Becoming a Monster

Chapter 471: Chapter 470: An Unwelcome Greeting

The moment Noah stepped forward to greet the guests, the rest of his creatures followed behind him.

Despite not knowing the exact strength of the intruders, Noah didn’t bring everyone along with him.

Pandora’s absence was the most obvious. She couldn’t move even if she wished to, and her role as the last dungeon boss was irreplaceable.

Bolas also stayed behind.

Although he had grown into the second strongest among them, that was precisely the reason Noah left him behind. Strength meant nothing if their home was left undefended, and Bolas was the next best choice for protecting the dungeon core if something unexpected occurred while Noah was gone.

The rest of the cats and dogs had been excluded as well.

Aside from Dog himself, their strength hadn’t yet reached the level needed to stand against seasoned adventurers. Allowing them to participate in a confrontation like this would have only exposed them to unnecessary danger.

Then there was Dummy.

The creature had been improving slowly under the heavy training, but he was still a mindless and gluttonous beast at his core. His hunger often overrode the discipline he was learning, and bringing him along would have almost certainly guaranteed bloodshed before Noah had the chance to speak.

That was the last thing Noah wanted.

Noah didn’t consider himself invincible.

These humans were clearly not ordinary soldiers, and provoking a fight without understanding their intentions would only invite unnecessary risk.

The risk Noah was worried about wasn’t the people themselves, but the forces behind them.

He wasn’t ready to contend against any nation. If the situation could be resolved without violence, then that was the outcome he preferred.

But if they couldn’t avoid it, then so be it. They would become resources for their growth. And the war that followed...

It would become a struggle for survival.

Either they would fall beneath the pressure of the world...

Or they would grow stronger from the corpses left in their wake.

If blood was the price required to survive, then blood would pave their path forward.

—

Noah and the others drew closer. But halfway there, he had those like Baka, Dog, and Arachne’s subordinates stationed away from them.

It was a deliberate gesture.

A small sign meant to show the adventurers that Noah hadn’t come to attack them.

Even without hearing their conversation, he could sense their intentions clearly enough.

They were extremely guarded. So much so that Noah almost felt the urge to laugh.

Who walks into someone else’s home and bares their fangs the moment the owner comes to greet them?

—

Initially, the adventurers stood guarded. Each of them scattered to positions discussed long beforehand. In the face of powerhouses like the monsters before them, their bickering beforehand was replaced by true professionalism fitted of their ranks.

They didn’t plan to move; they would only react based on the situation. It was then that they noticed the change. How the leader held back a portion of his creatures.

Their gazes shifted briefly between the creatures that had stopped and the smaller group that continued forward with Noah.

”What should we do? It seems that the monster doesn’t intend to attack us?” The elf inquired first.

The same thought settled on the rest as well.

If the creature leading them truly intended to attack, there would’ve been no reason to reduce its own numbers.

Roy scoffed under his breath, although even he didn’t dismiss the observation outright.

”Or it’s confident enough that it doesn’t need them.”

No one responded to that. Instead, Roy’s party took the lead to have everyone approach.

The two groups eventually stopped within speaking distance of each other, leaving enough room for either side to react if things went wrong.

None of them raised their weapons. Unlike Roy, who was hellbent on fighting, being face-to-face with the creatures made them more uneasy than before.

From their experience, they had a gut feeling that each creature was at least B-Rank, approaching A-Rank.

Although they themselves were A-Rank. Ranks were different when compared to monsters. The ranking system did not translate equally between humans and monsters.

An A-rank adventurer wasn’t necessarily stronger than a monster of the same rank.

In most cases, it took an entire party of adventurers to bring down a creature that powerful.

Because of that, although none of them bared their weapons, none of them relaxed either.

All except Roy.

Noah observed them quietly.

His gaze swept across the group one by one, and the moment he lingered on each of them, the adventurers felt an unsettling sensation crawl across their skin.

It wasn’t the pressure of overwhelming mana, nor was it predatory intent. Instead, it felt as though something was looking straight through them.

Several of them instinctively tightened their grip on their weapons as the strange feeling passed over them.

Noah’s Nexus Eye was already at work.

It was deciphering their information. Reading their mana levels and the essence shaping their abilities.

Each of them were strong based on their mana alone. However, Noah also understood that mana alone didn’t determine true strength.

As his Nexus Eye deciphered the nature of their core abilities, he found himself both impressed and slightly envious.

Their abilities were as unique as they come; clearly, this group was highly accomplished. There was the female elf who had an affinity with earth magic and could heal with the power of plants. The beastkin beside her carried a skill that dulled an opponent’s instinctive awareness of danger while granting himself short bursts of speed similar to Noah’s own movement ability.

If he were truly in need of powerful souls to strengthen his creatures, then killing these adventurers would yield far greater profit than the monsters he’d been harvesting so far.

Among the group, however, only two individuals’ abilities made Noah slightly cautious.

Their cleric was the first.

Most beings possessed only one defining nature, and in rare cases, an individual might possess two. Paul was one such example. His nature stemmed from his Stone Sentinel ability that allowed him to create golems and harden his body, while the curse in his blood granted him the ability to transform into a werewolf. Those two traits formed the foundation from which the rest of his techniques were derived.

That was how existence normally functioned.

The Nexus Eye didn’t reveal learned techniques or accumulated combat experience. Instead, it revealed the nature that formed the foundation of a being’s existence.

That was what made the cleric so unusual. Instead of one defining nature, or even two, Noah could see five.

Every one of them stemmed from the same source.

Faith.

Noah wasn’t entirely certain why that was possible, but he had begun to suspect that faith, or holy energy, wasn’t so different from his own miasma.

They were simply opposite expressions of the same force.

Both possessed the ability to shape the nature of the individual who wielded them. In that sense, they were both corrupting influences in their own way.

Otherwise, how could this man possess so many defining abilities that existed as the direct mirror of their own nature?

What further confirmed Noah’s suspicions and marked the second individual he considered a potential threat was the priest standing slightly off to the side.

She was the same. However, where the cleric possessed five defining abilities, the priest carried seven.

Each of the clerics’ and priests’ abilities had been shaped with a single purpose.

They existed to suppress, purify, and ultimately destroy beings aligned with darkness.

After Noah’s experience with holy magic, there was no delusion about his own nature. He was, without question, a creature aligned with darkness.

Which meant that the two would be the worst possible opponents for him to face.

Together, the two of them formed a pair that would be troublesome for any dark creature.

While Noah scrutinized them, the sensation of his gaze was finally realized for what it really was.

The older man felt it first. The reason it felt so invasive was because it was. He couldn’t determine the cause from the sensation alone, but Noah’s subtle reactions as his gaze passed through them had revealed the truth too late.

”It is not polite to look into other people’s secrets,” he said with a passive-aggressive tone. ”Especially when you have not even bothered to introduce yourself.”

The words immediately drew startled looks from the others.

”What are you talking about?” One of the adventurers asked.

Several of them instinctively glanced toward Noah, then back to the older man as if trying to understand what he meant.

”It is probably similar to an analysis ability,” the hooded man said with reprieve. ”The mistake is mine.”

As he spoke, he slightly lifted the staff in his hand. The head of the staff glowed brightly for a brief moment before a transparent aura spread outward and settled over the group.

The unsettling sensation pressing against them disappeared almost immediately.

Noah turned his attention towards the hooded man. More than shock, what he felt was intrigue.

The skill itself didn’t appear particularly useful in combat, but Noah immediately understood its value.

Just as he possessed the ability to peer into the nature of others, it was only logical that someone might develop a means to conceal that same information when facing an opponent capable of doing the same.

”Fuck!” Roy barked as he finally made the connection to what was going on.

The sword in his hand erupted into flames as fire wrapped around his blade.

”This is exactly why I said we shouldn’t try talking to it!”