Baby System: I'm the Beast World's Only Hope!-Chapter 272: Episode 270: A Bigger Conspiracy

"What do you mean?" Roxy asked, having a bad feeling clawing at her insides.

Nerissa didn’t look at her son. Her dark, haunting eyes remained entirely fixed on Roxy.

"There is no need for you to be here, Caspian," Nerissa stated, her voice returning to its smooth, commanding resonance. She raised one of her massive tentacles, pointing toward the heavy pearl-inlaid doors. "Leave us. There is no time to waste, and what I must discuss with Roxy is not for your ears."

Caspian narrowed his eyes at her, his pride and desperate need to keep Roxy in his sight flaring violently. "I am the King of the Spires. I am not leaving my wife alone when she clearly needs me." 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Roxy bit on her bottom lips, I want you to leave so Nerissa can freely give me what I came here for.

"Caspian, please," Roxy begged. She reached out, her fingers lightly grazing his muscular forearm. It took every ounce of her willpower not to cling to him. "Please. Just give us a moment. I am begging you."

Caspian looked down at her small, pale hand against his scales. The fierce, possessive anger in his eyes melted into a look of profound, helpless defeat. He couldn’t deny her anything, especially not when she looked at him with such desperate, pleading eyes.

"I will be right outside," Caspian murmured, his jaw tight. He leaned down, pressing a hard, lingering kiss to the crown of her head. "Do not think you can slip past me, Roxy."

With a powerful thrust of his flukes, Caspian turned and swam out of the sanctum. The heavy doors slammed shut behind him with a resounding, finalizing boom that vibrated through the water.

The moment they were alone, the majestic, terrifying monster of the deep slumped slightly, her tentacles curling inward. When she looked at Roxy again, Roxy could see the weary, sorrowful gaze of a woman who had carried an impossible burden for far too long.

"I know what the Wither-Rot is, Roxy," Nerissa said softly. "And I know exactly how to cure it, because I know exactly where you come from. I know about Earth."

Roxy’s breath completely hitched. Her violet eyes widened to the size of saucers. "What...?"

"I am from Earth, Roxy," Nerissa confessed, her lips curving into a sad, nostalgic smile. "I was just a promising young woman who made the mistake of reading a book."

The revelation hit Roxy like a physical blow to the chest. Disbelief crashed over her in a suffocating wave. Earth? Nerissa was from Earth?! Caspian’s mother, the ancient, terrifying Queen of the Deep, was a transmigrator just like her?

"But... how...?" Roxy stammered, her mind reeling.

Before Roxy could formulate a complete thought, the water around her suddenly turned to ice.

A high-pitched, deafening electronic screech ripped through Roxy’s brain. It was so loud and so violent she physically recoiled, clapping her hands over her ears, though the sound wasn’t coming from the water, it was coming from inside her head.

Her vision violently fractured. The beautiful, glowing anemones and the soft moss carpet dissolved into jagged, pixelated blocks of static. A barrage of glowing blue holographic windows exploded across her field of vision, overlapping each other in a chaotic, frantic frenzy.

[WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED LORE DETECTED]

[COGNITIVE HAZARD. CENSORING PROTOCOL INITIATED.]

[SYSTEM OVERRIDE. SHUTTING DOWN HOST AUDIO RECEPTORS.]

"Make it stop!" Roxy screamed, her body convulsing in the water as a white-hot spike of agony drove itself directly behind her eyes.

"Hold on to me!"

Nerissa’s massive tentacles wrapped securely around Roxy’s thrashing body. The blue windows shattered into a million digital fragments. The electronic screeching died, leaving only a dull, throbbing ache at the base of Roxy’s skull.

Roxy gasped, her vision clearing as she slumped weakly against the thick, smooth muscles of Nerissa’s tentacles.

"I’ve got you," Nerissa soothed, gently guiding Roxy’s trembling body toward the massive, moss-lined clam shell that served as her bed. She laid Roxy down against the soft greenery, her ancient eyes burning with a dark, defiant fire.

"He doesn’t want me to reveal this to you," Nerissa whispered urgently, her hands grasping Roxy’s shoulders to steady her. "But I have to tell you this, because it’s drawing to that time."

"He?" Roxy wheezed, clutching her pounding head. "You mean the System? The transparent box?"

"Yes," Nerissa nodded grimly. "I don’t have time to explain the entire architecture of his prison, so you must simply listen. Generations ago, I found myself drowning in these exact same black rivers. I woke up with my lungs burning, choking on saltwater, with a transparent blue box hovering in front of my dying eyes, giving me a heavy, impossible task to complete."

Roxy stared at her in utter shock. The parallels were undeniable.

It was just like her.

"I was saved," Nerissa continued, her gaze drifting toward the shadowed corners of the room as she recalled the memory. "The former King of the Spires, Caspian’s father, found me. He pulled me from the crushing depths and dragged me into a hidden, air-filled cave. But he was a beast, Roxy. Starved and feral. The very next minute after he got me to safety, while I was still coughing up seawater, he took me. He claimed me so fiercely, so primally, that the magic of this world anchored itself to my soul. And then... I began to evolve."

Nerissa lifted one of her glowing tentacles, a bitter smile touching her lips. "I grew these to survive the pressure. I adapted. I gave birth to the King of the Spires, my beautiful Caspian. And then, years later, I gave birth to his sister, Nimue."

Roxy’s heart ached at the profound sorrow in the older woman’s voice.

"At first, I wanted to find a way to leave. I wanted to complete the box’s tasks and go back to Earth," Nerissa confessed, a single tear escaping her eye and dissolving into the ocean. "But I couldn’t. How could I abandon my children? I loved them too fiercely. But eventually, I saw the hypocrisy of my predicament."

Nerissa’s grip on Roxy’s shoulders tightened. "I tried to fight. I gathered an army. But the thing I was fighting for was nothing against the reality of what he is. I failed, Roxy. And now, because you are succeeding where I failed, because you have united the Surface and the Deep, this is all happening."

Roxy’s mind was spinning. It was too much to process.

She knew a bigger conspiracy was at play.

"I... I don’t know how to fight this," Roxy whispered, her voice breaking.

"You don’t have to fight him today," Nerissa assured her, her touch softening. "With time, you will understand. But today, you just need to save your pack."

Nerissa reached into the folds of her silken garments. She pulled out a small, thick crystal vial. Inside was a shimmering, viscous black liquid that seemed to absorb the light around it.

"The Kraken venom you brought is the lock, but this is the key," Nerissa explained, pressing the vial securely into Roxy’s palm. "This is ink harvested directly from the deepest vein of my own tentacles. It is pure, concentrated, ancient abyssal mana. When Syris mixes this with his venom, it will safely freeze the corrupted mana cores of your Alphas without stopping their hearts. It will starve the Wither-Rot."

Roxy looked down at the vial in her hand. The cure. She had actually found it.

A massive, overwhelming wave of relief washed over her, completely eclipsing the throbbing pain in her head. She clutched the vial to her chest, looking up at the ancient Queen with boundless gratitude.

"Thank you," Roxy breathed, tears of sheer relief welling in her violet eyes. "Thank you, Nerissa. I swear, I will find a way to finish what you started."

Even though I don’t know why or what I am fighting against.

Nerissa offered a soft, melancholy smile, her tentacles pulling back as she allowed Roxy to rise from the moss bed.

Roxy secured the vial in her hip pouch, her abyssal mana flaring to life as she prepared to swim back out those heavy doors, back to Syris, and back to the Surface.

She turned to leave, her tail flicking in the water.

"Roxy," Nerissa called out softly.

Roxy paused, looking back over her shoulder.

"Are you sure," Nerissa asked, her voice a heartbreaking whisper, "you don’t want to see Zale?"