Becoming a Monster

Chapter 147: Chapter 147: CopyCat

Noah should have been worried, but with his spirit, he could feel it, a deep power resonating within that husk of a shell.

Before, there had been only silence moments after Ailetta’s arrival. Now, it was impossible to escape the noise of battle. Whether it was the sound of torn limbs, the shattering of broken hides, or the brutal impacts against the concrete. Every second was filled with raw, violent noise of combat, with the source of the noise being caused by one individual.

”KKaaaaaaaa!” The Queen voiced out her rage, releasing her frustration through her actions. Her attacks became more heavy handed as the waves of undead continued to press on her. Despite the enhanced power that the undead horde exhibited, the creatures shouldn’t have been able to force the Queen to overexert herself. And it was a fact that was easily proven with each attack she exerted; a casual swing of her antenna could kill a wave of three to five insects effortlessly. However, after her attempts to do so, she, the Queen of these dead creatures, was actually put under duress.

When she made the attempt to slice an oversized beetle in half, her antennae had no trouble cutting through the creature. However, when she withdrew, she found the beetle was stuck to her antennae. The beetle wasn’t just stuck to the bladed edge of her antenna, almost the entire thing was entrapped in the beetle’s body. Causal attempts to remove the beetle from herself proved useless.

The Queen’s fury boiled over as she fought against the sticky hold. It was as if the beetle’s insides had become a sticky, elastic trap that refused to budge. During the time, it would take to remove the insolent creature from herself, the rest of the horde continued to press in on her, adding to her mounting rage.

”I am a Queen, a Queen! I will not let you disgrace me,” she roared, her voice trembling with indignation and pride. Her antennae snapped with greater strength than before, effortlessly lifting the oversized beetle into the air as if it weighed nothing. With a powerful flick, she slammed the beetle into the ground, shattering its body on impact. Without hesitation, she then snapped her antenna in the opposite direction, slicing clean through the beetle’s slime-filled interior as though it were nothing.

The Queen stood for a moment, her breathing heavy, her antennae still carried remnants of the elastic slime. But the next scene nearly made her mind almost collapse. The slime on her antennae began to move, writhing as if alive. Worse, the slime that had once composed the beetle’s corpse began to stir, congealing into a small ball of slime. The sight made her mind nearly collapse in disbelief as the slime ball slowly, methodically, began to float back to its creator, as if the destruction she had wrought had been nothing more than an inconvenience.

Ever since that moment, the Queen would unleash a destructive force to obliterate the undead around her. Her attacks came with rapid fire intensity; each punch released a sound akin to a gunshot, puncturing through the creatures, slime and all.

Despite the undead’s slime factor, with the Queen’s fierce attacks, the horde didn’t seem to be able to last much longer if she continued to keep up the intensity. That was until she came upon her first encounter with the evolved creatures’ corpses that were being controlled by the higher version of slime. Unlike the previous minions, each corpse that was controlled by the mutated forms exhibited unique traits to their form, certain traits that were interconnected with Ailetta. The creatures’ bodies were coated in the same gelatin substance as Ailetta, their resemblance became more of a slime creature than just a corpse of an insect.

The Queen found herself facing her three ant generals, each one had the same form as before but their exterior was now made up of a pitch black exoskeleton with bare specks of violet energy flowing through them. Each of their bodies had the same roaming eerie eyes and sinister mouths just like their controller, making them capable of being used even outside of Ailetta’s vision.

The Queen’s antenna quivered in agitation, and her mandibles couldn’t help clicking in mild disgust and disdain as she realized that her generals were far stronger than when they were under her after becoming such abominations.

Without hesitation, the Queen charged at them, with the intent to crush them fully to prevent their disgrace to still tarnish her image any further. Knowing that their bodies would have the same annoying slimy features as the other corpse, she attacked with everything she had, expecting to end it with one strike.

Her aura flared, and the edges of her bladed antennae glowed with an ethereal violet light, its edges like a simmering blade that was no different than a laser-like blade. The blade form cut through two of the encroaching ants while the remaining general pincered her from the side. Not only could she feel the weak resistance of her antennae cutting through them, but she also witnessed her blade cut effortlessly through their torsos.

The Queen didn’t need to pause to see their torsos being dissected; she swiftly maneuvered herself to deliver a downward slash, cleaving the last general entirely in half.

After the attack, she couldn’t resist the prideful urge to snort in disdain to their weakness. These new forms, while they gave her former generals a more powerful presence, had only turned them into mindless tools, tools that she believed were inferior to what they once were under her command. She relished in the belief that, despite everything , she was still superior even to someone of Ailetta’s caliber.

But as she stood there, basking in her perceived victory, she noticed something was wrong with the last general she just sliced in half. Why was it still coming towards her? Why hasn’t its body separated yet? Her confusion disrupted her vigilance. The general was closing upon her, widening its arms in the attempt to hold her down, a disturbing mouth forming on its chest, ready to feast on any part of her it could bite into.

Her reaction was swift, but savage in nature. Her antennae swung at least three different ways, slicing through the general’s body in a seemingly distraught action. She wanted to see the results of her attack to the end this time, but then two presences appeared behind her.

Fear, that insidious emotion she had fought so hard to suppress, began to slither its way back into her heart. The dread was overwhelming, more potent than before, and she found herself doing something she had never considered possible, she fled.

In a flash, her figure vanished, reappearing yards away from her supposed attackers. She addressed the situation, her mind desperately trying to process the scene in front of her. The three ant generals that she perceived to have killed were all still very much ”alive,” even the general she just hacked to oblivion was still standing, looking in her direction. Their menacing eyes continued to move around, their everwatchful gazes snapping onto her, giving her the perception that there was nowhere she could hide from them.

For the first time, the Queen felt truly vulnerable. The realization that she was now being the one who became the hunted sent a cold shiver down her spine.

Yet, her fear was the fuel she needed to tap into her untapped potential. Her remaining hand clenched tightly, gripping something of the unknown. Within her clenched hand, she felt power flowing within it, circulating without an outlet. The sudden emergence of power shooting through her hands distracted her as she lifted her glowing hand with a serene gaze, marveling and scrutinizing the sight.

”I see...this is my true power,” she monologues to herself, her thoughts remembering the overwhelming destructive sphere that Noah had attacked her with. Despite her power originating from the very lifeform she considered as inferior, she didn’t belittle the power he wielded; she simply felt he was unworthy of such power.

”Only a true ruler can hold such power.”

Her hand slowly raised, facing the horde and the generals that were approaching her new location. Unlike Noah, the mana forming within the palm of her hand circulated much quicker than what he could achieve, and was significantly larger. The size of her attack alone was almost twice as large as Noah’s regular manabolt. However, she wasn’t able to reach the destructive properties of his combined attack. Her spell was stronger than his regular version of this spell but not as potent as his combined form. Even so, the spell was still lethal when in her hands.

A vibrating frequency sounded before she released the first sphere, another sphere soon forming after its initial release, and then another.

Each attack traveled with a velocity that was as fast as a bullet, quickly reaching their targets. Unlike Noah’s explosive properties, the Queen’s mana took on the prosperity of disintegration, its mana eating away every substance it interacted with upon contact.

The results of her attacks were instant. Her pride and arrogance instantly returned after seeing her attack completely subdue one of her generals, while the other two lost a significant portion of their bodies.

She felt the urge to laugh, and that she did. A maniacal cackle, mixed with the disturbing clicking of her mandibles, reached everyone still present. Her mind became consumed with her display of invincible power as her attacks, though smaller, were released with much greater speed .

As she continued to send barrages of attacks to her enemies, the corpses that were partially disintegrated released their controlling slimes. However, their forms were much smaller than before. The corpses that were fully eviscerated left nothing in their wake, not a corpse or a slime for Ailetta to retrieve.

The Queen had destroyed more than three quarters of Ailetta’s army; the remaining of their numbers were no longer a threat to her. With her new form of attack, the Queen believed she now had the capability to defeat Ailetta effortlessly.

Her gaze shifted to Ailetta, expecting to see an expression of a fear far greater than what she herself had felt. To her surprise when she noticed, Ailetta was already gazing upon her instead? Instead of the horrified expression she was expecting to find, a series of mouths were smiling mockingly, belittling her efforts.

This only further enraged the Queen. Her hand raised towards Ailetta, threatening to end her existence.

”You dare still mock me? Your’e army is dead, your creatures are nothing compared to me, and soon you will understand that even you are nothing compared to me. Can you still smile knowi- Stop smiling!!!”

The Queen felt invigorated, eager to reassert her dominance and ensure that Ailetta experienced full despair before she ended her life. However, Ailetta’s demeaning smile infuriated her beyond measure. In response, the Queen began circulating the mana in her hand, ready to end this farce.

She was confident that Ailetta wouldn’t survive, yet that irritating smile remained. The Queen began to sense a troubling premonition when Ailetta raised her own hand, pointing in a direction away from them. The Queen hesitated to look, not because she believed she was being tricked, but because she realized she had been blocking out the noise coming from that location. Deep down, she knew something was wrong. The two dead leaders had not attacked her, and now she understood why.

They were destroying her colony!