What kind of situation was this? Livia didn’t know.

She was desperate to inflict even a small wound on the being who caused her such excruciating pain, as if her insides were about to burst.

“Let… go… Let, let me go!”

More than the pain, it was fear, and more than despair, it was malice that filled her as she began to sob and bite the giant hand holding her.

“If you kill me… I’ll come back from the afterlife, huff! Huff! And seek revenge on you!”

At Livia’s spiteful words, Triton burst into laughter. His silver hair, lightly swaying with the waves, seemed mockingly beautiful in the dreadful situation.

“Everyone talks about the afterlife. You seem to think the afterlife is a joke.”

His voice, murmuring with ridicule, was chilling. At the same time, the excruciating pain of her ribs being crushed resumed.

“Ahhh!”

“Where did you get the golden knife? Who sent you here?”

In the grip that squeezed her, Livia truly felt like nothing more than a toy.

The pain of her broken ribs stabbing into her lungs made her think it might be better to just die.

‘…No, I can’t.’

The smell of smoke brushed her nose. That terrible gray smoke that had burned her family and home. She couldn’t afford to be weak.

Livia forced her eyes to focus as they threatened to roll back. With a struggling hand, she scratched the wound on her wrist to draw out the golden knife.

The golden blade shone brilliantly even in the dark sea.

“Chrysaor’s golden knife….”

Triton’s eyes widened with surprise. He hadn’t been mistaken. It was indeed the golden knife.

As Chrysaor’s knife sliced through the back of his hand, red blood flowed.

To him, it might have been just a scratch, but for Livia, it was different. Filled with exhilaration, she stabbed the knife into the giant hand again.

The more she stabbed, the darker the blood became. Along with it, the color of the sea god’s turquoise eyes deepened.

“A mere human dares….”

A fierce wind blew. Seemingly indifferent to the knife stabbing his hand, the grip holding Livia tightened even more.

“Where did you get this knife? Is that woman alive? Or, are you perhaps related to her?”

The barrage of questions was harsh. But Livia shook her head, gritting her teeth.

If she was going to die anyway, she would never reveal anything. Displeased with her defiant gaze, Triton’s grip grew even stronger.

Then, an unbearable pain far worse than before engulfed her.

“Huff, ugh!”

Crunch. Crack, snap!

Her ribs screamed in agony as they completely shattered. Without the protection of the sturdy bones, her organs were pierced by bone fragments and burst messily. Her fiercely beating heart was no exception.

“……!”

As Livia, who had been glaring at Triton with wide eyes, slowly closed her eyelids, her small head suddenly snapped back.

It was Livia’s first death.

***

The small body went limp.

Triton’s brow furrowed as he looked down at the fragile, broken body.

‘…To think she’d die from just this.’

There was no sign of life from the human. The tattered little body fluttered strangely like a torn piece of cloth.

Humans were always like this.

They died so easily that it was almost embarrassing to be truly angry. They died too quickly, leaving him feeling deflated.

He had intended to torment her more thoroughly over time.

“……”

Triton quietly looked down at the lifeless human woman’s body. In her right hand, she still held the golden knife that shone with a dazzling light.

What exactly was its origin? How did she have Chrysaor’s golden knife?

Chrysaor.

He was the illegitimate child of the god Poseidon and a woman with serpent hair.

Born clutching a golden knife, he often claimed that he, too, had a right to rule over the sea. His greed ultimately led to his banishment from the ocean, and how he met his end while wandering the land remained a mystery.

However, his lineage proved to be resilient.

The children he fathered with a sea nymph, the daughter of Oceanus, returned to the golden palace.

“We share the same sea blood, so why are we denied the noble and sacred duty?”

Their voices angered Triton’s mother, the queen of the sea.

She bound her noisy sons into one, creating a monster with three bodies and one leg, and cast them to the earth.

Yet, Chrysaor’s cunning daughter had already bowed low and observed the queen’s reactions when she entered the golden palace.

She pleaded that she desired nothing and only asked to live there.

She was Echidna, a woman with a beautiful upper body and a serpent’s tail.

However, her gaze changed after she encountered Triton, who had returned from surveying the distant seas for the ruler’s tasks.

Echidna circled around him, persistently trying to catch his attention.

“I try to deny it, but you and I share the same blood. So our ‘specialness’ is the same, right?”

Her whisper was absurd, her eyes desperate to the point of being unsettling.

“…I love you! Accept me. The child we bear will become the most powerful ruler of the sea!”

Her cries were annoying at that moment.

“You will eventually want me too!”

Echidna dared to bind and disgrace him with a bizarre spell she had learned from somewhere.

“How much of a fool did you take me for?”

Triton was never a gentle or patient man. Like other gods, he was capricious and violent, perhaps even more ferocious than them.

No one could defy the waves.

The raging sea was more terrifying than any natural disaster.

Triton never forgave Echidna.

He took from her what was most precious and cast it into the deep, cold darkness.

Due to the taboo set by his father, he could not tear her apart with his own hands, but he ensured a fate worse than death.

But then….

How did this woman come to possess Chrysaor’s golden knife?

The woman died, and the storm subsided. Then the waiting knights of the sea rushed to him.

“T-Triton, sir! Are you alright? What on earth happened? How could a human…!”

“Gasp! Did you kill her? Already?!”

Irritated by his subordinates’ fuss, Triton furrowed his brow and slowly withdrew his divine presence. Revealing himself for too long might unnecessarily attract the attention of Olympus.

Gods who resided outside the heavens generally disliked disturbances. The underworld was like that, and the sea was no different.

Though his father, one of the three great gods of Olympus, could traverse the heavens and the sea, Triton, a being solely of the sea, was not fond of the beings above.

Especially since the ancient gods were warlike and vulgar, having caused various incidents and wars multiple times.

“But this… this can’t be, is it the ‘golden knife’?”

Dugong looked in shock at the golden knife tightly held by the dead woman.

Chrysaor’s sword was a weapon passed down through blood. It could only be used by him or his descendants, so how did this woman come to possess it?

When the puzzled Phorkys touched the golden knife held by the woman, the knife flashed and then merged into her wrist.

Dugong and Phorkys widened their eyes in surprise.

“Wow…. This is truly strange. If she were alive, there would have been much to learn from her….”