Red, swollen lumps spread across my body, a horrifying sight that made Seraphina recoil in fear.

"What’s wrong with her face? It’s so disgusting!" she exclaimed, stepping back as though my pain were contagious.

Victor’s gaze finally shifted to me, and his expression morphed from confusion to sheer panic. In an instant, he tossed on his clothes and scooped me into his arms.

"Elysia, you’ll be fine," he muttered, his voice trembling with desperation. "I’ll take you to the spiritual healer right now."

Three days passed before I woke again. My body felt weak, but the sight of Victor sitting by my bedside startled me more than my fragile state. His face was pale, his eyes rimmed with exhaustion, and the relief in his expression was heartbreakingly genuine.

"Elysia!" he exclaimed, his voice cracking. "I was scared to death! If you didn’t wake up, I would’ve… I would’ve gone with you!"

His trembling hands grasped mine as though afraid I’d disappear again.

Maxine entered with a tray, her voice soft. "Miss, Lord Vic truly loves you. For three days and nights, he’s copied scriptures with blood and ink, praying for your recovery."

Victor nodded fervently. "As long as Elysia is fine, I’m willing to do anything!"

He took the medicine bowl from Maxine and carefully brought it to my lips, feeding me spoonful by spoonful. The bitter taste lingered in my mouth, but worse was the memory that struck me as he pulled out my handkerchief to wipe my lips.

The same handkerchief they had used.

A wave of nausea surged, and I couldn’t hold it back. I vomited the medicine onto Victor, my stomach churning with anger and disgust.

Victor, who had always been obsessively clean, didn’t even flinch. Instead, he leaned closer, his voice full of concern. "Elysia, where does it hurt? Tell me!"

I gestured weakly. "The room feels stuffy… I want to walk outside."

He immediately helped me up, his movements gentle. When I stepped out, he hurried after me with the cloak he had made.

"Elysia, you shouldn’t go out without your cloak. The cold wind might harm you."

The sight of the cloak—cleaned and pristine—only deepened my revulsion. I stepped back as he tried to drape it around me.

"Be good," he coaxed, his tone soft. "Even if you’re angry with me, there’s no need to harm yourself. Please, put it on."

I snatched the cloak from his hands and threw it to the ground, stomping on it with all the force I could muster.

Victor’s face drained of color as realization dawned. His lips trembled as he whispered, "Elysia… why… why would you do this?"

I met his gaze, my hands trembling with suppressed rage. "I don’t want dirty things."

His body stiffened as though struck.

"Victor," I said, my voice cold and unyielding, "you’re dirty too. I don’t want you anymore."

Victor, the Lord, knelt before me without regard for his position or power, his usually proud demeanor shattered.

"Elysia, what did I do wrong? Tell me… I feel so bad when you ignore me!" His voice trembled, the words heavy with guilt and regret.

He looked so broken, so human in that moment. "It must be my fault that you’re unhappy," he continued, his voice cracking. "I’ll punish myself. Can you calm down?"

With a swift motion, he slapped himself across the face. His skin immediately turned red and swollen, a visible testament to the depth of his self-inflicted pain. The sight of it twisted something sharp in my chest. He was truly suffering, but it wasn’t enough.

I gestured weakly, wanting to get away, to breathe.

"I want to go to the beach," I said, my voice barely a whisper.

Victor’s face turned pale, his eyes wide with panic. "Elysia, are you going to leave me?"

His voice broke, his desperation palpable. "Why? What did I do wrong? I will change! Please, don’t leave me!"

He didn’t hesitate. In his agony, he abused himself further, calling down thunder from the heavens. The strikes left his back covered in blood, yet he endured the suffering, crawling toward me.

"Elysia, are you calmed down now?" he asked, his voice barely audible over the sound of his own pain.

A memory flashed before me: his proposal at the beach, his vows to love me for eternity. The words echoed in my mind, but they felt distant now, hollow.

"Elysia, is it worth it?" my mother had asked, her eyes filled with concern. "If he changes his mind in the future, will you regret what you did today?"

Her words rang true. He had changed his mind. And now, seeing him cry, seeing him beg, only left me feeling bored, detached.

He had fallen in love with someone else, and yet, here he was, pretending, pleading, as if nothing had changed.

"I just want to go to the beach to relax," I murmured, the weight of the past decade settling heavily on my shoulders. "I haven’t seen the sea for ten thousand years."

Victor, despite his bloodied form, smiled through the pain. "Elysia, you miss home. I’ll take you to see the sea now."

As we stood before the endless blue, a faint vortex swirled in the depths, like the eye of a glacier about to open wide. I felt a pull, a connection to something ancient and untouchable.

Victor, ever attentive, picked up small, colorful shells from the shore. He carefully strung them together and draped them around my neck, his hands gentle despite the chaos around us.

"Elysia, this is the feeling of your hometown. You must like it!" Victor's voice was filled with innocence as he dug a castle in the sand, his childlike joy evident in every motion.

"Elysia, I suddenly want to build a palace like this," he continued, his eyes sparkling with hope. "Then you, me, and our children will live in it together. Will you be happy?"

I looked into his sincere eyes, and for a moment, I was shaken. My resolve to leave faltered, the vulnerability in his gaze tugging at something deep within me.

"Victor, I suddenly want to eat candied haws from the human world..." I whispered, the words slipping from my lips before I even realized it.

His face lit up, his joy uncontainable. "Okay, I'll get you whatever Elysia wants! You wait for me here..."

As soon as he left, the atmosphere shifted. A strong gust of wind swept across the beach, and suddenly, the sea bloomed with countless red spider lilies—enchanting, otherworldly flowers that only belonged to the underworld. The sight was mesmerizing and eerie.

From the sea, Seraphina emerged slowly, her steps deliberate, her gaze fixed on me with an air of superiority. She smiled, a wicked gleam in her eyes.

"Did you see it?" she taunted. "Are you curious why the red spider lilies, which only grow in the underworld, would bloom on the sea?"

She paused dramatically, letting the question linger in the air. "These were all planted by Victor himself! Just because I said I wanted to see the red spider lilies forever, he used his blood as a guide to set up a barrier here and planted them one by one."

A cold laugh escaped her lips as she continued, "How ridiculous, right? You were just hesitating, weren't you? Just for a moment, you wondered if he truly loved you. But it's too late. He’s already changed his mind."

Her words were like daggers, each sentence digging deeper into my heart. On one hand, he had made an unswerving oath to me, but on the other, he was working tirelessly for another woman.

"Shocked, right? Why don’t you say anything?" Seraphina’s smile widened, her voice dripping with mockery. "Oh, I forgot... you’re mute now, aren’t you?"

She removed her clothes slowly, revealing the marks on her body, the traces of their affair—of their intimacy. "What should I do?" she continued, her voice laced with venom. "Your good husband seems to like my body very much."

Her smile was cruel. "He said that the sound of my passion is the only thing he truly enjoys. He said that being with you is like a pool of stagnant water, no matter how much passion you put in, it’s always boring."

I felt a wave of nausea rise in my chest. Her words felt like poison, each syllable a reminder of my own inadequacy.

"He also said that he’s slept with you for ten thousand years and never once felt the thrill of ecstasy."

Her gaze darkened as she took a step closer, her words cutting deeper. "You don’t know yet, do you? During the three days and three nights when you were unconscious, he copied Buddhist scriptures and lingered with me in the study every night."

She let out a satisfied laugh, her eyes gleaming with malice. "The whole underworld, the Sansheng Stone Naihe Bridge on the Azurebrook River, and even your bed—there are traces of our love everywhere."

I couldn’t speak. The anger surged within me, so powerful that I could feel the blood rising in my chest. My hands trembled as I gestured furiously, trying to communicate my frustration and pain.

"No matter how you are, you can't get on—" I spat out, my voice shaking with fury. "The rat in the gutter who can't get on the stage!"

Seraphina laughed loudly, her body shaking with mirth as if my words were nothing more than a game to her. "Elysia, you are so gullible!" she mocked, stepping closer with a triumphant grin.

"You are the one who can't get on the stage!" she sneered. "If you don’t believe me, look!"

With a flick of her hand, she cast a spell, and the Three-Life Stone appeared in the air, shimmering with dark energy. In front of me, the place where my and Victor’s names had once been engraved was now marked with "Seraphina and Victor."

The shock hit me like a physical blow. My name, my connection with him, had been erased. The handwriting on the stone—the same one I had copied from Victor for thousands of years—was now a painful mockery of everything I thought we had shared.

Her words were like arrows, sharp and cruel, piercing my heart. The warmth of a thousand years of love turned to nothing in an instant, shattered like illusory bubbles.

"Guess," Seraphina taunted, her voice dripping with malice. "Between you and me, who will he choose?"

The question hung in the air, mocking me, as if it were already answered. But before I could respond, Victor appeared, running toward me with a bag of candied haws in his hands, his face alight with excitement.

"Elysia, I just made it. Try it..." he said, breathless, his eyes full of hope.

Before he could finish, the sound of a stone crackling with energy interrupted him. He paused, his expression turning to one of urgency as he received a message.

"The people of the demon clan are entangled with me, help..." The words were brief, but they drained the color from his face.

"Elysia, there’s an emergency in the underworld," he said, his voice filled with anxiety. "I’ll go deal with it first."

I reached out and grabbed his hand, my grip tight, desperate. "What if I want you to stay?" I asked, my voice breaking as I tried to hold him back.

He pried my fingers apart one by one, his expression conflicted but firm. "Elysia, be good, I’ll be back soon."

But before I could respond, Seraphina appeared at my side, holding out a sound transmission stone.

"You left your beloved to accompany me," she said, her voice dripping with mockery. "Aren't you afraid she'll be jealous, angry, and leave?"

Victor’s face darkened as he turned to look at her, but she wasn’t done. "What are you afraid of?" Seraphina continued, her smile cold and triumphant. "She’s lost her singing voice and severed her ties with the mermaids. There’s no place for her in this world anymore."

Her words struck like a dagger to my chest. How could he say that? Wasn’t this the same Victor who, ten thousand years ago, had promised me, "Elysia, from now on, I am your home"?

Tears fell from my eyes and turned into stones on the ground, reflecting the storm that raged both outside and within. The sea swelled with fury, and the Gaze of the Frozen Veil deep in the ocean finally opened completely, a chilling symbol of the vast emptiness I felt.

Each step I took toward the glacier was resolute, a silent declaration of my decision to leave. I knew I couldn’t go back, not with the weight of betrayal hanging over me.

On the beach, a single conch lay abandoned in the sand, an echo of the past, a symbol of what we once shared. I didn’t look back.