Becoming a Monster

Chapter 448: Chapter 448: A Threat Takes Root

The forest continued to shudder under the boar’s advance.

Its massive shape burst through the trees, threatening to pummel everything in its wake as it lowered its head and surged forward.

There was no hesitation in its eyes, no probing movement to measure its enemy’s strength. The boar was lost in a frenzy, willing to attack regardless of who stood before it.

Its momentum was thunderous. An ordinary creature would have retreated.

For a brief moment, the chieftain almost did.

It had taken an instinctive step back before it froze again. Undisguised anger replaced its hesitation as it reflected on what it was about to do. It had already been forced to retreat from battle, and then from its own territory.

It wouldn’t retreat again.

The chieftain drove its feet into the earth and invoked its unique ability to the fullest. Power surged through its limbs as the ground beneath prepared to swallow the coming force.

The collision gave off the illusion of a detonation.

For an instant, the chieftain’s massive frame bent backward. The earth beneath its feet cracked even louder than at impact, soil exploding into dust around them.

Without the chieftain’s unique skill, it wouldn’t have dared to take on the attack head-on.

Neither creature yielded.

The boar, enraged that its charge had been halted, pushed harder. Its tusks and horns were lodged in four different parts of the chieftain’s body. Hooves carved trenches into the earth as it focused entirely on driving the chieftain backwards rather than tearing through its flesh.

For several heartbeats, neither gave ground. The chieftain’s pain tolerance, coupled with its regeneration, turned the clash into a brutal deadlock.

Then the boar changed tactics. If it could not win through force, it would win through violence.

With a heart-wrenching squeal, it began to thrash. Its entire body twisted violently, wrenching its embedded tusks sideways.

The chieftain felt its footing destabilize as the beast tried to rip itself free and create space for another charge. It couldn’t allow that.

As one of the tusks tore loose, the chieftain stepped in instead of back.

Two massive hands seized a different horn. While it could still hold the boar steady, the chieftain leaned back its head before unleashing a brutal headbutt, causing the boar to stagger.

Its hide was strong, but it couldn’t protect against the heavy vibrations that now rattled its brain.

Seizing the moment, the chieftain pivoted and slammed the boar sideways, toppling it over while simultaneously tugging on the boar’s horn in the opposite direction.

The weight of the boar caused its horn to break under the chieftain’s grip, which instantly turned into a lethal weapon.

With the horn already turned towards the boar, the chieftain raised it high, preparing to lodge it deep within the boar’s eye to land the decisive blow.

And just as the chieftain was prepared to bring it down, leading with all its weight. The chieftain felt a pressure pressing down on it.

It wasn’t a physical force, but the instinctive pressure of death.

Without dropping the horn, the chieftain turned towards the direction of the feeling.

When it saw who it was, it released the horn from its hand in an instant. The chieftain’s body jerked back onto its feet, ignoring the boar entirely.

The origin of the feeling was the very creatures it was seeking.

Demonfied trolls.

Three figures were leisurely approaching.

One stepped ahead of the others. It was shorter than both of them and shorter than the chieftain by nearly a meter.

But the chieftain did not allow its size to deceive it. From where it stood, it could tell that the danger radiating from it was even stronger than itself.

Its body was grotesquely refined rather than bulky. Every muscle was defined beneath its pale, scarred skin. A necklace of skulls hung across its chest and waist.

Behind it stood two others, massive, broad-shouldered brutes clad in crude metal plating and chains. Their armor wasn’t forged with care, just thick slabs of iron strapped across their shoulders and chests.

Heavy chains draped across their torsos, clinking softly with each step.

Their skin was darker. Thick tusks jutted from their lower jaws, while additional horns protruded from their brows.

The shorter one at the forefront finally stopped several paces away.

Its gaze swept over the chieftain’s wounds, the broken horn at its feet, and the boar struggling to get up. There was no mockery underneath its evaluating gaze.

"Gub," it spoke a simple, unrecognizable word that was more of an order.

The chieftain didn’t understand what the word signified. Before it could even register what it could mean, the chieftain had braced itself again. The boar had recovered, digging into the ground for another round.

Hesitation mixed in with vigilance as the chieftain was unsure if it could protect itself without offending the three in front of it.

Before it could move, one of the massive brutes behind the smaller leader grunted. The sound of chains rattled even more, and then its arm moved.

The chain draped across its body was snapped forward with astonishing accuracy.

The air split with the crack of the metal links that lash across the boar’s face.

A deep gash tore across the boar’s snout, splitting its hide that moments earlier had resisted the chieftain’s strikes.

The chieftain expected the boar to go into a rampage. Instead, the boar froze.

The madness drained from its eyes. Its massive frame lowered instinctively. Without a sound of protest, it backed away, retreating behind the brute like a chastised beast.

The brute did not look at it. It simply turned slightly, reaching toward the boar’s thick neck. That was when the chieftain noticed it.

Half-hidden by muscle and matted fur.

A collar.

A thick iron band was embedded around the boar’s throat. The brute hooked its chain into the collar’s ring with a practiced motion.

Only then did the chieftain understand. The boar wasn’t a wild, ferocious creature at all. It was a pet all along.

When it realized this, its eyes betrayed undisguised anger. It was being played with.

But when it directed that angered gaze towards the demons, the demon troll showed a hideous grin. Immediately, the chieftain realized its mistake, looking towards the ground with balled fists.

This made the demon troll in the forefront smile even more. Their kind craved dominating. It felt its blood rising; it wanted to break the chieftain into full submission, even if that meant accidentally destroying the chieftain in the process.

It started advancing, its muscles flexing from excitement as its eyes roamed across the chieftain’s body, looking forward to what to break first.

That’s when its eyes landed on the chieftain’s hands, noticing the blood that was uniquely similar to the fruits of their trees.

Its eyes narrowed. The excitement that had once bubbled within it was gone. There was a rule their leader had set in place, a rule forbidding them from harming any troll that knew the proper way to greet them.

"Weak stray, speak! Why you come here?"

The chieftain’s fist tightened even more under the slur. It wasn’t the first time it had heard it. But this time, it swallowed the anger instead of acting on it.

Slowly, it unclenched its hand and lowered itself to one knee. The movement was stiff, as if its body was acting against its will.

"I want." It paused, taking a deep breath. "I want power."

The demon troll’s grin returned.

______________________

No one was aware of the future threat stirring on their borders.

The new day was already settling; by this time, Noah and the others were already up and staring at the new day.

Before Noah left the confines of his home, he walked over to Pandora, his gaze looking towards the dungeon core. He had pondered over his problem throughout the night.

The dungeon core will become one of their greatest strengths. He needed to find a better alternative to acquire more mana.

And today he had thought of one.

The others stood at a distance, curious about what Noah was about to do. Whenever it came to the core, the change was always big.

Under their gaze, they watched as Noah and Pandora fused. His presence filled their home.

Within their transformation, each root carried faint miasmic properties, forcing the others to step back even farther. Only those attuned to that nefarious energy could remain close without discomfort.

Noah’s consciousness expanded outward through Pandora’s domain.

He didn’t look at the core first. Instead, he looked at the forest throughout their territory.

Mana flowed naturally through the land, and that mana was constantly siphoned through Pandora’s roots, which was now being siphoned into him.

Besides her vast reserves, this was why he had chosen Pandora over Ailetta. Pandora was connected to the land itself. She wasn’t just a container of mana; she was a conduit.

But there was a limit.

If he siphoned too deeply, he could have nearly unlimited mana for a small temporary amount of time, but the forest would weaken. Trees would grow brittle. The soil would lose vitality. And damage done at that level would not be easily repaired, if it could be repaired at all.

So he relied on the natural siphon. It was still more than enough compared to what he could achieve alone.

There was a small lapse of silence when his tendrils wrapped around the core. Then a powerful suction of mana rushed inward.