Becoming a Monster

Chapter 335: Chapter 335: Nexus Upgrade

None of Noah’s creatures responded to Noah’s ritual, not in the way Mark and the others had.

One might ask themselves, ’Who would a devil pray to?’

Noah didn’t care. The chest laid out in front of him had to be special, the contents within it had to be better than anything he had ever received, even better than the dungeon core.

His expression appeared more serious than when he fought the Seraphim, his aura radiated a sense of unease, making those like Mark and the others unable to fully appreciate the outcome of not losing their friend.

Noah’s hands trembled as they reached for the chest. The chest was exquisite, one of the most mythical objects he had ever seen. Runes were etched throughout its foundation, runes that emitted such divine energy that it reminded him of the runes that protected his soul.

When he went to open it, his face grew pensive, and veins across his exposed skin bulged as he exerted himself to open the chest, but the chest did not budge.

His eyes narrowed in response, not in anger, but in deep scrutiny. Noah didn’t find it odd at all that such a chest would have a requirement to open, but if it did, then that requirement should at least be possible to obtain.

The earlier trembling stopped. His head tilted slightly, studying the runes enhanced by energy he never saw before. His eyes quickly scanned his surroundings, nothing in the vicinity remotely resembled a key. That left only one option.

Subtly he released his mana from his palms that were still pressed against the chest, and it was then a strong reaction occurred.

A tug gripped him. In that moment he felt his body rooted in place, his mana being siphoned into the runes at an insane speed. And as his mana was being drained, he also felt a foreign sensation creeping through his body before feeling an invasion of his soul realm.

When he entered his realm, there was nothing there, but at the same time he felt a presence all around him.

His soul continued to scan the vicinity.

Still, nothing.

But then suddenly, there was movement. Noah’s shock was more extreme than when he first found out about the entity living inside of him.

Faint lines began to become visible. Invisible threads of energy that extended from his core. The threads stretched towards areas of his realm that extended further than what he thought possible.

Each thread led to different directions, and each of them were tethered to a core that resembled a distant star.

In that instant, Noah became aware of what those ”stars” were.

’Arachne,’ Noah thought to himself as he felt a particular star to be Arachne’s core. And as he looked over, traveling the direction of another strand, he found it leading to Fenrir’s. As he looked around, there was a core for each of his tamed creatures.

The sight left him confused. He was aware of his connection to his creatures all this time, but never had he been able to see their souls. It all made sense now...but at the same time, he didn’t understand why it was only now that he could see their souls.

Just as he could see their souls, he noticed more strands pathing below him. There he saw two spheres much smaller than those like Arachne and the others. Their cores resembled Noah’s old self, when he was more zombie than a combination of genes.

With just a glance he could tell the two were his two vassals, Kratos and Eve. And unlike the others, Noah could actually reach them, control them, even sever the connection between them.

It felt as if he was seeing himself for the first time through the eyes of something higher.

And just as he observed the souls of his two vassals, he noticed the last thread that was much stronger than all the others, even his creatures. That thread traveled downwards, centered right below him.

Mysteriously, at the very bottom laid a flat barrier acting as the ground. It was something that was unrecognizable if not for the small radiance of light being emitted by a stem poking from the ground.

Noah first stared at the stem. ’A tree?’ He first thought of Pandora, yet it couldn’t be, he could see Pandora’s soul in a different location. His consciousness directed downward, as if he was physically descended, getting closer to the ground. And as he grew closer, he began to notice something he didn’t see before.

The mound that the stem surfaced from was breathing.

No...

As he scrutinized it more closely, Noah realized that the stem wasn’t breathing at all. It was a heartbeat. And that heartbeat made him feel a connection to something that he wasn’t directly conscious of until now.

His dungeon core.

The moment he realized it, everything shifted. Whatever the presence was that was in his soul appeared to finish as it pulled out of Noah’s body.

When it withdrew, Noah found himself staring back at the chest. Its runes were no longer circulating or glowing like before. And when Noah inspected it even further, he noticed the chests lid to be opened.

His thoughts churned, trying to make sense of all of the occurrences that just transpired. In the end, when he thought about that presence inside of him that enabled him to discover more about himself than even he understood; he began to believe that the runes were analyzing him to determine what kind of reward to grant him.

His breath quickened as he went to lift the lid.

This time there was no gold. It would be a blow that would normally devastate him. But he couldn’t find the time to care. Four objects laid at the bottom of the chest. Out of the four, three of the chests resonated with him.

He reached for the item that resonated with him the most. Not just him, more specifically, his Nexus eye.

What he retrieved was a core, one whose outer shell was semi translucent, revealing the inside that radiated a light that was too familiar. A holy energy filled the insides, just holding the orb caused Noah’s hand to slightly burn.

At its heart was the object that was the source emitting the energy: A floating eye. It slowly rotated within, like a preserved eye that never stopped watching. Seeing it instinctively made Noah freeze. The eye was looking back at him, not him specifically, but at his Nexus eye.

Slowly, as he stared at the eye in his hand, his hand was gradually edging towards his chest. When the core finally made contact with his own special eye, the core melded into it effortlessly.

A sharp jolt of light pulsed through Noah’s body the moment the core fused with his Nexus eye. His own vision blurred, all of his visual senses were now forcibly being focused on his one eye, twisting his reality, and altering the way he saw the world.

As his Nexus eye gradually settled through its transition, the color of its firefly green energy remained the same, however this time, the lone eye was now encircled by a golden halo. The halo currently made the iris appear small, no different than a pupil while the golden halo replaced it as the iris.

When the transformation stabilized, Noah understood that he didn’t just see mana anymore, he could identify it, the energy was like a code that told him all its secrets. As he looked at the environment bathed in Seraphim’s residual aura, he could ”read” that the energy wasn’t as pure as its appearance made it seem. It was corrupting in nature, almost no different than the virus that turned others into zombies.

His gaze turned towards his creatures. Again, he could read the secrets of the essence of their mana. He couldn’t read their skills, but he could read the concept of their transformation. As he gazed upon Ailetta, he could perceive the concept of predation, rebirth, and sacrifice. Arachne was ambitious, submission, and matriarchy.

Each creature was different. Though he noticed that the concepts weren’t always unique. Both Diablo and Kratos carried the essence of loyalty, even if the shape of that loyalty diverged, one forged through silent duty, the other through unshakable bond. But loyalty, nonetheless.

And it wasn’t just his creatures, what he could read from them was the same when it came to Mark and the others. It was as if as long as a creature or an object held mana, he could understand it.

However, Noah was quick to grasp that this technique wasn’t purely positive. He quickly had to stop the activation of the ability. In just that short time frame he could feel his mana sharply depleting.

With the deactivation of his skill, the golden halo retracted, reverting to being just a thin layer, resting around it like a dormant crown.

Noah let out a breath that didn’t realize he’d been holding. He felt that his eye held so many more secrets that he still had yet to unearth. Already he had seen the potential of what the changes to his eye could bring.

If he could see the concept that dictates what embodies the transformation or essence of any creature; couldn’t he also decipher the unique trait of a creature, enough to decide whether it was worth taming?