Becoming a Monster

Chapter 638: Chapter 637: Blood Given, Blood Returned

Noah hadn’t explained to everyone why he wanted them inside the cave.

Almost immediately after Arachne finished her transformation, he had called for Bolas, Fenrir, Ailetta, and Eve to follow him. Baka was the only exception, having been brought along after Noah specifically instructed Fenrir to retrieve him.

With only a select few of them gathered, there should’ve been more curiosity over what Noah intended to do.

Instead, much of that curiosity had shifted toward Arachne.

Eve was probably the most obvious.

Her eyes continued wandering over the spider Queen as she tried to understand the familiar feeling she was getting from her.

She had felt it from Noah for some time now.

Now she felt it from Arachne too.

Eve didn’t fully understand what that meant. Even if someone explained that Arachne had received Noah’s blood, that wouldn’t have answered her question.

Eve drank Noah’s blood all the time.

Her small fangs unconsciously pressed against her lower lip as her thoughts reached what seemed like the most reasonable conclusion.

Maybe she hadn’t drunk enough?

Fenrir’s thoughts weren’t nearly as innocent.

His attention remained fixed on Arachne for an entirely different reason.

She was now nearly equal to him in strength. And deep down he believed that she might be a bit stronger.

Fenrir had only reclaimed his position as Noah’s strongest creature earlier that same day. For a short time, he had finally been the strongest.

And then Arachne suddenly showed him up again.

Not only had her strength surpassed his own, but Arachne smelled more like Noah than Fenrir did.

Why?

Although he asked that, he already understood why.

It was all because Arachne had been first.

All of Noah’s main creatures knew that when they became his, Noah also shared a skill of his own with them. It just so happened that Arachne received Noah’s strongest one.

If Fenrir had encountered Noah first, then perhaps those traits would’ve belonged to him instead.

Perhaps he would’ve been the one standing there now, holding the high ground with that smug smile.

The thought didn’t make losing his position any less frustrating, but at least Fenrir had found an explanation he was willing to accept.

Bolas was having a much harder time finding one.

For perhaps the first time since joining Noah, the dragon was beginning to understand what it felt like to have actual competition.

Instead of focusing on Arachne, his eyes narrowed slightly before wandering toward Ailetta.

The slime had become increasingly difficult for him to judge. Something was buried underneath the presence she normally revealed. For someone sensitive to mana, he already sensed the holy energy inside her, but something about that energy gave him the uncomfortable feeling that what he sensed wasn’t nearly all she was capable of.

Then there was Fenrir.

Bolas had watched the beast jump an absurd amount in strength from a single fight. What would happen if Fenrir came out of another fight? Would his power instantly rise above his own this time?

The dragon’s confidence in his position wasn’t quite as absolute as he wanted it to be.

At this rate, there was an actual possibility that one of them could surpass him.

Worse, there was a possibility that all three eventually could.

Bolas’s wings shifted uncomfortably against his back.

What good was possessing the strongest and most magnificent wings in existence now if he could no longer confidently boast about being the strongest creature deserving of them?

—

Noah could understand the reasons for the weird atmosphere. He, too, was focused on Arachne’s changes, since he hadn’t had time to appreciate everything.

Only now did he get a proper look at what his bloodline had done for her.

At first glance, the answer didn’t appear to be nearly as much as Noah would’ve expected.

Arachne had changed, but considering she had inherited the bloodline that enabled Noah to become what he is now, one would’ve assumed the physical differences would be far more extreme.

But Noah didn’t find the limited changes too surprising, considering his Fallen bloodline had never had a large impact on how he looked.

Nearly all of his physical traits, both then and now, were the result of the other genes incorporated into his body.

There were only a few physical traits Noah could confidently attribute to his Fallen bloodline.

His eyes were one of them. The Nexus Eye was another, along with the veil that had eventually become such a natural part of him that Noah rarely thought about its existence until recently.

Looking at Arachne now, he was beginning to understand that giving her his bloodline had worked much the same way.

It hadn’t tried to reshape her appearance. What it had done was most likely the same thing it once did for Noah, fundamentally reshaping her soul into that of a true Fallen.

Not the same kind of Fallen Noah could normally create, but a genuine one like himself.

The distinction was important. Every Fallen Noah created was bound to him, but none of them possessed the ability to create more of their own kind.

Arachne did.

Because she already had part of his blood in the past, her traits were already leaning toward what a natural Fallen was capable of, but now those traits had been completed.

It also meant that, unlike the others, Arachne was no longer entirely dependent on Noah to spread that bloodline. If she chose to, she could eventually create Fallen under her rule herself in much the same way Noah had created his.

However, her Fallen couldn’t be compared to Noah’s ability to create Fallen. There were still differences between the two, despite her having his bloodline.

—

Noah was just as interested in seeing how that change had affected her skills, especially her ability to create her Fallen. But for now, he settled his attention on the small but distinctive changes to her appearance.

Her face had changed along with them.

Arachne had always possessed humanoid features, but there had still been something noticeably inhuman about her appearance beyond the additional eyes. Now those features had become more refined, enough that the face surrounding those eyes appeared almost entirely human.

Everything beneath her neck went in the opposite direction.

The hardened slime covering her body hadn’t changed nearly as drastically.

The draconic scales incorporated into her armor were already there before, but they had become noticeably more refined. Their arrangement was cleaner now, overlapping across her body in a way that made the armor appear less rugged and considerably more elegant without diminishing the protection it provided.

It suited Arachne surprisingly well.

Her spider legs retained most of their original appearance. The greatest difference was the green lining their sharpened edges, which had become considerably more vibrant. Against the black and violet making up most of Arachne’s body, those streaks of green stood out without becoming overwhelming.

The abdomen extending behind her had undergone a more noticeable change.

Its armored surface had become denser, with overlapping plates protecting the part of her body responsible for carrying and laying her eggs. Thin seams remained between those plates, and within them, faint traces of green energy slowly pulsed.

The light wasn’t constant. It would brighten slightly before fading again, almost like something deeper within her abdomen was breathing through the gaps in her armor.

Noah didn’t put too much thought into it yet, but he was sure that those green seams were most likely the answer his bloodline came up with to address her ability to make Fallen.

There was also one entirely new addition that Noah wasn’t convinced served any practical purpose.

A dark, cloak-like membrane extended behind Arachne, draping around portions of her body without interfering with the spider legs protruding from her back.

Noah observed it for several seconds before eventually smiling to himself.

It was probably there because Arachne liked it.

He couldn’t sense anything particularly special about the cloak, but through their connection, he could easily feel the satisfaction Arachne experienced whenever it shifted behind her.

Apparently, becoming a genuine Fallen hadn’t done anything to diminish how seriously Arachne took her position as Queen.

If anything, she was more driven to act the role.

There was still time to go over her abilities, but with all the things Noah still had to do, he couldn’t say for certain whether her abilities would stay the same.

So instead, he decided to put it off and begin what he had brought them here for.

—

What Noah told them appeared simple, but what it meant was far from that.

The main reason Noah had brought them there was that, now that many of their bloodlines had changed beyond a simple mutation, it was finally time to upgrade his own bloodlines with theirs.

Bolas’s diluted draconic bloodline had transcended into that of a dragon. Fenrir had finally incorporated the fire seed completely enough for it to become an inherent part of his bloodline.

Ailetta had experienced something similar.

The holy energy she possessed had previously been restricted to her transformation. She could draw it out and temporarily embody those traits, but once the transformation ended, Ailetta returned to being entirely abyssal in nature.

That was no longer the case.

Her recent mutation had finally integrated the holy energy into the foundation of her bloodline. Whatever Ailetta had become, she could no longer be considered purely abyssal. The two opposing natures had somehow become inseparable, with the holy energy becoming just as inherent to her existence as the abyssal nature she had possessed from the beginning.

Profane Abyssalith.

That was the name that came to Noah whenever he tried to put a name to what she had become.

He had no idea if that was what her species was actually called. In truth, Noah had never known the official names of most of the species his creatures became after he altered them. Whenever he was directly responsible for causing such a change, there was simply an instinctive understanding of what they had become, accompanied by a name that felt appropriate enough that he had never thought much about where it came from.

Ailetta was no different.

If anything, Profane Abyssalith described her new existence remarkably well.

The holy energy within her hadn’t purified the abyssal aspects of her bloodline, nor had integrating it suddenly granted Ailetta the abilities normally associated with holy beings. She couldn’t heal others or freely conjure holy energy.

Instead, her abyssal nature had found entirely different uses for it.

Something inherently sacred had become another means through which Ailetta could perform abilities that were anything but.

Regardless of what her species was truly called, the important part remained the same.

All three of them now possessed bloodlines that would allow Noah to make himself even stronger.