Chapter 761: Chapter 762: I can’t. I can’t do this.
Some of them still called her goddess when they thought she could not hear.
Now their goddess was screaming behind stone walls.
That fear moved through the palace like cold water.
Kian was losing control.
He tried to stand still at first. He tried to keep his face cold. He tried to look like the king who could control himself even when the world wanted to tear something from him. But after another hour passed and Isabella screamed again, the cold mask on his face cracked.
"What are they doing in there?" he snapped.
No one answered.
No one dared.
Kian ran a hand through his white hair, disturbing it completely, and that alone showed how badly he was holding himself together. His blue eyes were dark and wild in a way most people had never seen before. He looked at the door like he wanted to break it down, then looked away as if forcing himself not to.
Zyran stood a little apart from the others, but he was not calm either.
His red eyes were fixed on the door. His black hair fell messily around his face, and the shadows near his feet moved when they should have stayed still. He wanted to go in. He wanted to drag the pain out of Isabella’s body by force. He wanted to do something useful, but this was one of the few things even his underworld power could not easily fix.
Osiris was the worst at hiding his panic.
He had stopped pacing only because Zyran threatened to pin his feet to the floor with shadows. Now he stood near the wall with both hands in his hair, muttering to himself that Isabella would be fine because Isabella was always fine because if Isabella was not fine then everyone else might as well burn with the world.
Zyran heard that and looked at him. "Do not burn anything."
Osiris looked at him with fiery eyes. "I did not say I would."
"You were thinking it."
"I think many things."
"That is what frightens me."
Ophelia let out a small sob when Isabella screamed again. Valen immediately pulled her closer and let her hide her face against his chest. He looked toward the door too, and although he was calmer than most of them, even his fingers tightened around Ophelia’s shoulder.
Inside the room, Isabella felt like she was truly going to die.
She had never known pain could be this full. It was not only in one place. It was in her stomach, her back, her hips, her legs, and somewhere deep inside where she could not reach. It came in waves, but each wave left behind a fear that the next one would be worse. Her throat hurt from screaming. Her skin was soaked with sweat. Her body felt too hot, then too cold, then too heavy to belong to her.
The older woman checked again.
Her face had become grim.
"She is opening, but too slowly," she said. "The children are pressing, but something is resisting."
Cyrus heard that and felt his heart drop.
Something was resisting.
He knew what it was.
The blood.
The demonic blood in the babies had not calmed enough. It was pushing against Isabella’s body in a way the women could not understand. They saw birth delay. They saw pain. They saw a difficult delivery. But Cyrus could feel more. He could feel the heat, the wild force, and the pressure gathering in a way that made his own blood answer.
He pressed more power into her body.
The room spun slightly.
He had used too much already.
Still, he kept going.
Isabella screamed again and grabbed his arm. Her nails dug into his skin, and he welcomed it. Let her hurt him. Let her tear his arm open if she needed to. Anything was better than watching her suffer without being able to help.
"Cyrus," she sobbed. "I can’t. I can’t do this."
"You can," he said, but his own voice shook now. "You can, Isabella. You are stronger than this."
"I don’t want to be strong. I want it to stop."
Those words almost broke him.
Glimora made a soft distressed cry and pressed closer to the edge of the fur. Isabella’s trembling hand found her head by instinct, and the little beast immediately pushed into her palm. Even through the pain, Isabella felt that small familiar warmth and tried to hold on to it.
Then Bubu appeared.
A small glowing figure appeared near the side of the bed, floating in the air with the same shameless calm as always.
Bubu looked straight at Isabella.
{Are you forgetting something?}
Isabella stared at it through sweat, tears, and pain.
For one second, she truly did not understand.
Then her eyes widened.
The Safe Delivery Package.
The thing she had bought.
The thing she had spent one thousand five hundred points on.
The thing she had completely forgotten because her body was trying to tear her into pieces.
"You useless little scammer!" Isabella cried in her mind and out loud at the same time. "Give it to me now!"
Bubu’s glowing face seemed offended.
{Do not scream at me. You are the one who did not activate it.}
"You are supposed to activate it!"
{No, I do not remember agreeing to that.}
If Isabella had not been in the middle of birth pain, she would have fought this system with her bare hands.
Another pain rose sharply, and she screamed again.
"Now!"
{Fine. Safe Delivery Package released. Please use immediately. Pain reduction is not included.}
A small glowing bottle appeared beside her hand.
It was no bigger than her palm, warm and bright with a faint golden light inside. Everyone in the room stared at it because it had appeared from nothing. The younger woman looked as if she might drop the cloth in her hands. The older woman’s eyes widened. Cyrus stared at the bottle, then at Isabella.
"Where did that come from?" the older woman asked.
