Chapter 382: Unrecognisable

Elara and Kaela finally arrived to quite the sight.

They had rushed over as fast as they could, hearing and sensing the insanity taking place across the Gate, but what they found left them lost for words.

Mark was almost unrecognisable.

Physically, he was still roughly the same as the man they knew, but somehow, he looked even more monstrous than he had during his previous rampage in that gigantic form. There was something fundamentally different about him now, and the most noticeable part was his eyes.

They were completely void-black.

There was no visible iris or pupil, only an endless darkness that made it difficult to maintain eye contact with him for more than a few seconds. He stood silently over the enormous corpse of a monster he definitely shouldn’t have been able to defeat, while staring at them blankly.

One that even they would struggle to take down.

And yet, he was completely unscathed.

Whatever damage he had sustained during the battle had already been repaired by his unnatural body, which seemed to have no discernible limit to how far it could recover or adapt.

But Kaela understood the consequences of such an ability better than anyone.

’I guess someone else feels it now too.’

She knew that unimaginable pain.

The pain of having your body torn apart was horrible enough, but there was only one thing she had discovered that could somehow be worse - the agony of feeling that same body stitch itself back together.

If Mark’s body was constantly being damaged and rebuilding itself as it adapted to increasingly powerful threats, then the pain he was experiencing must have been just as bad as hers.

Or maybe even worse.

"Mark. That’s still you, right?"

A tense silence followed.

For a moment, neither Elara nor Kaela received a response.

Then a hoarse voice finally emerged.

"Yes."

The answer surprised both of them.

Mark definitely didn’t seem like the Mark they knew, but he wasn’t completely unconscious either.

That raised another possibility.

’Is he possessed?’ they both questioned internally.

Either way, he could still understand them, and that meant there was at least a chance that things weren’t as bad as they initially seemed. Maybe he had simply experienced an enlightenment similar to Kaela’s and broken through some limitation.

Maybe everything was actually peachy.

"You really did a number on that thing, but come on. Let’s get out of this place," Kaela called out.

"This Gate doesn’t seem like it’ll remain stable for much longer," Elara added.

Mark ignored both of them.

"Sustenance."

He repeated the word quietly before turning away from them.

Then he drove his arm straight into the corpse of the monster he had just defeated.

Their eyes widened.

Something grotesque happened.

The flesh around Mark’s arm shifted, and several thin, tentacle-like appendages formed from it. They burrowed deeper into the monster’s corpse as Mark began siphoning everything he could from it.

Energy, mana, vitality - whatever remained within the monster’s body was being pulled into Mark.

Elara and Kaela could only stare.

It was both disgusting and impressive.

There was something almost mesmerising about watching such an enormous creature being completely drained by a single person, but the implications were far more disturbing.

The man they knew was currently in control of that body.

And apparently, his first instinct after defeating an A Rank Monster was to consume it.

It was just like somebody else they knew.

They continued watching in silence for a while, unsure what to say.

Eventually, however, Kaela couldn’t take it anymore.

The display was simply too disturbing.

She burst forward.

As she moved, the hoodie that was barely covering her fluttered upward, briefly revealing her bare lower half. Kaela didn’t care, and Mark wasn’t exactly any better; his exposed body was scorched and covered in a natural armour of sorts.

She reached for his arm, intending to pull him away from the corpse.

But before she could touch him, the dark green aura surrounding Mark suddenly flared. The pressure that erupted from his body made Kaela instinctively stop and back away.

Blink!

Elara instantly appeared beside her.

Mark slowly turned his head toward them, almost as if he studied them.

But he wasn’t looking at them as friends.

He wasn’t even looking at them as fellow humans.

Instead, he was examining them like a predator examining potential prey, like he was trying to determine whether they were worth feeding on.

"I let you two off seeking superior sustenance..."

Mark’s speech was staggered and strained, as though speaking was an unfamiliar action his body had to consciously remember how to perform.

Yet every word was still coherent.

If anything, the slow, unnatural way he spoke only made him more intimidating.

"But it seems like I need to deal with the pests."

Elara’s mind immediately filled with questions.

’He can’t feed off humans, right?’

She glanced at him.

’Otherwise, he probably would have done that first.’

Another thought followed.

’Or maybe he doesn’t want to...’

Her expression tightened.

’Maybe somewhere deep down, he still knows who we are.’

But that only led to the ultimate question.

’Is that Mark... or is he possessed?’

She couldn’t tell.

Fortunately, it seemed the expert on the subject had an answer for her.

The demon inside Elara finally spoke again.

She was annoyed with it after spurring her on while fighting Kaela, but she was glad to hear from it.

’Things are progressing faster than I predicted, and I never expected a Gate to have such an effect. What I did in that mental space was temporarily suppress this dark side of him and help him deal with the monster within.’

The demon’s voice was unusually serious.

’But unlike your situation, where you and I are two separate entities, the monster inside your friend is your friend.’

Elara’s eyes narrowed.

’And it is gradually consuming him.’

She didn’t feel as though the demon was lying to her, and she could see the truth of its words for herself. The longer she looked at Mark, the less she could see the man she knew.

"He is a monster..." she murmured aloud.

Kaela heard her.

Instead of looking afraid, the Riot Valkyrie smiled.

Elara sighed and couldn’t see any other way through this.

If Mark truly was losing himself to the monster within, then talking him down was their only option, just like the last time.

Kaela was naturally on the same wavelength.

"I guess we’re getting a rematch."

This time, however, there would be much less holding back.

They were inside an unstable Gate, Mark was already incredibly powerful, and whatever had happened during his battle with the Boss Monster had clearly pushed him to another level.

And after what the Blood Demon had told her and Ethan about dealing with such a monster, Elara knew they couldn’t afford to underestimate him.

If they were going to stop Mark, they needed to overpower him from the beginning.

Doing that, however, was much easier said than done.

Mark was already in an adapted form after fighting the Boss Monster, and neither of them knew exactly how much stronger he had become during that battle.

"I’m not sure how the cooldown works, but he definitely hasn’t reached it yet."

Elara kept her eyes on Mark.

There was no mistaking the dark green aura surrounding him.

Whatever limits his body had possessed before, he clearly hadn’t reached them yet.

Kaela’s smile widened.

"I just have to push him to his limits again."

She had only just felt herself step onto the next level, and couldn’t wait to experiment further.

Her body felt lighter, stronger, and more complete.

She wanted to know exactly how much stronger she had become, and more importantly, discover how much further she could still go. There was no better way to do so than by fighting something that had just decimated an A Rank Monster...