Baby System: I'm the Beast World's Only Hope!-Chapter 233: Episode 232: Forgiving Caspian

The heavy pearl doors groaned open once more, and King Caspian entered the Pearl Wing.

He looked like a ruin of his former self. His golden scales were dull, marred by scratches and missing patches where the Leviathan’s barbs had struck.

A thick bandage of kelp was wrapped around his torso, stained dark with royal blue blood. He swam with a noticeable hitch, his powerful tail moving stiffly as if every stroke cost him a piece of his soul.

But it wasn’t the physical wounds that made him look broken. It was his eyes.

They were wide, frantic, and filled with a terrifying vulnerability. He scanned the room, past the piles of discarded towels, past Kaia standing guard with a wet dagger, past his mother who was wiping purple mana residue from her hands, until they landed on the clam bed.

He froze.

He stopped dead in the water, hovering near the entrance like a stranger intruding on a sacred ritual.

He saw Roxy. She was pale, her hair matted against her forehead, her chest heaving with exhaustion.

And in her arms, wrapped in the royal purple silk, was a bundle.

Caspian’s gills fluttered rapidly. His hands, usually so steady on a trident, twitched at his sides.

He didn’t move forward. He couldn’t.

The memory of their last conversation in this room rose up like a wall of ice between them. I never needed you to save me. I would rather die. The words echoed in his mind, louder than the hum of the thermal vents.

He looked at the child—his heir, his blood—and then at the woman he worshipped, who had looked at him with such cold hatred only weeks ago.

I have no place here, Caspian thought, a crushing weight settling in his chest. She did this alone. She survived alone. Just as she wanted.

He felt unworthy to even breathe the same water. He felt like a monster who had trapped a goddess, and now that the miracle had happened, his presence would only taint it.

He started to drift backward, his instincts screaming at him to flee, to go back to the dark trenches where he belonged, to let her have this moment of light without his shadow falling over it.

"Caspian."

The voice was weak, raspy, but it cut through the silence like a bell.

Caspian stopped. He looked towards the clam bed, his golden eyes meeting hers.

Roxy was watching him. She wasn’t looking at him with hatred. She wasn’t looking at him with the cold indifference of the past few weeks.

She was crying. Tears were streaming down her face, mixing with the ocean, but her mouth was curved into a small, tired, incredibly sad smile.

She lifted one hand from the bundle and beckoned to him.

"Come here," she whispered, her voice cracking.

Caspian didn’t move. He stared at her hand, unsure if it was a trap, unsure if he was hallucinating from blood loss.

"Come here, you big child," Roxy said, a little louder, a little firmer. "Come and see your little one."

A shiver racked Caspian’s entire body. The tension in his shoulders broke. The wall of ice shattered.

He didn’t swim; he drifted, pulled toward her by a gravity he couldn’t resist. He ignored the pain in his side. He ignored Nerissa watching him with critical eyes.

He reached the clam bed, and hovered there, looming over them, afraid to touch, afraid to breathe.

Roxy shifted the bundle slightly, tilting it so he could see.

"Look," she murmured.

Caspian looked down.

The breath left his lungs in a rush of bubbles.

The baby was awake. The tiny, pale face was framed by the purple silk. He had dark hair, wet and slick. He had a small, button nose. And he had...

"His eyes," Caspian choked out. "He has... the violet."

"And the indigo," Roxy added softly. "One of each. A bridge."

Caspian slowly reached out a hand. His claws were retracted, his fingers trembling. He touched the baby’s cheek with the very tip of his index finger.

The skin was soft. Softer than anything in the ocean.

The baby blinked. He turned his head toward the touch. His tiny hand, emerging from the swaddle, grasped Caspian’s finger.

The grip was surprisingly strong.

Caspian made a sound that was half-sob, half-laugh.

"He is... he is so small," Caspian whispered, awe flooding his voice. "He is so fragile."

"He’s tough," Roxy corrected, sniffing. "He didn’t cry. He just... looked around. Like he owns the place."

"He does," Caspian said fiercely, the King returning to his voice for a brief second. "He owns the tides. He owns the currents. He is the Prince of the Spires."

He looked at Roxy and saw the exhaustion etched into her features. He saw the way she was clutching the baby as if he were a lifeline.

"You did this," Caspian said, his voice thick with reverence. "You gave us this."

He reached out with his other hand and gently brushed a wet strand of hair from her forehead. He was terrified she would flinch. He was terrified she would slap his hand away and scream that she hated him.

She didn’t.

She leaned into his touch. She closed her eyes and let out a long, shuddering sigh, pressing her cheek against his palm.

"He has legs, Caspian," Roxy whispered, her eyes still closed.

Caspian froze. "Legs?"

"Like a Walker," Nerissa’s voice came from the foot of the bed. "Do not panic, my son. It is a sign of power, not defect. He is of the First Blood."

Caspian looked at the swaddled lower half of the infant. He didn’t care. Tail, legs, tentacles—it didn’t matter. This was his son. This was the proof that there was an "us," even if Roxy claimed there wasn’t.

"It does not matter," Caspian murmured, stroking Roxy’s cheek. "He is perfect."

He leaned down, resting his forehead against Roxy’s. For a moment, the world stopped. The politics, the escape plans, the pain of the last few weeks—it all receded. There was just the three of them in a bubble of blue light.

"I missed you," Caspian confessed, the words torn from his throat. "I missed you so much it felt like dying."

Roxy opened her eyes. They were swimming with fresh tears.

She looked at him, this beautiful, broken man who loved her with a terrifying intensity. She looked at the baby in her arms, the key she had forged to unlock her prison.

She realized what she had done.

She had brought them together in this moment of pure love, only to destroy it. She was going to let him bond with this child, let him believe his family was whole, and then she was going to vanish.

She looked at his bandage. He had fought a Leviathan because of her words. What would he do when she left? Would he fight the ocean itself? Would he destroy himself?

She moved her hand from the baby to cover Caspian’s hand on her face. She squeezed his fingers tight.

"Caspian," she whispered.

"Yes, my Pearl?" he asked, his eyes shining with renewed hope, thinking she was about to say she loved him, thinking they were fixed.

Roxy looked deep into his golden eyes. She memorized the way they crinkled at the corners. She memorized the way he looked at her, as if she were the sun and the moon and the stars combined.

She took a deep breath, her heart shattering in her chest.

"I am sorry," she whispered.