Qianye did not care much anymore for his humanity.

It had been a long time since he had felt like he was one in the first place, so how could he, truly?

When you’re reduced so thoroughly into a cripple, the first love that you lose is for the body that has reduced your mind to that state.

That was why, as soon as he saw that ancient nether demon blood essence, the last of his scruples were from conflicts on whether he was willing to potentially, in the most extreme case, entirely abandon his biological race as a human.

Ancient nether demons, beast races, elves, dwarves and all so on, to a fundamental level, were all built more substantially, and impressively than humanity. They were the most natural mystical entities.

That distinction was born through their connection with the supernatural forces of existence.

They were born stronger and faster, were often born with special racial capabilities, and lived far longer especially as the purity of their bloodlines grew.

Moreover, by virtue of that affinity, they often possessed unique methods of using the worlds mystical forces.

Thus, as soon as Melinoë said what she had, he outstretched his hand towards her and the rapturous elysian tree fruit appeared.

Immediately, a sweet scent filled the chrysalis. It blew through them in waves, spinning and hazing their vision, coating their throats in a saccharine sweetness.

Visible streams of its orange, green hued prana wafted off, and Melinoë’s attention wholly focused on it, her eyes shimmering. She received it outstretching both of her hands and cradling it as gently as one would their newborn child.

’How I’m beginning to hate myself for doing all of these agonizing things...’ Qianye silently thought to himself. Honestly, if it were the him of years ago, he would hardly have much to argue against if that self of him had accused him of closet masochism.

There, he drew back the hand from her that had relinquished the elysian life fruit. Then the droplets of nether demon blood essence manifested hovering in it, and the two auras’ immediately clashed, wrestling for dominance through the space of her Chrysalis.

The walls of Melinoë’s chrysalis shuddered. Like the groan of a snake constricting against its prey, a tense, grating sound resounded as its walls tightened inward, pulling taut against themselves. The water that had been still between then churned, swelling and splitting.

That sweet, coddling orange-red and green hued prana wafting off of the fruit clashed with the aura bursting off of the golden-black blood essence droplets, their aura’s relenting and then gaining ground against one another.

Qianye’s koi that had been drifting through the space darted far below the water, pressing themselves to the furthest edges of the chrysalis floor.

The light from the strands of Melinoë’s manifested soul essence lurched between the two auras’, casting the chrysalis in a shattered firmament of kaleidoscopic colours.

The shifting colours wrestled over Melinoë’s face as well as his, and perhaps by virtue of their conflict, the two of them offset each other, forcing some kind of strange ease into the air despite them.

However, it was clear soon enough that in the face of the elysian life tree fruit, the demonic blood essence was still far short, as it began to overwhelm it.

Qianye shivered at the sensation, and he did not glance up to look at Melinoë so that he might keep himself from hesitation.

He threw all six of the glowing, threatening blood droplets into his mouth.

The energy bursting off of them made his mouth dry within moments.

His brows sank as deep as a gorge and he almost hurled out whatever contents that were within his gut, along with his blood and the blood essence.

Thereupon, they burned where they struck the back of his throat, and he crashed his mouth shut. Qianye struggled in attempt to swallow down the explosion of scorching heat that invaded him.

His heart halted for a few moments as his eyes widened. Colour rapidly burst across his face like the smear of a wildfire across a desert of dried wood. And within those moments, his heart thundered into gallops that raced into the hundreds, and beyond the two hundreds of beats per minute.

This was all without him having swallowed the blood essence down. And ultimately, he couldn’t. His body simply couldn’t manage the effort.

However, abruptly, the blood itself shot through the back of his mouth, into his bloodstream.

The majority of Qianye’s consciousness was forced into the depths of his own body, following those droplets of blood as they literally scorched through him.

The stench of his body burning, and the sound of its sizzling began to resound like the rattle of fireworks, and those golden-black droplets broke though the left of his body, lurching him and burning through into his painfully drumming heart.

His vision was consumed by a sea of pulsing, hot white. It only returned to him for the barest of moments, where bis burning white vision would pulse, like the throb of a dying light.

Then he felt her smear the nectar over his body, and then he felt the burst of coolness throughout himself.

The drops of blood essence had not wildly moved through his body. With so much potent life to them, they knew their purpose, and better than anything or anyone, as they understood their origins.

What Ouyang Qianye currently was, spat the greatest disrespect at that understanding, and thus, they had split and scoured, convicted to either bring about transformation or destruction.

They burst out through to different parts of his body, merging into him and wreaking havoc, and the soothing of the compressed nectar that she had given him provided him only the faintest comforts.

And when it did not, all he felt was the blood essence scorching out the space for the creation of what should have existed in a body possessing of them.

The flesh within him burnt, sizzling apart and his body seized as the head seared deeper than his muscles, veins and nerves, to where he could feel it permeating into his soul.

Qianye, not knowing when she would give him his final quarter, pre-emptively opened his mouth, releasing a scream. Thankfully, the nectar came immediately, and it compounded upon the relief he had gotten.

Suddenly, his body locked as rigid as a corpse crucified and being burnt for the heresy of the soul that once occupied it.

Gritting his teeth hard, he threw himself below the water then, and all of his appreciation for the fruits juices, died.

The pain doubled, then tripled because of it, and beneath the water, blood burst through his nostrils and mouth.

And then, he felt his body degenerate.