Becoming a Monster

Chapter 663: Chapter 662: “What do you mean, transform?”

Everyone moved without Noah saying anything else. The main attackers all drew to the front to Noah’s side, while everyone else stayed closer to the fortress.

Noah had his own plans for how he was proceeding with this fight, while Morvyr silently watched it all.

The elf was somewhat familiar with what Noah planned to do, but that was only on the surface. Other than how he wanted to fight and the unexpected double agent under his authority, he didn’t know anything else.

Morvyr was unsurprisingly fine with that. He had never expected Noah to include him in every part of his plans.

Although they stood on the same side, they didn’t have nearly enough trust to fight as a single force. Noah would command his creatures however he believed was best, while Morvyr would do the same with his own warriors.

Naturally, that also meant Morvyr knew nothing about parts of the devil’s preparations.

He just hadn’t expected the first surprise to be so… surprising.

Almost immediately after Noah gave the order, the massive walls of roots surrounding his territory disappeared.

Morvyr stared at the empty space for a few moments, unsure whether what he had just seen had actually happened. It wasn’t only the walls that were gone. Everything behind them had seemingly disappeared along with them, leaving nothing but trees and grass where Noah’s territory had been only moments ago.

But that didn’t make any sense.

Morvyr had been looking directly at the territory when it happened. If the walls had suddenly retreated into the ground, he would’ve seen them move, and even if he somehow hadn’t, that still wouldn’t explain how everything behind them had disappeared at the exact same time.

Rather than immediately accepting what his eyes were showing him, Morvyr continued staring at the area where he knew the walls should’ve been.

The longer he focused, the more what he saw started to feel strange. At first, Morvyr thought his vision was blurring, but as he focused harder, he began to notice the faint outline of something behind the trees.

It took another moment before he realized he was looking at the walls.

The roots gradually became clearer the longer Morvyr stared, but strangely enough, the trees and grass didn’t disappear. Instead, they became almost transparent, leaving Morvyr to look at the walls through a second image that still showed the empty forest that had replaced them.

For a moment, it almost felt as though he was experiencing double vision.

However, now that Morvyr could see both at the same time, it didn’t take him long to understand what was happening. The walls had never disappeared, nor had anything actually happened to the territory behind them.

Something was creating an illusion over the entire area, replacing everything that was actually there with what looked like an ordinary part of the forest.

Even after realizing that, the illusion didn’t immediately disappear.

Morvyr could still see the faint image of the trees overlapping the walls, but now that he knew what he was looking at, he found it easier to separate the two. The more certain he became that everything covering the territory was false, the weaker the image seemed, until it eventually disappeared from his vision completely.

Morvyr could see the walls normally again.

Curious whether everyone else had experienced the same thing, he looked around, only to quickly realize that most of them were still staring at an empty forest.

His elves seemed to be the only ones who could see through the illusion without much difficulty, although even some of them still appeared to see traces of it. The reestablished goblin chieftain was barely managing to do the same.

Judging by how intently he kept staring at the territory, Morvyr could tell he could see what was actually there, but the illusion still affected what he saw.

Everyone else seemed completely incapable of seeing past it.

Even after those who understood what was happening explained that the territory hadn’t disappeared, knowing that what they were seeing was an illusion didn’t seem to help. They knew the walls were still standing directly in front of them, yet their eyes still showed nothing but trees and grass.

It wasn’t only Morvyr and his men; Noah’s group was the same. Pandora’s illusion didn’t work like the scripted illusion skills most were aware of.

These illusions affected reality, meaning no one was exempt.

Still, no one panicked. They were merely surprised that they couldn’t see through the illusion even after understanding what happened.

Morvyr didn’t have time to keep his attention solely on the illusion; Noah was finishing up everything with surprising speed.

The slime armor covering Noah’s body began to lose its shape before several portions suddenly separated from him and shot out in multiple directions. Each one traveled past those gathered near the front, heading toward the creatures that had remained closer to the fortress.

Morvyr quickly noticed that every feline and canine was among the ones being targeted. Even Dobby and Dog weren’t excluded, while the only goblin Noah had allowed to participate in the coming battle soon had slime gathering around him as well.

At first, Morvyr wasn’t sure what Noah intended to do to them. But as the slime spread across their bodies, the answer gradually became obvious. It didn’t stop until each of them was almost completely covered, forming armor around their bodies that was little different from the armor Noah normally wore.

Apparently, Noah was giving them another way to protect themselves.

Morvyr initially thought the decision made sense, especially since most of them weren’t part of Noah’s main attacking force. But after another moment, that same thought made the decision seem somewhat strange.

Why weren’t Noah’s main creatures receiving the same protection?

If the slime could form armor around this many creatures at once, then surely it would’ve been more useful on those who would actually be at the center of the fighting. Morvyr found it difficult to believe Noah would weaken the protection of his strongest fighters merely because he was more worried about the creatures remaining behind.

Which meant there was probably another reason Noah didn’t believe they needed it.

Morvyr didn’t have to think long before he understood what that reason might be.

It all came back to the holy energy Noah despised so much.

After spending so many years as a demon, Morvyr was more familiar with the Church’s holy fields than he ever wanted to be. Nearly every member of the Church seemed capable of using it to some extent, strengthening their allies within its influence while weakening and continuously damaging those corrupted by demonic energy.

Morvyr had experienced that feeling enough times himself. Even among demons, few didn’t despise fighting in one of those fields. The generals loathed them, and even the Demon King had never hidden his hatred for an ability that could put them at a disadvantage simply by staying close to the people they were trying to kill.

Noah had already experienced the effects twice, and after speaking with Morvyr about what he should expect from the Church, he knew there was a good chance they would be dealing with more than one field once the fighting began.

Unfortunately, Noah had no direct way to counter them.

That was probably why he hadn’t bothered giving the slime armor to the creatures standing beside him. They would be the ones fighting the Church and the strongest members of the approaching army directly, which also meant they were the most likely to spend the battle inside those holy fields.

The slime could protect them from plenty of things, but holy energy wasn’t one of them. Giving his main attackers another layer of armor wouldn’t do much against something that would keep weakening and damaging them, no matter what covered their bodies.

The others had a different role. They weren’t expected to involve themselves with the strongest enemies unless something went wrong. Their job was to stay closer to the territory and deal with anyone who managed to get past Noah and the others, which made the additional protection much more useful.

As for Noah and his main attackers, they had to endure the holy fields for as long as they remained active.

Fortunately, they didn’t need to endure a holy field forever. If Noah couldn’t directly counter the ability itself, then all they needed to do was kill the people creating it.

Morvyr was nearly spot on with his assessment, but what he didn’t know was that Noah and Ailetta had potentially found a way to counter the holy field with something of their own. This was only possible after Ailetta’s mutation.

However, the results were unpredictable, so they had to go forward as though their countermeasure wouldn’t work as planned.

As the situation settled somewhat, Morvyr finally thought all of Noah’s preparations were over.

He was just beginning to turn his attention back toward his own warriors when he heard Noah give another command.

“Transform.”

The creatures he directed that command to reacted immediately.

Morvyr, however, slowly turned his head back toward the devil.

He looked at Noah, then toward the creatures preparing to follow his command, before his expression finally changed.

“Transform?” Morvyr repeated, unable to hide the confusion in his voice. “What do you mean, transform?”