Chapter 303 – Gestation

After she’s finished devoting her mana to the forming child, Emily and Silvia have a lot of time to kill. They relax in each other’s company for several days as they wait, with Emily actively drawing in fresh energy from her room, where she left the Factory’s spatial mark, to allow them to continue their cultivation.

They mostly focus on their meditation, but Silvia eventually breaks the silence, looking down at Emily’s head resting in her lap.

“You’ve mentioned a sister and birth parents,” she says softly, running her fingers through Emily’s hair and feeling the moment she tenses. “You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but am I right in assuming they weren’t related?”

Emily doesn’t open her eyes, and the few seconds it takes her to respond feel like hours as they stretch in the quietly crackling dimension.

“Yes. I had no siblings by blood, but Anna and her father, Herber, took me in a few years after my birth parents died.”

“Hmm,” Silvia hums, continuing to run her nails along Emily’s scalp until she relaxes into the touch. “Your birth parents… what were they like?”

“Ha, now that’s a loaded question if I ever heard one.” Emily finally opens her eyes, meeting Silvia’s gaze with a bittersweet smile playing on her lips. “Even before my awakening, I tried not to think about them too much. We had a… complicated relationship.”

“That bad, huh?” There’s a note of understanding in Silvia’s tone that Emily shelves for later thought.

“It wasn’t all bad, but… my earliest memory is of them fighting. We didn’t have much; we lived in the slums outside a big city in the desert: Eimdon. My father would spend most of his day digging through the city’s scrap heaps to find workable material, and mother would fix up the things he brought back to try and make enough for us to eat. I like to think I got my penchant for creation from her.” Emily breaks eye contact, letting her gaze drift over to the quiet basin holding her newest child. “I think they did love each other. At least, at some point they did. But my birth introduced friction into a balanced system. They felt the burden of a third mouth to feed. Mother tried to take it well, to hide her discontent and put on a smile as she wasted away, but father was… less subtle. I can remember him looking at me with so much love it hurts when I was little, but over the years it faded. I think he started to listen to the whispers of me being a cursed child, given my unnatural eyes and sharp nature and all, and sometimes when I followed him out to scavenge, he’d look at me like he was considering whether he could get away with leaving me there. He never did, but sometimes I wonder whether that was out of love or knowing I’d be able to find my way back.”

“You know, darling,” Silvia says softly, drawing Emily’s gaze back to meet hers, “the more you tell me of your past, the more I wonder if I have any right to hold my own childhood in contempt.”

“I make it sound worse than it was.” Emily chuckles, feeling lighter than she probably should after dragging old wounds to the surface. “My mother was a brilliant woman despite our struggles, and I never once had to question how much she cared for me. Herber was a great man as well… Besides, princess, I bet it was terrible having to live on an estate. I liked my freedom to roam unnoticed, thank you very much.”

Emily jokes light-heartedly, but she notices Silvia’s brow twitch at the nickname, and a few moments later cold realisation starts to creep in.

“No… Really?”

The vampire turns her head to the side.

“I refuse to answer that question.”

“Silvia.” She doesn’t turn back, so Emily reaches up to brush fingers across her cheek. “Darling.”

That gets her attention, and she looks back down while leaning into Emily’s palm.

“If you genuinely want me to, I will drop it and never mention it again. But…”

“Haa,” Silvia sighs, turning her head to kiss Emily’s hand before meeting her eyes again with a rueful expression. “It never really felt like the title fit.”

“Oh, but darling, it does.” Emily hooks her hand around the back of Silvia’s neck and pulls herself up before wrapping her arms around the vampire’s neck and beaming a teasing grin. “You’re such a delicate, refined young lady.”

“Are you calling me old?” Silvia raises an amused brow, looping her arms around Emily’s waist and pulling her in close, tracing her fingers along the edge of the armour panels lining her spine.

“Why I’d never, prin-”

Silvia quiets the taunt with a slow kiss.

“Someone’s in a good mood,” she purrs as their lips finally part.

“Mmmm,” Emily hums, reaching up to tuck a few loose strands of her partner’s hair behind her ear before letting her hand drift down to brush against the smooth scar running up her throat. “I suppose I am. I have a good feeling about my newest child.”

“I don’t get the feeling you’ve ever had a bad feeling about any of your children.”

“You’re not wrong, though Mensacus did try to give me nightmares at first.”

“He what?”

“It was before we really bonded.” Emily shrugs, leaning in to trace gentle kisses along Silvia’s jaw, working her way up to whisper into her ear. “I wouldn’t worry about it, princess.”

“I’m so going to regret giving you permission to use that, aren’t I?”

“You could always ask me to stop.”

“I could,” Silvia murmurs, enjoying the lips on her neck. “But I appreciate the irony. It’s only right the woman I choose should use the title I gave up to avoid being sold off to a man I didn’t.”

Emily feels a spark of rage catch in her chest at that comment, but she chooses to ignore it for now, letting the conversation meet its end while they’re both still in high spirits.

***

A little over a week after starting the process, there’s finally a change in the simmering alchemical basin. Emily and Silvia can hear from afar as the liquid within kicks up and begins seething, and one of the overlapping circles of blood drawn onto the floor around them, the binding circle, pulses with mana before flaking away and rising into the air. The loose bloody dust drifts towards the basin in a steady, circular motion, rapidly picking up speed until it resembles a wild tornado flowing down into the hissing liquid.

They don’t approach, but they both stand from their seated position, their eyes locked to the beating pulse of energy they can feel writhing within.

Emily can feel the dense, imbalanced elements warring with each other as the dungeon core is fully unleashed. The dark liquid slowly rises from the basin, gathering into a perfect orb of chaos and folding in on itself repeatedly. It struggles to find balance, and Emily activates Mother’s Blessing, letting vast quantities of her energy flow out to reinforce the process. Silvia raises a brow and tears her gaze away from the forming being to watch Emily, sensing the odd blend with something other than just mana and machina leaving her.

The vampire pulls Emily into her arms, whose focus doesn’t break even as she sinks her fangs into her neck. Silvia tastes the strange pulsing energy on her lips and shuts her eyes, letting herself synchronise with the unnatural droning beat of Emily’s heart and allowing her qi tinged with lifeforce to flow out and join the skill.

Emily feels more drained than ever when she finally deactivates Mother’s Blessing, relaxing into Silvia’s hold and glancing at her system.

ˉˉˉˉˉ

[Health:] 1362/2725

[Stamina:] 3312/6625

[Mana:] 153750/307500

[Machina:] 146062/307500

_____

She added my Health to the skill…

Silvia removes her fangs and runs her tongue over the pinhole wounds, instantly sealing them, but she doesn’t release her hold, and Emily doesn’t complain.

The liquid floating above the basin greedily drinks in the energy from Emily’s skill, and they watch in fascination as the raging internal battle it's going through stills. For half a beat, nothing happens, then the liquid erupts, pouring down in a dark waterfall that swallows the basin below. The liquid thins enough for them to see the enchanted stone dissolving, breaking away in chunks that swim through the dark pool that’s only held in shape by the inner containment circle carved around where the basin once stood.

“Should we be concerned?” Silvia asks.

“Let them eat what they want.” Emily shrugs. “I can always make another.”

The pulsing mana within the pool shifts, and the imbalanced elements change with it. First, the stone from the dungeon core and the plinth is cannibalised by the metal from Mensacus’ arms, the strongest breaking down to reinforce what should have been the element with the weakest claim, giving a metallic sheen to the entire pool. Next, the life from the basin’s enchantments and Silvia’s contribution to Mother’s Blessing meets with the death from Mensacus, cancelling each other out and turning to raw energy that feeds the rest. Then comes fire and darkness from the core and Mensacus respectively. The fire burns brighter and brighter, catalysed by the darkness until all that’s left is a dazzling light shining out from the centre of the pool, revealing a beautiful, near-crystalline crimson hue.

And finally, just when Emily thought a balance had been achieved, she feels what sparked the sudden change as the mana dominating the alchemical slurry burns away to leave a pulsing heartbeat of qi. There’s a sizeable loss in energy as the change happens, but the energy signature still ends up comfortably within the fifth level range by the time it’s done.

“Was that intentional?” Silvia questions with wide eyes, admiring the glowing pool as it starts moving in a whirlpool, gathering rapidly towards the centre.

“Not entirely, but it’s not entirely unexpected,” Emily explains, watching a metal shell begin to form. “I knew introducing your blood would introduce qi to the mix, but I didn’t think the enhancement runes I added to the structural circle would be enough to push for a full conversion like this; I only thought they’d aid in strengthening its vessel.”

The metal shell expands, taking on a humanoid form and growing to half Emily’s height by the time the last drop of liquid has been absorbed into it. The child’s metal skin is tinged red, and it’s curled into a ball, unmoving, only the beating pulse of qi within showing it’s alive. The energy of the dimension bends towards Emily’s newest creation, feeding into it as it continues to grow at a snail’s pace, the expansion unnoticeable to the naked eye.

“And now, we wait,” Emily says with a satisfied smile, pushing herself and Silvia out of the Factory and into her room within The Mothership. “Gestation should take a month to reach completion.”

“So, we should have a new fifth phase member of the crew by the time we check in with the FAF?” Silvia questions, a hint of disbelief in her tone that quickly shifts to a teasing lilt. “We should be focusing our efforts on providing you with materials to make more children if this is all it takes. We’d be large enough to challenge half The Federation within a few decades alone.”

“As if,” Emily scoffs. “I’ll only accept truly intriguing materials that spark inspiration for my children.”

She pulls away from the arms holding her tight and takes a few steps towards the door out into the rest of the ship, but Silvia catches her wrist before she can get too far.

“And where do you think you’re going?” the vampire says with an unamused raised brow.

“To the workshop? How else do you expect me to build us an army large enough to challenge The Federation?”

“Darling, I just drained half of your lifeforce in one go. What you need right now is rest, not more work.”

“I just spent a week doing nothing but rest; I’ll be fine.”

“Nope! That argument doesn’t work when I know we didn’t sleep.”

Silvia pulls her back in, sweeping her off her feet and carrying her towards the bed.

“You’re insufferable,” Emily says with a defeated sigh, unwilling to admit what they both already know: she could definitely slip Silvia’s hold if she wanted to.