Becoming a Monster

Chapter 482: Chapter 481: A Warrior and a Coward

Noah’s fight had already spiraled into something far more difficult than he had anticipated, yet while he kept the being meant to turn the tide for the adventurers occupied, the rest of the battlefield had begun to collapse around them.

The archon’s decision to prioritize its own perceived threats over its summoner had effectively abandoned the old man.

Fenrir didn’t hesitate to take advantage of that.

Although a part of him remained dissatisfied with how the earlier exchange had played out, that feeling didn’t slow him, because his intent to kill had not changed, and now there was nothing left standing between him and his target.

He stepped forward with steady purpose as the old man struggled to remain upright, his body already failing him as each movement threatened to drive broken bones deeper into his flesh, yet even in that condition, his grip on his weapon did not falter.

He forced himself to stand.

Not because he believed he could win, but because he refused to fall without resisting.

Fenrir, still not used to using the facial muscles of a human, gave an ugly contempt snarl as the opponent still struggled to live.

He covered the distance without giving the man time to recover, and the moment the old man raised his sword, noticeably slower than before and more strenuous, the strike came.

As if he wanted the man to fully understand his place, Fenrir focused on the blade itself, and the force behind the impact, combined with the old man’s weakened state, drove him violently into the ground once more.

And this time Fenrir was directly over him, his fist still encased in flaming gauntlets.

Looking down at his prey, Fenrir expected to find fear, but he found the look of a man who had finally understood the mistake he had made.

Instead, blood filled the old man’s mouth before he spat it across Fenrir’s face.

There was a small silence. The old man gave off a provocative, blood-filled smell as he witnessed the surprise on Fenrir’s face.

Fenrir didn’t react immediately because the action itself meant nothing to him, and what held his attention instead was the old man’s expression, since he was smiling despite the situation.

For a brief moment, confusion flickered across Fenrir’s face as he tried to understand why someone on the verge of death would look that way. The answer came to him as he recalled seeing that same twisted expression before on Arachne and the little devil vampire.

In that instant, he understood that the act hadn’t been a natural reaction. It was a final insult meant to mock him, even now, at the very end.

The flames around Fenrir’s arms died out. That action alone finally managed to break the old man’s smile.

In their place, his hands began to change as fur spread rapidly across them, and that transformation continued without pause as his entire body shifted, abandoning the human-like form as he returned to his monstrous werewolf state.

By the time the change was completed, his breath smothered the very air the old man could breathe, causing his already laborious breathing to become a struggle to achieve.

Fenrir lowered his gaze toward the old man, whose smile wasn’t anywhere to be found. Without a word, Fenrir leaned forward and dragged his tongue across the blood that remained on the old man’s face, tasting it as though committing the moment to memory.

He knew Noah would have preferred the body intact. But he was ready to accept his punishment after all this was over.

As long as he saved the core, that should be enough.

________

The old man beneath him knew what was about to happen. There were regrets, but in the end, there was nothing that he could do. He could only look at the looming figure with a quiet, almost detached calmness.

How many times did he end up in a situation where he should have died? Every mission he embarked on carried the unspoken acceptance that he might not return.

And now, since the outcome had already been decided, there was no longer anything to hold onto. At least that’s what he told himself.

His gaze shifted once more, settling on Roy, not as a fellow adventurer but as a son. And although he had hoped the boy wouldn’t witness this, that hope no longer held meaning, because the boy was never going to see it at all.

The old man’s eyes focused as he finally took in the opponent Roy had been facing. Although it was a skeletal knight, something about it was immediately wrong. Most skeletal knights barely reached the level of a C-rank monster unless they were bound to a powerful undead such as a lich or a vampire. This one did not follow that expectation.

At the beginning of their clash, after nearly killing Baka without taking any visible injury, Roy had approached the skeleton with the same confidence, believing he could end the fight just as quickly. The moment their blades met, that assumption began to break apart. The skeleton matched his strike cleanly.

Roy could feel that, physically, he was better in every way. However, the skeletons’ swordsmanship was something that should belong to an undead. It was as if it was making up for its lack of speed by reading his body before the final action came.

Then there was its sword, a weapon that burned with a dark flame unlike anything Roy had encountered before.

Roy’s response only made things worse. Instead of adjusting, he pressed harder, increasing his speed and aggression while sacrificing control. With every exchange, the skeleton’s presence grew more oppressive. Nothing about the skeleton itself was different. However, it was the blade that had changed. It has been changing throughout the exchange.

The sword was getting heavier, and its flames grew in size each time its blade met his.

Each incremental difference was small at first. And by the time Roy realized what was happening, it was already too late. When the dark blade came down again, even blocking it came with a cost. Its dark flames nearly consumed all of the flames on his sword, while simultaneously threatening to burn his hands.

His dominant hand was the first to be taken. Although he severed it himself in an attempt to stop the spread, the sensation did not fade. Even with it gone, he still could feel as if his hand was still being corroded.

The pain, accompanied by the realization that the skeleton’s sword could no longer be blocked without risking the loss of his remaining hand, something within him broke.

When he had suffered his first injury, his first instinct was to call out to his mentor. But that was the same time he had witnessed his mentor being blown away with one strike.

He looked back to his healers, only to come to the understanding that help would never come.

And when he looked for a way out, he then noticed, up in the trees, giant spiders watching them all.

The pride that once defined him faded along with the will to fight.

An A-rank adventurer who had once stood at the front of the battlefield could no longer bring himself to retaliate or even defend himself.

In that moment of hesitation, the outcome was decided. Roy died not in a final clash of strength, but in fear. His final moments were witnessed by the man who guided him, dying a pathetic death.

_______

Earlier, when the archon arrived, Arachne had immediately diverted her attention the moment she sensed the shift in Noah’s fight.

Her priorities changed without hesitation as she moved to eliminate the cleric.

Whether the summoning would disappear with his death was not something she considered, because neither she nor the others under Noah had ever witnessed what happened when a caster died. The thought never crossed her mind.

What she did understand was far simpler.

The cleric was the one maintaining the holy field. And killing him would remove the burden the field had placed on them.

There was no warning when she disengaged from her opponents. One moment she was in front of them, and the next she appeared behind the cleric, her limbs already poised to skewer him through.

The party reacted immediately.

The knight and the dagger wielder moved to intercept, but their path was cut off before they could reach her.

Arachne’s royal guard stood in their way.

Above them, in the trees, was another spider. It was just one, but this one was different; it was bigger than the others, and its presence weighed more heavily than the rest of the brood.

This was one of the first born from Arachne’s eggs, a creature that had more time to already surpass the others in its growth.

Although their size has grown, they were not up to par to directly confront enemies of their current level. But that didn’t mean that their roles were worthless. Their vision was hypersensitive to movement. Supported with their acute sense of depth, their webs became deadly accurate.

The two adventurers may have avoided fighting against Arachne, but their new opponents weren’t easy either.