“Triton, please, help me… somehow… ugh!”

Livia, who had been flailing toward the empty air, urgently grabbed his hand.

Her small, pale white hand desperately clutched his. That desperate strength seemed to tear Triton’s heart to shreds.

The one fortunate thing was that Hecate, who had been waiting for Triton’s call, hurried over.

“Step aside, Triton.”

As soon as Hecate entered the bedroom where screams were coming from, she sensed that something terrible had happened. The chamber that should have been cozy was filled with the horrible scent of curses and spells.

‘This terrible smell of blood…’

The stench of the curse constricting Livia was enough to numb Hecate’s nose—who knew how many lives had been put into it.

“It seems to be because of Echidna’s spell, but why is the baby in the womb acting like this? Is it trying to come out right now?”

“No, no, Triton. I was just on my way back from meeting Eileithyia just in case. She said it’s not yet time for your child to be born. There should be at least another week or so.”

Hecate, whispering with a serious face, placed her hand on Livia’s belly and closed her eyes. The strength of the feet and fists pounding against the thin membrane of skin was by no means weak.

‘Oh no…’

This was struggling. The new life in the womb was fighting desperately to survive.

Hecate swallowed a groan as she realized the situation was complicated. If the baby continued to thrash like this, it seemed poised to tear Livia’s belly and burst out. Hecate carefully infused power to temporarily suppress the spell’s force that had seeped into Livia’s body and was running wild. Then the movement of the child in the womb, which had been struggling with death-like intensity, subsided.

“Hecate.”

At Triton’s urging, Hecate gazed at him and his wife with complicated eyes.

“…That’s right, Triton. Echidna’s second curse has been activated. It seems to have already been transmitted to the baby in the womb. The small life appears to have resisted with all its might, but its power is immature and it’s struggling. But the problem is…”

After a sigh, Hecate’s heavy lips moved as she looked at Livia, who was breathing rapidly, with sympathy and said.

“The baby, unable to endure the pain, is trying to kill its mother.”

The baby is trying to kill its mother!

His suspicion had been confirmed. Triton’s face hardened. He couldn’t believe that his own bloodline was attempting to do the thing most taboo to Triton.

Meanwhile, Livia, who had been desperately gasping for breath, raised her pale face and urgently asked.

“Does that mean… th-this pain… is also… being transmitted… to the baby?”

Her frail voice, devoid of any strength, trembled like the cry of a child abandoned in the snow. Looking at her eyes, which reflected not just frustration and despair but even guilt, Hecate gently brushed back the sweat-soaked hair of the mother and whispered.

“Don’t worry, Livia. As a child with Triton’s blood, it will be much stronger than you think.”

“But it’s still just a baby. A palm-sized baby that hasn’t even been born yet, enduring th-this kind of pain…!”

Anger surged in her bloodshot eyes. Her pale hand wrapped around her round belly. It was heartbreaking to see her forgetting her own pain and only worrying about the baby in her womb. Hecate, who was looking at Livia with sympathy, asked in a quiet voice.

“Let me ask you one thing. Do you remember what you said just before Echidna’s curse was activated?”

“…What do you mean?”

“Did you perhaps… say that you love Triton?”

Surprised by Hecate’s words, Livia’s eyes widened. Her slowly blinking eyes recalled the conversation with Zagreus.

“Because I love Triton. You mean nothing to me, but Triton means so much to me…!”

…Yes, come to think of it, that’s right. Right after saying those words, she felt a pain seeming to burn her wrist, and when she lifted her sleeve, she saw black blood creeping up toward her heart.

‘That means perhaps…’

Livia, with a pale face, looked at Hecate and then at Triton standing beside Hecate. The face of a frightened woman was reflected in Triton’s blue eyes.

Come to think of it, when was it?

When Echidna kidnapped her, she had asked if she loved Triton. She had pushed her obsessively, seemingly demanding that she admit she loved him. Although she had said nothing due to an uneasy feeling, was this the reason all along?

Livia, who had been breathing with trembling breaths, slowly nodded. Her heavy head dropped to the floor. The tears that had been sorrowfully pooled also fell to the floor with her.

“…As I thought. The words ‘I love you’ were the trigger for the spell.”

Hecate felt joy that her guess was correct, but also regret that things had turned out as she had anticipated.

So it has finally come to this. As Echidna wished, the sea god’s love had become a curse.

“Livia…”

Triton embraced the back of Livia, who was helplessly sobbing. He firmly wrapped her small, thin body and kissed the top of her disheveled red hair.

She had fled to the underworld because she didn’t want to harm him, yet in his absence, she had said she loved him. Her small, sobbing back was simply lovable to him.

If the situation weren’t like this, he would hold her without giving her room to breathe and whisper that he too loved her endlessly.

‘No, I can pour out such words throughout our lives…’

More important than that was his bloodline, which had settled in the mother’s womb and was now trying to kill its host.

Although it was his flesh and blood, almost like an extension of himself, it was inexcusably wicked.

It was a being that couldn’t be born without its mother, yet it couldn’t bear the pain of a mere spell and tried to kill its mother—it was unbelievable.

But on the other hand, Triton also knew that this small life wasn’t an evil being. It was just the instinct of living things trying to avoid pain…

What should he do?

He was deeply troubled that Livia, already suffering from the curse, was being made even more miserable because of the child in her womb.

At that very moment, his eyes met Hecate’s. She was looking at him with a face that suggested she had something to say, but she seemed unable to speak easily and only moved her lips.

“Do you have something else to say?”

“Do you remember what I said about the curse being transferred to the child?”

Triton and Livia both looked at Hecate at the same time. Hecate, who had been looking at the man and woman in turn, spoke calmly, seeming to have made up her mind.

“I’m sorry to say this, but with two lives dwelling in one body right now, this could be a good opportunity to escape the spell. If we let the child absorb all of her curse…”

“That’s insane!”

Livia cried out in surprise. To pass all her curse to an unborn child! Where could there be such a crazy idea! Livia shook her head strongly, turning pale.

“That’s impossible! D-don’t say such nonsense! There’s no way we can escape the spell by such means! Triton, say something too. Hmm? Triton…?”

The moment Livia turned to look at Triton with a desperate face, her heart sank. There was no sign of surprise or difficulty on Triton’s face.

She pushed Triton away in shock and looked at him with a pale face.

As she stared blankly at Triton in disbelief, he caressed Livia’s flushed cheek with a cold hand and whispered.

“We don’t need the child, Livia.”

“…!”

Her wide-open eyes trembled uncontrollably. Was what she just heard real? Was she hearing things? The shock beyond astonishment shook her.

“How can you say that… It’s your child and mine, Triton. Our child!”

“As long as you’re alive, we can have another child anytime. But… once I lose you, I can never find you again.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Triton! We can just have another child? Then you might as well love someone else instead of me. You could replace me just as easily!”

Triton’s face grew cold at Livia’s outburst. Gritting his teeth, he sighed and tried to soothe her with a deliberately gentle voice.

“Don’t say such nonsense. How could another woman replace you?”

“That’s exactly what you just said. You want to kill this baby that’s desperately struggling to live and have another baby? How can you say such a thing! No. I don’t want to. I can’t do it!”

“Livia! Think rationally.”

“No! I can’t! If I had thought rationally, I would never have fallen in love with you, Triton!”