Becoming a Monster

Chapter 636: Chapter 635: Today Dirt, Tomorrow the World

Morvyr knew exactly how some of the other demons would react.

A devil appearing after countless generations wouldn’t inspire reverence in everyone. For the wrong demon, it would merely present an opportunity that might never appear again.

They would see the power behind his blood, the strange abilities he possessed, and everything else that separated him from the demons of this world.

Then they would begin wondering how they could obtain those things for themselves.

Some would attempt to capture Noah if they believed themselves capable. Others might try stealing his blood or taking pieces of his body, hoping to discover for themselves what made a devil so different from the demons of this world.

And if they ever learned what Morvyr now knew about his blood, their greed would only become worse.

Morvyr would never consider doing something like that himself. Even before witnessing what Noah’s blood was capable of, his reverence toward devil’s legends would’ve made the thought nearly unthinkable.

Maybe if Morvyr never accepted Noah’s identity as a devil, then his opinion would’ve been different. But a devil was supposed to represent the new era for demons. The true enemies of angels and their god.

The opportunities a devil would bring to demonkind were too valuable to let another demon destroy.

And Noah had willingly allowed Morvyr to witness exactly how valuable that opportunity could be.

That was what Morvyr couldn’t understand. What was the devil trying to tell him?

Was this meant to show me what he could grant me if I performed well? Or was he showing me that only those loyal to him could receive his blessing?

Morvyr’s gaze shifted towards the goblins, who even now were isolated from the others as they worked.

Morvyr had already noticed how weak the others were, but after observing them for so long, their behavior stood out just as much. They were far more skittish than Noah’s other creatures, and there was still a noticeable amount of fear in the way some of them reacted to those around them.

Either the goblins were recent additions to his forces, or they had yet to earn enough of Noah’s trust to be treated the same as the others.

There was even the possibility that the devil just didn’t see potential in them to waste his blood.

But Morvyr doubted that thought.

He’s seen the way the devil addresses his subordinates and witnessed, on many separate occasions already, the devil caring for them all.

There had to be another requirement. And Morvyr was almost certain that it all had to do with trust.

It made the elf feel a sense of hope. Possibly obtaining his blood wasn’t impossible; he had to earn the right to receive it.

—

Time proceeded rather quickly until the moon shone brightly over the trees.

The work Noah had set out to accomplish, originally believing that it would take until sometime tomorrow, was nearly completed in one sitting.

Their recent growth had a lot to do with that.

Almost every creature working throughout the territory possessed more strength and stamina than before. They could accomplish more with every task while continuing to work for much longer before exhaustion forced them to rest.

But there were a select few whose changes sped up the process far more than Noah had expected.

Digger was the first.

The armored dog, whose appearance was becoming more and more like a monstrous armadillo, had always been particularly useful whenever they needed to alter the terrain. Before, he could break apart and loosen large portions of compacted ground with relative ease.

Now, the scale of what he could accomplish had increased considerably.

Digger only needed to position himself over the area they wanted excavated before his ability spread beneath him. The compacted earth immediately began breaking apart, loosening everything nearly three meters below the surface and another two meters around his body.

Seconds later, the ground collapsed in on itself.

Normally, that would’ve only created another problem. All the dirt Digger loosened still needed to be removed before they could continue digging deeper.

Fortunately, Dummy had developed an increasing obsession with eating dirt.

The beast followed closely behind Digger throughout most of the night, treating every section of collapsed earth as though Digger had personally prepared his next meal.

After consuming so much earth that it had become one of his retained essences, Dummy had apparently developed a new way to make feeding considerably easier.

The enormous mouth stretching across his torso opened wide before Dummy took in a deep breath.

Immediately, the loose dirt surrounding him began to move.

At first, only the lighter pieces were pulled from the ground. Then the force rapidly intensified until entire clumps of loosened earth were dragged along with them, breaking apart as everything rushed toward the enormous mouth across Dummy’s torso.

Within moments, most of the collapsed ground had disappeared into his stomach.

Then he followed Digger toward the next section.

Noah didn’t know whether he should’ve been impressed or concerned that the two had unintentionally developed such an efficient system.

More importantly, Dummy wasn’t simply eating because Noah needed the dirt removed.

The beast genuinely wanted it.

If anything, Noah occasionally had to make sure Dummy waited for Digger to finish before shoving his face into the ground and trying to help.

With the two working together, Bolas no longer needed to help them excavate the moat.

That allowed the dragon to return to the small lake instead. He still needed to be made considerably deeper, and with Bolas handling that on his own, Noah expected the rest of his creatures would have more than enough work between finishing the moat and reinforcing everything they had already built.

He was wrong.

There was still one more unexpected helper who made so much progress that, before long, most of the other creatures barely had anything left to do.

Nearly a hundred slimes were writhing throughout different sections of the moat, greedily eating away at the exposed earth while the constant chattering of their mouths filled the trenches.

Unlike Digger, they didn’t need the ground loosened beforehand. Even the most compacted earth offered practically no resistance as their mouths continued biting through it.

If anything, the slimes seemed to be enjoying themselves.

They were finally being allowed to perform the exact function they had originally been created for.

To devour.

Noah had already noticed since the time their world had merged with this one that even the dirt contained mana.

The amount was small, but it was there. Considering that the earth was capable of nourishing vegetation and supporting the growth of plants that absorbed mana themselves, Noah wasn’t too surprised.

What interested him more was that the slimes weren’t only absorbing the mana. Everything they consumed was being broken down.

The dirt, small stones, and practically any other material entering their bodies were gradually dissolved until whatever could be extracted from them was converted into mana and essence.

It was just that dirt itself barely provided anything useful.

Once the small amount of mana was taken into account, the remaining material produced such a negligible amount of essence that normally, Ailetta would gain almost nothing from consuming it.

That didn’t matter nearly as much to Ailetta.

A single slime eating dirt wouldn’t accomplish much, but there were nearly a hundred of them constantly devouring the ground.

Whenever the energy maintaining one of their bodies began running low, the slime would retreat from the moat and return to Ailetta before it could break down.

Everything it had accumulated went with it.

The mana it consumed, along with the essence extracted from everything else, would be absorbed back into Ailetta before another slime eventually took its place.

Only by talking with her did Noah gain a rough understanding of how much she was receiving.

Fifty tons of dirt amounted to roughly the same benefit as consuming a single goblin.

At first, that hardly sounded impressive.

The amount of material Ailetta needed to consume for such a small return made the process seem horribly inefficient.

But the longer Noah thought about it, the less insignificant that amount became.

There was a lot more dirt in the world than there were goblins.

And dirt was only one example.

That realization brought Noah’s thoughts back to the being responsible for creating Ailetta.

For perhaps the first time, he gained a relative understanding of why something like that had been locked away.

Noah still knew almost nothing about where that being originated from. It could’ve been another planet, another realm, or somewhere completely different from either.

But if its ability to devour worked anything like Ailetta’s, then the individual value of what it consumed barely mattered.

Fifty tons of dirt might only equate to a single goblin, but even that was insignificant compared to the sheer amount of earth contained within a mountain.

An entire continent contained an amount Noah couldn’t reasonably comprehend.

And if that being had truly consumed most of whatever planet or realm it originated from, then all of those insignificant amounts would’ve accumulated into something astronomical.

Especially when dirt would’ve been among the least valuable things it consumed.

If almost everything could eventually be broken down into something useful, then there was very little that could truly be considered worthless to a creature capable of devouring on that scale.

The same possibility existed for Ailetta.

If she truly wanted to become the strongest existence, then technically there was already a straightforward path available to her.

She could try devouring everything.