The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 212: Why are we keep doing things backward?

Chapter 212: Why are we keep doing things backward?

"Why do you have to touch everything?"

Natha looked at me with a questionable look, making me feel defensive. "I do not!" I protested with pursed lips.

"Well, you at least like to touch my--"

"Aaaahhh!" I pressed my fingers on his lips.

This demon! Watch your mouth in front of your--potentially--future child, my Lord! I glared at him and he snickered before biting my fingers playfully.

"A-anyway!" I pulled my bitten fingers off his mouth, shielding them from his further ministration. "It’s just a logical thing to do, don’t you think? I mean, we have no other information."

He smiled and rubbed my pouting lips with one hand, and with his other hand, Natha touched the tube, pouring his mana into the apparatus supporting the tube. Like a scene from a sci-fi movie--which was rather jarring in this fantasy setting--a hissing sound could be heard and the surface of the glass tube shimmered as the protective barrier was undone.

I watched in fascination as the tube slid down inside the platform supporting the whole thing, and finally...the spherical seed was in front of me, without any obstacle between us. My arms raised reflexively, but I looked at Natha first.

"Alright, go on," he said with a smile, and I shifted my gaze back to the egg.

Stepping forward, my fingers touched the textured surface. I stayed like that for a few seconds, testing the waters, and when it seemed to be safe, I touched it with both hands, palm against the surface.

It was cold, like a stone, but with something pulsing inside. Now I could see that rather than an egg, it looked more like a flower bud. There were lines overlapping with each other, stacking layers shaping a small, dark opening on top. But the surface still felt like a stone rather than something...more alive.

That being said, I could feel the vibration from the pulsing core, somewhere deep in the middle. It was so fascinating. I dared myself to trace the patterns with my fingers, unconsciously holding my breath while waiting for some reaction.

But there was none.

Even after waiting for a few minutes, nothing happened. I tilted my head and looked at Natha, who responded with a shrug. "What if I flow some mana?"

Again, the silver eyes narrowed, so I added. "Or we can do it together," I gave him a suggestion. After all, if this was truly supposed to be a way for us to conceive a child, wouldn’t it need both of our participation?

"Huh," Natha tilted his head in surprise, as if it had never crossed his thoughts before. But then he smiled and put his hands above mine, touching the back of my head with his lips as he whispered. "Alright, let’s do it,"

"Slowly?"

"Yes," he kissed my head and then started to pour his mana--more refreshing than cold--to tell me how much I should do.

Oh, this was kind of interesting. We had never intertwined our mana like this before, and it made my skin tingle with excitement. "This feels like a movie scene," I whispered with a giggle.

"We’re not making pottery," he commented, and I gasped. How do you know that, my Lord?!

But he shushed me and I tried to focus back on the egg. We poured our mana gradually, and it was getting absorbed inside without any trouble.

But that was the problem.

It kept on absorbing and absorbing yet there was no change. Not that we could observe anyway. It was like pouring a glass of water into a great ravine, and after doing it for almost ten minutes, I looked up at Natha.

"I don’t think this is working..."

"Mm,"

I really couldn’t feel any chance, even on the inside. Whether there was a great barrier that did not allow me to peek, or we just...well, failed. Or rather, it wasn’t the correct method.

"Should we stop?" Natha asked. We had poured the same amount someone would need to activate a skill big enough to destroy a colosseum, so I nodded., and took my hands away from the egg--

--More!

"Wh-wha...what?" I flinched at the sudden voice in my head, and looked around in reflex. "What was that?"

"What happened?"

Natha, however, didn’t seem to hear it, which made me more confused, but also started to get scared.

--Not enough!

Again, the voice rang in my head. But this time, it felt strangely familiar. I looked down at the egg and widened my eyes. "Is it you?"

"What? It responded?" Natha asked in surprise.

--More! More! More of you!

This...sounded almost like Jade. But the voice was very neutral, not really like a child, but also not like an adult. It wasn’t truly clear too, rather buzzing, as if there was a modifier attached to the speaker.

Oh!

It sounded just like the cocoon inside that dark place! The one that told me it wasn’t the time yet.

"Sweetheart?"

"Oh, sorry!" I shook my head and looked at the egg again. "Yeah, I think it responded. I heard a voice,"

Natha did not say anything for a while, just looking at me in silence. "What did it say?" he asked finally, sounding like he was in a daze.

"It said ’more’," I told him. "I think it wants us to pour more mana? Should we try?"

I looked up, and now the silver eyes were staring at the egg keenly, with a glint that was a mix of excitement and...tenderness. Wordlessly, he channeled more mana, and I followed suit.

Not long after, the egg started to vibrate softly, as if purring in delight. It wasn’t a long time, probably about ten seconds. But I could feel Natha’s increasing heart rate--or was it mine? I felt like we both held our breath during those ten seconds, until it stopped buzzing and I could no longer feel anything.

"I think that’s enough," I whispered. It had already taken more than half of our mana, the greedy little thing.

Slowly, we pulled our hands away from it. This time, there was no sudden invading voice. So I nodded to Natha and he activated the glass tube again, resealing the protective barrier.

For a while, none of us said anything. We just stood there, looking at the Primordial Seed in silence while holding hands.

"Wow..." I exclaimed quietly after a while, and Natha echoed.

"Wow, indeed," he nodded. We were both still in a daze, just staring. "That never happened before."

"You had tried channeling mana there before?"

"Yeah," Natha said, taking a deep breath to get ahold of himself. "But nothing happened, so I guess it needs both of our..."

His face, which looked in a trance before, suddenly broke into a soft smile. There was even a slight blush in his cheek. The blush that was also infecting my face when I realized what he might be thinking.

Pouring both of our mana inside, it was like...we were making a union. Like...conceiving.

Oh my God--that was embarrassing!

I turned around and slapped my cheeks to get rid of the heat.

"What are you doing?" he asked, suspiciously cheerfully, circling his arms around my waist from behind.

I pressed my lips in an attempt to manage my embarrassment. "Do you think...that’s how we do it?"

Surprisingly, Natha shook his head. "No, I don’t think so," he said. He let go of me and pulled my hand, walking away from the steadily pulsing egg. "There’s no...body in it. You couldn’t feel it, could you?"

I shook my head, and bit my cheek in disappointment. "I think it’s more like we’re making a channel," he continued.

"A channel?"

"With the soul," he said, smiling slightly.

"The soul of...of our..." I looked at him bashfully, and he didn’t reply, but he did kiss the top of my head as a response.

There was no need to finish that thought with a word. We both knew what I meant. We both could feel the unspoken giddiness. My fingers held his tighter, and he returned it by raising our hands and kissing the brand on the back of my hand.

And then my mind went back to that voice, to the entity inside that darkness and the pulsing cocoon. Did that mean the one who whisked me away to that space was this...soul? That voice? I felt like I was also visiting that place in my dream at least once...

So...so it was actually a voice of my...my future...

Oh, Mother--just thinking about it made me flustered again. Perhaps because feeling the existence of the supposed soul made it feel real. It was no longer just a mere conjecture--although, of course, we still didn’t know for sure.

Also...why were we talking about making a child when we haven’t even gotten married?

"I think we need to see my Teacher sometimes," Natha said as we walked toward the exit.

"The Guardian!" I gasped in excitement. And not only that, she was also supposed to be Eruha’s ancestor, which sounded really cool, honestly.

"Yes, although...we would need to bring a lot of...offering,"

"For her?"

"No," Natha chuckled. "For the Lord of Gluttony, since we would need to enter her territory,"

Ooh...the land of vampires! It smelled like a new adventure!

"So you used to live in the Realm of Gluttony..." I muttered in surprise. This was new, because Natha had never mentioned the location of his Master’s abode in his journal. He did say he had a good relationship with Gluttony though, perhaps it started from that.

Talking about abode though...

Didn’t Natha say the dark space I got whisked into was a divine abode?

I stopped walking the moment I remembered that, and took out the notebook. "Natha," I looked at the notebook, recalling the content of the first entry. "Didn’t the King say that...it was the procreation for the vessel of the Primordial One?"

"...yes,"

"You mean..." I looked up, swallowing the saliva that felt dry in my throat. "The God?"

"Yes,"

"You mean...we’re supposed to conceive...a God?"

Natha looked back at my unblinking eyes, and, with an awkward voice, answered it. "Yes."