Becoming a Monster

Chapter 374: Chapter 374: To Be Strong, but Still Weak

The battle was reaching its end. Out of the eight trolls, only two were left. Noah felt the battle results were even better than expected. His family did more than just hold their own.

Although their accomplishment was heavily rooted with his support, he believed that those like Ailetta, Arachne, Fenrir, and even Kratos would’ve overcome their enemy even without his enhancements. That thought alone allowed a momentous burden to wash away from his heart.

But in that relief, his mind sharpened. The battle wasn’t over.

Eve, still merged with Diablo, fought side by side with Ava. From the start till now, their battle had been rocky. Both Diablo and Ava had fought their foes individually.

Even with Noah’s buffs, they weren’t able to overcome their opponents.

Noah’s vassals didn’t obtain the same benefits as his contracted creatures. His buffs gave them a surge of strength, yes, but only enough to barely qualify to participate in the fight. They weren’t like Kratos, a creature who was already powerful before becoming a vassal.

That difference became more apparent during this battle.

Facing her opponent, Ava still moved with surprising swiftness. She moved like a phantom as she dashed back and forth around the troll, slashes of blood suddenly appearing on its body. But all this time, the troll only perceived her as an annoying bug. Its regeneration made her attacks completely irrelevant.

In the beginning, it spent its time trying to catch her, only to end up empty handed every time. But each second that passed it moved with less caution. To the troll it wasn’t defending against an opponent, merely waiting for her mistake. The moment the bug slipped, it would squash her like the bug she was.

The problem was, Ava didn’t make any mistakes. She was eerily efficient, almost methodical in her actions. She never pressed farther than necessary, never wasted movement. She didn’t attempt anything drastic, almost as if she was fully aware of her limits and was merely buying time for the others.

From time to time her gaze would shift to the troll’s neck. The allure of the creature’s blood didn’t grab at her yet she continued to maintain her rhythm.

On the other hand, Diablo couldn’t afford to restrain himself. Not when Eve’s life hung on his blade.

His sword was bathed in black flames as he fought against the troll. His flames were nowhere near as large and deadly as the miasma that was achieved when fueled by the dragon’s flames. But its corrosive properties were still effective.

Each shallow cut left behind smoldering wounds that hissed and corroded, refusing to mend as quickly as the others.

Diablo had to anticipate every move made against him. Each time the troll swung with its fist, he was already moving, barely avoiding the attacks. Every exchange was a gamble. And just during their first bout of exchanges, Diablo lost that gamble.

His opponent was slow, but his attacks took up too much space to leave room for error. The troll swung down into the ground with both fists, nearly leveling the ground around them while Diablo sought to avoid the impact. The quakes caused the skeletal warrior to stumble, leaving him vulnerable to the troll’s backhand that came sweeping along the ground, blasting him away.

The troll stomped forward to finish it, but the sound of teeth clattering right behind it had forced it to stop. It snapped its head upward in time to see several black shapes hurtling down. Not birds. Not rocks. A swarm of eyes and teeth quickly approached.

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Noah wasn’t the only one to notice their struggles. During the time she had initially released her slimes, she had sent five each to aid Diablo and Ava.

This battle wasn’t hers to win, nor did she intend to rob her allies of their trial. But she would level the playing field. And, more than that, she was curious, curious to test the limits of her creations, to see how her children fared against this troll compared to the one she faced herself.

The troll didn’t hesitate to smash its fist into the first slime. The slime’s face was completely buried in the giant hand.

It was too easy!

At least, the troll had a half-breath to savor that thought, before the wrongness crept in. It yanked its hand back, expecting the slime’s body to break down and spill to the ground. But the slime refused to budge as it clung to its flesh.

Then its eye moved.

It slithered across the slime’s body until it stared straight up from the troll’s knuckles. A golden-rimmed pupil rolled and fixed on the troll’s gaze, glistening with mockery.

Before the troll could rage, it felt teeth piercing into its palm.

The troll snarled, it was about to pry the creature away from its hand when the other four slimes converged on it.

Suddenly, the troll had five slimes latched onto its body. Five annoying creatures biting into its skin. The pain wasn’t enough to cause the troll to panic, but when it felt its regeneration slowing, it was then that its anxiety began to rise.

Unlike the blue troll leading them, and their higher evolved clans members, the troll didn’t have the mana reserves that aided the other trolls to heal their wounds throughout long endurance battles. And with the five slimes draining its mana reserves, its anxiety was not unfounded.

But it couldn’t focus on slimes, not when a sword punctured its calf, a burning sensation creeping throughout the wound.

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It wasn’t just Diablo. Ava was experiencing the same thing against her own troll. The trolls couldn’t do anything against the slimes as long as they relied purely on brute strength.

It actually seemed as if both Diablo and Ava would eventually easily win against their opponents with Ailetta’s help. But just as quickly as the slimes arrived, they left with the same eagerness, around the same time Ailetta needed the available mana to finish off her opponent.

And the two skeletal figures found themselves in a precarious position.

With Diablo’s troll severely injured, its leg showed no signs of healing anytime soon. Ava’s troll did something she wasn’t expecting.

Instead of continuing its fruitless pursuit of her, it turned its back. The decision was brutal, instinctive: why waste time on prey it couldn’t catch?

Ava’s eyes flickered. Briefly, the halo in her eyes brightened before dimming again. In the heat of the moment the skeletal vampire rushed after the troll, quickly climbing on its neck. The troll intended to ignore her when he felt a sharp pinch against its dense flesh.

But each step dragged, and before he made it to his comrade he could feel something was wrong. Ava was akin to a godly mosquito. The troll’s blood was draining dangerously fast.

The troll had to give up on its plan, slapping hard at the back of its neck to receive no impact on its intended target.

Ava was back on the ground, her eyes staring daggers into her prey, observing to see if the troll would continue to move towards Diablo or continue their game of tag.

Boom!

However, her eyes flicked again as her head snapped to the sudden earthshaking attack. Dummy’s body was nowhere to be seen. All she could see was the troll’s palm positioned flat against the soil as though pinning something down.

Ava didn’t wait to see more, her body was already moving towards them.

She didn’t care about Diablo’s well-being, but because he was merged with Eve, she wouldn’t allow anything to happen to her.

Just like the other troll, Ava immediately ascended its body, her nails extending to a fine point that stabbed right into the troll’s throat before she hurriedly jumped back down.

The troll’s response was immediate. It quickly removed its hand from the ground to cover its throat. Its life wasn’t in danger as long as its body could regenerate, but with Ailetta’s slimes aid, the hole was recovering slower than before.

While it was recovering, Diablo picked himself up from the ground. His armor was covered in dirt, cracks ran all along his malnourished face that slowly mended itself back to normal.

His face betrayed no pain, no anger, nothing. Only his hand, still gripping his sword that combusted strongly in black flames, showed his intent.

The two stood side by side, ready to face off against the troll, but a series of unfortunate events began to unfold. The ground shook as the troll Ava was fighting was stampeding towards them.

Diablo and Ava found themselves confused about which threat to face. Then they found their bodies suddenly becoming drastically weaker than before. Their fight had gone on longer than they realized. Noah’s buffs had ended.

The two didn’t panic, but the young, lively, and immature Eve who was conscious of everything happening, grew increasingly worried for her "parents" rather than her own wellbeing.

Despite her worries, she didn’t attempt to take over. Her faith in her parents’ protection was strong. But more than that, Noah was still there, watching over them.

And as if he was listening to her thoughts, a giant dragon, identical to the one resting and watching in its cave, magically appeared between them and the troll.

The charging troll skidded, its steps faltering in the face of the colossal mirage. Instinct screamed at it to stop, but momentum betrayed it, its body pitched forward, almost falling.

And it was when its momentum stopped that a sea of roots launched from the ground.