The room was filled with the corpses of the ogres Maddy had killed, and the cold body of the Princess lay among them, her eyes still open, unblinking. Maddy remained beside her, crying, while the baby sobbed helplessly for a mother who would never answer.
[System Notice]
[Multiple dead bodies detected…]
[Congratulations! You've acquired a unique skill: Ingest]
[Ingest: Instantly kills weakened enemies or consumes recently fallen corpses. Only corpses less than one day old can be ingested.]
[Due to your Chimera Trait, this skill manifests as part of your Demonic Blood Art: Hellmouth. It allows you to devour weakened targets or freshly fallen corpses.]
[This skill cannot be countered or escaped. Activation results in instant death.]
Maddy's sobs hitched and slowly faltered as the words sank in, reminding her of what she truly was.
"So that's what I am to you? To whatever brought me back like this? I'm not meant to cry over the dead… not meant to mourn anyone… I'm only meant to eat them…"
[To help you identify valid targets for the Ingest unique skill, an icon will appear on those who meet the conditions.]
Suddenly, the corpses around Maddy flickered as eerie symbols ignited above them. Each icon resembled her Hellmouth. A gaping demonic maw with a single eye staring from within, glowing in dark red as black cracks of energy crawled around its edges… and of course the princess was no exeption.
Her body trembled as sorrow weighed her down, but then the Princess' baby reached out and touched her. The little one babbled softly, words she couldn't understand, yet somehow she knew what it meant. She remembered what the Chief Ogre had said before.
"…My firstborn carrying the blood of a demigod will take full revenge for his mother. And with his siblings, they will make sure none of those lizards escape!"
Maddy's breath caught. Her eyes slowly widened as she looked down at the baby again, really looked at him this time.
"The one who'll end the Dragonborns… the one who'll get his mother's revenge…"
She still did not know what is happening in this world, no informations from outside just this entries from monsterpedia and the conversation with the demonic ogres.
"And to think we found her lying among the corpses, on the brink of death in the battlefield. It's almost as if the Primordial Saint himself knelt and handed his demigod to us."
"Found her lying among the corpses, on the brink of death in the battlefield…"
Maddy fell silent, piecing the fragments together.
"The Demonic Ogres were just small fish in a massive pond… the Dragonborns are the real cause of all this—everything that happened."
Her gaze shifted back to the Princess's body, still faintly radiating overwhelming magic even in death. She remembered another thing the Chief Ogre had said:
"Even thousands of demigods were nothing but flies to the Dragonborn."
"You were this powerful… and yet you were nothing to them. Those Dragonborns… they must be the strongest species here. No wonder the Demonic Ogres bred you to create this child—a weapon born for war. Even if I devoured everything here… challenging them next, head on, would only make things worse."
The baby reached out, touching his mother again. Maddy's voice softened, filled with determination.
"I promised… I'd get your mama out. I promised I'd protect her from everything… and that promise isn't broken. I can still fulfill it."
She looked at the child, and he looked back at her with wide, curious eyes, no fear at all, even though he was staring at a monster.
"Little one… I have to eat your mother."
The baby answered with a soft, unintelligible sound, tilting his head in confusion, unaware of the weight of her words.
"Your mother… the one they called the Princess. She was a miracle. She survived a battle with the Dragonborn itself, crawling out from the wreckage. But when those Demonic Ogres found her, they didn't pull her from the pile of corpses to save her. They lifted her out because they saw a prize. They saw a body they could use to breed."
Maddy's eyes closed for a second, seeing the hollow look in the Princess' eyes.
"Her body gave out, and so did her mind. They broke everything she was. And now… she's gone. You have no one left in this world."
She looked at the Princess, then at the Hellmouth icon hovering above her. She had already made her decision.
"When I ate those ogres, I didn't just gain their magic and might… I took their bodies too. If I eat her… she'll become part of me."
She swallowed and shook her head hard, the memory of her earlier transformation when she ate the Chief Ogre flashing before her eyes.
"Uhnn, no! I'll turn into some malformed creature straight out of a body horror nightmare… her arms erupting from my back, faces growing where they shouldn't! What should I do—"
The system voice cut through her spiraling thoughts.
[Your previous transformation occurred under extreme panic. No form was consciously selected, resulting in unstable manifestation: a base worm structure with randomly expressed Demonic Ogre anatomy.]
"So that mess was because I panicked? You're saying… if I stay calm… I can choose? Not a monster mash… not a pile of parts… I could actually look like her… properly."
[It depends on your cognitive ability. Your transformation will follow how clearly you perceive the desired form.]
"So… if I picture the Princess as whole and perfect… I can become an exact copy of her?"
[Response: Correct. Upon ingestion, you must imprint her full physical structure in your mind to replicate it accurately.]
Maddy fell silent, her thoughts spiraling. If she consumed the Princess, she wouldn't just gain power… she could walk this world in a human body again. Arms. Legs. A form like the one she had in her first life.
"I have to keep my promise. I can't back out now, not after everything we both went through. When I look at her, I see myself…"
She looked down at the Princess, her eyes filling with tears.
"We suffered the same way, just for different reasons. She was used and killed because she could give birth. And I… I was discarded and killed because I couldn't. Two sides of the same sick coin."