The crowd of monsters parted like a sea of writhing flesh, their tentacles slithering aside to create a wide corridor. From the darkness of the forest emerged a figure that dwarfed every other creature present. The oldest monster was a towering mass of muscle and sinew, his body a deep, ancient green, covered in scars and ridges that spoke of millennia of existence. His tentacles were not the slender, playful tendrils of the younger beasts—they were thick as tree trunks, pulsing with a power that made the ground tremble. His main appendage, the one he used for breeding, was easily as thick as Yuri's thigh, covered in knots and veins that throbbed with a life of their own. His voice was a deep, rumbling earthquake that shook her bones.

Be grateful, human, he intoned, his words echoing in her mind and in the air simultaneously. I have not bred a mortal in three hundred years. You will carry my offspring, and your womb will be hallowed ground.