Baby System: I'm the Beast World's Only Hope!-Chapter 232: Episode 231: Immense Joy

"Stop screaming, you foolish girl," Nerissa’s voice cut through the water, sharp and commanding, though her eyes remained fixed on the glowing purple web she was weaving between Roxy’s legs. "I am not tearing you apart. I am bending space. If I do not widen the path with mana, your hips will shatter against the pressure of a Mer skull."

Roxy froze, her mouth still open in a half-finished yell. She looked down at the ribbons of violet energy pulsing around her. They didn’t hurt.

In fact, where they touched her skin, the water felt thinner, lighter, as if the physical laws of the ocean were being politely asked to step aside.

Roxy squeezed her eyes shut. "Okay," she panted. "Okay. Let’s get him out."

She bore down.

It wasn’t the screaming, sweaty, tear-filled agony of the movies. It was a surge of power. It was a release. It was the feeling of a dam breaking and the river finally finding its course.

The purple light flared blindingly bright, illuminating every corner of the Pearl Wing. Nimue shielded her eyes. Kaia raised her dagger instinctively.

Then, a sensation of sudden, overwhelming emptiness in her stomach.

The pressure vanished.

Silence rushed back into the room, heavy and absolute.

Roxy slumped back against the sponges, her chest heaving, her hair floating in a tangled halo around her face. She waited for the cry. She waited for the wail of a newborn.

But they were underwater. There was no air to carry a scream. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Instead, she heard a gasp from Nimue.

"By the Tides..." Nimue whispered, drifting closer, her hand covering her mouth.

Roxy forced her heavy eyelids open. "What? What is it? Is he okay?"

She tried to sit up, but her muscles were jelly. She looked toward the foot of the bed.

Nerissa was holding a small, wriggling bundle in her massive, clawed hands. The purple magic faded, leaving only the soft blue bioluminescence of the room.

The baby was crying—Roxy could see it. His tiny chest was heaving, bubbles escaping his mouth, and a faint, high-pitched frequency vibrated in the water, a telepathic wail of confusion.

But that wasn’t what Nimue was looking at.

"Mother," Nimue breathed, pointing a trembling finger. "Look at... look at the tail. It is split."

Kaia stepped forward, her grey eyes narrowing. "A mutation? The fins are... separate. They look like... landing gear."

Roxy’s heart hammered. Legs.

The baby kicked. Two chubby, pale legs thrashed in the water. They weren’t fused into a tail. They had knees. They had tiny feet with ten distinct toes.

"An anomaly," Kaia stated, her voice devoid of judgment but heavy with concern. "A High-Mer without a tail cannot swim the currents. He will be... crippled."

"He is a surface-breed," Nimue whimpered, looking at Roxy with pity. "Oh, Roxy... I am so sorry. The ocean rejected his form."

Roxy felt a cold knot of fear in her stomach. Not because he had legs—she expected that—but because of how they saw it. In the Spires, a merman without a tail was like a bird without wings.

"Give him to me," Roxy demanded, reaching out. "He’s not a mistake!"

"Silence!" Nerissa barked.

The Matriarch didn’t look horrified. She didn’t look pitying. She held the kicking infant up to the light, inspecting his legs with a critical, ancient eye. She ran a clawed finger down the baby’s spine, checking the strength of the vertebrae.

"Stand down," Nerissa ordered the room, her voice vibrating with authority. "Do not speak of defects in my presence. You look with eyes of the shallows."

She turned the baby over, supporting his head.

"This is not a mutation," Nerissa declared, her voice dropping to a reverent rumble. "This is a Walker’s Form. The Legends speak of the First Kings who could walk the earth and swim the deep. He is not crippled."

She looked at Roxy, her black eyes flashing with a terrifying intelligence.

"He is a bridge," Nerissa said softly. "This child is a key to a lot of open doors."

Roxy froze.

The word echoed in her mind, louder than the baby’s telepathic cries.

Something is really going on in this octopus’s head.

She knows, Roxy thought. She has to know. "Open doors"? That’s too specific. That’s not a metaphor.

Scan Nerissa. Right now. Who is she? What is her level?

[System Scan Initiated...]

[Target: Queen Nerissa (Matriarch of the Deep Spires).]

[Analyzing...]

[Error.]

[Target possesses "Ancient Bloodline" protection. Status Sheet Obscured.]

[Warning: Entity Mana signature exceeds local parameters.]

Now I am clearly intrigued.

Roxy stared at her mother-in-law. The System couldn’t read her.

Nerissa caught Roxy’s stare. For a second, the Matriarch’s expression shifted. The imperious Queen vanished, replaced by something older, something knowing. She gave a microscopic nod, as if answering Roxy’s unasked question.

I see you, Little Pearl, the look seemed to say. And I see your exit strategy.

"Wrap him," Nerissa commanded, handing the baby to Nimue. "Use the purple silk. The Queen has chosen the color of Royalty."

Nimue flustered, snapping out of her shock. She took the baby, wrapping the swaddling cloth around his legs, hiding the "deformity" and making him look like a proper mer-baby bundle.

"He is strong," Nimue noted, surprised. "His grip... he is holding my finger. He is crushing it."

"He is his father’s son," Nerissa said, a rare warmth entering her voice. "And his mother’s spirit."

She swam to the side of the bed. She placed a hand on Roxy’s shoulder. The touch was heavy, grounding.

"You have done well," Nerissa said quietly. "The labor was fast. The heir is healthy. The line continues."

She leaned down, her voice a whisper only Roxy could hear.

"Do not fear the legs, Roxy. Legs are made for walking. Perhaps... for walking home."

Roxy stopped breathing.

Before she could respond, before she could demand to know what game Nerissa was playing, Nimue floated over.

"Here," Nimue smiled, tears in her eyes. "He is clean. He is warm."

She placed the bundle in Roxy’s arms.

The world narrowed down to that single point of contact.

The political intrigue, the System quests, the terrifying mother-in-law, the wounded husband, it all vanished.

Roxy looked down.

He was tiny.

He was wrapped tight in the shimmering purple silk, only his face visible. And what a face it was.

He didn’t look like a fish. He looked like a perfect, miniature human, but with skin that shimmered with a faint, pearlescent sheen. He had a dusting of dark hair on his head, damp from the birth. On his neck, three small, elegant gill slits fluttered rhythmically, proving he belonged to the Deep.

He wasn’t crying anymore.

He was staring at her.

His eyes opened. They weren’t black like Nerissa’s or golden like Caspian’s.

One eye was the deep, endless indigo of the ocean trench. The other was a bright, shocking violet.

He stared at Roxy with a solemn, intense focus that felt far too old for a newborn. He studied her face, the nose, the mouth, the eyes that were filled with tears.

And then, he recognized her.

The tiny, serious face broke. His mouth curled up. His gums flashed.

He smiled.

A wave of love so powerful, so violent, and so consuming crashed into Roxy that she actually gasped aloud. It felt like her heart had been ripped out of her chest and placed in this tiny, fragile bundle.

My baby, she thought. My son.

She looked at his legs, hidden under the silk. Legs that Nerissa said were made for "walking home." But the System said he couldn’t leave. He would die on the surface.

She was holding him, but in twenty-something days, she would have to let go. She would have to hand him to Kaia. She would have to walk through a gate and leave him in the dark.

The smile on his face blurred as Roxy’s vision swam.

"He’s perfect," she whispered, her voice cracking into a million pieces.

She pulled him close, burying her face in the soft silk near his neck, inhaling the scent of the ocean and new life.

"He’s perfect," she sobbed, her shoulders shaking with the force of her grief.

She looked up at Nerissa, then at Nimue, and forced the corners of her mouth up. It was a grotesque parody of joy, a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, a smile that was holding back a scream.

"I’m so happy," Roxy wept, clutching the child she was already mourning. "I’m so... happy."