Becoming a Monster

Chapter 495: Chapter 494: Too Late to Turn Back

Noah didn’t respond as Ailetta approached.

While Noah spoke to the tiger kin, Ailetta had already noticed the moment his attention shifted toward their home, and although his gaze was set in that direction, he wasn’t actually looking at anything in front of him.

She recognized that look immediately, because she had seen it many times, while looking through the eyes of her slimes.

Ailetta didn’t hesitate to ask, but when she realized his attention hadn’t returned to them, she chose not to wait for an answer and instead searched for it herself.

With a single thought, her awareness connected with his, and through that connection, she gained a clear understanding of what was going on.

Noah was linked to his golem that he had left behind within the confines of their territory.

The golem wasn’t left for protection because, with Pandora and Bolas present, there were very few threats that would reach that far without being dealt with first.

Its true purpose had always been to serve as his eyes when he wasn’t there.

Through that connection, Noah finally saw what he had been waiting for, and what he saw made his expression harden.

Ophis had returned, but its condition was far worse than anything he had expected.

Its body was covered in deep lacerations that tore across its scales, and each wound had been inflicted with enough force to leave permanent damage, as if whatever had attacked it had no intention of holding back.

Its last remaining eye was gone, not removed cleanly but crushed, with the entire socket caved inward as though something had struck it with overwhelming force.

Its jaw was dislocated and hung unnaturally, leaving it unable to close its mouth properly, and every slight movement only made the damage more apparent.

Seeing its condition, Noah immediately understood why it hadn’t returned to them earlier: this wasn’t a matter of choice but of survival.

The threat of death had pushed it beyond the point where it could make a controlled decision, leaving it to rely on instinct alone, and even that had been stripped away.

The loss of its eye shouldn’t have been enough to stop it, because Ophis could detect heat signatures and could use its tongue to gather information far beyond what ordinary creatures were capable of.

That meant that even without sight, it still had ways to navigate.

However, that was no longer the case.

With its jaw broken and misaligned, it could no longer use its tongue properly, and the same damage had disrupted the organs responsible for sensing heat, leaving it without any reliable way to perceive its surroundings.

Ophis wasn’t just injured; it had been reduced to something that could no longer see in any sense of the word.

Under normal circumstances, there would’ve been no possible way for it to find its way back, and it should’ve been lost long before it reached their territory.

Yet it still returned. Even in that state, it still held onto one thing.

It’s connection to Pandora.

No matter where Pandora was, that connection remained, and even without sight, direction, or understanding, Ophis followed it until it found its way back.

Even after it had finally returned, Ophis did not slow down at all because the human Noah, believed to have escaped, was still relentlessly chasing it.

Ethaniel had been completely driven by the need to retrieve Gwen at all costs, and in that pursuit, he failed to realize that the serpent had led him directly into the monsters’ domain.

His mana was running dangerously low, yet he continued to push himself forward. To be able to maintain flight while matching the serpent’s speed and still conjuring spells was already beyond what he should have been capable of sustaining.

He sustained himself by downing a potion that Noah would’ve been familiar with the moment he saw a blue liquid inside a vial.

It was too similar to a mana potion to be a coincidence.

The potion, it gave Ethaniel enough mana to carry on, but the toll of mana being drained weighed heavily on his mind. The only reason he had not collapsed was because of the obsession driving him forward.

At the start, even that obsession had its limits, because he believed he was only chasing after her corpse while taking vengeance on the creature that had killed her. That belief alone was not enough to push him beyond his limits.

That changed the moment his attack landed.

When he struck the serpent and shattered its jaw, the impact forced its mouth open for a brief instant, and in that moment, Ethaniel saw something that he had been doubting all this time.

The glimpse was unclear and lasted less than a second, but it was enough for him to recognize that there was something still inside the serpent’s mouth, and more importantly, it had moved.

That single realization shattered everything he had believed up until that point, because it meant that Gwen had not been killed immediately as he had assumed.

She was still inside.

The thought that she could still be alive hit him all at once, and in that instant, the exhaustion weighing down his body was pushed aside as his focus sharpened completely.

From that moment forward, he was no longer chasing vengeance because he was chasing the possibility that she could still be saved.

He barely registered anything around him as he pushed forward. Animals and trees were just a blur.

It was only when they went past a wall of roots that barely managed to make him waver. How could a mage of his stature ignore the change in the surrounding mana? But seeing the serpent gaining more distance only made him push on.

Another wall appeared not long after. It was made of roots, yet it stood far beyond anything he had seen before, rising higher and denser while faint light moved through it as if the trees were one sentient creature.

Ethaniel felt the pressure coming from it the moment he approached, and for an instant, he mistook it for another enemy.

He hesitated again, and this time his body nearly came to a stop, but that hesitation didn’t last.

The moment he saw Ophis pass through the opening and the gap begin to close behind it, his body moved on its own before the path could disappear.

He crossed through just in time, and what met him on the other side wasn’t what he expected at all.

Ethaniel had braced himself for a den of monsters, something that matched everything he had faced up until now, yet what he saw instead forced that expectation to fall apart immediately.

The space beyond the wall was structured in a way that didn’t resemble a natural gathering of monsters, and although it wasn’t as orderly as human settlements, it wasn’t wild either.

Along the outer edges, built into and around the massive trees, were structures that resembled homes.

There were multiple sections of these structures, each one grouped differently as if they belonged to entirely separate kinds of creatures.

The scene was more unsettling than the living wall. But it was only after that that he noticed the change in the air.

The mana within the space was far richer than anything he had experienced before, and it was so dense that his body reacted on its own as his mana began to circulate and draw in the energy around him.

When he felt the speed at which his mana was recovering, his shock deepened even further, because it was increasing at nearly twice the rate it should have been.

It was then that he heard the alarm of creatures barking toward him. And he sensed figures moving from the small structures within the trees towards his direction.

His focus returned to Ophis, who was already far ahead, breaking into an open area where the structures became more concentrated.

Ethaniel followed immediately, because he was already too far in to turn back, and at this point, retreat would have meant abandoning everything he had come this far for.

So instead, he forced himself higher into the air to create more distance between himself and whatever might be waiting below.

As he gained elevation and drew closer to the serpent, he chased it until they reached the tallest structure there. And the structure that seemed the most detailed out of them all.

He barely got into range when he felt something that made him finally realize that perhaps he had gone too far.

That realization came too late, because as he prepared to unleash another attack toward the serpent’s head, a suffocating amount of killing intent suddenly pressed down on him.

The sheer density of it snapped him out of any remaining obsession he may have had. From what he could sense, that murderous intent was coming from every direction around him.

The attack followed immediately because dozens of massive roots burst from the ground without warning. Each one accelerating upward with enough force to impale him.

His instincts reacted before his thoughts could fully catch up as he forced himself higher into the air to escape the sudden strike.

However, the moment he moved, something felt wrong.

His head snapped upward just in time to see countless more roots already descending from above, crashing down toward him as if they had been waiting for that exact movement.

Although the sight itself made no sense, he didn’t have time to question it, because even a moment of hesitation would’ve been enough to cost him his life.