Becoming a Monster

Chapter 586: Chapter 585: Ominous Sky

Morning arrived much like every other day.

Yet before anyone resumed their usual routines, there was an unusual gathering in the center of their home.

One after another, every creature found themself lifting their heads toward the sky with solemn expressions, as though the sight above had stirred an instinctive warning deep within them.

Even Bolas had emerged from his secluded cave, his draconic eyes remaining fixed upon the sky without so much as a single word.

Layer after layer of enormous clouds stretched across their vision until not a single patch of blue remained. The sunlight struggled to break through, leaving the entire forest illuminated by a dim gray light that made everything feel strangely lifeless.

It resembled the beginning of a colossal storm. Their sheer scale alone was enough to make the entire forest feel smaller.

And yet, the scale of such clouds felt unnatural for an entirely different reason.

Anyone seeing them would naturally assume a storm was approaching. Yet storms carried a dark, oppressive presence. A presence that these clouds lacked.

Instead, they remained an unnaturally pale gray, covering the entire sky without showing the slightest sign of movement. At least that’s what the clouds gave the illusion of.

It was not the case at all. The clouds were still moving, and yet even after an hour passed, the sky was still smothered in endless heavy clouds.

The longer Noah stared upward, the stronger the uneasy feeling within his chest became.

Without another word, wings spread from his back as he launched himself toward the sky.

Behind him, Arachne immediately followed.

She sprang onto the nearest tree before propelling herself from one towering trunk to another, refusing to let Noah investigate something so strange by himself.

When Noah broke out of the forest, the more surreal the sight became. The clouds literally stretched endlessly in every direction. It was as though the entire world had disappeared beneath an endless sea of clouds.

Only when Noah drew closer could his Nexus Eye reveal a sense of what was happening.

He had already determined that these weren’t ordinary storm clouds.

But he was ready to discover that these clouds were gathering mana.

Countless streams of mana were continuously being drawn upward from every direction before disappearing into the cloud layer itself, where they compressed together over and over again until their density reached levels Noah had never witnessed before.

And with the scale of these clouds covering so much of the world right now, Noah couldn’t imagine how much mana was being drawn.

That in itself wasn’t the issue. What troubled Noah was what would happen after enough mana was absorbed.

If all of this were in preparation for a storm, then this would be catastrophic.

—

Noah remained suspended in the air for several moments, allowing his Nexus Eye to continue examining the clouds. He wondered if there was something... or someone behind it. Like a deity or special entity hiding within the clouds.

But unlike creatures, he couldn’t "see" anything from them. No matter how closely he observed them, the result of that never changed.

The thought of flying through the clouds to reach the other side crossed his mind. Just because he couldn’t see what was causing it from here didn’t automatically mean there wasn’t a hand behind this.

After another moment, Noah slowly folded his wings before descending back toward the ground.

The moment his feet touched the ground, countless eyes immediately turned toward him. Everyone was waiting for an answer.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have one. The only new information he had was the fact that the clouds were gathering mana.

Noah’s gaze soon fell upon Bolas. If anyone here possessed knowledge about this unknown phenomenon of this world, it would be him.

"Bolas, have you ever seen anything like this before?"

When asked, the drake didn’t say anything immediately. His eyes returned to the sky, glaring as he searched through his memories.

Eventually, he shook his head.

"I have witnessed storms capable of swallowing entire mountain ranges. Almost infinite rain and brutal winds in this very forest that threatened to tear it apart."

"But..."

"I have never seen a sky as obscured as this one."

"However, if it is as you say, that the sky itself is drawing in mana, it makes sense why I feel a hint of fear looking at it."

His answer didn’t bring the comfort that they were hoping for. If even he couldn’t explain what was happening, then whatever was happening could perhaps be labeled as the first event to ever happen in this world.

Noah quietly looked back up. Without anything to go off of, there was little else they could do besides prepare for the worst.

"I wonder if this has something to do with our worlds merging..." he said after a moment.

His words caused the territory to quietly fall into thought.

Ever since finding a place to call home, everyone had gradually grown accustomed to living within this world.

Only now did they realize how little they had thought about the world they had left behind.

No... How little they had thought about the fact that this wasn’t originally one world at all.

While everyone was entertaining their own thoughts, an unexpected sound drew everyone’s attention.

Gwen stiffened the moment she realized every pair of eyes had settled upon her.

A faint blush quickly spread across her face.

She hadn’t meant to interrupt everyone. But the enlightenment was so groundbreaking that the shock escaped her before she had the chance to stop it.

Under everyone’s gaze, Gwen instinctively lowered her head, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

"I... I just remembered something, something that might help..."

She hesitated for a moment before continuing.

"First... I want to clarify th- that I didn’t know any of you came from another world until now."

Her eyes slowly drifted toward Noah.

"When I was still in Ashenveil, I heard stories about humans suddenly appearing out of nowhere. After leaving the city, I even saw that enormous structure standing between here and Ashenveil that the humans called a mall."

"I knew humans had appeared from another world... Yet I never once considered what that actually meant."

Gwen quietly shook her head.

"Looking back... I should have."

"There was a prophecy, a prophecy my homeland has protected for generations. It talks about a day when the world will finally become one."

"It also says that when that day finally arrives... The World Tree will awaken."

She looked up instinctively, expecting them to be shocked. However, besides the gleam in Noah’s eyes, the rest didn’t show a semblance of acknowledgment of how profound the prophecy was.

It was only because they were still listening so intently that she pressed on.

"No one remembers where that prophecy came from anymore."

"It has existed for so long that most of us gradually forgot that it existed."

"The reason I left home was because of this. I believed I understood what that prophecy meant, and I aimed to help fulfill it since no one else dared to."

A faint, self-conscious smile appeared across her face.

"I thought ’the world becoming one’ referred to the people living within it."

"I believed that one day every nation would put aside their differences and work together to restore nature."

"That if we healed the forests... the sea, and the land itself..."

"The world would eventually return to how it once was."

"It would be pure, beautiful... in other words, complete."

She slowly lowered her eyes. Without being aware, her hands clasped together against her chest to comfort herself.

"I devoted my entire life to that belief."

"But now..."

She looked back toward the endless clouds overhead.

"I don’t think I understood the prophecy at all."

"If your world truly merged with ours, then maybe ’the world becoming one’ was never about the people living in it. Maybe it was something that was never possible to achieve with our own hands."

Her breathing quietly slowed as the thought continued taking shape inside her own mind.

"Maybe... it was talking about the worlds themselves."

She slowly looked toward Noah again.

"If your world has already merged with ours, then maybe it won’t be the last."

"And only when all the worlds become one will the prophecy finally be fulfilled."

Even as the words left her mouth, Gwen struggled to believe what she had just said.

For years, she had devoted herself to a dream she believed would one day restore the world.

She had left behind her home, her people, and everything she had ever known because she believed she understood what that prophecy meant.

Now...

She wasn’t so sure anymore.

It wasn’t that the prophecy had been false.

It was that she may have spent years chasing the wrong meaning behind it.

Even if she had understood the prophecy correctly from the very beginning. What could she have possibly done?

She couldn’t make another world merge with this one.

No matter how desperately she wished for it, or how many people she convinced to protect nature.

Nothing she did would’ve brought that day any closer.

The prophecy would’ve continued toward that future with or without her.

The thought left her feeling strangely empty. She became a monster... lost her freedom... for a false belief?

If this truly was what the prophecy had always meant, then what had any of those sacrifices actually accomplished?