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Drip! Drip!
Somewhere in the ruin, water still fell like it had a personal mission to annoy him. Sekhmet did not know where the dripping came from now, but he could hear it faintly through the corridors, like the dungeon was reminding him that peace was not an option.
Crackle! Crackle!
The torches in the throne room still burned, even though everyone who had been cheering minutes ago now lay dead.
Sekhmet stood in the middle of the destruction, breathing hard, looking at his hands like they belonged to someone else. The blood on his fingers had started to dry. It felt sticky. It smelled like iron and smoke and something sour beneath it, like fear had its own scent.
He swallowed.
His throat still hurts from being forced to swallow that frozen red thing. His stomach felt hollow, but not empty. There was a strange heat inside him, a pulsing presence behind his ribs, as if something had been installed into his body while he was unconscious and now refused to leave.
He forced himself to think about what the voice had said.
Think Status.
Sekhmet hesitated.
If this was madness, he would rather be a sane prisoner than a free lunatic.
But the room full of corpses made it hard to pretend reality still followed normal rules.
He exhaled slowly.
Then he thought, clearly and deliberately.
"Status."
Ding!
A clean sound rang inside his mind, sharp and bright, like a bell struck in an empty church. A translucent window unfolded across his vision. It did not block the world completely. It layered over it, floating, calm, and unapologetic, as if it had always belonged there.
[Status Window:
Host: Sekhmet Dawn
Race: Human
Chaos Energy: 1000
Chaos Body: 500 (Note: Overall chaos strength, speed, and stamina.)
Chaos Energy Purity: 5%
Blood Awakening: 1%
Skills
Blood Control Lv1
Proficiency: 0%
Reach 100% to level up.
Blood Sword Lv1
Can transform blood into a sword.
Blood Eye Lv1
The host can appraise items and people.
Blood Summon Lv1
The host can summon blood minions using the blood of strong targets.
Overall Battle Power: 1500
System Note: The host is under a training tool. Removing it will increase host battle combat power. ]
Sekhmet stared.
He did not blink for several seconds, as if blinking might make the window disappear.
"Battle power," he whispered.
In Null, battle power mattered more than titles, more than promises, more than pride. It decided who spoke and who listened. It decided who survived and who became a lesson.
And yet, battle power was not easy to measure. Most used combat stones, rare tools that required touch, calibration, and a little luck. Even then, the results could be vague or influenced by outside factors.
Sekhmet did not have a combat stone.
He did not need one.
The numbers were simply there, displayed like truth itself.
His mouth went dry.
"I can judge people," he muttered.
Then his eyes widened a little more as the shock deepened.
I have skills.
I have abilities.
I did not train for these. I did not earn these. They just appeared, like the Null decided to throw a knife at me and call it a gift.
He forced himself to focus, because shock was useless and ignorance was deadly.
Blood Eye.
His gaze slid toward the nearest corpse.
An orc lay face-down, neck twisted at a wrong angle. Another lay against a pillar, eyes still open, staring at the ceiling as if confused about dying.
Sekhmet's stomach tightened, but he clenched his jaw and forced himself to use the skill.
Blood Eye.
His vision shimmered.
For a heartbeat, the torchlight seemed to sharpen, the colors becoming too vivid, the edges of everything too clear. Then a small line of information appeared above the corpse like a label on meat in a butcher shop.
[Orc Warrior - Battle Power: 8,400
Status: Dead]
Sekhmet's throat worked.
He looked at another.
[Orc Guard - Battle Power: 6,900
Status: Dead]
He turned his head toward the massive body near the shattered center of the room.
Benimaru.
The half-god.
The son of an orc god.
Even dead, Benimaru's body looked heavy with strength, like a mountain that had finally stopped moving.
Sekhmet swallowed hard and activated the skill again.
Blood Eye.
The label appeared, and Sekhmet's mind went silent.
[Benimaru- Race: Orc Half-God
Battle Power: 99,000
Status: Dead]
Sekhmet stared at the number.
Ninety-nine thousand.
His own battle power was fifteen hundred.
He could barely fight a trained soldier in the upper domain in his current state. Benimaru had been a monster. A walking disaster. A creature who could crush cities if bored.
Sekhmet's breath caught.
"How did I…" he whispered.
He stopped.
Because the answer was obvious.
He did not do it.
Something in him did.
The blood god remnant.
The will.
The possession.
His fingers curled slightly, trembling.
Then he forced himself back to the status window, because panic would not help him now.
Blood Control.
If this system was real, if these skills were real, he needed to understand them before the next disaster arrived.
He looked down at the blood smeared across his hands. It had been Benimaru's followers' blood mostly. Thick, dark, and sticky.
Sekhmet inhaled.
Then he spoke aloud like a man practicing a spell, because sometimes the brain obeyed words better than thoughts.
"Blood Control."
Nothing dramatic happened at first.
Then the blood on his fingers twitched.
It was subtle, like a muscle moving under skin.
Sekhmet's eyes widened.
He lifted his hand slightly, and the blood lifted too, pulling away from his skin in thin threads like red silk.
Shhhh!
The blood gathered into a floating droplet the size of a small coin.
Sekhmet's heart skipped.
Ba - dum
He moved his fingers gently, like guiding an insect.
The droplet moved.
Left.
Right.
Up.
It obeyed.
He tightened his fist.
The droplet compressed, becoming denser, thicker, like a soft red bead being squeezed into a harder shape.
Sekhmet's lips parted.
"This is real," he breathed.
He moved his hand again, more confident now. The blood droplet stretched into a thin line, then curled into a loop, then slammed down onto the floor in a wet splat because his concentration slipped for half a second.
Plop!
Sekhmet grimaced.
"Okay," he muttered. "I am talented but not perfect."
He scooped more blood from his forearm, gathered it into the air, and tried again. This time he formed it into several droplets, pulling them together into one larger mass.
Shhhh!
The blood floated like a red rock in midair. Not liquid anymore, not fully solid either, hovering in a strange state between both.
His mind jumped to the next skill.
Blood Sword.
If the system description was correct, he could shape blood into a weapon.
He focused.
Blood Sword.
The floating blood shuddered. It narrowed, lengthened, then snapped into a crude blade shape. A simple sword. Straight. Rough around the edges. No guard, no decoration, no elegance.
But it was a sword.
Sekhmet stared at it like a starving man staring at food.
He reached out slowly and grabbed the hilt.
The blood sword felt strange in his hand. It was solid enough to hold, yet it pulsed faintly, alive in a way normal metal was not. The blade glimmered in torchlight like polished ruby.
Sekhmet swung it lightly.
Whoosh!
Air cut.
He swung again, a little faster.
Whoosh!
The sword did not splash. It did not drip. It stayed intact.
Sekhmet's breath came out as a shaky laugh.
Then he tried to change the sword into something else. A spear, maybe. A dagger. Even a simple hook.
The sword trembled, but no matter how he pushed his will, it refused to take another form. It remained stubbornly sword-shaped, as if the blood itself had decided that creativity was a luxury for higher levels.
Sekhmet's brows knit.
"System," he said sharply. "Why can I only make a sword? Why not other weapons."
The calm voice answered inside his mind immediately.
[System: Blood Weaponry evolves with skill level.
Current Level: Blood Sword Lv1.
Available Form: Sword only. Additional blood weapon forms will unlock upon leveling.]
Sekhmet exhaled through his nose.
"So I am stuck with a sword for now."
[System: Confirmed.]
Sekhmet almost laughed again, but it came out bitter.
"Of course," he muttered. "Even my magical murder-blood has rules."
He released the blood sword. It dissolved into droplets and fell to the stone floor in a wet splash.
Splat!
Then his gaze shifted to the last skill.
Blood Summon.
He stared at the words as if they were a trap, because anything that promised him help in Null usually demanded payment later.
He swallowed.
"System," he said. "How do I use Blood Summon? Do I need my own blood."
[System- Blood Summon uses blood as a medium. Source blood may be host blood or external blood. The stronger the blood, the higher the summon potential.
Method: Touch blood. Inject chaos energy. Think Summon.]
Sekhmet blinked.
"And what will I get?"
[System- Summon outcome depends on selection.
Summon One: Higher potential singular summon.
Summon Many: Lower-level minion swarm.]
Sekhmet stared at the corpses around him.
Most of these orcs had battle power between six thousand and ten thousand. Strong compared to him. Strong compared to most mortals.
But Benimaru's blood…
Benimaru's blood was half-god blood.
Sekhmet's pulse quickened.
Ba - dum
He looked at Benimaru's body again. It lay slumped near the cracked stone, massive chest still marked with wounds, dried blood streaking down his skin.
Sekhmet swallowed hard, forcing down the sick feeling in his stomach.
"If I can summon with the blood…
If I can summon something loyal…
I need protection. I need information. I need a way out."
He took a step toward Benimaru's corpse.
His boot stuck slightly to the floor where blood had pooled.
Stick!
He forced it free with a wet sound.
Schlk!
He reached Benimaru and knelt, avoiding looking too long at the face. Even dead, Benimaru looked angry, like death had offended him.
Sekhmet placed his palm into the dried smear of half-god blood on Benimaru's chest.
The blood was tacky.
Cold.
He took a slow breath.
Then he pushed chaos energy through his palm.
The sensation was immediate.
The blood reacted like a living thing. It warmed. It loosened. It began to move, rising in thin threads toward Sekhmet's hand.
Shhhh!
Sekhmet's skin prickled.
His mind shouted at him to stop, because this felt like inviting something into the world that should have stayed asleep.
He did not stop.
He thought of the command.
Summon.
Ding!
The blood beneath his hand glowed faintly.
A small circle formed on the stone floor beside Benimaru's body, drawn in red lines that looked like veins arranged into a symbol.
Fwoosh!
A burst of red mist rose from the circle.
It swirled.
It condensed.
It shrank.
Sekhmet's brows lifted, confused, because he expected something huge. Something monstrous. Something that roared.
Instead, something tiny dropped out of the red mist and landed in the palm of his free hand.
Plop!
Sekhmet froze.
It was a bat.
A red bat.
Not a normal bat. Its fur was deep crimson, almost the color of fresh blood under torchlight. Its wings were folded tightly, and its body was ridiculously small.
Three inches.
It was so small it looked like a joke the universe told to test his patience.
Then it blinked up at him with shiny little eyes and opened its mouth.
"Batbatbatbat."
Sekhmet stared.
The bat stared back.
It blinked again, then repeated, louder, as if proud of its vocabulary.
"Batbatbatbat."
Sekhmet's lips parted.
He did not know what to feel first.
Fear.
Disappointment.
Or the sudden urge to laugh because the creature was so absurdly tiny that it looked like it belonged in someone's pocket, not in a throne room massacre.
He lifted the bat closer to his face.
The bat's wings twitched weakly. It looked unsteady. Like a newborn. Like something freshly hatched and already offended by reality.
Sekhmet's voice came out softer than he expected.
"You are… a cute one."
The bat responded instantly.
"Batbatbatbat."
Sekhmet snorted despite himself.
"That is not a name," he muttered. "That is a sound. That is not even a word. That is you complaining."
He activated his Blood Eye.
Blood Eye.
A label appeared above the tiny creature.
[System - Unnamed Blood Bat
Stage: Hatchling
Battle Power: 200
Status: Extremely Hungry
Growth Requirement: Consume blood and flesh to mature.
Note: Potential increases with higher-quality blood feed.]
Sekhmet's eyebrows lifted.
"It is hungry," he said.
The bat answered eagerly.
"Batbatbatbat."
Sekhmet glanced around at the dead orcs. His stomach twisted again, but he forced his mind to stay practical.
If this bat was his summon, if it was tied to him, if it was the first ally he had in this place, then keeping it alive mattered.
He looked down at the nearest corpse.
Then at another.
Then at another.
He sighed.
"This is a terrible day to become responsible," he muttered.
He carried the bat in one hand and began feeding.
He did not do it gently. He did not do it ceremonially. He did it like a man cleaning up a nightmare with a practical tool.
The bat's tiny mouth opened.
It pressed against flesh and blood.
And then something strange happened.
Shhhh!
The bat drank, and the blood did not spill.
It vanished into the bat as if the bat had a bottomless stomach hidden inside a body the size of a thumb.
Sekhmet fed it again.
Shhhh!
Again.
Shhhh!
Each time the bat made the same sound, like it was chanting its own happiness.
"Batbatbatbat."
Sekhmet grimaced.
"Do not get used to this," he told it. "I am not running a restaurant."
The bat ignored him completely.
Within minutes, the bodies of Benimaru's followers began to change. Not disappearing instantly, but draining. Their blood thinned, their flesh dulled, their presence seeming less real, like the bat was stripping them down to leftovers.
Sekhmet moved from corpse to corpse until the room felt emptier.
Benimaru's half-god body remained.
It stayed intact, heavy and resistant, as if even in death it refused to be reduced to food for a tiny creature.
Sekhmet paused, breathing hard.
The bat finally slowed. Its wings drooped. Its eyes blinked lazily.
Then it curled into itself in Sekhmet's palm, small and warm, like a living ember.
"Bat…" it muttered, softer now.
Then it fell asleep.
Sekhmet stared at the sleeping hatchling and felt something unexpectedly sharp in his chest.
No pity.
Not love.
Something closer to responsibility mixed with disbelief.
He carefully slid the bat into the inside pocket of his torn grey coat. The pocket sagged, but it held. The tiny creature fit perfectly, like the Null had designed it specifically to be carried around like a secret.
Sekhmet straightened slowly, scanning the ruined throne room one more time.
The corpses were gone except Benimaru.
The blood had dried.
The torches still crackled.
Crackle! Crackle!
Sekhmet wiped his hands against his coat, which was useless because the coat was already stained with everything a man should not wear.
He breathed out.
Then the system chimed again.
[Ding!]
A new notification formed in his vision.
Sekhmet's eyes narrowed as he prepared to read it.