Those words brought her world crashing down, taking the light from her eyes with it. She became numb. Unfeeling. Uncaring. The cries didn't even shift her soul in the slightest, she had long accepted what fate decreed. She would die along with her child. That was it.
But, fate had something else in store for the mother-daughter duo. The mysterious being had revealed her destiny through His priest, His grand presence still lingering in the air, imprinting itself onto all those present. This was their Lord. Her Lord.
Her previously lifeless focused on the pulsating heart with great rapture, her unnamed child was going to be reunited with her, and this time, they would stay together for eternity. Just as the thought entered her brain, it disappeared, washed away by the intense pain that spread through the entirety of her being. The heart had vanished from her vision and was now sinking into her abdomen, returning to its first home with great enthusiasm.
Though pain clouded her thoughts, it was greatly overshadowed by the joy rushing through her veins. This agony was nothing compared to what awaited her at the end of this ritual, a soft smile traced the contours of her face as she felt her body undergoing rapid changes. Changes that would mould her into the perfect tool for conquest.
Like a plague, splotches of purple spread out from the heart's entry point, her pale, filthy skin slowly disappearing in front of the eyes of the onlookers. At the same time, both her abdomen and breasts began to swell, rapidly increasing in size, whilst pushing through the skin under the two growing bags of flesh were two tumours, about the size of a finger.
By the time the heart had fully entered her womb, the tumours had revealed themselves to be a second set of breasts and had almost matched the original pair, which had stopped their unnatural growth, in size. Despite being larger than a head, they were nothing compared to her squirming bump. It was like an adult human was trapped within the confines of her womb, struggling to free themselves from their fleshy prison.
Ignoring the wriggling presence being nurtured in her womb, Emilia focused on the second heartbeat thumping within her. Every beat that echoed through her body, syncing with her own, gave her peace. She could spend the rest of her life listening to the slow thumps of her child, but a duty had been instilled in her - no, a need. Children. She had to birth children, soldiers for the being who had granted her a child a new lease of life. This was the only thing she could give to repay Him, her eternal servitude.
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Thrag's eyes never left the bizarre scene, fascination and reverence lit up the darks of his eyes as his excitement for the future grew with his faith in his Lord. As the sacrifice's transformation entered its final stages, the priest couldn't help but notice that the frequency of the giant bump's squirming only seemed to be increasing, like something was about to burst out.
Waiting was all he could do, and that was exactly what he would do. The priest had done his part in the ritual, now he would reap the rewards of this tiresome endeavour.
With the final strands of her brown hair stained black, the source of the squirming had seemingly come to a decision as the writhing skin suddenly calmed. Some of the acolytes strewn about the ritual site began to stir awake, just in time to see a sight that would be forever burned into their brains.
A small, pudgy arm slowly wriggled out of the folds of its temporary home and clasped around the edges of what was, for it, an exit rather than an entrance. Using the edge, it pulled out the rest of its body and revealed itself to the spectators and the world.
Raven-black hair like its mother and purple skin like the rest of the followers of Corruption, the infant would easily fit, that was if it didn't have the small horns protruding from the edges of its forehead. A demon. This large difference drew the goblins to the smaller, more subtle differences, the ones that they instinctively noticed but subconsciously chose to ignore.
For starters, they couldn't feel the typical air of a goblin from the newborn, it could be attributed to the fact that this was a pure demon, but as was Depravus, yet he still felt goblin in a sense. It didn't take long to realise this difference was likely due to the demon's mother origin being human.
'It seems even after demonisation, small aspects of our original race are still retained'
Though the current evidence would prove this theory to be true, Thrag was reluctant to accept it; it was possible that over generations these remnants would vanish. The First Priest could only pray that he would live long enough to see what the truth was, but there many other tasks he had to get done before he had time to be concerned about this theory of his.
"All of you take a short break, we'll continue with the rituals once we've recovered somewhat"
Those awake dragged themselves to their feet and turned to their unconscious brethren, pulling them out of the realm of dreams whilst taking short glances at the demon infant making its way up its mother's body. It climbed with great fervour over the purple mountain of flesh, eventually reaching the paradise that lay behind it.
Its mouth latched around one of the spouts of sustenance, greedily sucking the sweet nutrients contained in the large sack of fat. Whilst her second child received its fill, Emilia felt something shifting around her body, making its way out of her womb, the strange sensation of a pleasure-filled birth erupting through her body rather than that of pain.
Just like the little glutton that was sucking her breast dry, her third child made it's way over her swollen belly, which had decreased in size, before pouncing towards one of her unoccupied breasts.
It was then that she finally turned her gaze towards the eyes that had never left her form the entire time. The man called the First Priest stood there, ragged and fatigued, observing her every action, not even flinching when their eyes met. And for a moment, the both of them remained that way. Not before a smile broke out of the priest's expression as he turned away from the newest addition to the forces of Corruption.
Even as the man's back disappeared from her vision, Emilia continued staring, lost in deep thought. The child climbing out of her didn't even distract her let alone the two children rapidly emptying her glands.
The glimmer of the golden specks in her red orbs dulled as her eyes glazed over, whilst she sunk deeper and deeper into the confines of her mind.
The sound of rapid thumping dragged her off her current train of thought, the seriousness melting away from her expression as she lovingly watched the now four kids attached to each of her breasts.
No longer abnormally swollen, her belly now looked like the typical pregnancy bump, though with each pulse of her second heart, there were the unnoticeable tremors of growth. This was her new present and future, an endless cycle of nurture and birth. Something she had accepted with relative ease, a tiny voice told her it wasn't right. It said she wasn't a monster, and Emilia felt that it wasn't exactly wrong. She wasn't a monster. Before the ritual, she was an ordinary human woman, a mother, a housewife.
None of those screamed monster, but that was the past, things had changed now. And it wasn't because of the ritual. Before the ritual, the young mother had given up on her child, despair had suppressed the supposedly undefeatable maternal love. And what came after was apathy. A complete lack of care for anything. Her daughter's cries. Her daughter's life. Her own life.
In those moments, nothing mattered anymore; life had become meaningless. And then, He gave it meaning. He returned to her what gave her a reason to exist, and twisted her in the process. Reshaped her.
Anger is what she should have felt, for having been tricked into thinking the pit of despair was much deeper than it truly was. Torn down by the hopelessness of her situation yet it was gratitude that filled her being as she transformed. Gratitude for the mercy granted to both of them.
Even though her child no longer resembled her original form, the only thing that Emilia cared about was the life she had birthed still lived in some way. It was quite a cruel way of thinking. But the Emilia of the present wasn't the Emilia of the past, the ritual had warped her - corrupted her.
An Unholy Womb is what she had become. What she would be till her last breath.