Becoming a Monster

Chapter 373: Chapter 373: From Savage, to Cruel, to Merciless

Even as the beast with too many mouths lunged at it with feral speed, the troll’s instincts didn’t waver. To it, the beast’s mentality may have changed, but this was the same fight. The same brute it had been battering down blow after blow.

Seeing Dummy’s body still slightly deformed, the troll’s courage rose. It could tell that the beast’s regeneration was barely applying itself anymore. Its intuition was instant, because that was how all trolls fought when challenging each other. It was always a battle of attrition, to see who would break first, who would collapse when their wounds stacked higher than their strength.

The troll’s muscles bulged as it gripped its club, digging within itself to release a strength stronger than before. It had to kill the creature so it could team up against the bigger threat that just arrived.

But as Dummy aimed to crash into it, and as the troll lifted its club to smash the creature’s head into the earth.

The mindless beast didn’t seek to exchange a needless beating as it did before.

At the last instant, Dummy ducked low, his massive frame didn’t seem to maneuver at all, but it was just enough. The club slammed down, instead of solely cracking into the back of his skull, halting his momentum. The impact was absorbed into the back of both his skull and spine.

Dummy’s momentum never faltered as it lunged towards the troll’s left leg. The charge almost knocked the troll over, its body hunched over the beast now clinging on its leg, pressing down on its back to prevent itself from being charged to the ground.

The troll instinctively braced itself for pain as it felt the grip of Dummy’s hands around it. It knew pain was coming, just like all the other times.

And it did...

But this time, the pain was different. A scream burst from the troll’s mouth as its full body weight pressed more into Dummy’s back. The beast’s teeth hadn’t just torn away flesh. The beast used the moment to finally use the mouth that the trolls desperately always avoided. The mouth that nearly took up the creature’s torso had latched onto its leg.

Dozens of teeth larger than before all bit down at once. They didn’t grind or pull at its skin.

Crunch!

Instead, the troll felt the massive teeth sinking into its leg. Muscles, tendons, then finally...bone. At the same time, something else spread.

From where Dummy’s hands clamped down, jagged barbs unfurled, tendrils like splinters from a twisted tree. They pierced the troll’s flesh, digging past the surface of its skin. They weren’t able to dig deeper than the muscles, but as they traveled through its skin, they left trails of rot as they continued to burrow.

The troll’s eyes widened, it could feel something wrong. The familiar surge of its wounds mending together slowed, weakening in the areas that were invaded by the barbs. Panic flared in its chest.

It didn’t hesitate. It could already foresee that if it didn’t act fast enough, it would lose its leg.

As long as its leg wasn’t completely torn apart, it would eventually heal, but regenerating lost bone wasn’t the same as healing. It would lose its ability to fight at this rate.

It acted fast, the ground sounded loudly as it let its club drop out of its hands. Its giant fingers desperately began to feel around Dummy’s face, and then..

An unbearable sound was released. For the second time, Dummy experienced a pain that he couldn’t fully endure.

Both eyes burst under the troll’s thumbs. Hot blood sprayed against its face as its nails carved deeper into the sockets. Dummy’s monstrous frame spasmed, his grip loosening for the first time.

The troll roared, not in victory, but in desperation. It felt Dummy’s hands loosening from their grip, but the creature’s jaws snapped down even stronger than before.

Dummy thrashed, convulsing under the agony of his ruined eyes. Yet even blind, his muscles swelled as his torso ground deeper into the troll’s leg until the leg completely snapped.

The troll felt itself unable to support itself, its entire body weight was thrown onto Dummy. With the troll’s weight, a blind Dummy would find it hard to maneuver out from under it.

The troll’s chest heaved, tusks gnashing as it pressed its full weight down. Its arms spread across Dummy’s back in a bear-hug. Its leg was a lost cause, but it wouldn’t allow the creature to reach anywhere else. The troll would use its advantage to squeeze out every bit of life from the creature...or die trying.

It could feel Dummy twitching beneath it, his movements sluggish than they were before. The troll’s face continued to twitch as it could feel more bone being destroyed by teeth. But that agonizing pain only pushed it to squeeze harder. Under its arms, it felt Dummy’s body giving way.

Bark-like armor cracked under its embrace. The troll’s massive hands pressed inward until they sank into Dummy’s frame, ribs splintering, wood and blood bursting between its fingers. Snarling through clenched teeth, convinced that if it kept pressing, the monster’s body would eventually collapse.

And yet...its eyes suddenly widened. Throughout its entire body it felt dozens of punctures into its body. It was the same sensation that it felt throughout its leg.

Alongside his back, Dummy’s entire body became a weapon, sending around barb like tendrils that sprouted from his back, piercing into the troll’s body.

Every area that pressed into Dummy’s back was attacked, including the troll’s face. In that moment, the troll felt its entire body growing sluggish. It was a draining cold that swept through its body. Its warmth seemed to slowly sap away as if its life was being drained.

The troll felt it immediately. Its body trembled, Its lone knee buckled as it instinctively fought to remove itself from the tendrils.

It gave off an anguished yet desperate roar as it first removed its face from the prongs. With one last push, it pushed off against Dummy to untether the rest from itself.

But in its struggle, it had forgotten... It no longer had two legs to stand on.

Without the extra balance to hold its massive weight, the troll crashed onto the ground.

For less than a second, it stared dumbstruck at its ruined leg, as if the truth hadn’t yet sunk in. Adrenaline blurred the pain, but not the reality. The jagged limb was gone, and no amount of regeneration could replace what had already been chewed away. Not unless the missing half was still there to reattach, yet that was forever lost in the beast’s belly.

Through its haze of reality, it felt Dummy’s weight rise above it. The beast loomed, eyes still oozing out thick clumps of blood, nose sniffing hungrily in its direction.

Snarls released from all four of Dummy’s mouths. The troll’s body froze, it didn’t intend to move, as prey before a predator, hoping stillness would let it pass unseen. But then the beast’s nose stopped its search, its eyeless face snapped to the troll. The troll no longer held back as it struggled to get up.

Its gaze shifted fearfully in the direction of its comrade, the one whose strength was known to be stronger than all of them.

But when it looked over, it wished it had never done so.

A hallucination? It couldn’t tell, nothing felt real anymore. As it looked at its tribe member, it saw the golem sprouting fur, its body almost in a trance. It still faced off against the enemy werewolf, its eyes weren’t those of a rational creature anymore.

All it saw afterward was the massive werewolf biting into its tribe member. It couldn’t understand what was happening, nor was it able to process what happened next.

Because right above it, sets of teeth clouded its vision. Dummy’s slavering jaws opened wider, hot breath spilling over the troll’s face. The troll could only raise its arms in protest as the mouth lurched towards its face.

________________

Three trolls now remain. The merged Eve and Ava were both fighting two trolls side by side, their battle was the most evenly matched of them all. But Kratos was a different story.

Blood...guts...tears...urine. The scene was utterly disgusting and a borderline nightmarish experience. The scene didn’t remotely resemble a fight at all. Squelch noises continued to sound out. Something wet continued to flop on the ground. A soft whimper would follow.

A troll lay across a patch of crimson grass. Around it innards and flesh were just tossed aside. Its legs jerked with the sound of something being thrown.

But this wasn’t death. Not yet. The troll still drew shallow, pitiful breaths. Each twitch, each whimper, each wet gasp was proof that it clung to life.

Only its body yearned to live. Its mind was already shattered. Its tears begged for its suffering to end.

Its stomach was completely busted open, wide enough to fit an entire person.

And Kratos was inside it. His hands stretched out, ripping at the walls of flesh with hateful intent. Blood slicked his arms up to the shoulder, coating him as he tore through everything his hands touched.

There was no hesitation. No pause for pity. Soon there would be nothing left to remove, yet Kratos’ resolve never faltered. To him, this wasn’t cruelty, it was necessity.

The troll whimpered, but Kratos didn’t hear. Or maybe he did and simply didn’t care. He didn’t give his enemies the grace of recognition. Only their deaths mattered.