Becoming a Monster

"Haa…you're just a kid throwing a jealous tantrum. When you grow up you'll realize that you will never amount to anything."

Ailetta has been slowly changing, but that could also be said about everyone else who were adapting to the changes happening around them.

Jasmine herself has witnessed how the world had changed her brother to such a degree, to the point that she was constantly reflecting on what actions to proceed with when dealing with him. She just wasn't prepared for the quirky girl that would always smile and say the most random things to make such a drastic change too.

What she said was enough to shock the others, but the impact it had on Mark was another thing entirely.

Ever since he obtained his unique skill, any sign of weakness has become his own worst enemy. In any event in history, movies or books, history would always have legends of heroes, but those stories usually always symbolized their hero's as one individual and that individual trumped everyone else. Either in terms of strength, charisma or potential, they were always a cut above the rest.

Mark was more than stable when he first obtained the skill, when he felt that he was literally a cut above the rest, when he felt that he was the chosen one, the one to lead everyone out of this hell.

But his pride suffered blow after blow after the repeated interactions with Noah. The first time, Mark still believed he was superior, that even though Noah killed an enormous amount of zombies than he did earlier, he could still best him in a fight with his unique skills.

But the next time he saw him, he realized that Noah was developing a lot faster than he was. And that was when his mental state began to shift. He became more obnoxious and controlling, with the need to prove himself even more, without a boost to his ego, his pride was only going to continue to become more fragile.

And when he felt that the goal that he set for himself, the goal that he needed to surpass to reclaim all of his diminished pride was almost completely out of his reach. He became livid hearing Ailetta insult him, targeting his Achilles heel. She could've talked about him having a small third leg, or that no one ever loved him, but talking about his inferiority to the person who made him feel the most inferior was his bottom line.

Heavy breathing could be heard coming from both his mouth and nose. It was barely noticeable at first since everyone's focus was more on Ailetta, but Ailetta's eyes were never taken off of him from the start. The mocking eyes she had before had changed solemnly and that change of her expression made everyone pick up on the emotional changes Mark was going through.

What followed after his heavy breaths was the intense trembling of his body as he was being overcome with anger. He wasn't able to talk, not while he was gritting his teeth in frustration. Just insulting her back wouldn't be enough for him at this point. Suddenly his body flinched as his eyes instinctively went to the source of his reaction. The window of the room Noah was presently in was still broken and his silhouette could be seen in the dark unlit room. He knew it was Noah from those monstrous purple eyes of his.

At first, the anger within him was about to reside just from the gradual fear he's built up from the interactions he's had with Noah. However his anger flared up even more when he noticed that those eyes that seemed to pierce into his soul weren't even looking in his direction or their direction at all.

This riled him up to the point that he couldn't take it anymore. If at first he wanted to hurt Ailetta for what she said, now he wanted to do so much more since that would be his way of getting back at Noah who seemed to be out of his reach.

"Ma-Mark?" Jasmine hesitated to question him when she saw the erratic state he was in. She has always felt a fear in the back of her mind towards her own brother since his change, but the fear she had now was incomparable to those feelings before. She wasn't sure how he would react now that he seemed to be consumed with anger.

Her first instinct was to jump in front of Ailetta to protect her, before looking to the others for help. She believed that the first thing she should do was to physically stop him before trying to reason with him. She just hoped that it didn't go that far.

Thud!*

While all of this was occurring, for some reason one of the priests that followed Mark and his group fell over without any forewarning. Before that, there was a sound, but it was barely noticeable that it went unheeded when they all had more important things to worry about.

"Ia-Ian?" One of the females that followed them bent over to observe his body.

Suddenly she shrieked at the top of her lungs when she noticed the surrounding grass being soaked in blood and a horrible smell exploded into her nose. The lower section of his torso was almost split in half, cutting open his bladder, the smell blasting the girl in the face.

The earlier death of Ian wasn't enough to distract Mark from what he wanted to do, but the grating sound of the girl's screams caused him to focus on the scene coming from behind him.

Before he turned around, the scream ended abruptly and another thud was heard and then another. The people that stood by them were falling quirkily.

"Mark, get away!"

"Everyone, run towards the do-No! Blake!"

Mark didn't stop to turn to see what was going on behind him, not only was he naturally curious, but he wanted to blow off the steam he built up. But when he saw the culprit, the hairs on his body stood up and his eyes widened in panic.

The zombie that grew tentacles from her body had finally found them!

They may have lost her in the beginning, but they weren't aware that when Noah chased the ant away from the dorm, their confrontation had alerted the zombie to the area of their fight. And not too much later their lack of vigilance and excessive yelling was the final touch that led her to where they are now.

The zombie was also the reason for Noah's lack of attention to the events going on below him. He still remembered the zombie that was impervious to bullets and was the reason he wanted to hasten his growth. He was trying to formulate his options if he was to engage the creature now that both of his creatures were incapable of battle.

He thought that maybe the skill scroll he had received from a long time ago could help him, but it turned out to be a summoner skill, even though he could still use other skills, the summoner skills relied on having a summon as the catalyst to perform the spells so it was unusable for him.

His gaze was grave while his mind continued to process his other options while at the same time he continued to observe the zombie. He really wondered if he could contend with the zombie by himself now that he has awakened. However he couldn't help but feel helpless at the same time when most of his skills all relied on his monsters.

'I either need to tame another creature for occasions like this or get more skills…but what do I need to evolve my skill?' He went to check his requirements for the monster taming skill. He was never in a rush to check the requirements of his other skills before since it seemed that even without fulfilling them he was still able to reach the point to upgrade them. He thought it would be the same with this skill as well, but it stayed stuck at 75%.

[Monster Taming Lvl 0 progression requirements:

Defeat 250 enemies purely with tamed creatures-416/250

Tame two monsters-2/2

Have two tier one monsters-1/2]

Seeing the last requirement he needed wasn't enough to provide him any comfort in fighting the zombie before him, but it was a hidden trigger to make him desire to fight the zombie at all cost now so he could use the zombie to finally allow Arachne to level up and she could evolve too.

He jumped down from the window again, but he wasn't going to engage the creature, not just yet. He would use the people here to get accustomed to the speed of the tentacle that was even harder to see with only the light of the moon to brighten the courtyard.

He saw how Blake, the one that followed Bailey and also was a monster tamer himself died tragically and pathetically without having a chance to fight back. Without his squirrel, he wasn't capable of fighting most monsters on his own. The squirrel that always stood beside him at first attempted to dodge the tentacles, but after the death of Blake, it fell over abruptly and began to spasm all over.

Ding ding ding*

Following Blake's death, Paul and Ibby would've been next if he hadn't adorned his skill to block the tentacles from skewering them both like the rest, but the tentacles collided with such force and speed that it threw them forward, crashing into the building's wall.

Bailey was too traumatized to function correctly when she saw Blake die so quickly, but the scene of Paul being thrown with ibby into the wall behind her awakened her from her state of emotional damage to help her companions.

During this time, two more people fell to the tentacles approaching at insane speeds.

And soon a tentacle was approaching Mark.

"Arrrgh!" Mark yelled with his heart in soul, splurging his mana to increase his agility to dodge the approaching tentacle.

The speed of the attack was too fast for Jasmine to follow, but after she realized what happened, the fear in her heart intensified. Just a few moments ago she was afraid of losing her brother to Noah and now she almost lost him completely. She was immensely relieved to see her brother dodge death by a hair.

"Mark, we need to retreat! Only Noah can fight it right now! Please come back!" She screamed, her chaotic mind not realizing that what she did was far from helping.

Mark was already planning to run as soon as he saw who the attacker was. After dodging the attack, his ego became satisfied enough that he was ready to leave right after. He was preparing to turn to run to safety, but then the words of his sister followed, 'only Noah, only Noah'. Was all he could hear, that made him stop in his tracks. He looked towards Noah and saw that Ailetta was standing near him with a fearful expression on his face while Noah, in Mark's opinion, was paralyzed with fear.

He felt betrayed by his sister once more, thinking that she would depend on a stranger more than her own brother. When he saw the fear in Ailetta's eyes, Mark began to believe that even Ailetta didn't have confidence in Noah, but for some reason his sister did?

'I'll show them all…'

He turned towards the direction of the zombie.

"Jas, I'll show you that you shouldn't keep looking down on me!" He lifted his sword and without hesitation, he charged ahead.

....

A/N: I just want to give everyone a heads up that their won't be any chapters for the weekend. This, work and life is just living me a little burnt out so I'll be using this weekend to relax.