Becoming a Monster

Chapter 370: Chapter 370: Insecurities Blooms Death

The monstrous beast continued to rampage towards Ailetta, her slimes appearing to barely make a noticeable difference to hamper its charge.

Physically, Ailetta’s attacks were just as stronger, if not slightly stronger than the combined efforts of her slimes. If her slimes could do nothing against the giant, then what chance could she have if forced to meet it head on.

And yet, as the troll bore down upon her, her focus remained on absorbing all of the information happening around her. Not a hint of fear or agitation showed in her actions, as if all of this was a welcoming learning experience.

But her fearlessness didn’t originate solely from her own ability. No... she knew the truth more clearly and sharper than the others. Everything they could accomplish here, every ounce of resistance they could muster, stemmed from one source.

Noah.

During important times like this, Ailetta was allowed access to Noah’s consciousness. What he felt, what his intentions were, all of it was laid bare to her. Right now, Noah didn’t have the same trepidation towards the trolls like he had with the drake. If anything, his worries lay with the numbers of the rest of their tribe, and if his creatures could support themselves without his interference.

She could tell that Noah wasn’t satisfied with their results. And ultimately he was blaming himself for their weakness.

Ailetta wasn’t fond of his feelings at all. She couldn’t afford to look at this fight as something to simply overcome.

She had to learn and fully exploit her abilities, and her opponent was the perfect subject to understand one of her biggest weaknesses.

Fighting without corpses.

Her slimes worked as her other senses, through them she could tell that although the effects of their ability to siphon mana was strong, the troll’s blood cleansed the energy that made it possible for her slimes to be capable of absorbing its mana.

It was more of a revelation than frustrating. She would need to develop different avenues of strength to improve herself to be capable of lessening her weaknesses. And this battle was where she was going to test everything, to learn what all she needed to do to work on herself.

Calmly, she watched the troll get closer to her, her slimes still latched around its body. The troll must’ve believed that she had given up. It expressed a cruel smile despite its mana being constantly drained. It truly believed that her abilities only amounted to her slimes.

When it was mere feet away from her, it was then that she decided to act. But it wasn’t her, it was the shadow that suddenly rose from up under her, standing between them to intercept the troll, and just like her, it had changed along with her transformation.

It had a body now. A fully formed frame that resembled a hunter born from the abyss. Its flesh was still that of living slime. However, wisps of vaporous darkness constantly rose from its limbs as if its body was constantly being burned. Parts of its body blurred, changing from its physical slime make-up into an entirely gaseous substance.

And within the gaps of its shifting slime frame, a faint golden energy pulsed. It flickered without pause, while the areas around the golden energy released the most fumes.

Its head lifted, staring towards the troll with an evil grin.

The sudden appearance of the creature caused the troll to falter for only a lapse of a breath.

Yes, the creature gave off an aura that was dreadful, its appearance even more so. But the Nightmare was small, barely half its height as it remained hunched over. And for the troll, where size meant strength, the new enemy should be as insignificant as the creatures that clung to its skin.

The troll reached it, its fist still sheathed in a layer of frost that hammered itself into the creature’s face. Slime splattered, it witnessed the vapor around it being blown away. And that one hit was followed up by several. Each blow carried enough weight to fell trees.

The troll felt like it was winning. Each strike was met with little to no retaliation. Whenever it saw the creature reach out towards it, the troll struck again to hamper its attempt to defend itself. And yet, something gnawed at the troll’s chest. At first it didn’t register, but now it realized what felt wrong. It didn’t feel the same satisfaction of its body breaking under its fist. It didn’t have the same gooey, malleable substance as the slimes from before. The parts that it hit truly felt as if it could be skin, but it was afterwards that the momentum of its blows felt different.

It snarled loudly, pressing harder as it rained down more attacks. Its fist nearly breathed frigid air as it enforced more mana into its fist. The impact felt much stronger than before, making it understand that elemental attacks were the creatures’ weakness. But as the fight dragged on, the faint suspicion that it originally had became undeniable.

It wasn’t just a trick on its eyes. The Nightmare was growing. The troll didn’t believe it at first. It had first noticed it right before its clash, but it was so subtle that it amounted to the creature merely straightening its body. But now, the creature was edging closer to its eye level. Its body grew in proportion to its size, and its aura deepened with every exchange.

And the troll didn’t know, it couldn’t have known that all this time, it was the reason for the creature’s growth.

The Nightmares’ appearance wasn’t the only thing that had changed about it since its transformation. It didn’t feed on mana like its lesser counterparts. It feasted on something deeper. Every flicker of hesitation, every doubt. Every insecurity buried beneath its enemies’ consciousness that was directed to it.

The more the troll questioned its blows, the more it questioned the creature’s growth, the stronger the Nightmare became.

For the first time, the Nightmare was finally able to exchange a blow. A blow that barely inflicted any injury, but it was then that the troll’s doubts were beginning to grow.

And it was also then that Ailetta had finally made her move.

The troll didn’t realize that the slimes once latched onto its body had already peeled away, their work long finished. They drifted back to their creator. One by one, they sank into her body, carrying with them what little they had siphoned.

Each of them bolstered her reserves, allowing her to stay in her form just a little bit longer. Those sent to aid against the other troll returned with far more.

Ailetta welcomed every drop, her focus was sharper than ever. Now was the time she was waiting for.

The eye centered on her chest, always sealed shut until now, finally split open. The gaze that emerged wasn’t like her other eyes. It carried a depth that was unnatural, an awareness sharper, crueler, as if this eye wasn’t hers at all, but an independent soul gazing into the world through her flesh.

The eye snapped onto the troll, looking at it with a gaze that seemed to want to unearth all of its secrets, peeling away at every corner of the troll’s mind, scraping at the weakest parts of its being. Friend or foe, the eye disregarded the manipulation and burden it could place on an individual’s psyche, and it was for this reason why Ailetta felt the need to never open it unless forced to.

The troll wasn’t aware of the eye. Its concentration was entirely on the nightmarish creature that was now at eye level. Yet its heart twisted under an invisible weight, a weight that it felt was being triggered by the nightmarish creature.

It began to believe that its strength wasn’t true strength. The reason it was sent out to scout out the drake’s condition wasn’t because the tribe had faith in its abilities, but because the chieftain was constantly trying to find opportunities for it to die. Now, that opportunity seemed to finally reveal itself. It began to truly doubt whether it could win... or even survive.

Its steps faltered. Its breath grew ragged. It didn’t want to believe it. It planted its feet into the ground, releasing a roar that came from the bottom of its soul. A roar of denial, clawing for the strength that might overturn the fight.

But its roar did nothing to stop the nightmare from growing. Its swelling body showed the troll’s defiant roar was nothing but denial.

The nightmare’s limbs thickened, its shadow stretching wider than natural. Its crooked smile widened until it seemed to split its entire head.

The troll’s muscles flexed, its veins bulging to the point that it caused severe pain. Meeting the creature’s eyes filled it with fear.

In one last desperate attempt, it attacked. But each strike landed with less conviction than the last. The nightmare didn’t dodge. Each blow only deepened the troll’s doubt, causing it to grow, towering over the troll. Its proportions now began to twist unnaturally, its smile stretching further until the sight alone was suffocating.

Instead of attacking, its shadow moved. Not the troll’s shadow, its shadow. The nightmare’s shadow devoured the troll’s own. No one else could hear it, but the troll could. It heard the crunching noises of its own shadow being devoured.

From its feet upward, its pale-blue flesh began to blacken. Its body was gradually being overtaken by the same slime material as Ailetta’s body.