Becoming a Monster

Chapter 313: Chapter 313: Saved by the Enemy

No one knew what was festering within Noah, only Ailetta felt a dreadful emotion building that she couldn’t quite place, but she knew that it must have something to do with him.

She knew the root cause of Noah’s disabled emotions was all caused by the two people who once dared to call themselves his parents. She didn’t care for them at all, there was no hatred, no pity. Their history with Noah and their existence didn’t matter to her. But she did care about the trauma their presence was having on the person she loved.

She had to hold herself back from killing them where they stood. With the way Noah was right now, if she were to take away the closure of killing the people who made him regret living, she felt that he would never look at her the same.

Mark watched Noah, who appeared to disregard his plea to show mercy, raising an attack with clear intentions of not holding back at all.

Seeing two defenseless civilians crying, begging for Noah’s mercy, created an itch that felt obligated to be scratched. But then imagine his surprise when he learned of their identities. His confusion was undeniable, and his hesitance swayed him to do nothing.

Listening to Noah’s parents who were once begging for their son’s love, speaking sincerely for forgiveness, now they turned on each other, arguing over who hurt Noah more, trying to shove the blame off their shoulders and onto the other’s back.

Even Mark felt less inclined to save them. They didn’t care about their son. Not then, and definitely not now.

Mark had always wondered how Noah came to be the twisted, cold-hearted monster that he was now, and now he found his answer.

He didn’t want to watch this any longer. But he also believed that since he failed to convince Noah, then he at least needed to be there to witness their end.

Mentally he was prepared, but suddenly he heard roars coming from where they had come from. Roars that belonged to more than just the creature Ishii and the others were left to take care of.

Without a hint of hesitation, Mark threw away his earlier pledge, leaving behind the confrontation he could no longer change. His friends’ lives mattered more.

They had already covered some distance, making them unable to witness the moment that Noah’s attack was suddenly thwarted.

Noah’s body froze, and the sphere of generating energy collapsed before it could be fully released.

Ailetta’s eyes narrowed, something was wrong.

Arachne felt it even more, her skill was blaring in her mind, a danger that surpassed that of any threat she had felt before.

Even Noah’s other creatures stirred uneasily. It wasn’t just Noah’s sudden silence, it was a sensation none of them could name, a pressure deep in their souls.

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Within Noah’s soul realm, Noah’s soul was oddly still despite his earlier volatile emotions.

But the soul realm itself was in turmoil.

A distance away from his core, a familiar creature raging, Noah’s awakened embryo, clashing against a beast that could only be described as mythical.

The invader didn’t have a stable form, made up of the same energy as that of a soul. Its form shifted between silhouettes of different creatures: from dragon wings, a lion’s manes, serpent coils, its form folded and unfolded through different divine forms.

Its body dwarfed Noah’s soul, its size was nearly five times that of Noah’s own. And surrounding the mythical beast, rings of glyphs orbited around its body, the same glyphs that were depicted on the scroll Burke used.

And still, Noah’s embryo didn’t back down.

Its attacks were fierce. The same energy spheres Noah could release was being created within half the time through the use of shooting the attack out of its mouth.

Despite its absurd strength, not one attack deterred the divine creature that continued forward to Noah’s soul.

The embryo shrieked, every breath it took crackled with the power of Noah’s deepest emotions, and every inch the divine creature took towards Noah was met with an even greater resentment.

At this time, the runes protecting Noah’s core began to move, circling faster and faster, expanding outwardly around Noah’s core until the runes became a blur of energy meant to deny the creature from advancing. It was as if the runes were fully aware of the mythical beings’ threat.

All the while, Noah’s consciousness was still in a state of obliviousness. His consciousness was in a sleep-like state while the embryo was awake.

It didn’t take long before the mythical creature approached Noah’s rune barrier. It released a roar, a roar full of divine power when it felt resistance against it. A roar that was a command, an order that caused the runes to quake, each symbol lighting up as if the creature’s roar was activating something within it.

The runes protecting Noah began to rotate slower than before, something about it seemed to be almost obedient to the mythical creature’s call. The creature spoke in the language of the runes’ origin.

Noah had no defense for this. Even if he were awake, he couldn’t resist such ancient power.

But something else could.

Something that looked down on the divine beast, physically and with disdain.

The entity that housed Noah’s soul all this time. It hadn’t planned to intervene. But as the divine creature’s influence began to seep past the runes, tainting its prey that it took so much effort and so much planning into cultivating, a seemingly infinite number of tendrils responded.

The divine creature immediately senses the attack. And unlike the embryo that it had treated as a minor inconvenience, the attack coming towards it wasn’t just a threat to its goal, but also to its existence.

Powerful streaks of light shot out from its body, nearly hundreds of beams of pure soul energy were sent out to obliterate the tendrils before they could reach it. Each beam was capable of vaporizing tens of tendrils at a time.

Yet because it couldn’t destroy them at its roots, they just continued to extend and grow. This continued, the creature’s beams acted as a direct counter to whatever the entity was made of. Neither side seemed to be winning, but the entity realized that the creature was only buying for time.

It was subtle, but the creature was moving closer and closer to Noah’s soul. It couldn’t allow itself to lose such a chance. To it, this planet was unlike the others it had claimed. Left with no choice, the entity roared, shaking the foundation of Noah’s soul space just from its anger, threatening to break it apart.

The mythical creature faltered under the oppression of the creature’s roar that stirred the millions of souls that resided within it.

With the entities’ cry, one of the glowing orbs that made up its eyes, dimmed. And in the next moment, each and every one of each tendril were coated with an unfathomable miasmic smoke that no longer was affected by the creature’s divine energy.

The creature released a desperate roar. Its once mighty visage was no longer able to exert its power, allowing for the runes enveloping Noah’s soul to resume its role as his protector. Hundreds, thousands of tendrils enriched in that corrupted energy didn’t just bind the creature, they tethered themselves within every inch of its shifting, mythical form, rooting themselves as an anchor for what it was about to do next.

The entity could consume the being of all its energy, but even that wouldn’t be enough to claim back what it had to use to stop it. It despised its weakness in its current form. It needed Noah to grow stronger. And that made it decide to go down another alternative.

With the runes back protecting Noah, its tendrils moved towards a certain creature, a creature that wasn’t confined by the rune’s barriers.

The embryo was still trying to tear apart the creature that was no longer able to move when it noticed the tendrils securing the space around it.

Despite the entity being part of its creator, the embryo didn’t see it as its kin. Just like Noah, it too developed an unfavorable outlook to the creature, but its distaste was even more irate.

The embryo snarled, unleashing a burst of energy while simultaneously releasing waves of tentacles that extended with each strand of its hair to attack.

But the tendrils didn’t retaliate. The attacks did nothing to prevent the tendrils attaching themselves to the embryo, and then, the entity finally showed what its plan was.

The mythical creature’s figure was deflating, growing smaller in real time. Its energy was being siphoned, transferred into the young creature that couldn’t appreciate its good fortune.

The energy wasn’t one which granted overwhelming power, but as the embryo struggled, overtime its crazed eyes began to show a glimmer of intelligence.

It grew calm, accepting the gift for what it was, but its eyes reflected a storm of pent-up malice, and a thirst for violence.

And because it and Noah were one in the same, that malice was purely directed to the very people that Noah despised the most.

At this time, in Noah’s soul. A lone eye was watching this all unveil from. Ailetta could do nothing but watch, unsure whether she should be relieved or worried. If anything, she felt drained.

”Why in the world did he think having that thing inside him would be a good idea...?”