This chapter has some disturbing imagery, if you feel uncomfortable with mentions of body horror or cursed birthing, I suggest you skip over the part marked with the asterisk (*). Thank you for your understanding.
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Under the cover of darkness, a group of goatmen marched, their cloven hooves clacking on the stony ground. The nightmare creatures, through several millenia, had long adapted to navigating without needing to use their sight.
The group of ten Warped Caprigors was led by two much larger monsters. They towered over the caprigors at a height of over two meters (>6ft). Unlike their more dimunitive cousins, these juggernauts had much more robust physiques with bulging muscles that rippled with engorged black veins. They had goat heads with heavy horns that curled backward menacingly. Bony spikes emerged from their human-like chest and shoulders like a protective natural armor and heavy iron manacles hang from their muscular arms. Two goat-like legs that were thick as logs supported their massive frames. One of them carried a hefty single bladed axe over its shoulder while its partner was dragging a club fashioned after a heavy stump of wood.
(Image)
The group walked with little to no vigilance since they were in the outer region of the slums where the dark soldiers, who didn't venture past the middle region, never step foot due to their need to defend the inner wall gates. Thus, the outer regions were completely under their complete control.
Suddenly, one of the two juggernauts let out a maddened roar and slammed down its axe at its partner next to it. If one observed carefully, they would notice a bloodied iron crown of thorns hanging over the head of the axe wielder before vanishing the next instant causing it to lose its maddened look.
Fortunately for the club wielder, the axe stopped midway from chopping off his arm due to the thick protective muscles surrounding it. Yet, it didn't stop it from hurting like a bitch and bleeding black blood like a fountain.
Enraged by the attack, the wounded juggernaut let out its own maddened battle cry and smacked its wooden club against the head of the aggressor making an audible Crack!
The heavy frame of the axe wielder fell to the side by the attack. After stunning its opponent, the club wielder capitalized on its advantage and brought its weapon down with extreme prejudice onto the other juggernaut's head causing it to explode with a wet Splat! painting the ground red. The dead body soon turned into black mist and was absorbed by the killer's body leaving only two soul shards behind on the ground.
Having felled its opponent the club wielding juggernaut let out a loud cry and raised its club over its head in a primal victory pose as the black mist healed its injuries at a visible rate.
From start to finish, the Warped Caprigors watched in awe and fear as their dimunitive intelligence tried to process why one of their bigger kin murdered the other. Their bodies stood stock still in fear of attracting its anger onto them.
Suddenly, just as the club wielding muscled goatman finished with its victory parade, a flash of blue appeared in the darkness and struck the back of its head. For a second, the world seemed to stand still for eternity before the club fell from the juggernaut's hand and its body dropped like a pile of bricks.
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The sound of the spell rang in his ear as the body of the robust goatman beneath him dissolved into dark mist and flew into the air leaving behind two shiny soul shards for his efforts.
[You have slain an Awakened Monster, Warped Juggernaut.] (D20 = 8)
[Your soul grows stronger.]
A luminous ball of light manifested and floated over William's head as he crouched down and picked up the four soul shards - wholly ignoring the ten warped caprigors who were trapped under the effect of his [Mantle of Death] - and placed them inside his trusty Scout's Sack.
"So... the spell doesn't seem to register second hand kills. Disappointing but understandable, I guess," he muttered as he held Frostmourne over his shoulder.
Looking over at the group of Dormant Demons, the white-haired teen noted that they were making no effort to break free from his ability. Considering that [Mantle of Death] provides maximum efficacy against enemies of the same soul rank as the user, it was natural that the Dormant nightmare creatures were finding it particularly hard to shrug it off.
Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, the youth proceeded to butc-..... relieve the Warped Caprigors from their worldly burdened causing them to become one with the dark mist.
[You have slain a Dormant Demon, Warped Caprigor. x10] (D20 = 19, 14, 11, 9, 7, 7, 5, 3, 1, 1)
[You have recieved a memory: Cultist Fetish.]
[Your soul grows stronger]
"Oh?" he uttered, elated to finally get a memory that may shed some light onto his predicament. Thus, he quickly summoned the runes for it.
The image of a square piece of metal appeared before him with the image of a goat's head with a reverse pentagram on its forehead engraved on it.
(Image)
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[Cultist Fetish: When the Shepherd called for his flock, the downtrodden and the weak were the first one to answer his call and receive his favor.]
Memory Name: Cultist Fetish
Memory Rank: Dormant
Memory Tier: III
Memory Enchantment: [Cursed Zeal]
Memory Description: Enhances the faith of the owner but also enhances their more primal instincts.
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William simply skimmed over the memories enchantment description since it had practically zero use for him; instead, he concentrated on the memory's description. He was no genius at deduction but considering the crucified corpse he found a few hours ago and then the memory he had just received, he could fairly certainly say that whatever had happened here was because of this cult of goatmen lead by this 'Shepherd'.
He was forced out of his thoughts by the distant sounds of hooves coming towards his location - most likely attracted by the Juggernaut's loud cries. Collecting the scattered Dormant soul shards with his prosthetic, the cerulean-eyed sleeper made himself scarce before being pulled into a battle.
He moved through the roofs of the old houses before stopping on top of one of the taller buildings and observed the outer wall that seemed larger than ever before now that he was in the outer section of the slums.
It was weird how the area was divided into three sections with the Dark Soldiers fortifying the inner section nearest to the wall while the goatmen had free reign over the outer section. Meanwhile the section between them was basically a no man's land where the forces of the two groups of nightmare creatures slaughtered each other.
At first, he wanted to explore the inner section but quickly dashed out the idea since he didn't want to enter the base of nightmare creature he had no information about. Thus, he opted to go to the more beaten path and explore the area near the outer wall.
Looking back, it was foolish of him to think that the Warped Caprigors were the only variation of their species walking around. Chancing upon the Warped Juggernauts was a surprise. He didn't want to fight two unknown variables together so he decided to cull the herd by using the [Crown of Madness] spell betting on the juggernauts not being above an awakened rank nightmare creature.
Thankfully, his bet paid off since the spell worked momentarily before the axe-wielding goatman managed to shake it off. Having more muscle than brain, the juggernauts were none the wiser about his interference and one actually managed to kill its partner!
The smile on his lips returned to a frown as he focused on the problem with his discovery. He had to be on the lookut for more variant nightmare creatures walking around lest he carelessly walk into a temporary death.
Giving more strength to his legs, William flew from one rooftop to another with apparent ease thanks to the boost to his strength.
In the alleys beneath him, he would spot the occassional hordes of caprigors roaming about usually flanked by two to four Warped Juggernauts. It was after observing his fifth group that he noticed something peculiar about their movement. They all seemed to be moving deeper into the outer section than into the no man's land.
Guided by his curiosity at the strange behavior, William cautiously trailed after them. The deeper he went into the goatmen territory the more the environment began to change. It was like he had gone to a different area entirely.
Torches, burning with blue flames, were placed regularly along the path the nightmare creatures were walking; yet, the darkness still lingered despite the light from the flames. Rather, it seemed as it it was actually being strengthened by it. The white haired youth stroked the [Teardrop Talisman] hanging from his neck, thanking his lucky stars for the protection it gave him.
The building were all fashioned with strange symbols and runes painted with dark red paint - at least, he thought that it was paint. In addition, strange wooden goatman effigies were decorating the junctions along the path.
William had to do a double take. Were these really nightmare creatures? He questioned himself. Normal nightmare creatures didn't cooperate or even decorate their bases like this. Something was smelling fishy and he was certain it was not the goat fur.
Moving closer and closer to the goatmen's destination, William's ears could pick up some sort of hushed murmuring buzzing in the air and it got louder gradually.
Finally, the young Sleeper and the group he was trailing entered into a vast clearing completely filled with tens of thousands of nightmare creatures the vast majority of which were the Warped Caprigors, yet he could still see thousands of towering juggernauts mixed among them - their imposing physiques easily differentiating them from their kin.
William let out a shaky breath, 'Isn't this a bit too much for a mere sleeper?' He asked though no one answered.
The gigantic mass of nightmare creatures was surrounding a ziggurat-like building of some sort made of darkwood and stone with a great blue flame burning above it - very similar to the one he saw at the top of the flame tower where he woke up.
(Image)
Surrounding the immediate vicinity of the ziggurat were hunched, robed figures with twisting goat horns poking out of their ragged hoods. In their furry hands they held thick staves with various bones and horns hanging from it.
(Image)
Suddenly all the unintelligible chatter and bleeting of the nightmare creatures came to a sudden halt and the whole vast clearing around the ziggurat descended into deathly silence. Then, one by one the nightmare creatures began repeating the same series of phonetics that vaguely sounded like words.
William took in a deep breath and casted [Comprehend Language] on himself. The familiar head splitting pain from before returned causing to stumble for half a step before catching himself. Fortuantely, having his Mental Fortitude evolve to E- helped with tanking the after effects of temporary acquiring eldritch knowledge.
After the ringing in his ear from the headache subsided, two words began to repeatedly assault his eardrums.
"Prophet! Prophet! Prophet! Prophet!"
"Shepherd! Shepherd! Shepherd! Shepherd!"
Countless nightmare creatures called out towards the ziggurat with their distorted and unnatural voices before becoming silent again.
William raised his head and looked at the top of the ziggurat where a robed figure now stood flanked by two of the biggest juggernauts he had seen yet - easily lording over 8ft in height (>2.4 meters). The robes it was wearing were vastly different from the ones worn by the hunched nightmare creatures as it appeared to be brand new and had a deep onyx color with red accents along the sides. The one wearing it appeared to be both similar and different from the other goatmen. It was about 6ft tall (~1.9 meters) with a goat-like head sporting two sets of interweaving, curling horns that managed to look both majestic and menacing at the same time. On its forehead was an engraved inversed pentagram that shone brightly contrasting the dark fur. Its eyes were also goat-like but rather than being amber colored, they were crimson like blood.
(Image)
The nightmare creature, or rather the Prophet or Shepherd, raised its clawed hand and the whole gathering of nightmare creatures erupted into rapturous glee. The youth felt that he was really out of his depth here; what the hell had he walked into?
The Shepherd then raised his other hand and the nightmare creatures immediately got silent. After a long pause it spoke:
"My children!" its voice rang deep and strangely smooth. William felt a tingling sensation at the back of his head just from listening to it.
"We have lost many of our kin against the tyrannical forces of the royal family. However, despite our losses we can recover, thanks to our most sacred ritual of birthing and our greatest victory against the heretical War Goddess church."
In a grand theatrical motion, the Shepherd moved aside to allow something to be dragged forward by one of the flanking juggernauts.
As soon as he saw it, William began to dry heave from the sheer horror and disgust that suffused his entire being.
A/N: Here it is people. You were warned. Also, please be good members of society and don't post any NSFW images for what comes after. I know some sick fuck will do it.
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The massive juggernaut pushed forward a big bed on which lay a naked woman - or what used to be a woman.
She had grimy, stranded red hair that appeared to have been as bright as fire once upon a time. Her face looked sunken and hollow with the scar of a previously carved inverse pentagram on her forhead. Moreover, her eyes and mouth appeared to be sewn shut at some point in the past. Her skin was gastly pale and her limbs were attached to the posts of the bed with thick, robust ropes that seemed to bite at her skin. However, it all paled in comparison to the horror that was her inflated abdomen covered with all manners of engorged black vessels that pulses with every breath she took.
"Behold," the Shepherd bellowed, its voice filled with unhidden pride, "our finest trophy preserved by the power of our lord, the War Saintess! Our Saintess of Depravity! By the blessing of our god, by injecting her with the most sacred seed, we can replenish our numbers to bring down the walls that bind us!"
Just as it finished, the darkness in the air began to move and enter into the Saintess's orifices causing her to squirm and twist against her bindings; alas, it was for naught. Then, William watched in utter horror as her exaggeratedly pregnant abdomen began to pulse as if something was moving underneath. Muffled screams began to erupt from the Saintess causing her stitched mouth to bleed as she tried to open it.
Her birthing valley began to quiver as something made its way out it. It didn't take long before a small goatman was birthed. As soon as it came out, the darkness began to engulf it, a few seconds later, the darkness scattered and in place of the small goatman was a fully grown Warped Juggernaut.
William stood there, stock still, watching this foul abomination of a ritual continue. The poor woman continued to scream as she gave birth to hundreds and hundreds of nightmare creatures some of which turned into Warped Caprigors, some into Warped juggernauts, and others into the hunched goatmen.
Half-way through the ritual, the cerulean-eyed youth entertained the thought of throwing a spear at the poor woman to end her suffering. However, he quickly shut down that train of thought. He was too far for his spear throwing to reach her. Moreover, the two towering juggernauts were standing there and would definitely act if anything happened. Also, this place was packed to the brim with nightmare creatures ready to tear him limb from limb. Being immortal didn't mean that he had to take stupid risks, especially when he had much more to lose than gain in this situation.
With a heavy sigh, William gave one last look at the poor woman continuing to give birth to a whole horde of nightmare creatures and turned away with a stony expression. He was powerless to do anything.
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Sorry for the chapter delay. Had exams, then I was pulled into a surgical ward shift by my subgroup in the new surgery block.
Anyways, I hope everyone is in good health!
I'm glad you took your time to read my shitty writing.
Also, I have to reiterate, all my updates about when chapters are getting released and what not are mentioned on the server I created. I will be adding the invite link in the fanfic synopsis.