Chapter 1292: The Unborn Child’s Demanding Hunger!

Melissa’s pool had never been prepared to resemble Phei’s.

The same dark-golden essence filled the sunken basin, born from the same three colossal feathers taken from the corpse of the Great Immortal God Habin, yet the liquid surrounding Melissa possessed none of the savage violence presently tearing Phei apart in another hall. Its brilliance was softer here, closer to deep amber whenever the steam shifted above the surface, and the unbearable pressure once carried by the Great Immortal’s raw essence had already been stripped down layer after layer.

Sienna stood beside the pool watching quietly.

Melissa had lowered herself until the elixir rested just beneath her shoulders. Her dark hair was gathered away from the water, although several damp strands had escaped and clung along her cheeks and neck. She had entered expecting heat, perhaps pain but what she had not expected was the immediate discovery that her body apparently contained an astonishing amount of filth despite years of believing herself perfectly healthy.

Several black specks rose from along her forearm and shoulder, each one pulled upward the instant it escaped her skin. They never touched the medicinal liquid again. The formations woven through the chamber drew every impurity into the air, leaving them suspended above the pool while the dark-golden elixir below remained perfectly pure.

Melissa looked at Sienna: "I bathe every day."

Sienna’s violet eyes shifted toward her mother.

Melissa pointed toward the growing cloud above them. "I feel that should count for something."

"It does."

Melissa waited but Sienna offered nothing else, a reluctant smile pulled at Melissa’s lips. "Your reassurance is overwhelming."

The next pulse of elixir entered deeper making her smile vanish.

Heat spread through her shoulders, descended along her spine and then flooded inward with enough force to steal a breath from her lungs. Melissa’s fingers tightened around the smooth edge of the pool as more impurities surfaced from beneath the flesh, some grey, others almost black, several carrying a faint red-brown tint that made their origin impossible to guess.

The dark cloud grew denser and big. Melissa stared upward with increasing offense. "This is getting ridiculous."

"You’ve lived for a while."

Melissa slowly turned her head: "I’m forty-three."

Sienna nodded. "Exactly."

Melissa stared at her for several seconds but the Nether Goddess remained perfectly serious.

"You little brat."

A softer flicker of smile appeared in Sienna’s eyes before another wave of Great Immortal essence entered Melissa’s body and ended the exchange.

The elixir moved through her blood first and Melissa felt it immediately; a slow burning spread beneath her skin, too deep to be ordinary heat and too deliberate to feel like fire. It travelled through vessels, touched muscle, brushed against organs and began drawing impurities out from places that simple cleansing had never reached.

Sienna’s attention sharpened; Melissa’s body did not seize the spring the way Phei’s had.

There was no violent whirlpool or anything in her mother roaring awake and attempting to devour everything in reach. Melissa received the energy more carefully, her foundation opening beneath the elixir in slow layers while the purified Great Immortal essence searched through places she had deliberately kept quiet for years.

Phei’s spring had been prepared around his monstrous abilities, elements, power and bloodlines resting him that hadn’t awakened yet and strip away anything trying to impose itself upon him. His bloodlines could seize Habin’s remaining essence, destroy the dead Immortal’s imprint and claim the strength beneath it.

Melissa should never have been forced to do the same.

Sienna had done that part already.

The Great Immortal essence inside this pool had been refined repeatedly before Melissa ever touched it. And Habin’s lingering will had been destroyed, his Angelic imprint had been removed and every fragment of corrupted divinity capable of staining another soul had been peeled away.

What remained was the purest portion of what Habin’s body had accumulated during life.

Raw Great Immortal God’s vitality,

Cultivation essence without ownership, strength without the dead being who once carried it.

Melissa glanced downward as another golden current curled around her waist: "This isn’t exactly the same as Phei’s pool, is it?" She knew from Sienna Phei was in the same process too.

"No." Sienna crouched beside the basin and allowed her fingers to enter the glowing liquid. Dark-golden essence curled lazily around them. "Phei’s body is different from yours, mom and doesn’t have the same strength, and no to mention, the baby shouldn’t be exposed to any of it."

Melissa’s hands moved toward her stomach immediately.

Sienna continued: "I removed everything that could influence either of you. Her corruption and will and every bit of whatever remained of her divine imprint. You’re absorbing the purest raw essence her body had."

Melissa’s shoulders loosened slightly. "Nothing?" Unlike Phei, Melissa knew more or less what Sienna was talking about.

"Nothing capable of becoming part of you." Sienna lifted her fingers from the pool. The dark-golden liquid slipped from them and returned without leaving residue: "Only the energy."

Melissa looked down again, that mattered so much, especially now. Her palms settled naturally over the small life hidden beneath them, and something about the gesture changed Sienna’s expression before she continued.

"For you, the elixir will cleanse and temper the original foundation you had once before that you’ve held back for years. It will nourish your dragon bloodline further too, marrow and organs, deepen the meridians, strengthen your soul, your dormant Dragon Heart Scale and your half-formed core and give your halted cultivation a starting boost and more room to grow."

Melissa’s attention sharpened she cared so little about these and only one thing mattered to her: "And the baby?"

Sienna’s voice softened: "For the baby, the timing is almost perfect, mom."

The words immediately stole every other thought from Melissa.

Sienna placed one hand lightly over her mother’s where it rested against her abdomen, and for several breaths her violet eyes remained fixed upon the tiny life within.

"The child is still forming," she said quietly. "Their flesh is young, the meridians have only begun taking shape, the blood is still thickening and the soul has not fully settled into the body. Under ordinary circumstances, that would mean fragility." Her gaze deepened. "But this child is not ordinary."

Melissa nodded and a dark-golden current moved through the spring and approached her abdomen. Everywhere else, the Great Immortal essence flowed with enough force to scour impurities from flesh, marrow and meridians. Yet the instant it neared the child, the current changed; it thinned into innumerable strands finer than hair, each one stripped of its violent edge before slipping inward.

Melissa expected them to disappear quietly.

Instead, the tiny presence in her answered; but the movement was subtle, yet unmistakable and the surrounding dark-golden threads bent toward it.

Sienna’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Even before birth, the child’s body was already drawing nourishment toward itself.

It was not cultivation or some circulation method like a conscious refinement and no attempt to gather power. The child’s meridians were far too young for that. Yet the baby themself possessed something like an instinctive hunger, a natural ability to seize what was useful and turn it toward growth.

The Great Immortal essence entered and vanished; absorbed.

Melissa stared down at her abdomen. "That much?"

"That is very little."

Melissa looked at her.

Sienna continued before she could misunderstand: "The amount is small because anything greater would be dangerous at this stage. The problem is not whether the child can absorb it." Her violet eyes remained on Melissa’s stomach. "The problem is how much a body this young should be allowed to absorb."

Another strand of dark-golden essence entered.

Sienna felt it clearly this time.

The meridians hadn’t even fully formed inside yet were they already different from what she expected from an unborn child. They were still delicate, but the channels themselves carried unusual breadth and resilience, as though the body were preparing space long before it possessed anything powerful enough to fill it. The blood carried a vitality dense enough that even the Great Immortal essence did not overwhelm the child immediately.

Sienna’s expression became more serious.

"For the next two weeks, the elixir remaining will continue nourishing both of you. Your body will refine the essence first and only the purest traces will reach the child, but even those traces will be enough."

Melissa swallowed. "Enough for what?"

"To let the body keep growing without restricting themself."ℴ

Melissa frowned faintly.

Sienna rested her fingers more firmly over her mother’s hand: "Your child already possesses more vitality than an ordinary unborn child should be able to hold x1000 actually. The blood is developing too strongly. The meridians are forming too quickly. Even the physique is demanding more nourishment than your body would normally be able to provide alone; that’s why you need this so much mom for the child’s development and their demanding hunger!"

Melissa’s eyes widened.

"The Great Immortal god’s essence is not making the child powerful, not even close," Sienna said, her violet eyes remaining upon Melissa’s abdomen. "It is only feeding a portion of what the developing body is already demanding. Right now, that is enough because the child is still small, but this hunger will grow with it."

Melissa’s fingers tightened over her stomach.

Sienna continued quietly, "Soon, even essence this restrained will stop being sufficient on its own and the physique will demand richer nourishment, and the amount needed to keep pace with that growth will rise again. When that happens, we will need something stronger than this."

The dark-golden current slipped inward once more, and the tiny body accepted it almost greedily, drawing every purified trace into itself as though Great Immortal essence were merely the beginning of a meal that would eventually require far more terrifying things to satisfy.

That silenced her.