Becoming a Monster

Chapter 169: Chapter 169: Planning For a Home

The Fallen’s Lair- By injecting enough mana into the core, it will enable you to create a pseudo-heart, forged not only from your mana but also your life force. The user can then establish a dominion, marking a designated area as their lair. This pseudo-heart pulses with life and mana, anchoring the surrounding territory to the users will, drawing in ambient mana and energy of any additional cores or mana creatures consumed by it.

As the heart gathers and assimilates mana over time, it unlocks tiers of power, gradually enhancing the territory with unique effects:

1.Tier I - Mana Absorption: The heart absorbs mana from its surroundings, increasing the potency of any spells cast within the lair, and empowering creatures bound to the user.

2.Tier II - Territorial Command: Grants the user heightened awareness and control over the lair, allowing manipulation of the environment and creating subtle defenses, like shifting walls or traps.

3.Tier III - Core Empowerment: Strengthens all creatures within the lair, enhancing their regenerative abilities and providing a boost to their physical attributes.

4.Tier IV - Lair Sovereignty: Imposes a protective barrier over the lair’s boundaries, fortifying the territory against intruders and reducing the effectiveness of hostile forces.

5.Tier V - Fallen King’s Dominion: The lair becomes an extension of the user’s will, allowing them to reshape it as needed, and bestowing their creatures with powerful buffs and immunity to certain external influences that the user possesses.

Any further tiers are locked.

Noah gazed at the object in his hand, the roughly heart-like shape that was far from an organic appearance. Its surface was smooth yet shifting, resembling a mixture of alien stone and obsidian, while the obsidian-like material covering it was dull and unpolished. Cracks coursed along its exterior, holding nothing within them but the shadows from the stones own edges.

Translucent gaps were barely visible in its structure, obscured by a faint, dark mist that hovered around its core, almost as if it were waiting to be awakened. The barely visible energy at its core was currently just a motionless black void, that absorbed any light attempting to uncover its secrets

Holding the item in his hand, he could already feel a faint pulse within it, a pulse that seemingly pounded in sync with his own.

His thoughts churned as he now reconsidered the future. He had already summarized a plan of what he wanted to do when he was done here. It was a simple plan: set up a small base, kill everything in the area, move, and then repeat.

His plan was based solely on continuing to strengthen both himself and his companions, leveling up and obtaining loot. Although the plan held merit, Noah felt that the heart in his hand would become just as important as his overall strength, perhaps playing an even bigger role. He once again recalled the god’s words, his foreboding warning about the potential crisis to come.

Surely that being knew what was inside Noah, aware of the strength he possessed compared to the others. At the time when they all received the warning, Noah was sure that there were many others out there that possessed strength similar to, or even surpassing, his own; yet the god still categorized them as failures?

Noah could tell that a storm was brewing, and he wanted to be at the very center of it all so he could continue to grow. The heart in his hand was the key to making that all possible.

”Well? What is it?” Noah awoke from his stir at Ailetta’s interruption. He had never noticed the fact that her cheek was brushed up against his as she admired the item with him. Noah continued to look towards the heart, his eyes narrowed as he pondered the best way to explain it.

”I don’t think you’ll believe me, Le, but this little thing here will eventually make us a dungeon.”

Ailetta listened intently; she seemed to be digesting what he said, but then her face sharply turned to Noah. ”A dungeon? Like, ’a’ dungeon?”

”...” Noah stared at Ailetta’s face weirdly, hesitating a bit with his answer. ”Y-yes, like ’a’ dungeon....” He replied, but his excitement was somewhat diminished. ”What do you think I mean by dungeon?”

”Like....a dungeon that you raid for loot, traps, labyrinths, treasures after defeating the last boss? That kind of dungeon?”

Noah let out a quiet sigh. Deep down, he knew that she was thinking of something along those lines. ”Not exactly...well...” Noah’s eyes became lost as what he was going to say scarily matched what she just just depicted. ”If you see the dungeon as our territory and ’we’ are the boss monsters, and the fact that killing us could provide chests if we were killed by humans, and our bodies are technically treasures for monsters, then yes, we are that kind of dungeon.”

”But!” He quickly interrupted when he saw the smugness in her eyes. ”This particular heart will make that dungeon into a liv- Ah screw it! It’s a dungeon.” Noah gave up explaining; anything else he described was just digging himself into a bigger hole.

Ailetta found herself trying to hold back her giggles. Seeing Noah’s pouting side was a sight of fresh air.

”So it’s a home?” Both Noah and Ailetta looked over, noticing Arachne’s inexplicable gaze towards the heart. Her gaze held a sort of longing, while her voice was almost wistful, Noah thought as he studied her expression. It was as if the prospect of a home stirred something deeper within her. It was strange for Noah to see her like this, but he couldn’t blame her, and in the end, he couldn’t help but look at her warmly, realizing that he was focusing so much on gaining power and future threats that he lost sight of why he wanted power in the first place.

”Yeah,” he gently replied. ”It’ll be our home. A place where we can call our own.

”My home too?” Fenrir butted in, aware even during his feeding that everyone was gathered together, leaving him out the loop. His words were jumbled; the half eaten beetle in his mouth made sure of that.

”It’ll be a home where we can all stay, no matter what.”

Fenrir’s ears perked up, his tail wagging with excitement as he hurriedly gulped down the rest of the beetle. ”Good,” he muttered through a satisfied, menacing grin, ”I like home.”

__________________

With the group of four deciding to find a place to call their own, Noah had made the decision to stay at the station to rest before departing. Since the morning, all they have done was fight, and they had even come close to losing their life. Everyone’s evolutions may have healed their scars, but the mental and emotional fatigue was sure to weigh heavily on them all, even if they weren’t aware of it.

That was at least what he had in mind, but there was a problem. Both Fenrir and Arachne were too big to take shelter in almost any enclosed space. This situation forced Noah to give Fenrir and Arachne a decision.

”Would you two want to go inside me like before? Or would you rather stay out here?” The two almost had the same initial reaction; each of them were confused about what Noah meant. Arachne was the first to catch on, meanwhile Fenrir still remained clueless.

”Are you going to fulfill your promise while we stay here?” Arachne questioned, the seriousness in her demeanor and her tone distracted Fenrir from trying to understand Noah’s earlier words.

”After I check on something, then yes...” Noah somewhat muttered aloud, his thoughts were drifting towards the slight pull he could still feel coming from the station.

”Then I’m staying here, I can’t eat in there...Besides,” Arachne added. ”I don’t like being confined.

”Eat? What are we eating? I stay here too; I’m getting food too.” Despite Arachne’s seriousness of the matter, Fenrir’s interaction remained the complete opposite.

Noah couldn’t help but chuckle softly at the two foodies. ”In the end, it’s always about food with you two,” he said with a slight smile, understanding that he should’ve expected such an answer.

Arachne crossed her arms defiantly. ”Food is everything. Without food, you’ll get weak. Without food, you die. And without tasty food, life is boring.”

Fenrir nodded enthusiastically to Arachne’s preaching. ”Right! Right! We should always think about food. And then we play!”

The corners of Noah’s lip twitched at the sight of the two finally banding together. He had the feeling that the two would only ever agree with each other as long as food was on the line.

Letting out a deep breath, Noah’s amusement faded as his mind returned to the task at hand. ”Alright, if that’s the case, Arachne, I’ll need to ask for you to secure the place. You can use your webs to do that, right?” he asked rhetorically. Instead of a verbal answer, Arachne immediately disappeared. Her figure soon emerged at the highest point of the building’s rooftop.

Ignoring them, she pointed her backside towards a nearby building and shot a long, thick piece of webbing that firmly connected to its exterior. Once the web was secured, she dislodged it, tethering it to the spot beneath her before shooting towards another direction to lay down the foundation of the web barrier she planned to create.

There was a certain beauty about the way she worked. If he could, Noah would prefer to see the entire process through to the end. He shook his head, habitually in a way to reset his mind before making his way toward the building, but he barely took a step before stopping again.

”Fenrir....” Noah stared into a certain direction, pointing towards a certain corpse. ”Did you do this?”

Fenrir’s gaze also redirected for Arachne, looking over to Noah before finally settling on the upper half of a female’s body, which was missing its lower half. Her death was of no concern to Noah; what intrigued him was the blatant hole in her chest, devoid of both her heart and mana core.

For a moment, Fenrir furrowed his brows, trying to recall whether he had anything to do with the corpse. He wondered if Arachne had played a trick on him again, but as far as he could remember, neither he nor Arachne had been over in this area when collecting cores for Noah. With a vigorous shake of his head, he firmly denied any involvement.

Noah, on the other hand, was left in deep thought, piecing together the odd state of the corpse before him.

Ailetta, observing Noah’s reaction, glanced at the body as well, trying to understand why he seemed so fixated on it. After a quick scan of their surroundings, she noticed that the missing core wasn’t an isolated occurrence; other bodies nearby also had their cores removed. ”Maybe... seeing your strength finally pushed someone to go through with it,” she suggested, her voice soft yet speculative.

Noah’s gaze narrowed, deep in contemplation as he pondered her words. The image of Levi flashed in his mind. If there was anyone who would have the determination and cold resolve to abandon their human inhibitions, it was him.

””Hmmm,” Noah hummed to himself, amusement creeping in as he decided not to dwell on the corpses any longer. He had already wasted enough time; there was no telling how much longer the shop would remain intact.