Becoming a Monster

It didn’t take long for the effects of Noah’s blood to begin showing.

One after another, the creatures began to twitch as their bodies reacted to the changes.

Mana fluctuated among so many different creatures; thankfully, most of their reactions were far more subdued compared to the first time they obtained Noah’s blood.

Many of them didn’t experience any drastic physical transformations like Noah’s main creatures.

Their bodies grew stronger, but for many, the changes were in their individual skills, experiencing a much greater improvement.

A clear example was Arachne’s spiders.

Their mutations were relatively easy to follow.

All the regular spider soldiers grew only a few inches. Their exoskeletons became harder and their physical capabilities improved, but neither improvement was significant enough to drastically alter their appearances.

Their webs were another matter.

Not only had the strength and speed of their webs increased, but they all took on variations of what they were capable of before.

One group could now release webs shot out in different shapes.

Then there was the other group whose webs no longer had to travel in a completely straight path. Their control over them was still limited, but their webs could be directed after being shot.

Another spider managed to spread its web farther apart after releasing it, only to pull the strands closer together again before they landed.

And then there was the special variant that was blind. The spider developed an ability that had nothing to do with strength. Instead, the webs that it had contact with could release a high-frequency vibration that all other spiders could hear. Now, if an invader touched the webs, the others would be instantly alerted to where the source was coming from.

Similar developments were occurring throughout them all.

Noah had noticed something particular about the groups that had mainly improved their skills rather than undergoing another drastic physical change.

Those same creatures are the ones who, after first receiving his blood, had barely experienced an exaggerated physical mutation to begin with.

Noah wasn’t disappointed with this outcome at all.

Maybe he would’ve been at first.

At one point, Noah believed that it didn’t matter what species a creature belonged to. As long as they kept evolving, eventually every creature should have the opportunity to become equally powerful.

He still believed that to an extent.

However, he also accepted that life wasn’t fair.

A mortal couldn’t break the limits of mortality and become a god without something greater interfering in the process. Whether that came from a god-like entity, a god-like bloodline that already resided in them, or at the bare minimum, a catalyst capable of pushing them beyond those limits.

The same applied to his creatures.

None of his creatures could break the limits of their bloodline unless their bloodline withheld the genes of a powerful being.

The only reason relatively ordinary creatures like the cats, dogs, and even Arachne’s spiders could become remotely as powerful as they were now was that their bloodlines were no longer ordinary.

Every mutation had changed them.

What started as the bloodline of an ordinary animal gradually became a mutated version of its former self. That new bloodline possessed greater potential than the one before it, which meant every future mutation had something stronger to build upon.

But that still wasn’t enough to immediately bridge the gap between them and creatures that had started with a much stronger foundation.

Bolas was a perfect example.

The drake already possessed traces of a true dragon within his bloodline.

Those traces were incredibly thin. The true dragon genes had been diluted across his ancestry until they represented only a minuscule portion of what Bolas actually was.

But they were still there.

And that alone gave his blood something that the ordinary creatures didn’t originally possess.

Noah’s blood couldn’t create that potential from nothing.

It merely drew out a portion of the potential belonging to the strongest genes already present within a creature. Any mutation that followed still depended on what was there for his blood to work with.

That was why creatures like Bolas could experience much greater mutations than one of the ordinary cats after receiving the exact same blood.

His starting point was simply higher.

Noah’s blood couldn’t directly allow an ordinary creature to ignore the limits of what it was. But just as a mortal would need the interference of a god-like catalyst to surpass its genetic limits, Noah’s ability to turn them into Fallens became that interference.

Most of the creatures experiencing the more subdued mutations were the ones who had either started with relatively ordinary bloodlines or had yet to become one of his Fallen.

Their changes were all relatively similar to what Noah had witnessed from the spiders. Most received an increase to their physical capabilities, while one of their main traits or abilities experienced either a mutation or a considerable increase in power.

Alexandria and Dog were both a part of that group.

Alexandria grew a few inches larger than before, while she and her shadow now gained the ability that when they attack a person’s shadow, the damage would then be transferred to the user.

Dog experienced a slightly greater physical transformation.

His body grew larger, while the joints in his arms and legs gradually adjusted to make walking on two feet feel almost as natural as remaining on all fours.

His aura experienced an even greater improvement.

Before, its healing effects had been limited primarily to physical injuries suffered by those connected to him. Now, that same aura could affect more than damaged flesh. Poisons, diseases, and other ailments could gradually be weakened and healed.

Out of that same group, Meat was one of the few creatures who had yet to become Fallen but still experienced a significant physical mutation.

His body grew considerably more durable, with his already thick hide becoming even harder to damage.

More importantly, the third head that had only partially formed during his previous mutation finally finished developing.

Yet that was practically the extent of his changes.

Compared to Alexandria and Dog, Meat’s mutation was much more drastic physically, but there was little improvement to his abilities outside of what naturally came from possessing another head.

The difference between his creatures became much more apparent when Noah turned his attention toward those who had already become his Fallen.

Dummy was one of the easiest examples.

The beast had consumed so many things since becoming a Fallen, and it appeared as though all of that had been building within him until now.

Dummy’s body probably experienced the most extreme change out of them all.

Although his appearance remained relatively similar as before, the beast’s constant contortions throughout his transformation, along with his painfully loud grunts, showed just how much agony the transition caused him.

Dummy’s transformation reminded Noah of his own when he first acquired his chimera trait. Having all of his bones, muscles, and blood broken down and replaced was a sensation he would never forget.

However, the end result of Dummy’s transformation was proof that the more painful it was, the greater the benefits.

All the bloodlines Dummy had devoured seemed to finally show small, permanent traits within him. His regeneration became even stronger after all the trolls he had eaten; his blood became more adaptable to foreign substances from the goblins; and after consuming so many undead, he could remain functional even after losing enough blood to normally incapacitate him.

Each of these traits wasn’t nearly as effective as they initially seemed. Dummy hadn’t suddenly gained the regeneration of a troll or the "immortality" of an undead.

But as long as he continued consuming those creatures, the traits would continue growing stronger while giving his body the opportunity to incorporate even more from their bloodlines.

What amazed Noah the most was that Dummy’s ability had no specified limit.

And it wasn’t restricted to living creatures either.

Almost anything Dummy could consume had the possibility of becoming a part of him as long as he consumed enough.

In addition, Dummy could now retain an additional essence.

The only downside was that Noah had learned long ago that he couldn’t control what Dummy decided to keep. Currently, the beast was enjoying eating so much dirt that it replaced one of its essences with the earth.

At least his mutation had made that habit considerably less problematic, while at the same time, he was now able to benefit even more from those essences.

Observing Dummy’s new traits, Noah noted that this was the difference between a creature with an ordinary bloodline and one whose bloodline had transcended its previous limits after becoming a Fallen.

And Dummy wasn’t the only one proving that difference.

When Noah checked on the others, every Fallen creature was undergoing a much greater change compared to what they had experienced from his blood before.

Thankfully, all of those transformations remained relatively contained.

Their mana continued to spike as their transformations progressed, sometimes enough to make the air around them tremble, but nothing showed any signs of going out of control.

Even as their transformations neared their end, the combined disturbance from all of them was still minor compared to what Noah had caused during his own transformation.

At least, that was the case until someone managed to create a disturbance all on their own.

"AHA! HAHAAAHA!"