Becoming a Monster

Chapter 624: Chapter 623: We’re Going to Need a Bigger Room

Ailetta’s mana continued fluctuating for a little while longer before finally settling.

Once it did, Noah took the opportunity to properly gauge the extent of her changes.

His instincts had already given him a faint understanding of what happened. His blood had strengthened one of Ailetta’s strongest traits, causing some characteristics that previously only appeared during her transformation to become permanent parts of her body.

More importantly, the transformation itself had grown considerably stronger.

Noah had already experienced that firsthand after accidentally meeting the gaze of the eye within her chest. If one of its abilities had become that much more invasive without Ailetta even transforming, he could only imagine how much stronger it would become once she did.

His thoughts lingered on that possibility for so long that he didn’t immediately notice Ailetta looking back at him.

A beautiful smile had already appeared on her face.

She had caught him staring.

The smile already on her face grew even brighter as she watched his gaze remain fixed upon her, almost as though he had forgotten there were others around them.

Ailetta enjoyed his attention for several moments before an idea seemed to occur to her.

Slime abruptly spread across every portion of her exposed skin again, causing a reaction in Noah’s expression.

It wasn’t much, but the brief sense of loss within his eyes was impossible for Ailetta to miss. Her smile widened even more; only now there was an obvious hint of mischief mixed within it.

“This is for all the times you kept your face away from me.”

Noah stared at her for a moment before understanding exactly what she was referring to.

Ailetta had spent more than enough time looking at the veil of pitch-blackness covering his face whenever she wanted to see him. To see his smile, the way his mouth would twitch when he was agitated, or how his cheeks would rise when he was flustered.

Now that she finally had something Noah couldn’t seem to stop staring at, she clearly intended to make him suffer through the same frustration.

Noah opened his mouth, prepared to point out several reasons why the situations weren’t remotely the same, before deciding against it. Deep down, he felt that her actions were justified. He shouldn’t have his veil up so much when he was only around them.

And judging by the amusement in her voice, defending himself would only encourage her further.

Besides, he still had someone else who demanded his attention.

Eve had consumed his blood at almost the exact same time as Ailetta, yet strangely enough, she still hadn’t shown any obvious signs of changing.

Noah had been observing her throughout Ailetta’s changes, expecting something to happen eventually. Yet even after Ailetta’s mana settled, Eve’s appearance remained exactly the same.

Her mana wasn’t behaving much differently either.

The only noticeable change came from the connection she shared with her guardians.

A small amount of dark crimson mana was continuously leaving Eve’s body through those connections. The amount itself was insignificant compared to her total reserves, yet the potency of that mana immediately drew Noah’s attention.

It was considerably denser than what normally flowed between them.

Noah focused his Nexus Eye upon it, following the dark crimson mana as it left Eve and traveled toward the beings connected to her.

Only then did he begin to understand what was happening.

His blood had strengthened Ailetta’s strongest trait.

If the same principle applied to Eve, it made sense that the most significant changes wouldn’t necessarily occur to her.

Her guardians had always been one of the greatest parts of her strength.

If Noah’s blood was strengthening that aspect of her, then the changes occurring within Eve might have far more to do with her guardians than with her own body.

Judging by Eve’s condition, it would still take some time for her to finish.

Noah continued observing her for a little while longer before deciding there was little reason to remain standing there waiting for an answer.

There was still someone else he needed to deal with.

His gaze finally returned to Pandora.

The dryad had remained nearby throughout everything that happened, her roots still occasionally shifting toward the plants growing from Noah’s body as though resisting the urge to absorb more of the necrotic energy they released.

This time, Noah didn’t intend to stop her.

Before long, he found himself standing directly before Pandora’s true body once again.

More of her roots gathered toward him, while her illusory form finally appeared next to him. Her hand lifted towards the plants on his body, passing through the flower as she tried to touch it.

Pandora had been unusually quiet ever since Noah’s transformation ended.

There were countless things she wanted to understand.

She could feel the energy of a dryad flowing through Noah now. The connection she had always wanted was finally there, and every instinct told her that Noah was just like her now.

Under any other circumstance, Pandora would’ve been completely absorbed by that alone.

Instead, her attention repeatedly returned to the necrotic energy being released around him. The energy was completely different from the life mana she was accustomed to.

Her body craved it more than it did Noah’s blood.

Pandora couldn’t properly explain why she wanted it. She only knew that something deep within her was urging her to absorb as much as she could.

It wasn’t the first time she had experienced something like this.

There had always been moments when knowledge or desires surfaced from somewhere she couldn’t understand, subtly guiding her toward things that felt natural for a dryad to do. For most of her life, Pandora never knew where those instincts came from.

Only after speaking with Gwen did she finally have a possible explanation.

Dryads were supposedly created by the World Tree, with some of its knowledge passed down to them from the moment of their creation. Even their desire to purify the world was believed to originate from the World Tree, all for the sake of creating a world where it could one day awaken again.

Pandora still didn’t completely understand what any of that meant.

She had never seen the World Tree. She didn’t know where it was, why it needed to awaken, or even how purifying the world was supposed to accomplish that.

But if those strange instincts truly came from the World Tree, then Pandora couldn’t help wondering whether this feeling was connected to it as well.

However, this one felt different. The more necrotic energy she sensed flowing from Noah, the more her instincts urged her toward him.

There was no feeling that absorbing it would somehow bring her closer to the World Tree.

Instead, Pandora somehow knew that it would bring her closer to Noah.

Her illusory fingers passed through one of the flowers.

Pandora stared at it for a moment before finally turning toward Noah.

“Can… I have more?”

Noah’s expression softened almost immediately.

It was such a simple request, yet hearing it from Pandora affected him more than she probably realized.

Since becoming connected to him, Pandora had rarely asked him for anything. She was usually content to tend to the forest, help the others, or accept whatever Noah decided to give her.

Now she was standing beside him, openly asking for something she wanted.

A noticeable warmth entered Noah’s expression.

“That was the plan.”

Despite being an illusion, Pandora’s eyes brightened.

At the same time, every flower growing across Noah’s body fully opened, pouring out large amounts of necrotic energy. The mist soon became a dense haze surrounding Noah’s entire body.

It didn’t remain around him for long.

Under his control, the haze flowed toward Pandora. Some gathered around her exposed roots and were quickly absorbed, while the rest descended into the soil toward those buried beneath her.

Noah did not attempt to restrain how much mana he released.

He already knew that what he could provide today wouldn’t be enough to trigger the change his instincts sensed within Pandora. Someone as powerful as her would require an enormous amount of necrotic energy to reach that point, but everything she absorbed now would still bring her closer.

Noah continued observing the process through his Nexus Eye. It was while watching the necrotic energy disappear into her roots that another feeling suddenly emerged.

His attention shifted toward the base of Pandora’s trunk. His instincts were telling him that the necrotic energy wasn’t all he should be giving her during this process.

Without interrupting the flow of mana, Noah drew a small amount of blood from his fingertip and pressed it directly against the base of Pandora’s trunk where it connected with her roots.

The moment it was absorbed, Pandora’s roots tightened around him as they began absorbing the surrounding necrotic energy considerably faster. Visible currents formed throughout the haze as it was drawn into her exposed roots, while even more disappeared into the ground and even into the trunk itself.

Before long, the effects began to show.

The roots wrapped around Noah gradually thickened while the ground created large mounds from their growth. Her trunk soon followed, wood creaking throughout the lair as her already massive body underwent another growth spurt.

Noah slowly raised his gaze, watching as Pandora’s body continued to reach higher. In the process, he watched flowers begin to bloom in the same vicinity as her leaves.

He wanted to watch until her growth finally stopped, but his gaze suddenly snapped when he realized that Pandora was now large enough to endanger Arachne’s eggs.

Strengthening someone’s strongest trait sounds simple until you remember that a person’s strongest trait isn’t necessarily the thing they’re physically strongest at.