Becoming a Monster

Chapter 426: Chapter 426: Your Ability Is Worth More

The goblin leader felt that the forest was turning into darkness itself. Its eyes darted left and right. No shadow was left unattended. If it were to escape, it felt as if it would never be able to trust a shadow again.

Because it turned away, it didn’t realize that it wasn’t the forest turning dark; the darkness was the aura radiating from Noah.

Noah had unleashed a combination of skills all at once. His slime features completely layered over his other traits, increasing the potential of all his slime skills, while his other traits’ suffered. His power then stacked after using his buffs that were initially only capable of buffing his creatures onto him. And in the end, he unleashed Ailetta’s strongest skill, "Demonized Angel".

The air warped around him as if his aura expanded, bleeding into the terrain itself. The shadows within his presence deepened, not because light vanished, but because light could barely pass through his aura.

The pool at his feet thickened, exploding outward as if it could extend to the ends of the earth.

Not just him, but every slime connected to him responded to the transformation. Their mana output spiked violently as their bodies went through a transition of rapid growth.

The consumption of the skill was enormous.

But Noah could afford it. Not only were his mana reserves already abnormally high from his and Ailetta’s merger. The numerous goblin essences he devoured were converted into excess mana, mana that was more accessible as a result of their bodies having purer energy.

And after using the goblins’ cores as the base to create his golems, not only were the golems stronger than the material used, but they required nearly half the mana to develop.

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The slime that expanded like a domain was able to overtake the goblin leaders’ retreat quickly.

If it were just the pool, the goblin would’ve continued to flee. Yet, a mass immediately began to rise from its surface directly in front of it.

The goblin may have feared the oni, but it wouldn’t fear a summon. If it were like the others, then it could be cut down. Its cursed axe was already rising in the air, the same instant that the mass began to form.

The blob hadn’t even finished forming when the axe came down.

With its strength and the peculiarities of the axe, the slime parted cleanly. Given the sensation it felt from the resistance, it knew that it succeeded.

The axes’ blades’ hidden properties quickly took effect as the bubbles formed across the surface from the cut.

Hope ignited. As long as it wasn’t him, nothing else could stop it.

Without slowing, the goblin leader surged forward, already preparing to break past the pool entirely. It didn’t care to watch the aftereffects of its attack. Regardless of whether the blob recovered, it wouldn’t be able to hinder its retreat anymore.

As the leader was passing, it didn’t look back, assuming that the shaman was right behind it.

But the shaman hadn’t moved.

Its body trembled. Not because the slime prevented it from moving. Not a tendril had attempted to prevent its escape.

Its eyes were locked onto the severed halves of the blob as they stopped falling.

"Grarahh!"

The shaman screamed, its voice cracking with pure terror when the mana radiating from the blob matched the very horror it was trying to flee.

"ON-ONI!!"

The leader reacted instantly. But not the way the shaman intended.

It didn’t turn around. Because to the leader, those words meant only one thing.

The oni was catching up. That meant the troops left behind had achieved nothing. Its rage flared.

’Useless, all of them!’

Its mind decided in an instant. The shamans were valuable for the tribe’s survival, but they weren’t more important than itself. The shaman’s physical capabilities weren’t that different from those of ordinary goblins. They were slow in comparison to itself. If the oni were already here, dragging dead weight would only mean death.

During its retreat, the leader had barely passed the severed blob when something closed around its arm. The goblin leader nearly screamed. What it feared wasn’t death. It had crossed paths with death many times, and in the end, it grew stronger. Death’s door was a space of opportunity and growth. But the oni’s power to devour souls made it fear that the door would enclose on it forever.

It twisted violently, its axe rising again without a moment’s hesitation as it turned towards its attacker.

And it froze.

The "thing" grabbing its arm wasn’t the same blob it had cut down before.

A solid arm gripped its own, fingers wrapped tight enough that it could feel its bones cracking beneath the pressure.

It ignored the pain. The noise around it became irrelevant as it couldn’t understand what it was seeing.

In the place of the blob was the monster it was trying to escape from.

Noah’s eyes bore into the goblins’ own. From the goblin’s perspective, it felt as if Noah had already locked onto its soul.

"H-how...?"

The goblin leader’s body trembled violently as it barely got the words out.

Despite its fear, it still sought to glance behind it. The oni that held its arm was real; there was no denying it. And yet, it still looked back to make sure.

It witnessed the butchering of almost all of its soldiers. And after it left them, the ones who had finally noticed had tried to follow it.

In the end, it didn’t know how many had escaped. Its focus was that the oni was no longer where he had originally been.

The distraction didn’t go unnoticed. When it looked away, Noah’s body rippled in at least five different places. Five arms shot out.

The goblin reacted faster than expected. It sought to avoid the other arms, but it couldn’t move or remove Noah’s grip. So instead, it took its free arm to cut off the arm holding it.

The attack reached before the arms did.

Not because it was faster, but because Noah allowed it.

The axe was able to penetrate through his gelatin armor by a few inches. Like before, the area began to fester.

Without cutting through, the goblin raised its arm again. But this time it could no longer move. One arm seized its wrist, holding the axe; slime flowed from the arm, wrapping around both its hand and the cursed knife. Another latched onto its elbows, lifting the goblin into the air. And the fourth clamped around its throat, nearly crushing its windpipe.

The other arm waited for an unexpected reaction.

Noah didn’t press his advantage yet. His gaze was focused on the cut on his arm. Not only was he surprised that the goblin was able to cut through his armor, but the reaction from the axe had caught his interest the most.

He had realized earlier that the axe’s coating was merely a poison, but a curse of blood. A curse that their shamans placed. The curse reacted in a way similar to his own energy... miasmic energy. It didn’t fully attack the wound itself. But the mana it was composed of. And for all species, although their body had mana inside of them, that didn’t mean their flesh didn’t contain mana too.

The realization intrigued him.

Noah’s gaze drifted briefly toward the remaining shaman, still struggling uselessly against the slime that bound it. Panic had stripped away whatever composure it once held. He already possessed another shaman’s soul now, yet he hadn’t decided what to do with this one.

"Wa-wait!"

Noah’s attention resumed on the leader in his arms. It remained hovering in the air, its legs dangling after fruitless attempts to kick at his body.

Seeing that it was trying to speak to him, he loosened his grip around its throat just enough to allow it to breathe.

"I... w-we serve you!" the goblin rasped. "Don-don’t kill me!"

Noah wasn’t expecting the goblin to beg.

His expression to the offer was contemplative. He couldn’t tame the creature, but with the mana reserved in the dungeon core, he was confident that it could help Pandora create another fruit. With that, control over the leader could mean control over an entire goblin population.

The thought lingered for a moment...then passed.

It wasn’t worth it.

"Gaacckk!" The goblin choked as Noah’s arm pierced cleanly through its chest.

"You should blame yourself." He said with a chilling calm. "Your ability is worth more than having you serve me." Noah removed its core, carefully crystallizing it to store the one ability he had his eye on. He did not need the creature’s soul. Overall, besides its one skill, it had no other characteristics that he felt would be beneficial to his creatures.

After seeing the body go limp within his arms, he placed the axe within his ring before he tossed the body aside. Eating the corpses wouldn’t have the same benefits as it would on his creatures.

’Le, would you want the bodies that’s left?’ He asked before making the decision. The forest wasn’t devoid of food, but if Ailetta could use these corpses to make a potentially strong fused abomination, he would rather she have them.

’That’s not needed.’ She responded without the need to think about it. ’Without their cores, they won’t be that useful to me.’

Noah paused when the realization dawned. Feeling bad that he didn’t consider that earlier.

’If you want to make it up to me... I want their village."