Becoming a Monster

Chapter 502: Chapter 501: Instincts Supercede Freewill

Noah blinked, caught off guard by the question.

He hadn’t done anything differently. At least, not that he was aware of.

Seeing his confusion, Ailetta let out a quiet sigh, the tension in her expression easing just slightly as if she had already expected that response.

”There’s no point trying to explain it to you like this,” she said, her tone turning faintly exasperated despite everything happening around them. ”You don’t need to ask for my permission.”

Her gaze held his for a moment longer.

”See for yourself.”

Noah understood immediately. It would be faster this way.

He reached for the connection and deepened it, allowing himself to fully align with her presence rather than simply brushing against it as he normally did.

It wasn’t that he could hear her thoughts. There were no words, no inner voice he could listen to. Instead, he felt them.

Her thoughts passed through him as impressions, as intent and understanding that formed without needing to be spoken, as if meaning itself was being shared rather than language. It was the same with her emotions.

They didn’t come across as something separate from him, but rather as something that layered over his own, blending just enough for him to recognize what belonged to her while still remaining himself.

Ailetta didn’t seek to explain anything.

She simply thought about what had happened.

He didn’t see it the way she did. There were no images or perfect reconstructions of events because, while their souls and consciousness were linked, their minds remained separate. What she experienced as sight and memory couldn’t be transferred directly.

From those fragments, the rest filled in naturally. It became clear why she couldn’t explain it properly.

Only because he was observing it from outside of himself could he understand what had changed.

His blood had triggered something deeper than before.

It wasn’t just a desire for evolution anymore. It had reached something more primitive.

Survival.

If someone were asked why they ate, the answer would be simple. They were hungry. There was no need to think beyond that, because the reason felt self-explanatory.

But if they were asked why they were hungry, the answer would shift. They might say it was because they hadn’t eaten, because they needed energy, because their body required it to continue.

Yet even then, how many would immediately think of it in its most fundamental form?

That their body demanded it to survive.

At a glance, saying that the body required food and saying that it demanded it to survive sounded the same, but they were not.

One was understood, something that could be reasoned with and delayed, while the other was absolute, something that stripped away hesitation the moment it took hold.

Because when that demand truly surfaced, people didn’t think about morality or restraint. If their bodies were pushed far enough, they would resort to cannibalism. They would attempt to consume things that weren’t even edible, driven by nothing more than the need to satisfy that instinct.

Their will would be broken down by their body’s intent to live.

That was what was happening now.

His blood had changed from something their bodies desired into something their bodies needed.

And because of that, the thought process behind it had been stripped away.

That was why even Arachne’s spawn had acted the way it did. The instinct to carry out Arachne’s orders was absolute. Its loyalty to their queen and their brood colony was seemingly absolute.

However, even that ingrained instinct was overcome by its most natural drive.

The moment that instinct surfaced, everything else had been pushed aside.

Noah could feel it clearly now through Ailetta. The pull wasn’t limited by strength or loyalty, and even those who held themselves together were doing so through restraint.

They were all feeling it.

Every single one of them.

If even his strongest creatures were only holding themselves back, then the situation could spiral out of control far faster than he initially thought.

All it could take was one more lapse, one more time where they were exposed to his blood again and were forced to try to resist with their will alone, and they would likely give in just like the spider had.

And that wasn’t even the worst part.

Because if his creatures were reacting this way...

Then anything within the forest would be drawn to it as well.

Noah’s gaze shifted slightly as his grip on the crystallized core tightened, his mind already moving ahead of the situation as he considered what needed to be done.

He turned his attention inward for a brief moment, trying to see if he himself was affected by his own blood, but just as he expected, there was nothing.

His body didn’t need to crave for something it already had.

He couldn’t tell if this meant he had grown closer to some form of evolution, or if his blood was only now revealing what it had always been meant to become. The distinction mattered, but not enough to slow him down.

Either way, this wasn’t something he could afford to treat the same way as before.

When it came to his companions, the ones he regularly shared his blood with, he wasn’t concerned. If their bodies desired it, then he would give it to them without hesitation until they reached the point where that need faded on its own.

By then, their strength would have risen far beyond where it was now.

That much was certain.

But that logic couldn’t be applied to everything under his domain.

He couldn’t provide his blood to every creature within his territory. Not to all the cats and dogs he took in, not to Arachne’s subordinates, and certainly not to the countless offspring that would come after them.

Any time he might have spent thinking of an alternative was cut short as the forest responded to what he had done.

The cries grew louder.

The movement around them intensified until it became impossible to ignore.

Monsters had gathered from every direction.

Without knowing where the source of the scent originated, they kept their distance at first, forming a loose perimeter around Noah and his group.

Some snarled, their instincts barely restrained, while others edged closer in cautious steps, drawn forward by the promise of something they had yet to see.

Further back, the more aware ones remained still, watching rather than acting. Among them, Noah even spotted a few goblins.

The lizardmen rarely came this far into this part of the forest, and the trolls had long since retreated toward the outer borders after Fenrir had culled most of them, leaving what remained too fearful to wander freely again.

As the moments passed and his creatures were no longer directly exposed to his blood, their attention began to shift.

Their tension turned into aggression, every one of them preparing to strike at whatever came too close.

To them, if even they couldn’t have Noah’s, then how could some random monsters expect to receive it?

Then they felt it.

Noah’s aura passed over them.

It was the same pressure that had once forced them to their knees, and even now, it pressed down on them with a weight that demanded submission.

His creatures reacted instinctively, their focus snapping back to him as unease flickered through them, as if they had somehow overstepped without realizing it.

Those bound to him more closely looked toward him without hesitation, waiting for his command.

The monsters surrounding them reacted very differently.

To Noah’s creatures, that presence was authority, something to be followed without question.

To everything else, it was something else entirely.

It was the presence of a tyrant that stood at the peak of the food chain, a being that didn’t need to prove its dominance because it was already understood.

Something that existed above conflict, and something that made even the thought of resistance feel like a mistake.

The restlessness that had driven them there collapsed almost instantly. Clarity returned, and with it came fear.

”Leave,” Noah said, his voice carrying through along with his aura, reaching everyone within its effect. ”Or die. There won’t be a second time.”

There wasn’t a creature present that failed to understand him.

And there wasn’t a single one that dared to test him.

The forest erupted into motion.

What had once been a tense standoff dissolved into chaos as the gathered monsters turned and fled, trampling over one another in their haste to escape.

They didn’t just retreat to where they had come from. They pushed far beyond it, driven by the instinct to put as much distance between themselves and him as possible.

In a matter of moments, the space around Noah was cleared.

The silence from the aftermath made everything that had happened feel like an illusion.

The silence that followed made everything that had just happened feel almost unreal, as if the forest itself had briefly lost control before snapping back into place.

Noah remained still for a moment, his gaze lingering over the now-empty space. He could have used this time to address his creatures, to explain what had just occurred, and ensure that nothing like it would repeat itself.

But that could wait.

There were more immediate matters to handle.

”Fenrir, come here.”

Noah’s intentions were clear. The core was for Fenrir to consume.

The insinuation went unnoticed by the others; only Ailetta fully understood the implications.

Noah could now give more than one ability to his creatures.