Becoming a Monster-Chapter 351: Double Sacrifice

It was sudden...even more so, it was disturbingly hypnotic.

The hybrid’s corpse was just as large as Dummy’s own body, and Dummy was devouring the creature as if it were a late-night snack.

His arms dragged the body to his stomach where his mouth opened so wide that his entire torso became invisible behind his gaping maw. What followed was not simply eating, it was pure consumption.

Dummy’s body distorted slightly with every bite, stretching unnaturally to accommodate the sheer volume of what he was ingesting. And as one observed more closely, they could hear a different sound, and notice a different interaction further inside Dummy’s mouth.

Within his rows of teeth, the deeper the rows, the less resistance his teeth faced.

Flesh, exoskeleton, bone, venom, it didn’t matter. It was all being broken down and swallowed without effort. The wet, unsophisticated chewing sounded despairingly loud in the silence. freēwēbnovel.com

And as the corpse vanished with astonishing speed, Dummy’s form began to shift more drastically than before. Two bare skin limbs shot out from his ribs, limbs that were longer than his arms, but not as stout and lengthy as his legs.

They shot out, moving despite his disturbing form. The new limbs shot to the ground, planting firmly to level himself. The hands were even thicker than his original hands, devoid of mouths like its predecessors.

Muscles soon ripped behind him, splitting the skin beneath his shoulder blades, and what unfolded were two ginormous pairs of wings. The wings weren’t made of the same fragile membranes as the hybrid’s wings. Layers of flesh and bone, overlapping to create wings that weren’t meant for graceful flight, but more like they were built to launch.

The wings, without Dummy’s intentions, shuddered violently, fluttering as if he was trying to take flight but his body went nowhere. However, the sound of his wings engulfed every other sound imaginable.

A wet gurgled sound came from Dummy’s stomach as it shifted for only a moment. The mass of his form was even more massive than his previous form, it was almost equal to the general’s own.

The general didn’t react fast enough. It recalled its Queen, a being that could continue to bypass evolution simply by consuming and birthing creatures with more superior bloodlines. Their Queen was the evolution of life itself, that, it was sure of.

But the creature in front of it made it doubt even its own Queen.

A creature that disregarded the process of evolution itself.

Their Queen could create armies of advanced creatures, her potential had no limits besides time and the right resources and knowledge to bestow stronger genes. But now, all of her efforts, her achievements, the unique power that made the hive kneel in reverence of her benevolence. This creature simply would eat her efforts.

Their colony would simply become the catalyst for this creature’s growth.

At that thought it finally moved. Its antennae were receiving an alarm more overbearing than before.

The Queen wasn’t telling him to retreat anymore.

Maybe it was because she felt the potential in Dummy’s ability was far greater than Pandora’s, or maybe it was because Dummy defiled their race by imitating their own, or maybe... It was because two of her strongest generals were losing faith in her rule. But now, she wanted Dummy dead more than the tree.

She no longer desired for her generals’ retreat. If anything, she would prefer if the general died alongside the abomination. A soldier was no longer usable if they no longer held faith in their Queen. And when that soldier’s faith could taint the loyalty of all her other devoted troops, then that soldier was better off dying for a "just" cause.

With the Queen’s deranged command, the general lunged.

All doubt, all hesitation, burned away in that moment.

With its arms raised, the general wasn’t aiming to strike, strictly speaking. It needed to completely obliterate the creature. Pummeling it until its exoskeleton became fine dust, tearing apart its limbs so it couldn’t recover even a finger. Only then could it feel assured that the abomination was dead.

The general moved even faster than before.

After Dummy’s meal, a leg was the only piece left behind. His eyes were locked in on the leftover piece, but his head quickly snapped to the stampeding danger.

But Dummy didn’t flinch. Despite the injuries he had sustained from their last clash, he still looked towards the mountainous creature with the desire to feed.

Fear? Could he eat it?

Dummy took off to meet the general head on. But it was at this moment that everyone understood the reasoning behind the raging fluttering of its wings.

When he took off, his entire body uplifted inches from the ground. His body went soaring with a violent jolt.

The general wasn’t prepared for the outburst, but its fighting instincts surged.

It was too late to back down. Its shoulder dipped, it couldn’t afford to try to receive Dummy’s charge, despite its faith in its own strength.

It was ready to ram through Dummy’s charge, its body pivoting to deliver a destructive swing that would hammer Dummy back into the ground.

But its decision was a mistake.

Dummy wasn’t flying to collide. His whole goal was to latch onto him.

The general’s shoulder charge crushed Dummy’s entire left side. When they collided, the air cracked from the force of their collision. His arm bent at an unnatural angle. A large bone was protruding backwards from his shoulder. Half of his mouth, fully open, ready to clamp down, was also shattered by the blow. Teeth flew out, the jaw almost ripped apart from the rest of his face, hanging sideways by a thread of flesh.

One of Dummy’s eyes burst from the pressure, a disgusting wet pop swallowed by the shockwave of their impact.

But Dummy didn’t scream. He simply grunted, his grunt overlaid with the lurching breaths of a beast that hadn’t fed in days. The collision was the opening he needed, and by then, the general had realized its mistake far too late.

Even with his entire arm ruined beyond recognition, and half of his face mangled, he snapped his remaining limbs forward. He coiled around the general’s body. His one arm clamped around the back of the general’s neck, the half unmangled part of his mouth still attempted to bite into its face, his mangled flesh peeling further, while his unstructured bones cracked from forcing the motion.

His newly grown limbs made no effort in trying to hold back the general’s arms. At this point he no longer cared about the damage he would sustain in order to get what he wanted.

The maw from his stomach was fully opened, the slits opened vertically, unlike before, and on either side were two protruding mandibles. The two were sharper, thicker, and longer than the ones located on his face. It was only when Dummy revealed the contents within its mouth that the mandibles, unsheathing like a viper’s fangs.

Those prongs were the first to pierce through the general’s armor, reaching deeper into its layers than his teeth ever could. But the mandibles were only the beginning, because now his mouth was able to finish where it left off.

The general reacted quickly. Its head moved to avoid the beast’s face. Its hands moved to push Dummy away from itself by removing the mandibles plunged into its body.

But its hand froze in the process. It was possible to remove the mandibles without subjecting its hands with biting reach of its most dangerous mouth.

Its antennae were flickering ever so strongly. If his original orders to kill the abomination weren’t clear before, now there was no way to mistake it for his new orders.

Self-sacrifice.

Its limbs twitched, its mandibles snapped... not with fear but with something colder.

With a shrill screech, the general gave up trying to escape the devilish hold, the sinking teeth that were chewing through its hide, devouring it alive.

There was no longer a reason to defend itself.

The general slammed its fist into any part of Dummy’s body it could reach, again and again, each attack leaving deep imprints into his figure, threatening to puncture bones and break down organs.

Despite its foreseeable death, its strikes weren’t desperate at all. They were intentionally placed to get the best results. Dummy’s bones cracked, mixing with the sound of his chewing. Blood constantly splattered across both of their armor.

And still Dummy didn’t let go. He couldn’t. Not when the taste of the hybrid’s marrow was still pouring into his stomach, not when its ecstasy was numbing him to the pain.

Another hit sent a new pulse of pain through Dummy’s nervous system. Part of the flesh it had consumed was forcibly regurgitated. But Dummy had stopped caring about his injuries long ago. And when the general understood that, its hands aimed towards Dummy’s head, not to strike, but to crush it within its hands.

The general’s claws locked onto Dummy’s skull. A series of cracks followed, juices spurted from each splintered layer. Dummy’s vision flickered, his body convulsed, and still, he bit down harder.

The general’s death was already determined. Dummy had thought enough of its insides that it couldn’t recover from, tearing through enough of its flesh that liquid pumped into his mouth in waves.

If given enough time, the general would also completely flatten Dummy’s head. The double sacrifice was nearing its end.

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