Becoming a Monster

Chapter 219: Chapter 219: Judgement Activated

The behemoth began to move, its target was Arachne; the one who had tormented it to the point that her death was all it desired. With its size, traveling to her would only take it a few steps. Its towering legs impacted heavily into the ground as it turned. The moment it was about to step forward, it hesitated. The sound of intense buzzing sounded above it. For a moment, time froze, as the pressure looming over the behemoth was unlike anything it had felt before.

Its four eyes that were left instantly looked up, it saw a figure in the sky, no, it saw four giant snakes attached to a menacing shadow full of eyes. Their hoods expanded while they hissed, for some reason the behemoth felt more threatened by them then it did towards the massive snake that was as long as all four of them combined.

”What’s wrong?” Ailetta’s voice was cold and mocking, her tone carrying effortlessly over the battlefield. ”Weren’t you going somewhere?” As soon as she finished her question, the four looming snakes descended upon it. Two aimed for its face, while the two others approached one of its legs.

During the moment at which the snakes began their strike, Ailetta’s body simmered, the violet energy within her raged, filling up her body, making it majority violet energy instead of the black gelatin substance. The energy even circulated its way throughout the bodies of the four snakes.

With her mana full and knowing that she would have to use everything in her arsenal to destroy her opponent without a struggle. Ailetta activated two of her abilities in tandem. First, she activated her longevity ability to extend the durations of all of her active abilities by one third of their usual effectiveness. While also using the ability ’Phantom Strikes’ empowering the speed of attacks and reaction speed used with her appendages by 110% of her base agility for 15 seconds.

With the addition of her high spirit, the duration she had to use the skill lengthened even longer than before. With ’Phantom Strikes’, the effects weren’t just the appendages from her regular slime attacks, the snakes were an extension of her, making them more lethal than before.

The snakes struck fast, even faster than Arachne’s base speed after the power up Ailetta underwent from the merging of the potent core. Their fangs tore into the spider without it being able to properly react, the target of the first two serpents were obvious.

By the time they returned to their original position, the behemoth shrieked in unbearable pain. All four of its eyes were gone in that one sequence, while a good piece of its flesh was missing in the process. The results were the same with the other two serpents’ attacks, the targeted leg was hanging together by a thread, making it no longer unusable. The flesh in question only showed in the serpent’s jaws for a split second before the flesh, blood and armored hide was absorbed within the serpent’s body without needing them to swallow what was left.

”You still can heal that? Hmmm....let’s see how long you can keep it up,” Ailetta taunted with disdain as she saw the spider’s wounds healing despite the damage it took. Its recovery wasn’t fast, but it was noticeable. However, its eyes were permanently gone.

The snakes responded in kind, striking without pause in a blur, overwhelming the behemoths with sheer ferocity. Unlike Arachne, the snakes were uncaring about being pierced through by the behemoth’s thorns. Unlike the aberration that needed its body to be constantly maintained. The serpents, mere extensions of Ailetta, required no careful preservation. Even as the sharp thorns impaled them, they devoured both flesh and thorn alike, leaving devastating wounds.

The battlefield trembled beneath the behemoth’s thrashing, but its massive size and strength now seemed sluggish and impotent in the face of Ailetta’s relentless assault.

Arachne was witnessing the entire exchange, her eyes flickered with uncertainty. ’Why am I still weak?’ She asked herself deprecatingly. Not realizing that her pride to fight the strongest monsters was diluting her real strength for weakness.

Her muscles tensed, ready to leap back into the fray, but doubt held her back. What could she contribute at this point? If she fought alongside Ailetta, her efforts would only be overshadowed. If she acted alone, she risked interfering with a fight that Ailetta clearly had under control.

Her mind processed through the only skill that could benefit her the most, besides her webs. That’s when her eyes sparkled, there was a way that she could tilt the battle in her favor, a way that even she could outshine Ailetta. It all relied on the possibility of it succeeding, not only has she not thought of this loophole before, but even Noah was oblivious to attempting it, but now was the perfect opportunity to test it.

”It’s not enough to just win...” Arachne hissed under her breath, her voice trembling with restrained fury. Her glare burned into the towering behemoth, the creature’s every movement and every shriek of both pain and rage from Ailetta’s assault stoking the fire of her loathing.

Suddenly, her eyes glowed with a deep, ominous light as her aura surged outward, once again enveloping the massive spider. The behemoth faltered for a moment under her influence, its weakened state rendering it unable to resist as its stats were drained further. Arachne felt the rush of power flow back into her, bolstering her own abilities while the creature’s strength continued to diminish.

Its attributes were still not near enough to reach the range to receive judgement, but it was still closer than it was before with both her poison and cursed webs acting upon it. Even with the difference in its attributes, the use of repeating her skill seemed to only aid Ailetta in the showcasing of her strength instead of her own, but Arachne wasn’t done.

Her frustration morphed into cold determination as she made a sudden decision. Instead of pressing her attack on the behemoth, she turned abruptly. In a blur of motion, she leaped away from the battlefield, darting past the others’ battles to land beside Noah.

He looked at her, his expression filled with confusion, not by her sudden approach, but because of the intensified gaze directed towards him. Her desire was strong, she wanted something from him, and she wanted it now.

”Make me stronger again!” Arachne blurted out, her voice uncharacteristically frantic. The words rushed out as if she feared that her efforts, her pride, everything she had done, would be overshadowed by Ailetta’s overwhelming presence.

For a moment, Noah froze, processing the abruptness of her demand. Arachne’s desperation was clear; an emotion he had rarely seen in her, let alone directed at him. Her tone, laced with urgency and a hint of vulnerability, was so out of place that it caught him off guard.

Still, he understood. At least he assumed he did. He still had no clue what she was planning, only believing that she wanted the power up to be able to be a factor alongside Ailetta.

Without hesitation, Noah reached out, his hand moving toward her. But before he could make contact, Arachne, driven by her eagerness, closed the distance herself. Her body leaned forward, her focus entirely on the connection she sought that she didn’t care about the fact that she pressed her entire body onto him. As their bodies pressed together, Noah placed his hands on her side, his palms radiating the two auras one after another that enveloped Arachne’s body in sequence.

”Don’t do anything stup-”Noah was prepared to warn her, concerned that she might be more reckless in her attacks than she already was before. Arachne didn’t spring into action as he anticipated. Instead, she remained rooted in place, her eyes locked on the behemoth. Her expression was focused, predatory, but with a glimmer of satisfaction as if she were watching something she had anticipated finally unfold.

And almost the same time the effects of his empowered skills took place; a drastic change also took place on the behemoth’s side.

”No...” Noah muttered, his eyes widening in disbelief. He could feel it, a surge of corrupted energy emanating from the creature. His gaze darted between the behemoth and Arachne, his mind racing to piece together what was happening. ”It could be used that way?”

His mouth hung open as the agonizing cries took over the surrounding chaotic noise. The behemoth’s body succumbed over itself, allowing the serpents to continue tearing its body apart. Noah noticed that every time the spider moved, its painful cries were even more exaggerated than when its flesh was being ripped apart. As it writhed, its jerking reaction to pain continued to torment it. Every attempt to defend itself, every motion to strike back, only accelerated its downfall.

Arachne smirked hearing Noah’s reaction, the weight of feeling insignificant to Ailetta was then completely erased after seeing his disbelieving expression, an expression that he didn’t show even after Ailetta’s unique transformation. Noah knew what the skill was, her judgement skill was activated, a skill that required at least half of her selected attributes to be higher than the targeted enemies stat.

But his astonishment wasn’t merely because she had activated it, or the fact that the prerequisite for the skill was even more daunting to achieve because of her opponent. It was because Arachne had found a loophole.