Chapter 39: The Fractured Seed of Futurity
Crystal's luminous gaze drifted away, shrouded in a veil of sorrow, before returning like a fragile comet cutting back through the cosmic darkness to meet mine. "I failed," she whispered, voice trembling like starlight flickering through turbulent nebulae, "to be impregnated by your seminal essence, my love. I concealed this truth from you, fearing you were not yet prepared to welcome progeny into our boundless existence."
My eyes snapped open wide, the weight of her words hitting me with the force of a supernova detonating in my chest. They hid from me the fact that my genetic spark could not kindle life within her divine vessel? The thought struck like a dagger forged from misunderstood purpose. "It's alright, my love," I murmured gently, striving to cloak her disappointment with the warmth of reassurance. "I expected something like this would happen eventually."
Her brow furrowed in perplexed curiosity, tilting her head like a celestial fawn. "You expected this?" she asked, soft disbelief coating her tone.
"Absolutely." I smiled wryly, fingers lifting to brush a strand of her radiant hair away from her ethereal cheek, which she nuzzled into with a soft sigh. "The gulf between our strengths is astronomical—colossal even. You are a living god, a cosmic force sculpted of psionic light and raw omnipotence. For your seed to take root inside you, I must grow, stretch, and fracture the limits of my own power. Fortunately, we possess all the time the universe can offer."
Before I could breathe relief into that hope, a familiar voice pierced the gentle tension.
"Love, you've misunderstood the nature of the failure," Kimchi interjected with a calm clarity born from experience and patience. Her tone was soft but carried the undeniable weight of psionic authority. "The queen's inability to conceive was not due to your seed's weakness, but because the passive psionic energy she radiates—her aura—destroyed your nectar when the body swap occurred. It was never about your seed being too feeble."
I blinked, momentarily struck dumb by this correction. Oh. The cosmic jigsaw pieces shifted as I realized I'd made a misstep in my assumptions. Such mistakes were inevitable in the tangled dance of mind and matter.
Turning back to Crystal, I noticed her expression had shifted from sadness to something more contemplative, almost a shadow of concern carved by unspoken worries. "So... that was all you were worried about? Not telling me we couldn't have children just yet?"
Though still young in this vast cosmic play, I smiled softly. "I'm not bothered by it. We can have children whenever you choose. There's no rush."
Her lips curled into a bittersweet smile, the kind that carried both hope and the weight of necessity. "That comforts me more than you know, my mate," she said quietly, "but your earlier words about our strength disparity do resonate. While I fashioned this body to fulfill your every desire—including the ability to bear offspring with you—I didn't fully consider the present magnitude of our power imbalance."
Her tone grew somber. "Though I could still be fertilized, your genetic imprint would falter, unable to weave with mine strongly enough to survive. It would perish, a fragile thread unable to hold the cosmic tapestry together."
A heavy silence settled in the room, thick as the gravity wells of dying stars. Crystal's grand plan, meticulously crafted over sixteen years, was now cast into an uncertain future. The cycle she envisioned—offspring after offspring, a lineage woven through time—was stalled, held hostage by the gulf in our power.
I felt the atmosphere darken palpably; the emotions of powerful psionic beings are not mere ripples but storms that warp the very air. Crystal's sorrow seeped into the room, turning it glum and leaden.
Determined to dispel the gloom, I shifted the mood by recounting my recent duel with Kimchi. Her face brightened instantly—stories about me were among her cherished treasures. Her pride shimmered like a newly born star when she learned I'd disarmed Kimchi, a feat worthy of reverence. She pulled me close between her surprisingly petite yet surprisingly dense breasts.
Their deceptive size belied their mass, a paradox born of her towering form; if these were on a mortal woman, they might be mere B cups, but here they had weight and depth enough to suffocate a head—and I was already gasping for air in that embrace.
Once she released me—denying me a glorious death by suffocation—I continued the tale of the events between then and her awakening. When she was fully caught up, I shifted gears, mindful not to let the reproduction topic dampen her spirits any further.
"So then," I ventured, "when will my mind be truly my own again? Normally, this would be training time, honing my powers. Instead, I feel like a caged beast."
Without hesitation, Crystal plunged into my Mindspace, passing through psychic defenses as effortlessly as a knife through the thickest velvet. Her mind knew this realm intimately, a home away from home. Traveling swiftly to the origin's locus, she found Onyx kneeling in concentration—but the Origin itself was nowhere to be seen.
"Where has my beloved's Origin vanished, you persistent stalker?" Crystal demanded, her voice both amused and perplexed.
Onyx bowed her head respectfully. "Greetings, my queen. Your presence during the Origin's metamorphosis has caused it to shy away, activating a psionic camouflage. The Origin is Psychokinesis, bordering on Omni-kinesis, but still fledgling. It's... embarrassed, as strange as that sounds."
A sudden shock of energy crackled over Onyx's form, causing her to spasm slightly—but her focus on maintaining the cloaking energy remained unbroken.
"You can shock me all you want, Onyx," Crystal teased with a sly grin. "Just don't act embarrassed, or I'll tell your main body you're a big baby."
The invisible Origin protested no further, and Onyx continued. "My foresight bonds well with the Origin. It has seen what it must become, and it promises that our darling will regain access to his Mindspace as soon as we return home—precisely the moment his right foot touches solid ground."
Crystal cringed slightly at Onyx's cavalier use of foresight, a power she herself rarely wielded for such trivial specifics. The stalker seemed to notice but said nothing.
"Thank you for your service, Onyx. I shall leave you to your vigil."
With barely a moment passing, Crystal withdrew from my Mindspace.
"You will access your Mindspace again once we have landed and disembarked, my love," she said, determination flickering in her eyes. "For now, let us focus on honing your current abilities."
"What do you have in mind, my queen?" I asked.
"You've been training to bolster your Mindspace defenses and the strength that underlies your psionic attacks," Crystal explained. "Though you have not yet unlocked new powers, you still wield your psionic bullet—an art I taught you. We shall begin by refining that."
She rose gracefully and walked to the far end of the chamber. "Shoot me right here," she instructed, pointing just above where her natural navel would be if this body were birthed instead of crafted.
I didn't flinch or hesitate. I could sever Kimchi's hand without hesitation; shooting Crystal's stomach was a gentle task by comparison. Besides, her skin was an impenetrable fortress except to Kiya's unique sharpness—and even then, only superficially.
Positioning myself parallel to this ethereal yet indestructible beauty, I raised my hand, summoning the energy to form the bullet. It began to coalesce, a dense sphere of compressed psionic force pulling power not only from my reserves but also siphoning ambient energy swirling invisibly around us.
Over a minute passed, my arm trembling as the bullet grew—massive, unstable, teetering on the edge of my control. I aimed carefully and released it.
The psionic discharge was a silent thunderclap; though such power would rend the ears of mortals, my senses remained intact. The bullet collided with Crystal's abdomen—and was absorbed without so much as a ripple. Her body drank the raw energy like a supercharged sponge, utterly unharmed.
Had a human been struck, the blast would have pierced, exploded internally, and left nothing but a vapor of crimson mist.
"A very well-executed shot, my love," Crystal praised, turning to Kimchi for her expert opinion.
Kimchi analyzed the attack mentally. "It was a powerful strike, enough to rupture the thorax of my former bodies, causing fatal damage. But the charge-up time was far too long; any prey exposed that long would already be devoured."
Crystal nodded gravely. "I concur. From now until our return, we will train this ability relentlessly—aiming to slash the charge time drastically."
My mind reeled, raw from the exertion of unleashing such concentrated psionic force. I could only think, This is gonna suck.