Becoming a Monster

Chapter 637: Chapter 636: More Than One Devil

Noah doubted he would ever have to worry about waking up one day to discover that Ailetta had decided to start eating the planet.

At least, he hoped not.

For now, her ability was considerably more useful for something much less destructive.

The slimes had alleviated a large amount of work for everyone else.

Noah only wished something like this had been possible before.

Unfortunately, Ailetta had always possessed enough slimes to help with the work. The problem was that those slimes hadn’t possessed enough awareness to understand exactly how they were supposed to help.

Before her recent transformation, ordering them to excavate the moat would’ve been asking for trouble.

They understood how to devour.

They didn’t understand what they weren’t supposed to devour.

Every root would’ve been treated no differently from the dirt surrounding it. Noah could’ve easily imagined giving them an area to excavate, only to return and discover that they had eaten through half of Pandora’s or the surrounding tree’s root system along the way.

Now, that was no longer a problem.

The increase in awareness that Ailetta’s transformation granted her creations allowed the slimes to follow much more complicated instructions.

Whenever they encountered a tree’s roots, their mouths moved around it before continuing. Once they reached the depth Noah wanted, they stopped eating downward and simply moved somewhere else.

It seemed like such a simple improvement compared to the extreme changes some of his other creatures had undergone.

Yet as Noah looked over the territory and realized how little work was actually left for them to finish, he couldn’t deny how much of a difference it had made.

—

There was only one preparation left that Noah still had to finish.

The creatures inhabiting the outer layer of his territory still needed better shelter before the storm arrived.

But Noah wasn’t worried about leaving that responsibility to Pandora.

Unlike everyone else, Pandora was already committed to improving the outer territory before Noah even asked.

It also helped that the dryad didn’t need to sleep, and after her recent growth, even her cognitive abilities had improved considerably. Noah had already explained what he wanted.

By the time the storm arrived, he trusted that Pandora would make sure the creatures outside had somewhere secure enough to endure it.

That left everyone free to do as they pleased for the remainder of the night.

Morvyr should’ve taken that opportunity to rest.

Instead, the elf sat under the moonlight, absorbing the ambient mana while trying to convince himself that choosing to remain inside Noah’s territory had been the right decision.

He had debated the choice longer than he cared to admit.

Offering to make camp outside would’ve been another small gesture of sincerity toward the devil. Morvyr was a guest within Noah’s territory, but that didn’t mean he wanted to take advantage of the hospitality being shown to him, especially after already asking for something as valuable as the devil’s blood.

The problem was the dungeon.

Even now, Morvyr could feel the difference after spending so much time inside. His body had benefited from the environment, and willingly leaving it meant giving up several hours he could’ve spent absorbing the unusually dense mana.

In the end, his own desires won.

After failing to obtain the devil’s blood, Morvyr couldn’t bring himself to willingly give up another opportunity that could help him grow stronger.

He could only convince himself that remaining inside wasn’t necessarily a bad decision. Noah had already allowed them to stay, and refusing that generosity purely for the sake of appearing sincere could just as easily be seen as unnecessary.

Yet despite getting what he wanted, Morvyr still couldn’t relax.

A frown remained on his face as his attention continued drifting toward one particular location.

Bolas’s cave sat across from him.

Or at least, Morvyr knew the cave was still there.

The entrance had been completely sealed by a dense wall of roots, woven so tightly together that Morvyr couldn’t see even the slightest glimpse of what was happening inside.

There was nothing particularly suspicious about the devil wanting privacy.

What bothered Morvyr was who Noah had taken inside.

The devil had gathered nearly all of his strongest subordinates before entering the cave. Those who hadn’t accompanied him were stationed outside, guarding the entrance.

Morvyr had absolutely no idea what Noah was doing.

He wasn’t foolish enough to believe the devil was secretly preparing to betray him. If Noah wanted Morvyr and his elves dead, there had already been countless opportunities to accomplish that without going through this much trouble.

That wasn’t what made him anxious.

Morvyr had already witnessed what happened when Noah gathered his creatures together and gave each of them a single drop of blood.

Now the devil had taken only his strongest subordinates somewhere no one else was permitted to see.

Whatever Noah was preparing to do inside that cave, Morvyr had an uncomfortable feeling that the blood ritual he witnessed earlier was about to seem considerably less important and even more extravagant by comparison.

He desperately wanted to see.

But that curiosity was accompanied by an equally strong sense of trepidation.

If the devil possessed ways of making his creatures even more powerful than what Morvyr had just witnessed from his blood, then what would happen if Noah eventually decided that he didn’t agree with how demons had used his kind?

Even worse, what would happen when some of the less agreeable demons inevitably made an enemy out of him?

Morvyr could only hope that the devil wasn’t actually making his strongest subordinates even more powerful.

But he was already doubtful.

Especially after seeing the devil’s lover emerge from his lair before accompanying him into the cave.

Morvyr had always known there was something unique about the spider. He could sense the connection she shared with Noah, but that wasn’t unusual anymore. Nearly all of the devil’s strongest subordinates possessed some form of connection to him.

What Morvyr sensed from her now was entirely different.

During the short time she remained outside, Arachne possessed the exact same aura as Noah.

An aura wasn’t simply the mana surrounding someone’s body. It held qualities that revealed something about the being it belonged to. Once someone became familiar enough with those qualities, certain things became almost impossible to mistake.

A demon’s aura was one example.

Morvyr didn’t need to know a demon’s species or bloodline to recognize one as a demon. In much the same way, humans who devoted themselves deeply enough to their gods could carry traces of that divinity within their aura, making their allegiance apparent before they ever spoke a word.

Noah possessed something equally distinct.

Morvyr had never encountered it before meeting the devil, but after spending so much time around him, there was no possibility of mistaking that aura for anything else.

And now Arachne possessed it too.

Not something similar because of their connection. Not traces of Noah’s aura mixed within her own.

Her aura had fundamentally changed.

That shouldn’t have been possible unless the spider herself had somehow become the same type of existence as Noah.

A devil.

More importantly, she hadn’t possessed that aura when Morvyr saw her before.

Whatever happened inside Noah’s lair had changed her so drastically that Morvyr’s instincts now reacted to Arachne almost exactly as they did toward Noah.

This was more groundbreaking than anything he had discovered thus far.

Forget attacking the city. If the devil could make other devils, wouldn’t it be in their best interest to guarantee that nothing happened to him?

Morvyr was determined to make sure the Queen understood the importance of what he had discovered, but he would have to be extremely careful with how he approached it.

His Queen was benevolent, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t prideful. One needed pride to be a demon, and an even greater amount of arrogance to stand as one of the Demon King’s generals.

Morvyr understood that well enough to know where his own authority ended.

He could report what he knew.

Nothing more.

It wasn’t his place to tell Her Majesty that protecting the devil was in their best interest. He couldn’t suggest that their priorities should change because of what he had discovered, nor could he deliberately word his report in a way that pushed her toward the decision he personally wanted her to make.

Even attempting to insinuate such a thing could be taken as Morvyr believing he knew better than his Queen.

Ultimately, whatever Her Majesty decided after hearing his report was entirely up to her.

Morvyr would accept that decision regardless of what it was.

But that didn’t stop him from worrying.

Because privately, his own thoughts had already changed considerably.

The attack on Ashenveil had seemed far more important before Morvyr learned just how much could potentially be lost in the process.

—

Inside the cave, no one was concerned with Morvyr’s worries.

Their attention was entirely focused on Arachne.

She had indeed changed.

After inheriting Noah’s current bloodline, there was very little separating what Arachne had become from whatever Noah eventually decided to call himself.

The queen stood, seemingly content to bask in their stares.

Not only was she now the one most similar to Noah, but she could also be said to be as strong as Bolas.

And that was only for now.

Because that was entirely the reason why they all were here.

Noah still had to make the last preparations.

And one of them involved making Arachne even stronger.