Livia startled and looked at him with trembling eyes. Triton stared at her intently with an unreadable expression.

Was he thinking she had deceived him again?

It was wrong to have hidden Echidna’s intrusion from the beginning. But… at that time, she couldn’t say anything due to her worry about Lete.

Though it might sound like an excuse to Triton, Livia had definitely decided to confess everything. As soon as she confirmed from Zagreus that Lete was safe.

Taking a shaky breath, Livia held the necklace from Echidna that he had handed over and said, “Echidna told me to make you consume this and to tell you that I love you. I… told her to stop talking nonsense and threw it behind the bed.”

Triton quietly listened to Livia’s words.

“I was thinking about this and looked for it, but couldn’t find it. So you were the one who took it.”

“There was a foul smell in our space.”

He said with a slight smile.

Livia, who had been quietly staring at him, anxiously added, “I didn’t mean to deceive you deliberately. At that time, my mind was too rushed to judge anything…”

“It’s alright, Livia.”

Triton interrupted her words with an ostensibly generous voice.

“This kind of thing is nothing.”

Speaking indifferently, he placed his hand over Livia’s hand that was holding the necklace. Just as an icy force was transmitted through his hand into Livia’s palm, the small bead cracked with a snap.

When she hurriedly opened her palm, the dark red liquid that had been trapped inside the bead writhed like a snake, trying to crawl up Livia’s palm.

“She probably wanted to plant it in my heart like a parasite. When the trigger word was spoken, it would have burst inside my heart.”

As the dark red liquid touched Triton’s fingertips as he muttered as if it were nothing, it vaporized and disappeared as if burning.

“And that trigger word would probably be…”

Triton’s hand caressed Livia’s cheek. As his thumb brushed over Livia’s lips, he said,

“The words ‘I love you.'”

Livia’s heart dropped. She felt uneasy, as if she had heard words that shouldn’t have been spoken.

Looking at her confused face, Triton let out a soft laugh.

“My foolish and pitiful Livia.”

His eyes, containing the sea within them, looked down at Livia with apparent sympathy.

There was an implicit pressure, like a noble being standing in an unreachable high place looking down at a beggar collapsed on the street. Livia was suddenly reminded of who Triton was.

The absolute ruler of the vast sea, the beautiful god of the ocean.

“You need my protection. You’re so weak that you’re haunted by mere nightmares, so it’s only right that I protect you.”

His words seemed generous and benevolent at first glance, but the truth permeating them was different.

Just as Triton had placed soft water shackles on Livia’s ankles, he was trying to control her with plausible words.

“My beloved Livia.”

However, his next words completely stopped Livia’s thoughts. Those words, finally heard from his lips, froze her like magic.

“My foolish and lovely wife, who worries that a mere word might harm me.”

Triton pulled Livia’s stiff waist into his embrace and gently stroked her disheveled hair.

“You just need to be comfortable within my domain.”

Triton whispered while looking at Livia with eyes that weren’t human, but Livia, trapped in his embrace, couldn’t see that gaze.

***

Echidna crawled flat on the sandy bottom for days and days, moving deeper and deeper.

A body that was not only far from beautiful but didn’t even have proper limbs…

Now all that remained for her was the downfall of the root cause that had led her onto this thorny path.

‘Triton… Triton…!’

The poison of curses affects even sorcerers. Black magic that uses living beings as ingredients was especially dangerous. Even Hecate, known as the mother of sorcery, didn’t use curses carelessly for this reason.

Echidna wasn’t unscathed either. Her curse had consumed several lives, and she had even ground up her own body into it, making it extraordinarily potent.

As a result, her body was rotting while still alive, but she didn’t regret it. A body that would rot away and die anyway – if it was useful for cursing Triton, that wasn’t so bad.

‘…So you must suffer more than me, Triton.’

Echidna wanted his heart.

A heart torn to shreds.

But then again, even if his heart disappeared, gods could resurrect. Then… how should she inflict a wound that could never heal?

The answer was humans.

An immortal loving a mortal? Especially if she made it so they couldn’t even be reborn as sea foam…

‘That would truly be Triton losing his heart forever.’

And so Echidna changed the target of her spell midway. From Triton to Livia.

It was a method she could think of precisely because that woman had fallen in love with Triton.

‘Fate is such a powerful thing, Triton. Powerful enough to trap even you.’

Echidna, with her blackened dead face, cackled from within the sandy bottom as she looked toward where the golden palace stood. Sparks flew in her sunken eyes.

If only she could get closer, if only she could see with her own eyes the sight of him and that woman’s downfall…

However, her weakened body had no strength left to crawl further inside. Triton’s sharks were thoroughly searching the sea. They were probably looking for her. She had no intention of being caught so easily.

No sooner had she thought this than strange sharks with snouts like saws appeared in the distance, stabbing the bottom as they approached where Echidna was.

‘…Too many to handle.’

Echidna, who had been looking for a chance to escape, disturbed an octopus hiding in the rock crevice to create a cloud of dust. When the sharks’ attention turned that way, she quickly looked for an escape route under the sandy bottom.

Swoosh!

But there were too many sharks. Some of them ignored the octopus and continued searching around until they discovered Echidna.

“…D*mn it!”

Echidna, cursing in a rough voice, hid her body in a narrow crevice where the sharks couldn’t enter. She couldn’t have imagined that the dark gap would lead to an endless fall.

“Ah, ahhh!”

She flailed with her fingerless hands, but couldn’t climb back up. She was instantly sucked down to the bottom as if someone was pulling her in.

It was just like when she was torn apart by Triton and fell into Rubedike’s labyrinth.

Down, down she fell endlessly. Echidna, terrified, desperately flailed her limbs.

‘Am I going to die like this? No. This can’t be…!’

She wanted to cry out for help, but she had no gods to desperately beg for aid. Just as she gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, she felt the bottom like a presence.

Splash.

Despite being underwater, the strange sensation of sinking into water again made her eyes snap open, and a bitter taste so intense it could make her faint clawed at Echidna’s tongue.

No, this couldn’t even be called a ‘taste.’ Echidna jumped up hastily from her spot due to the terrible pain of her tongue burning up, and her eyes bulged.

She had belatedly realized where she had fallen.

The brine pool.

The sea’s lake. The pool of death, as sea creatures called it.

‘Of all places, here…’

Echidna’s face crumpled, but she soon changed her mind. Well, at least it wasn’t Rubedike’s labyrinth. Because divine blood flowed through her veins, she wouldn’t succumb helplessly to the brine pool’s toxicity like other sea creatures. However, her body was too weak now to endure for long.

Just as she was about to hurriedly leave the place.

Grab!

Someone seized her ankle.

“…!”

Startled out of her wits, she looked down to see a pitch-black man buried in the bottom of the brine pool staring intently at her.

“Wh-what! Let go!”

As she struggled to break free from him, a buzzing voice transmitted into Echidna’s mind.

Le… tis…. My… daughter.