each time it flickered between the corporeal and incorporeal, the time it recovered from that state increased. Now, its reaction time was nearing that of Noah’s appendages.

Small cuts were being generated across Noah’s body during the release of his attack. Cuts that mysteriously were deepened with each clash.

His companions were restless seeing this, but remembering how Noah reacted with Arachne, they were forced to remain idle.

The moment Noah’s attack came to an end; his fury was fully resolved to kill the creature that has been antagonizing him since the beginning. And now that his attention was undivided, the zombie was put into a state of absolute submission.

Noah’s state of mind was heightened. He wasn’t a god of war, but his instincts were that of a predator with a built-in intuition of how to kill their prey in the most efficient way possible. And for Noah, efficiency coincided with the most brutal and power driven way possible.

Noah didn’t show the same patience his appendages had shown before. He didn’t wait or try to anticipate when the zombie would become tangible again. Noah just ruthlessly attacked the zombie’s phantom image without pause.

Searing smoke would continue to fester from every limb that seamlessly traveled through the zombie’s body, but pain was irrelevant to him. If anything, it sprung him even more to finish the annoyance in the fastest way possible.

Two seconds, five? While Noah continued to haphazardly attack, there was one part of him that remained in a fixed position. His Nexus eye was locked onto a certain spot in the zombies’ chest, while an outstretched hand remained buried inside of the creature’s corporeal body, burning much more strongly than the others.

Noah’s most dominant hand remained clutched around the core. Even though he couldn’t touch it, Noah could sense the moment was coming. The mana within the zombie was spiraling out of control as it inched closer to the tenth second.

When the skeleton wall receded, the Angel was able to look upon the other side. She came upon one of her zombies lying lifelessly on the ground while Noah was stomping on the creature’s head, crushing it into ashes. A glaring hole was in the location where its heart once was, its orb gone.

Witnessing Noah with her own eyes, the Angel came to believe that maybe the three minions she had with her wouldn’t be enough. Using Burke’s body as a vassal, there was only so much she could do. Burke’s main class was a summoner of the light element, an element that should allow the angel to take full advantage of, considering her divine authority. But the creature contracted through him wouldn’t answer her calls.

And the holy angels, the same ones as her, were not able to be reached. In this situation, she was truly on her own.

She didn’t believe that her father would put her in a situation where she didn’t have a fighting chance. From her experience, this devil was still a newborn. Its Abyssal influence had to fully take shape. But it was there. She could see how this devil had the potential to become one of the major pillars. The familiars behind him not only shared a spiritual connection to him, but she could sense the same Abyssal powers from some of them too, especially when it came to the spider creature and the hellhound.

By all accounts, she should be afraid, and yet she felt proud. Proud that her benevolent father put her to this test to prevent such a creature from rising. This test would surely allow her to rise above the ranks.

Her fanatical thoughts made her oblivious to the very sins she believed herself to be above.

Oblivious to the depth of her own ignorance, the Angel turned to face the sea of gazes fixed upon her, hopeful, fearful, and reverent. Men and women clutched one another. Some wept in silence. Others fell to their knees as if their limbs gave out under the sheer weight of faith. To them, she was light incarnate. Deliverance made flesh. Their miracle.

But when she looked down on them, when she scanned their faces, she saw none of that. She saw numbers, a means to an end. God would judge their souls when they pass on, but until he judged them, they were tools. Willing sacrifices. Nothing more.

”This Devil is no ordinary creature...to defeat him, I will need the aid of all of you here.” Gasps rippled through the crowd. People exchanged uncertain glances, some instinctively stepping back.

”But be that as it may,” she continued, ”I do not require your swords. I do not ask for your blood. Only your prayers. Your submission... is all I ask for.”

The crowd quieted. Confusion clashed with trust. Fear warred with hope.

With her words, a cascade of holy light descended. One by one, the humans were enveloped in the same radiant glow that shrouded her form. But unlike the undead who had been elevated to her chosen, these humans received no halo.

There were rules, strict codes she was bound to follow. She would not, could not, cleanse the souls of the living as she had done with the dead. And even if she wanted to, that sacred rite required something crucial: consent.

Only those who willingly offered themselves could be sanctified in full.

Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment, lips parting in silent prayer, not to beg for strength, but to reaffirm her conviction. ’They would die for a divine cause. And that was more than enough.’

The light surrounding them made almost everyone respond without question. The threat of dying compelled them to follow whoever would give them the highest success to live.

They screamed for individual attention, voices cracking as they competed to be the most devout, the most loyal, the most useful. They were desperate to become her chosen, singled out by grace, spared by faith.

But then there was Vincent. And beside him, his right hand, Malcolm.

They stood still, unmoved, and unseduced. Two men who could smell a lie the moment it formed, who had built their empires on reading the cracks in others’ facades.

Vincent didn’t like this. His instinct was telling him that the Angel was more dangerous than the supposed Devil, and that instinct was practically screaming when the Angel shrouded them in her aura; the same aura that bathed Burke before she replaced him.

He wasn’t upset that this Angel claimed Burke’s life. What drove him mad was the fact that, just for a moment, he too believed that this Angel was their salvation, descended by the Almighty and unfathomable God that he antagonized, and one that he reproached throughout his life.

Humans were arrogant to believe they were central to anything. That they were deserving of God’s love. Of his protection. Of his so-called magnanimity.

Vincent saw now: their lives were inconsequential. Meaningless to the divine. And here stood a being wrapped in holiness, using the fear of death to manipulate them into worship. Using light as a leash.

He had manipulated hundreds. Thousands. He had bent their greed, their fear, their lust for power into instruments of control. But he had never pretended to be a savior. He had never pretended to be holy.

Their lives were inconsequential to the rest of the world, and seeing this Angel manipulating the feelings of the humans around him filled him with rage. He had controlled hundreds, thousands of people to get where he was. Even now he had played on their fears, their greed...all to maintain his status quo. But in the end, he never pretended to be a saint.

He saw the crowd, eyes glazed with awe, lips quivering in praise. Willing lambs. Chosen tools. He felt sick. Because for one brief moment, he’d believed too. And that made her unforgivable.

”What will happen to us when we submit?”

The Angel was expecting someone to question her. Most of her attention remained on Noah who was now facing them, eyeing her with a malicious intensity.

If she had a face, Vincent would have received a hostile glare that could kill. The Angel couldn’t afford to delay, but she saw that Vincent’s question had the effect she was afraid of.