---
Thrum! Thrum! Thrum!
The pendant at Sekhmet's neck blazed like a second heart that had decided to scream instead of beat. Its light washed the stone floor in red and made the shadows pull back as if the darkness itself was afraid to touch him.
Fwooom!
A wave of crimson chaos energy burst from his chest and rolled through the throne room. Torches bent sideways, their flames stretching and shivering. Smoke snapped and spiraled upward as if an unseen hand had grabbed it by the throat.
The orcs nearest to Sekhmet stumbled back.
Stomp! Stomp!
Boots scraped stone. Weapons clattered. A few of them laughed at first, because orcs laughed when they did not understand something and feared it only later.
"Look at him," one muttered, amused. "The puny human glows."
Another snorted. "Maybe he is trying to impress my aunt."
It was a bad joke. It died quickly.
Sekhmet's body felt pain as if invisible hooks had been buried into his bones and yanked upward. His mouth opened, but no proper scream came out. What escaped him was a strangled sound that was half pain and half something older trying to crawl out through his throat.
Ngghhh!
The frozen red essence inside him no longer felt frozen.
It melted.
It flowed.
It spread like wildfire through his veins, through his organs, through the hidden channels where chaos energy lived. Sekhmet felt it invaded places that had never belonged to anything else. It did not ask permission. It did not negotiate. It simply claimed him.
His eyes rolled back, then snapped forward again.
His pupils were gone.
His irises turned into burning pools of red.
Crackle! Crackle! Crackle!
The sound came from his skin.
Red chaos energy wrapped around him like a storm. It flickered and flared, rising from his shoulders and arms in thin, flame-like strands. The air around him shimmered as if reality was being heated from the inside.
Then the pendant changed.
The metal at his neck softened, not like metal melting in fire, but like a thought dissolving into another thought. The chain turned into glowing dust. The pendant's shape broke apart into tiny fragments of light.
Shhhh!
The fragments sank into Sekhmet's skin as if his body had been waiting to swallow them for his entire life.
The glow did not leave.
It moved inside him.
His chest lit up from within, a red pulse that matched the new, violent rhythm in his veins.
Ba dum Ba dum Ba dum
Fast.
Too fast.
Not human.
Benimaru watched from near the throne, his expression calm and satisfied, like a chef watching a stew finally begin to boil.
He did not look surprised.
He did not look worried.
He looked pleased.
"Good," he rumbled, voice thick with certainty. "It wakes."
The orc with the red box held the now-empty glass tube, staring at Sekhmet with wide eyes. The other orc grinned and cracked his knuckles as if this was going exactly as planned.
Benimaru raised his arms slightly, addressing the room like a king announcing a festival.
"Now I release you from your pain," he said, speaking to Sekhmet as if Sekhmet could even hear words anymore. "I will eat you and become a god."
He took a slow step forward, armor clanking softly.
Clink! Clank!
"My time has come," Benimaru continued, savoring every syllable. "I will finally rise. You will be remembered by me."
Then he laughed.
Ha! Ha! Ha!
His followers joined in immediately, eager to paint the moment with noise.
"My lord becomes a god."
"Rimamaru's blood shines in him."
"Half-god no longer."
"Eat him, my lord."
"Drink his power."
Their voices filled the chamber like a chant, like worship, like hunger.
Sekhmet did not respond.
Sekhmet did not blink.
He was still on the floor, but his body had stopped looking like a broken prisoner. The red aura around him made him look like a weapon that had just been pulled from its sheath.
Inside Sekhmet's mind, something cracked open.
Not a memory.
A space.
A hidden room behind his thoughts, sealed for so long that even he had not known it existed.
[Ding!]
A cold, clear sound echoed through his consciousness, sharp enough to cut through the roaring pain.
A screen of light formed in the darkness of his mind. The words were not written on paper. They appeared directly inside his awareness, as if his brain had suddenly learned a new language and refused to forget it.
[Ding! System Notification-
Abyss-Class Artifact: Awakened. Designation: Dawn Pendant.
Status: Dissolved and Bound to Host.]
Sekhmet's mind tried to scream again, but the scream did not have room to form.
More words followed, brighter and heavier.
[Warning Foreign Essence Detected: Blood God Essence. Classification: Walker Grade. Designation: ??? (Data Corrupted / Restricted)]
[Critical Alert Host Consciousness: Overwritten in Progress.
Host Soul Stability: Collapsing.
System Countermeasure: Emergency Anchor Initiated.]
[Emergency Protocol Time Remaining: 00:14:58
Host Soul Protection: Active.
Objective: Restore Host Identity.]
The system's presence felt strange.
It was not warm.
It was not kind.
It was simply there, like a blade placed between Sekhmet and annihilation.
Sekhmet's thoughts flickered.
He felt himself slipping.
He felt something else rising.
Something vast and cold and hungry, wearing his nerves like strings.
In the outer world, Sekhmet's body moved.
It rose without using its muscles properly, as if the red chaos energy itself had decided to lift him. He came upright in a slow, unnatural motion. His neck straightened. His shoulders settled.
The orcs fell silent.
The laughter died mid-breath.
Even Benimaru's smile tightened a fraction.
Sekhmet's head tilted slightly to the side.
Not like a confused man.
Like a predator listening for a heartbeat behind a wall.
A red pulse spread outward from Sekhmet's feet.
Whump!
The nearest orcs were shoved back as if struck by a sudden invisible wave. A few hit the stone pillars. One stumbled and dropped his spear.
Clatter!
Sekhmet's lips parted.
When he spoke, it was not Sekhmet's voice.
It was deeper.
Older.
It carried a weight that made the air feel thick.
"You… put my blood… into a vessel," the voice said, slow and amused, like something waking from a long nap and finding a snack on its pillow.
Benimaru's eyes narrowed.
He had expected screaming.
He had expected bargaining.
He had not expected that voice.
The orcs began to murmur again, but now their murmurs sounded nervous.
Benimaru's chest expanded. He took another step forward and lifted his chin, forcing confidence into the room with sheer will.
"You are mine now," Benimaru said, voice sharp. "A tool. A ladder."
The thing inside Sekhmet turned its head toward Benimaru.
Red light rolled across the floor like spilled sunset.
"For thousands of years," the voice said, "you crawled and called it ambition."
Sekhmet's body took a step.
Tap!
The sound was small, but it hit the room like a hammer.
Another step.
Tap!
The orcs backed away instinctively, forming a loose ring, weapons raised, but their hands trembled. They did not understand what they were seeing. They only understood that their instincts were screaming at them to run.
Benimaru snarled, irritated by their hesitation.
"Hold your ground," he barked. "He is food."
Sekhmet's body moved faster.
Whoosh!
He vanished from where he stood, leaving a red blur in the torchlight. An orc near the left pillar gasped.
Then his head snapped back.
A wet cracking sound filled the room.
Crack!
The orc dropped without even understanding he was dead.
Blood splashed across the stone.
The red aura around Sekhmet flared, and the blood did not fall normally. It hung for a heartbeat in the air, drawn toward Sekhmet like iron filings toward a magnet.
Shhhh!
It sank into his skin.
The orcs froze.
Their faces changed.
Shock.
Fear.
Confusion.
Benimaru's followers had seen violence. They lived in it. They ate with it. They laughed with it.
But this was different.
This was not a battle.
This was feeding.
Sekhmet's body turned and moved again.
Whoosh!
An orc raised an axe.
Too late.
Sekhmet's hand pierced forward, fingers hardened by red chaos energy. The strike punched through armor as if it were wet cloth. The orc wheezed, eyes bulging.
A moment later, Sekhmet pulled his hand back.
Blood followed like a rope being yanked.
Shhhh!
It poured into Sekhmet's aura, into his mouth, into him, consumed without chewing, without mercy.
The room erupted into panic.
"Kill him."
"Protect the lord."
"He is cursed."
"Back."
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!
Orcs rushed him all at once, because crowds were the only courage they knew.
Sekhmet's body did not retreat.
It welcomed them.
Red chaos energy exploded outward in a sweeping arc.
Fwoooom!
The front line of orcs was thrown back like broken dolls. Several slammed into the stone walls. Weapons clattered to the floor.
Clang! Clang!
Sekhmet moved through them like a storm walking on two legs. Every strike was simple and brutal. There was no style. There was no wasted motion. Only efficiency.
Blood rose with every hit.
Blood fed him with every breath.
Inside Sekhmet's mind, the system's timer kept ticking.
[Emergency Protocol Time Remaining: 00:12:41
Host Soul Protection: Active. Identity Restoration: In Progress.]
Sekhmet's true consciousness was not gone.
It was trapped behind a wall of red hunger.
He was watching through the fog.
He felt the movements as distant sensations. He felt the taste of blood as if it belonged to someone else. He tried to scream inside his own head, but the scream bounced off the system's barrier.
The system held his soul like a shielded ember in a hurricane.
Benimaru roared.
Enough.
He stepped forward, pushing past his panicking followers.
The half-god's chaos energy surged.
A heavy, green-black pressure rolled out from him like a tide.
Thoom!
The torches flickered violently. The air thickened. Several orcs nearest to Benimaru steadied immediately, their fear forced down by the weight of his presence.
Benimaru raised one hand, and green chaos energy wrapped around his forearm like a gauntlet of smoke.
"You will not eat my army," he growled. "You will not steal my ascension."
Sekhmet's possessed body turned.
The red eyes locked onto Benimaru.
For the first time, the blood god's amusement vanished.
Now there was focus.
Now there was intent.
Benimaru charged.
Stomp! Thoom!
The stone floor cracked under his feet. He swung a massive fist at Sekhmet's head with the force of a falling boulder.
Sekhmet's body slipped aside, faster than any human could move.
Whoosh!
Benimaru's fist smashed into the wall behind.
Boom!
Stone exploded outward. Dust filled the air.
Sekhmet's body retaliated immediately, driving a red-coated elbow into Benimaru's ribs.
Thud!
Benimaru grunted, sliding one step back.
He did not fall.
He was not a normal orc.
He was half-god.
He struck again, and his fist carried a ripple of green chaos energy that distorted the air.
Sekhmet raised an arm.
Clash!
Red and green chaos energy collided, sending a shockwave through the room.
Whump!
Orcs were thrown off their feet. Torches nearly tore free from their brackets.
Sekhmet's aura flared brighter, as if it was enjoying the resistance.
Benimaru bared his tusks and snarled.
"Good," he hissed, voice low. "Fight. Struggle. Give me more to devour."
He lunged, trying to grab Sekhmet.
Sekhmet's body slipped, twisted, and struck Benimaru across the throat with an open palm coated in red energy.
Smack!
Benimaru staggered.
His eyes widened for a fraction, surprised that anything could move him like that.
Sekhmet's body did not let him recover.
It attacked like a predator that had finally found a worthy prey.
A fist to the jaw.
A knee to the gut.
A palm strike to the chest.
Thud Thud Thud
Benimaru blocked, countered, and slammed Sekhmet into the floor.
Crash!
The stone cracked.
Dust erupted.
Benimaru lifted his foot, ready to crush Sekhmet's head like a bug.
Sekhmet's aura exploded upward.
Fwooom!
Benimaru's foot was forced back.
Sekhmet rose from the crater in the floor like something crawling out of a grave.
His coat was shredded. His skin was smeared with blood that was not his own. His eyes were still red suns.
The orcs watching could not even cheer anymore.
They could only stare.
This was no longer a ceremony.
This was a disaster.
Benimaru roared and unleashed more power. His green chaos energy thickened, forming crude armor over his skin, like a second hide.
Crackle! Crackle!
He slammed both fists down.
Boom!
A wave of force rippled across the floor toward Sekhmet.
Sekhmet's body met it head-on.
Red chaos energy surged outward, splitting the green wave like a blade splitting water.
Whump!
The collision shattered more stone, rattled the pillars, and made the torches spit sparks.
Szzzt!
Benimaru's followers tried to run then.
They turned toward the doors.
They pushed each other.
They screamed.
But Sekhmet's possessed body moved again, fast and hungry, sweeping through them as if their lives were a feast laid out neatly on plates.
Whoosh!
One by one, their blood rose.
One by one, their strength fed the red aura.
Shhhh!
Benimaru saw it and roared in rage.
"You are stealing my tribe," he bellowed.
Sekhmet's body turned back to him, now brighter, stronger, more solid in its monstrous control.
It had fed.
It had grown.
Benimaru charged again, desperate now, forcing his half-god power into every muscle.
The two forces collided in the center of the room.
Clash!
Red chaos energy wrapped around Benimaru's arm. Green chaos energy tried to crush Sekhmet's chest.
They struggled for dominance.
Stone cracked beneath them.
Crack! Crack!
Benimaru's face twisted with effort.
Sekhmet's face remained empty, possessed, focused only on consumption.
Inside Sekhmet's mind, the system's voice remained cold and steady.
[Emergency Protocol Time Remaining: 00:02:19
Host Soul Protection: Active.
Essence Purge: In Progress.]
Sekhmet's consciousness felt the timer like a distant drum.
He did not know why.
He did not know what it meant.
He only knew that something inside him was counting down to a moment that would decide whether Sekhmet Dawn returned or vanished forever.
Benimaru tried a final gambit.
He opened his mouth wide and lunged toward Sekhmet's neck, tusks angled like hooks, intending to tear and devour, intending to swallow whatever power he thought the human carried.
Sekhmet's body responded instantly.
It drove a red-coated hand into Benimaru's mouth.
The orc leader's eyes widened in shock and fury.
Sekhmet's fingers clamped down.
Crack!
Benimaru's jaw was dislocated with a sick sound.
His bite failed.
Sekhmet's other hand struck Benimaru's throat, not with brute force, but with a precise, hungry twist of red chaos energy that felt like a blade sliding into a seam.
Benimaru gagged.
His power faltered.
The green aura flickered.
Sekhmet's red aura surged.
Fwooom!
Benimaru fell to one knee.
Thud!
The throne room went silent except for torch crackle and the wet, heavy breathing of a dying half-god.
Crackle! Crackle!
Sekhmet's possessed body loomed over Benimaru. The blood god's presence inside him pulsed, ready to finish the feast, ready to drag Benimaru's essence out and consume it.
Sekhmet's hand reached toward Benimaru's chest.
The air tightened.
The red aura sharpened.
Shhhh!
Inside Sekhmet's mind, the timer hit its last seconds.
[Emergency Protocol Time Remaining: 00:00:07
Host Soul Protection: Active.
Finalization: Initiating.]
Sekhmet's consciousness suddenly felt a violent pull, like someone yanking him upward out of deep water. The fog inside his head tore open. The red hunger screamed.
Sekhmet's eyes flickered.
For a heartbeat, the red glow faltered.
Benimaru lifted his head weakly, trying to snarl, trying to speak, trying to deny death with sheer pride.
Sekhmet did not understand what he was seeing.
He did not understand why he was standing.
He did not understand why his hands felt wet.
He did not understand why the room smelled like iron and smoke and fear.
Then the system struck like a lock snapping shut.
Ding!
[Ding! System Notification-
Host Identity: Restored.
Host Soul: Secured.
Blood God Will: Sealed and Absorbed. Residual Chaos Energy: Converted.
Abyss Artifact Core: Reforged.]
Sekhmet blinked.
His eyes returned to normal.
The red aura collapsed into him in a sudden inward rush.
Whump!
Sekhmet staggered as if his body had been carrying a mountain and someone dropped it on his spine.
He looked down.
Benimaru lay in front of him, defeated, lifeless, his massive body slumped against cracked stone like a fallen statue.
Sekhmet's breath caught.
His heart was hammered.
Ba - dum, Ba - dum, Ba - dum,
He looked around.
Orcs were everywhere.
On the floor.
Against the walls.
In broken piles where they had been thrown.
Weapons lay scattered. Torches still burned. Smoke drifted lazily upward as if nothing had happened.
Sekhmet's hands were covered in blood.
His coat was soaked in it.
His mouth tasted like iron.
He lifted a shaking hand to his lips.
His fingers trembled.
His stomach twisted.
He backed away from Benimaru's body as if the corpse might accuse him.
"What," he whispered.
His voice sounded small in that enormous room.
"What happened?"
He stared at the dead orcs. He stared at the broken throne room. He stared at Benimaru, the half-god who had spoken with such certainty only minutes ago.
Sekhmet's mind scrambled.
"Did I do this?
I cannot.
I was barely alive.
I was chained.
I was dying."
His eyes dropped again to his hands.
They were drenched.
He looked like a butcher standing over a feast.
A cold shiver ran through him.
Then, for the first time, he heard it clearly.
A voice inside his head.
Not his own.
Not a memory.
Not madness.
A calm, emotionless presence that spoke like a fact.
Ding!
[Ding! System Notification-
Blood System: Activated.
Host Status: Saved.
Blood God Remnant: Contained.
System Binding: Complete.]
Sekhmet stiffened.
He turned his head sharply as if the voice had come from behind him.
But the room was empty of living orcs.
Only torches answered him with a crackling flame.
Crackle! Crackle!
Sekhmet swallowed hard, throat tight.
"Who is talking," he demanded, voice rough.
The voice responded immediately, directly inside his mind.
[System Designation: Blood System.
Origin: Abyss-Class Artifact Core.
Status: Bound to Host Sekhmet Dawn.]
Sekhmet's brows tightened. His fear shifted shape, turning into suspicion, then into anger, then into something that trembled between both.
"Abyss-class," he muttered. "That is impossible."
He had heard legends. Every being in Null had heard them. Stories whispered in lower realms taverns and upper domain halls, always half-mocking, always half-afraid.
Abyss-class artifacts were myths that survived because nobody could prove they were lies.
Some claimed they were real.
Some claimed they were fairy tales for desperate fools.
Some claimed that even speaking of them invited disaster.
Sekhmet's chest tightened as he remembered the pendant that had always been around his neck.
His pendant.
His only inheritance.
His only clue.
He looked down at his throat.
The pendant was gone.
There was nothing there now except skin, and yet he could feel something inside him, like a weight behind his ribs that had not existed before.
He forced himself to breathe.
"Where did the artifact come from," he asked, voice low, as if he were afraid of the answer.
[System: Your pendant was an artifact in a dormant state.
Trigger: Host life in critical danger. Response: Awakening sequence initiated to preserve the host soul.]
Sekhmet's eyes widened slightly.
"My pendant," he repeated.
His mind raced back through childhood, through the few things he remembered clearly. A chain around his neck. A metal shape he had never questioned because it had always been there. His father's silence whenever Sekhmet asked about it. His father's face tightening, then changing the subject, then acting like the question was a crime.
Sekhmet's throat worked.
"My mother left it for me," he said slowly, as if speaking the words made them more real.
He had never seen his mother. Not once. Not even a blurred memory.
His father had told him she was gone when he was a baby. Gone was a word that could mean anything in Null. Dead. Lost. Sealed. Erased. Worse.
Sekhmet's eyes burned, but not with red chaos energy this time. With questions.
"Where did she find an abyss artifact," he whispered. "Who was my mother? Why did my father never tell me."
He turned again, staring at the corpses like they might answer.
"And who killed all of them," he demanded, voice rising. "How did they die? I was not awake. I was not in control."
The system answered without hesitation.
[System Causation: Blood God Remnant took control of the host body for a rebirth attempt.
Outcome: Host body engaged and eliminated all threats. Benimaru was defeated during the possession window. Residual Blood God essence absorbed and converted into Blood System framework.]
Sekhmet froze.
His stomach churned violently.
He remembered flashes now, not as clear memories, but as sensations.
Movement that did not feel like his.
Hunger that was not his.
Strength that did not belong to a human.
He pressed his palm against his chest as if he could push the truth back down.
"A blood god," he whispered.
The system's earlier warning echoed in his mind.
Walker grade.
Sekhmet's breathing became shallow.
He looked at his hands again, blood drying on his skin in dark streaks.
He wanted to vomit.
He wanted to scream.
He wanted to run.
But there was nowhere to run yet, because he did not even know where he was.
He forced his voice steady, even as his thoughts shook.
"You said I gained skills," Sekhmet said. "You said you have functions."
[System Confirmation: The host is capable of interface access.
Command: Think Status.]
Sekhmet's jaw tightened.
He did not like being commanded by something inside his skull, but he also did not like standing in a room full of dead orcs without understanding why he was still alive.
He closed his eyes for a brief moment, breathed in, and thought the word like he was biting down on it.
"Status."
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then something shifted inside his awareness, like a curtain being pulled aside.
[Ding!]
And the world prepared to show him what he had become.