Becoming a Monster

Chapter 600: Chapter 599: Forged by Battle

He couldn’t understand how the devil could remain so composed while watching someone supposedly important to him suffer like this.

Yet lowering himself enough to ask for an explanation was out of the question.

Morvyr continued watching instead.

Several minutes passed. Fenrir’s regeneration became impossible to ignore.

It wasn’t so much that it was faster than the trolls’, but it was definitely more perverse, and unreasonably so.

So many crippling wounds continued to stitch together between each exchange.

Just how much can a body heal? There should be a limit.

Morvyr’s contempt returned.

So that was the source of the devil’s confidence.

Regeneration was an invaluable advantage between opponents of comparable strength. Once a battle became a contest of endurance, the one capable of recovering more would almost always prevail.

But this battle wasn’t between equals.

Any regeneration required vitality and mana to sustain itself. No matter how impressive it appeared, those reserves would eventually run dry.

All the abilities he accomplished were delaying his death.

Soon, Morvyr was about to disregard trying to pay attention to the fight.

Emotionlessly, he watched Otuk’s sword strike Fenrir again.

Again, he was already anticipating the same scene. But then a faint sound reached his ears.

The noise had been subtle enough to dismiss at first.

That was until Otuk struck him again, and that same sound followed.

Morvyr’s ears twitched strongly this time. There was something different about each impact now.

Fenrir was no longer being thrown as far as before.

The dull thud produced whenever Otuk’s blows struck his body had slowly become heavier.

The time those thuds generated was the same time more exchanges were made in one session before Fenrir was knocked away.

However, the next time finally made Morvyr’s expression deepen with a seriousness he wasn’t expecting.

The sound resembled hardened material striking against an equally solid surface.

Morvyr blinked harder than normal, his eyes so wide that one would believe he was trying to stop time.

He had a bad feeling about what was happening.

And the next exchange confirmed it.

Otuk’s sword crashed against Fenrir’s side. This time, one could easily see that the sword was met with an unexpected resistance.

Sight alone wasn’t needed; anyone could easily hear the sound the sword made when it hit against whatever was underneath Fenrir’s fur.

What was more shocking was that Fenrir was the one who barely budged.

A massive claw bathed in flames came crashing to Otuk’s exposed side

The troll had been so certain that Fenrir would be sent flying again that he failed to brace himself in time.

The rocklike plating had prevented the claw from tearing deeply into his flesh, but several cracks now stretched across its surface.

Flames clung to the damaged armor; flames were being fueled by the venom in his claws.

Otuk’s eyes widened before rage immediately replaced the surprise.

The troll was forced to take a step back, a feat that was more glaring than anything else since the earth was supposed to take on most of the burden.

In his rage, he swung his sword without bothering to regain his footing. He didn’t believe Fenrir could withstand another blow so easily.

But again, Fenrir’s hardened skeleton absorbed most of the force, which was then followed up with the wolf brute-forcing his way forward into a charge.

Otuk was left without a way to efficiently use his sword, and with Fenrir determined to stay on top of him, the flames that were more of a protective shield now became the trolls’ worst nightmare.

The troll wasn’t imagining it. Not only did Fenrir’s body become harder, but his flames were hotter than before.

Otuk could already feel the heat slowly cooking his insides despite his armor-like skin. If anything, his rock-like layers made his body into a literal oven. If he didn’t get the beast away from him, he didn’t want to imagine what would happen.

Unhesitatingly, he dropped his sword to bombard Fenrir with constant haymakers, striking anything he could reach.

Each strike made the ground splinter as the force traveled through Fenrir’s body, yet Fenrir refused to budge.

It was now that Otuk realized that he couldn’t do anything without his sword.

His fists continued crashing into Fenrir’s body, but the feedback against his hand forced him to accept that the beast wasn’t being harmed as much as before.

Meanwhile, Fenrir’s shield of flames continued to burn him from every direction.

Otuk’s roar gradually twisted into a cry of rage and pain.

His stone hide had grown bright red under the heat. What had once protected his flesh was now trapping the flames against it, turning his own armor into something resembling a forge.

Every breath scorched his lungs.

The heat cooked his flesh from the inside. This time, it was only because of Otuk’s own regeneration, repairing his seared organs and muscles, that he kept from truly despairing.

He needed to create distance.

Otuk abandoned his attacks and wrapped both arms around Fenrir’s sides. Instantly, he regretted his actions. His hands were literally engulfed in flames.

Another pained roar tore from Otuk’s throat as he planted both feet, gathering everything to hurl Fenrir away.

Fenrir struck the ground several paces away, giving the troll the opening he desperately needed.

The troll’s following actions looked somewhat laughable as he scurried for his sword.

His hand closed around the hilt before Fenrir could recover, and only then did he allow himself to look down at his condition.

Several sections of his body were illuminated by scorched rock, so much so that in layers in between his skin was already beginning to blister.

His hands experienced the worst pain. His face grimaced as the burnt flesh of his palms wrapped around the sword’s handle.

Since the start of the fight, the rage in his eyes at the start of the fight was filled with uncertainty.

—

Morvyr couldn’t count how many times he was left speechless, but this time was worse than all the others.

Nothing about this made sense.

The Fenrir now, compared to the one before, was not the same.

Morvyr’s first thought was that Fenrir had concealed his true strength from the beginning.

That Noah had intentionally allowed the beast to appear weaker so Morvyr would accept terms he never would have otherwise considered.

Yet that explanation failed to satisfy him.

Fenrir’s injuries were undoubtedly real. No creature would willingly endure that much damage merely to maintain a deception.

And even if that was the case, there would be no reason to put on an act if the agreement was already made.

His attention snapped toward Noah.

The eye within the devil’s chest was still glowing.

Without thinking, Morvyrs’ aura exploded as anger overtook his composure. That one action became the start of a chain reaction for everyone there.

Between Morvyrs’ army and all of Noah’s creatures, they all braced for a fight to erupt at any moment.

Each side was waiting for one word, one action, so they could have the excuse to fight one another.

However, reality was different from what was shown on the surface. Noah’s creatures, especially Arachne and Kratos, were just looking for any excuse to fight.

Watching Fenrir fight made them more anxious than excited. They could also sense that Fenrir was growing stronger in this one battle alone. His strength grew so great that their urgency to lose to him was greater than ever.

But unlike them, Morvyr’s army was as eager to fight as they had been when they first met.

Fenrir overturning the battle was not something any of them had envisioned.

Otuk was the strongest warrior among them, second only to Morvyr himself. If even he could be pushed this far by one of Noah’s creatures, then any chance they had of surviving a battle would depend almost entirely upon whether Morvyr could defeat Noah.

And even then, that would still leave the rest of Noah’s creatures for them to contend with.

Their earlier confidence had already begun to waver.

If they had been so wrong about Fenrir, then there was no telling how badly they had misjudged the others.

Fortunately, Noah didn’t react strongly to Morvyr’s sudden hostility.

He remained where he stood, neither releasing his own aura nor giving the creatures behind him any reason to act.

His calmness was the only thing preventing the tension between both groups from erupting into violence.

However, that was not the reason for Morvyrs’ change when he suddenly reined back his mana.

His gaze snapped to the ground and then to his surroundings.

There was killing intent that hadn’t been there before.

More unsettlingly, it carried the same presence he had sensed from the walls themselves.

Morvyr had already concluded that a dryad existed somewhere within the territory. Yet sensing such unmistakable hostility from something whose existence made such a feat impossible.

While also finding no trace of corruption within its mana, it left him unable to understand what kind of dryad Noah had under his command.

The uncertainty forced his anger to recede.

It was becoming increasingly obvious that Morvyr had misunderstood the danger of entering this place from the very beginning.

Noah’s confidence in allowing them inside no longer seemed reckless.

His aura gradually withdrew.

This meeting had already revealed far more than Her Majesty expected, and every new discovery only made Noah more valuable.

Allowing his pride to ruin that now would be an unforgivable failure.