Becoming a Monster

Chapter 429: Chapter 429: Temptations of a Devil

The battle was finally wrapped up. Arachne and the others were all standing, waiting for Noah to finish up.

The lizardmen trapped in Noah’s slime had finally gone limp after going nearly five minutes without being able to breathe.

What amazed Noah was that even after the lizard died, its body had still activated its ability when he went to penetrate its chest. A brief sheen flickered across its entire body, making it harder for Noah to cross the first layer.

Intrigued by the scene, he stabbed again, and then again. He stabbed nearly eight times before it was almost impossible even to gain an inch through the corpse shell.

The skill defied his earlier thoughts, making it more difficult to make a decision on what to do with it.

He only had two options: either catalyze the skill within the core, only being capable of being bestowed to a creature affected by his blood pact. Or he could take the creature’s soul; that way he could infuse it into any of his creatures.

The problem with both is that, to bestow a skill this way, his contracted creatures could only hold one ability at a time. That would mean losing a skill if he had already given them one.

And so far, he had yet to find out the consequences of trying to overwrite a skill. Thankfully, he had not given Arachne nor Fenrir an ability yet.

And the other problem with using the soul is the same. Although the requirements were limited to his contracted creatures, his creatures can only fuse with one soul at a time. He could imagine that to overwrite a soul would be just as agonizing to his creatures as it was when he separated the hybrid queen’s soul from Dummy. Potentially, it could be life-threatening.

In the end, he understood that in both scenarios, he needed to give the skill or soul to someone who had yet to be altered or receive a skill. Or he needed to find a way to improve his skills so he could increase the capacity of each.

It was now that he realized he had relied on the system back then a little too much.

"I wonder if it’s not too late..." He muttered to himself.

As he pondered, his slime bypassed the corpse’s armor by entering its mouth, using the point of entry to reach the heart before dragging the core out.

The time of its death has been nearly three minutes.

Usually, Noah had never thought about it. He never thought about how long a core would contain the soul before it disappears. But now, with the feeling of regret building, he found himself no longer able to avoid the question.

Strengthening his creatures is a must. But if he could improve his skills to give them more skills, to fuse them with more souls. Just as making his creatures stronger would, in turn, make him stronger, the same could be true the other way around.

’And I still don’t know what will happen after I devour enough souls...’ This was the actual dilemma that affected his decisions. He didn’t want to make a plan without enough information to go on, but without the system, he was now forced to learn through experience.

’So, it’s still here.’ Noah studied the core in his hand. The soul was still there, and from what he could tell, it didn’t appear weakened at all.

He had an itch to wait to see how long it would take for the soul to disappear. That thought quickly faded as soon as it formed.

In the end, he crystallized the core and selected the Reactive Plating skill. Doing it this way made it so he could only use it for one of his bonded creatures, but he would rather do that instead of fusing a soul.

No matter what, he didn’t want to fuse the soul of a creature with one of his other creatures if the soul wasn’t strong enough.

He had initially thought of fusing the soul with Kratos. When Kratos shifts into his other form, he would become even more of a powerhouse with the skill. And out of most of his creatures, he was one of the few who had received nothing from him.

But in the end, doing that would feel like a waste of his potential.

If he were to use a soul to fuse with anyone, the soul needed to be strong or at least have more than one trait or skill that would be more valuable than wasting a slot.

Noah gripped the core firmly in his hand. He didn’t plan to overthink it anymore. Right now, there wasn’t a correct answer; only doing nothing would make him feel regret.

Now that he was done, with a thought, slime peeled from his body, creating a mass that was nothing but a lump of slime. The slime eventually developed into a humanoid form.

Without a core, there was nothing to define its form. Instead, Noah had the slime take on a default form that mirrored him in the simplest way.

The golem had no defined traits. No armor, no scales, not even muscle definition. However, its face bore two glowing, sinister-looking violet eyes.

The golem stooped, hoisting the armored corpse over its shoulder without resistance. It fell in line behind Noah without orders as Noah turned back towards the others.

As they moved, Noah felt an intense gaze on him.

No... not on him, but the core in his hands. He didn’t need to look to know who it belonged to.

The drake’s pupils had narrowed in scrutiny. Nothing the Devil did was simple, and nothing that the Devil valued was ever unworthy of attention. It was beginning to understand that Noah was simply a treasure trove.

Looking at his hand, the drake knew what a core was. It had consumed plenty in its lifetime. But the core Noah had done something to was no longer the same as any core it had ever seen. It just knew that the core was special, something that even creatures more substantial than itself would desire.

After the series of events both Noah and itself had been through, the drake should feel embarrassed even to have the thought of questioning Noah’s secrets.

Rather out of curiosity, or Noah’s presence radiating the subtle aura of a dragon, the drake was still bold enough to ask outright what it was.

"...That, right there," the drake couldn’t hold back any longer. "What did you do to it?"

Noah glanced at the drake. He nearly wanted to quip back at the giant chicken asking him so boldly about his secrets, when it was too afraid even to confront his enemies.

But he could sense that the drake wasn’t asking him out of arrogance. It felt more like a pampered child desiring something that wasn’t his. At least this time, that pampered boy understood his place.

"This?" Noah asked, lifting the core as if he genuinely didn’t know what the drake was talking about. "It’s just a core. Unless you call it something different in this world."

The drake paused; Noah’s words didn’t seem to click. And then suddenly it snapped. "I know what a core is! I-" Its voice began to grow louder and louder. It’s deep-seated arrogance revealing itself yet again. But as it yelled, its eyes met Noah’s narrowed gaze, and before it said anything, it stopped itself.

The drake then showed a trait that it rarely showed before. Restraint.

"Don’t insult me by pretending. If you didn’t want to tell me, then say that."

The drake’s change actually surprised Noah. But it was a good surprise. If Noah had thought the drake was a lost cause before. Now, he felt that maybe the drake could be considered to become a part of his group after all.

Noah had to consider his words. Even though the drake had changed, in the end, it was impossible to rid itself of its instinctual pride and arrogance. If he were to form a pact with it, then he wanted the drake to be the one to initiate it.

"It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. You’re right, this core is different from the others. With it, you can gain power without any effort. With it, the power of your fallen enemies can become yours..."

The drake’s jaw dropped before it tightened at the prospect of such a possibility. It had met beings who could do something similar, but those beings were powerhouses of this world. Noah wasn’t nearly as strong as they were, yet he could perform the same feats. No, the drake felt that Noah’s way of doing it was even better.

All of its thoughts were keenly written on its face, and Noah picked up all of it. Now that the bait was dropped, he needed to reel it in.

"But unfortunately, someone like you wouldn’t be able to obtain that power..."

"What does that mean?" The drake’s claws dug into the ground. It felt its sore spot being attacked.

Even the Devil had determined its potential to be dead?

"You think I don’t deserve it?"

"Deserve it?" Noah calmly questioned as he stood before Arachne, giving her the core to consume. The drake could only watch with hateful envy while Arcachne licked at the core with glee before sinking her fangs into the core, draining it of everything.

"It’s not about deserving it. It’s about what you are willing to offer."