Echidna snapped her eyes open. Her weakened state required increasingly more time to rest. She rose from the corner provided by the lake’s master, breathing heavily.

‘…D*mn that human woman.’

Echidna gritted her teeth and lifted her trembling wrist. Strange black patterns covered her wrist, which had only a palm without fingers.

The poison ritual she had placed on Lete’s soul had broken, and its backlash had returned to Echidna.

‘How on earth did she do it, being just a human?’

Echidna trembled in frustration. Now she had nothing left to threaten Livia Horn with.

Already anxious about the human who wouldn’t follow her will, and now with her means of threatening gone – it maddened her.

Echidna looked down at her wretched and hideous hand with only one finger remaining. Her trembling, wrinkled hand appeared as worthless as her current state. Even the fact that she only had one card left to play mirrored her condition.

She needed to find a way. Her revival would be meaningless if she fell like this.

‘Lately, even Hecate’s shadow has been lurking… Triton, what exactly did you do?’

The goddess of sorcery rarely showed herself. Echidna, her most devoted follower, couldn’t ignore this fact.

Though ultimately, she had abandoned Hecate and gained independent magical power. Hecate formed the foundation of Echidna’s power, meaning Hecate could break her spells at any time.

‘But it won’t be easy, Hecate. There are quite a few lives and deep malice contained there.’

Grinding her teeth, Echidna bit off her last remaining finger. She hesitated briefly since it was her last finger, but she needed to act, knowing all her efforts would be wasted otherwise.

With a crunch, the sound of bone breaking and splitting, the finger came off.

Ptui.

After spitting out the finger, Echidna muttered incantations with her wrinkled lips, and the invisible bloodstain on her forehead dimly glowed in response.

It marked her status as Hecate’s follower, though Echidna had erased it herself long ago. She traced the power source that remained in those traces. The destroyed finger lent her strength.

When she closed her eyes, she saw a dark and gloomy island.

‘This is…?’

Hecate existed as a goddess without her own domain. Despite her powerful abilities, no god would give her territory.

The sky belonged to gods, the earth to humans, and below ground to the dead.

Hecate was neither dead nor alive, making finding her domain extremely difficult. Thus, she became the goddess of crossroads and shadows by necessity.

‘Hecate has gotten a domain?’

At that moment, Echidna’s mind became perfect, seemingly finding a lost piece. Triton had given Hecate a domain.

A perfect triangular island where no one could approach.

‘So that’s what it was….’

Echidna entered deep into Hecate’s island while concealing her presence. She needed to discover exactly what that woman planned to do. Echidna reached the darkest, most power-filled place on the island.

‘What is this?’

While staring at the purple-glowing magical formation, she quickly flattened herself to the ground, hiding her presence when sensing someone approaching.

Three or four of Hecate’s priestesses stood surrounding the magical formation, making no footsteps. Holding each other’s hands, they began channeling power into the formation while chanting spells. After considerable time passed, the priestesses stepped back, breathing heavily. One wiped away cold sweat and whispered.

“It’s almost done. Now we just need the ‘tail’ to come.”

‘…Tail?’

Echidna’s eyes flashed while pondering their words.

‘No way…!’

She stopped peeking and opened her eyes wide, then hurriedly entered the deep-sea lake to wake Regis.

“Hey, master of the deep! Wake up! You have work to do!”

As Regis slowly emerged from the murky bottom, Echidna grabbed his collar and spoke with a growl.

“You need to capture the red-head from the golden castle right now.”

What… do you… mean…

“That woman caused your daughter’s death. If you don’t bring her now, your revenge for your daughter will be lost forever!”

At Echidna’s words, Regis’s body, soaked in dense water, rose up.

My daughter… is dead?

“That’s right. Now, listen. You should be able to confirm if this is your daughter’s voice.”

Echidna called forth the conversation from the day they captured Letis. Reproducing a recent conversation exactly in her mind presented little difficulty.

“That’s right, I hate that human woman Triton brought.”

“It’s all because of that woman that I ended up like this!”

“I wish she would die. Forever!”

The voice Echidna played unmistakably belonged to Letis. Regis couldn’t fail to recognize the one voice he had repeated over and over in his mind. He knew everything about that child’s speech patterns and habits. She represented the only brilliantly shining thing he had ever possessed in his life….

My daughter… my daughter, my daughter is dead?

“It’s because of that woman. Because of that human woman. So capture that woman, hurry!”

My daughter is dead!!! Aaargh!!!

The heavy surface of the brine pool vibrated finely at Regis’s roar.

***

Livia, who had been looking around the coral garden, suddenly lifted her head.

‘I thought I heard something just now?’

Along with an eerie feeling, she sensed someone calling her name. However, looking around, she saw no one who might call her except Audike, who examined coral branches with her.

‘Did I hear wrong?’

Just as she tilted her head in confusion, Audike, who seemed to have found something among the blue coral colony, lifted her head brightly and called out to Livia.

“Livia! How about this, this?”

“Did you find something good?”

Livia quickly ran to Audike’s location, pushing aside her thoughts. Audike pointed to a coral with red branches majestically protruding like deer antlers among various coral colonies.

“This one has just the right luster and hardness, I think it might not be bad, what do you think?”

“Wow…. It’s really beautiful. I think this is good too. I’ll take it!”

Livia smiled brightly and put the coral Audike handed her into her basket.

The basket already overflowed with corals of various shapes and colors. Livia planned to process these to make a gift for Triton.

Compared to everything he did for her, she felt she merely ate and played around too much, making it hard to bear. For someone who had worked her whole life, adapting to a comfortable environment presented challenges.

Moreover, thanks to Triton, even Lete’s soul had been saved a few days ago, so she wanted to express her gratitude. And also… she wanted to convey her ever-growing affection to him.

“I regret k*lling you.”

“I regret making you lonely and hurting you.”

Triton’s voice seeped hotly into Livia’s heart.

She too had rushed to kill him, and had pointed a blade at a god that humans would hardly dare to look up to, so death wasn’t unfair. She couldn’t deny bringing death upon herself, blinded by revenge.

Yet he said he regretted hurting her. He said if he could turn back time, he would come to find her first.

Why that sounded so sweet, Livia found difficult to understand herself.

All the memories of that day made her happy.

That’s right.

Livia now pushed away despair and felt happiness. Though this unfamiliar and ticklish feeling overwhelmed her to the point of difficult acknowledgment, she simply couldn’t deny it anymore.

Because of Triton, because she stayed with Triton, because it was Triton, she felt happy now.

She couldn’t control her swelling feelings toward him.

Would it be alright for me to stay by his side? As he said, could I dare to become a god’s wife?

Livia’s mind grew distant at the assumption that seemed too grand even for a dream.

Triton had asked Livia to become family. If asked what she valued most in life, without doubt it was family. Now Triton would enter that family.

Her heart beat so violently that she worried it might burst right then.

…Thud.

Audike, who had been examining other corals, suddenly collapsed to the ground.

“…Audike? Audike!”

Startled, Livia hurriedly embraced Audike and checked her complexion. Audike’s gills trembled while she lay quietly with closed eyes, appearing asleep, and her breathing grew faint.

“Sympho, Neo…!”

As she hurriedly tried to call the sharks, a black hand blocked Livia’s mouth. Before she could react, her consciousness extinguished like a candle being snuffed out.