Becoming a Monster

Chapter 662: Chapter 661: Severing Old Ties

Noah couldn’t easily sense Ailetta’s thoughts; in fact, her plan was completely written on her face. But he didn’t care anymore to stop her, at least not until he understood everything that was going on.

Before Noah could give the matter any more thought, he finally sensed the humans approaching.

His gaze immediately snapped toward the distance, drawing the attention of everyone around him. They had all been anticipating this battle for days; their anxiousness was higher than ever, so it didn’t take long for them to realize Noah’s attention was settling on something in the distance.

Several gazes followed his, though at this distance, only Noah and Arachne possessed eyesight good enough to actually see the approaching army. Even then, Noah could see considerably more. His eyes passed over the humans moving between the trees, picking out individual faces despite how far away they still were.

Noah watched them for a few moments. His eyes set upon the strong people first. He could tell just from the way that they held themselves that they were strong opponents. However, despite this, his gaze subconsciously searched for the familiar face Arachne mentioned.

Out of so many people, it should’ve been difficult to pick out one face from so many.

However, Noah’s gaze ended up settling on another small group first, causing him to frown when he sensed the holy energy coming from them even at this distance.

His attention naturally became more focused on the blind man and the old man walking beside him. Subtle qualities about the two reminded Noah of the angel he had encountered before, and given how much he had come to despise anything related to holy energy, he found himself scrutinizing them more carefully.

It was while looking over the two that Noah’s eyes suddenly widened.

The familiar face he had been searching for was walking among them.

“Bailey.” Noah’s eyes turned colder as he finally understood who Arachne had seen.

At first, seeing Bailey among the Church caught him by surprise, but the feeling didn’t last long. The longer Noah looked at her, the more he realized that knowing it was her actually made the situation easier to accept.

He still remembered the day he saved Paul, and out of everyone there, Bailey had been the most ungrateful for what Noah had done. Without embellishing that time, he was sure that she blamed him for everything that happened, and hated him for it. Those eyes of hers back then held the same hatred as someone who wished him dead.

Noah continued watching her for a little longer before he noticed subtle reactions from at least three of the humans around her. Despite being unable to see him from this distance, each of them seemed to have felt his gaze, their attention gradually shifting in his direction as if trying to find where it was coming from.

His expression gradually became more stoic. Whatever feelings seeing Bailey brought up could wait until she was standing in front of him.

“It’s Bailey,” Noah calmly informed Ailetta.

Despite how casually he said it, his attention remained on her afterward, watching for even the slightest change in her expression.

Ailetta had behaved as though she no longer cared about any of her old friends, and perhaps she genuinely believed that was true.

However, there had to be a deeper reason she was so determined to kill them for the sake of her evolution.

Noah understood that better than most.

There was a time when he constantly denied that he was no longer human, even when there was increasingly little about him that could still be considered human. And after he finally accepted becoming a monster, he had only found something else to deny by convincing himself that none of his old human attachments mattered anymore.

Looking at Ailetta now, Noah couldn’t help but wonder if she was doing the same thing.

As he continued observing her, his thoughts drifted back to the first time he met Bailey.

Strangely enough, she had been the first human Noah encountered that day who showed genuine concern for him outside of Ailetta.

At the time, Noah had been covered in blood, while the two pupils within each of his eyes made his appearance arguably more frightening than some of the zombies roaming around them. Yet Bailey’s first concern hadn’t been whether he was dangerous. She worried he was injured, and after learning Noah was alone, she even tried to convince him to join them.

With death at every corner, with no experience of experiencing so much death in their lifetime, any regular human would’ve sought his company just because they believed he was strong.

But at that time, Noah could feel that Bailey truly only wanted to ensure he didn’t have to survive in a war like that all by himself.

That memory made looking at the woman walking alongside his enemies now feel almost surreal.

And Noah wasn’t the only one remembering the Bailey from back then.

Deep down, memories Ailetta hadn’t thought about in a long time were beginning to resurface, too.

In the beginning, Bailey had practically been a stranger to her. Besides Noah, Jasmine was the only person Ailetta truly cared about, but somewhere along the way, Bailey had gradually taken a place in her old self’s heart that had once belonged almost entirely to Jasmine.

There had been more than one occasion where Ailetta’s life was at risk, and during those times, Bailey had been the one who came to her aid. Even when she wasn’t in danger, there were times when the others barely acknowledged her presence, yet Bailey always seemed to notice when something was wrong.

However, she also hadn’t forgotten how things changed after Bailey lost Blake.

When Ailetta had almost died to the crows, no one came to her aid. Bailey hadn’t come either, and by then, Ailetta had already experienced something similar with Jasmine and Mark.

Around that time, Ailetta began to understand how fickle the bonds between humans could be.

Before then, Ailetta had never thought about the people she cared about based on who was more important to her. If someone she cared about was in danger and she could do something to help, she would have.

Perhaps if two people were dying in front of her and she could only save one, even Ailetta would’ve been forced to choose between them, but she had never expected someone to risk their life when there was nothing they could do.

That wasn’t what happened to her.

There were times when they could’ve helped, but doing so would’ve meant placing themselves in danger as well. In those moments, Ailetta began to realize there was always someone more important. With Jasmine, it had been Mark, and eventually Bailey showed Ailetta that she wasn’t any different.

No matter how much someone cared about her, if Ailetta wasn’t high enough among the people they cared about, then there would always be a point where she could be left behind.

But even after coming to understand that, Ailetta wouldn’t forget all the things Bailey had done for her.

Perhaps if Ailetta were still human, those memories would’ve made seeing Bailey again much harder. She might’ve found herself struggling with whether she could really kill someone who had once meant so much to her.

Yet now, the more those memories returned, the more dangerous Ailetta’s thoughts became.

Out of all her old friends who could’ve appeared, somehow it had been Bailey. The situation was almost comical, so much so that Ailetta couldn’t help but wonder if this was somehow fate.

‘Of course it has to be her. That’s how it should be; only then can we finally put an end to this.’

As Ailetta continued staring into the distance, any sense of uncertainty that had appeared in her eyes gradually disappeared.

Noah had watched her closely ever since he told her it was Bailey, and seeing the resolve that replaced it made him feel considerably better.

Even though Ailetta had behaved as though she no longer cared about any of her old friends, Noah had never been completely convinced.

There was still a reason Ailetta believed devouring them would help her evolve, and after everything Noah had experienced himself, he knew how easy it was to deny feelings that didn’t fit with what they were trying to convince themselves they didn’t have.

Noah had done the same thing.

For a long time, he refused to accept that he was no longer human. Then, after finally accepting that he had become a monster, he convinced himself that the attachments he formed as a human no longer mattered either.

Perhaps Ailetta had been doing something similar.

Noah couldn’t know exactly what had gone through her mind after learning Bailey was here, but he could see that whatever conflict those memories caused had already passed. Ailetta knew what she wanted to do now, and that was enough for Noah to leave the matter alone.

There would be time to deal with Bailey once she was captured. And whatever Ailetta decided to do to her afterward, he wouldn’t interfere.

For now, Noah turned his attention back toward the army.

“Get ready.”

The atmosphere around him immediately changed as everyone began moving according to the preparations they had already made.