Becoming a Monster

Chapter 498: Chapter 497: He Already Knew The Answer

Bolas remained suspended in the air, his massive wings spreading wide as a single flap held him aloft for several seconds at a time.

Although Bolas had lived his entire life not being able to fly, each movement of his wings was effortless, as if the act of flight itself required nothing from him.

He stayed there through one flap, then another, and then a third, watching without shifting his position.

By the fourth, his patience began to wear thin.

Even after he had spoken, the human hadn’t moved, as if he hadn’t heard him, or worse, as if he had heard him and believed he was lying about being able to see him.

Bolas narrowed his gaze as he tried to make sense of it, but no matter how he turned it over in his mind, it led to the same conclusion.

The human was stalling. For what, he didn’t know.

Did the human actually believe that if he ignored him long enough that he would simply go away? Nonsense!

If this had been the old him, the answer would have been simple. He would’ve burned the entire area without a second thought and ended it there.

But he couldn’t do that now. His flames were no longer what they used to be.

He had grown far beyond that, and even the smallest portion of his fire would spread farther than he intended, consuming everything in its path without restraint.

His flames were no longer ordinary flames, because what burned within him now carried the essence of Noah’s miasmic power.

Before, his fire would have reduced everything to ash and left the land to recover in time, allowing life to return as it always had.

Now, there would be no recovery.

Anything touched by his flames wouldn’t simply burn; it would be tainted, devoured at its core, leaving behind something that could no longer return to the natural cycle.

The ground itself would be left barren, stripped of the ability to nurture life, as if it had been cut away from the world entirely.

That was exactly why he couldn’t use it so carelessly.

The destruction itself didn’t bother him, but the consequences of it did, especially when those consequences would be seen by Noah.

He could already imagine the look, the quiet judgment that would follow, and even if Noah never said a word, Bolas knew exactly what it would mean.

"You really needed to go this far just to deal with one human? Pathetic!"

Even if those words were never spoken, they would still linger all the same.

He had reached this level of power, only just stepped past the version of himself he once despised, and there was no chance he would give Noah a reason to look at him the same way again.

Not for something like this.

His wings shifted slightly as he hovered in place, his irritation beginning to surface more clearly, and after a brief pause, his gaze sharpened once more.

If the human wasn’t going to come out on his own, then he would simply have to make him.

—

All this time, Ethaniel still hadn’t moved.

Not when the voice first reached him, and not even after the silence that followed.

Because just as Bolas thought, Ethaniel didn’t believe the drake was telling the truth.

The drake had no reason to speak to him, not after everything that had just happened. There was no gain in it, no purpose behind trying to draw him out with words when it could simply tear through the trees and find him on its own.

Which meant it could only be a bluff.

It had to be.

Ethaniel steadied his breathing as he pressed himself closer to the tree, forcing every bit of tension out of his body as he maintained the thin veil over himself.

He didn’t allow his eyes to wander, and he didn’t risk adjusting his position, because even the smallest movement could give him away if the creature truly was searching.

Seconds passed. An entire minute after the drake supposedly had known where he was all along.

And still, nothing happened. That alone began to reinforce his belief.

If the drake truly knew where he was. It would’ve already forced him out or killed him where he stood.

But it hadn’t.

The longer the silence stretched, the more confident he became in that conclusion.

Soon or later, the monster would eventually give up. Or it would move on to search elsewhere.

All he had to do was wait.

His grip tightened slightly as he focused on maintaining the spell, carefully regulating the flow of mana so that it remained stable.

The concealment itself wasn’t heavy on his reserves, but in his current condition, even something minimal couldn’t be overlooked.

He could hold it for at most ten minutes. Even that would drain what little he had left.

After that, he would have mana to defend himself, no strength left to escape, and no way to respond if anything found him. He would be forced to remain there for hours, recovering slowly while leaving himself completely vulnerable.

In that state, even a lone goblin would be enough to kill him.

Ethaniel knew that, but it didn’t change his decision, because moving now would only make things worse.

He prepared himself for the long wait ahead, already knowing those ten minutes would stretch far longer in his mind, because what he was really doing was gambling everything on a single outcome.

He was betting his life on whether the drake would lose interest before his mana ran dry.

But just as that conviction settled in, the thin rays of sunlight filtering through the tree tops suddenly disappeared.

The light was cut off all at once, swallowed by something massive, and in the same instant, the sound of wood splintering echoed above him as entire branches gave way under an overwhelming force.

Those branches were not small by any means. Each one was thicker than the common tree that humans from Earth were used to, yet they snapped and fell as if they were nothing.

They came crashing down in his direction.

But the falling debris wasn’t what terrified him. It was what forced its way through behind them.

The drake’s head tore through first, shattering everything in its path as it forced its way down, its presence overwhelming even before the rest of its body followed. Its pupils locked directly onto the exact spot Ethaniel occupied.

There was no hesitation. Ethaniel didn’t have time to question how it had found him.

His body moved on its own as he pushed off the branch and took flight, abandoning any thought of staying hidden.

Running on foot was no longer an option. As long as he stayed in the air, there was still a chance.

The drake would either have to rise above the trees again to continue its pursuit or it would have to force its way through the forest to follow him, and either option would slow it down enough for him to create distance.

That was all he needed.

That was all he could hope for.

Just as he surged forward, he felt it. A sudden rise in temperature behind him, accompanied by a suffocating scent that carried both heat and something far more unsettling, something that made his stomach turn.

He didn’t look back. He couldn’t afford to.

After the sound that came after the smell, he was even more afraid to turn around.

A sharp, crushing snap of the drake’s jaws had closed where he had been only a moment before.

Ethaniel’s breath caught in his throat. Subconsciously, he used even more mana than he should to speed himself up even more.

He had escaped death again.

But that relief didn’t last, because the crashing behind him only grew louder, more violent, as if the forest itself was being torn apart to keep up with him. That was what forced him to glance back, his eyes searching for any sign of how the drake intended to continue the chase.

He expected the drake to have already closed the distance after everything he had just heard, or at the very least to catch a glimpse of its massive body retreating back through the tree line.

Instead, what he saw made him hesitate. It had stopped moving altogether.

For a brief moment, a thought surfaced. Had it given up?

But that thought didn’t last.

Something about the way it stood there felt wrong, and it was impossible to ignore once he noticed it. Because, despite everything, despite the chaos it had just caused in its pursuit, the drake wasn’t looking at him at all.

Ethaniel should have felt relieved. If something else had drawn its attention, then that only increased his chances of escape.

Yet that relief never came.

Before he could even begin to process what could have possibly distracted a creature like that, a violent gust of wind tore through the forest, strong enough to shake the very air around him and disrupt his flight for a brief moment.

And along with it, another presence. One that was stronger than the drakes.

It appeared suddenly, without warning, and it carried an intent that made his entire body tense.

Ethaniel’s head snapped forward as his instincts forced him to react, his eyes widening as his heart rate spiked uncontrollably.

He recognized Noah in a heartbeat. But instead of recognizing Noah’s newfound aura, or his wings, he was more concerned of what this meant for the others if he was here.