Becoming a Monster

Chapter 430: Chapter 430: Dead or Alive, You’re Still Useful

When the drake thought Noah would take this chance to degrade its existence, it smugly declared its own superiority. Instead, Noah watched Arachne finish consuming the core.

The moment she consumed it, the core dissolved, entering her body. And under the drakes’ watchful gaze, it noticed her exoskeleton becoming more exquisite than before.

It was then that he realized another shocking discovery, one that was even more world-breaking than the Devil taking its genes.

"Wha- Devil! Why does she have that?" Instead of rage, the drake was filled with uncertainty.

It was only when it focused, really focused, that the drake understood what it was seeing.

The drake leaned forward without realizing it, its eyes wide. The presence of her dragon blood was thin, but it was there.

Her smell, her presence, was the same as Noah’s. The drake didn’t need to ask to understand what happened, but it understood that it was unable to be angry.

Somehow, the Devil was even able to change the race of a monster, making them stronger in the process.

"That... that shouldn’t be possible," it muttered. It had once considered the beings who could bestow powers on their subordinates, but nothing like this; otherwise, the power balance in the world would’ve never lasted so long.

Noah watched his reaction more intently before responding. However, he wasn’t focused on answering the drakes’ question.

"When did you start calling me that? No, why did you decide to call me that?" Noah’s demeanor changed entirely. His shift caused all of his creatures bonded to him to respond in turn. Without understanding why, they were ready to fight the drake to the death.

Suddenly, under the pressure of so much killing intent, the drake found itself even more confused than before. What did it say?

If it were before, it wouldn’t have an issue standing its ground. If it were before, it wouldn’t have hesitated. No one here would’ve survived a breath of its flames, and it wouldn’t give the skeletal warrior a chance to re-enact the attack from before.

But this time, there were two facts it couldn’t ignore.

First, Noah was stronger than it now, and the dungeon’s magic made his subordinates even stronger than before, while he was now injured.

Second, and this one hurt more to acknowledge, Noah was its hope.

A century.

A hundred years of dreaming, clawing upward, surviving and enduring hardship so that it might become closer to ruling the skies that its ancestors once did. A hundred years of failure of reaching and falling just short.

The drake didn’t want to lose that hope again. It dug into its memories, thinking hard about what made the Devil react in such a way. And it was while it was questioning itself that it understood.

"Is it because I called you a Devil?" It didn’t need Noah to answer; his icy gaze was confirmation enough.

"Are you... not the Devil?" It genuinely didn’t understand.

It had heard humans speak of the Devil before. Cunning, deceitful, powerful. A being who never forced its rule but delivered tempting ultimatums, never breaking its deals, yet always left others paying the heavier price. Most of all, the enemy of their beloved "Father".

Noah embodied those descriptions perfectly, and his aura was the direct opposite of their holy power.

When the drake compared the two, really compared them, it couldn’t fathom Noah being anything else.

And yet... the Devil before was defensive towards the name.

All this time, when the drake was trying to make sense of it all, Noah was also trying to decipher the drake’s intentions.

If this were his original world, then being called a Devil wouldn’t trigger him the way it did now. The drake had always called him a demon. There was no indication that angels or devils belong in this world. If they were, then why was the drake so convinced he was a demon and not a devil before?

Why now? What made it change its opinion of him?

Noah didn’t doubt that there was a chance angels and devils could exist here. And if that were the case... then the thought that the drake might have encountered something, someone, who told it what Noah was.

If that suspicion were true, then his safety wasn’t nearly as secure as he believed.

However, as he noted the drake’s confusion and its lack of hostility despite their provocative stance. He began to doubt his own conspiracies. Maybe the drake was just smarter than he gave it credit for. Or maybe, something he did mirrored the Devils of this world closely enough that the drake reached the conclusion naturally.

Either way, Noah wasn’t ready to admit to anything, not unless he was completely sure of the drake’s intentions. Especially when he had finally chosen to tempt the creature into becoming one of his tamed monsters.

"If I said I was a Devil, then what?"

As he spoke, he subtly shifted his position, standing closer to Arachne. The movement was subtle. At the slightest sign of hostility, he was prepared to fuse with her without hesitation.

The tension thickened.

The drake silently stared for several seconds.

"Then... I would finally understand why you outwit me at every turn. And more importantly..."

The drake’s throat tightened at the thought of what it was about to say. But for the sake of its dream, it dug deep within itself.

"If I could touch the existence of my ancestors by bargaining with the Devil, then I could only hope you are a Devil..."

Its expression hardened. Its talons dug at the ground with desperate hope that could change everything.

The tension that was rising seemed to be an illusion. Noah’s expression morphed into that of a person who couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

He stared at the massive creature, genuinely stunned. All the lines he’d prepared, the calculated half-truths, the slow tightening of temptation, the careful push towards desperation, none of them mattered anymore.

"... You really are serious," Noah muttered to himself. He had to consider what to do now. He thought this would be a gradual transition. Weeks, maybe even months to get the proud beast to give in. But this was too soon.

He still wasn’t ready to form a pact with another creature. And he didn’t want to resort to using Pandora’s fruit to tie it down either.

He needed time, time to understand his body more. If the system was no longer available to help them improve their abilities, he needed to find ways of his own to do the same.

The drake didn’t know what was on Noah’s mind. It could only watch as Noah finished thinking.

It saw Noah materializing another core from his ring.

It wasn’t sure what Noah was planning to do, his hand just hovered over the core without doing anything.

Then the scent hit it.

A familiar smell that it had constantly tossed and turned from through the night. The blood coated the orb until just looking at the core in his hands had the drake salivating. Its mind was pure chaos.

But suddenly its pupils shrank. Panic, fear, and greed merged when Noah tossed the core in the air towards it.

It moved without thinking, its jaws parted as wide as it could, leaving no room for the core to fall.

Just moments before the core slid down did the drake realize it consumed something from the Devil without evaluating what it was. But it was too late. The taste exploded on its tongue. The feeling of a subtle strength brewed throughout its body.

Noah didn’t insist on watching the drake any longer. If this was before, he would want to understand what happens when a creature who wasn’t bonded to him consumes one of his cores. But ever since he’s been feeding the subordinates of his other creatures, he had long since found the answer.

Just like with his Nexus eye, there was information that wasn’t explained.

Even if the creature wasn’t bonded to him, his cores still benefit them. However, the effects were decreased by nearly half, which was still more than before his evolution. He could feel that his blood was more potent than ever before, and that also impacted the effects of the cores when fused with it.

"Fenrir," the giant wolf, immediately shifted from a terrorizing beast to a house dog when he saw Noah pulling out a crystallized core similar to the one given to Arachne.

The other creatures looked at Fenrir with complicated expressions. Those like Eve had never tasted a core like that before, while Kratos felt as if he had taken another loss.

After absorbing it all, Fenrir didn’t experience any changes. Noah didn’t expect him to. He knew that as long as they encountered strong enemies, that the effects would show its true potential. And before that, he wondered if he could find a loophole.

By the time the drake stirred again, its body felt... wrong.

Even more than before it felt that its body was lacking something, and only Noah’s blood could fill it.

Its head snapped upward, looking for Noah. It had to know what he did. No, it wanted to ask for more. If it could get just a few more, it would understand on its own.

It noticed Noah standing by another one of its creatures, beckoning the creature to crouch down.

The creature was one of the weakest of the group, the drake felt that Noah wouldn’t care if it interrupted.

Its lips parted, but whatever it had meant to say died in its throat as it watched Noah pull something transparent from the core.

There was a brief amount of doubt about what it was at first. But it would never forget the scene of Noah stripping the goblin of its soul the night before.

A pale, almost distorted ghost of the troll thrashed within the Devil’s fingers. The drake was lost for words as it blankly followed Noah’s hand placing the soul into his subordinate’s chest without a sense of hesitation.

The subordinate’s body arched the moment Noah retracted his hand, falling to the ground, nearly writhing into a ball.

The drake’s eyes widened in alarm, its gaze snapping left and right, searching for confirmation that it wasn’t the only one witnessing this madness. Surely the others would react. Surely this would horrify them.

Even if Noah was a Devil, this couldn’t be normal!

Yet the reactions it found only deepened the unease curling in its chest.

There was no fear. Some watched with detached calm. Others with quiet anticipation. A few, who had yet to receive anything from Noah, couldn’t even hide the envy in their eyes.

It was then the drake realized something far more terrifying than the act itself.

This was a reward.

Its throat felt unnaturally dry; if not for the audible grunts, it would be unimaginable if the others heard.

Despite its earlier temptation to accept whatever cost the Devil asked for, there was fear to abandon this place and live out the rest of its life in peace.

Because no matter how much it tried to convince itself otherwise. It couldn’t avoid the thought of what would happen if in the end it wasn’t able to accept the Devil’s demands.

From what it knew now, the Devil didn’t need it alive to be useful.