Darkness.
Cold.
Empty.
Valkar floated in a vast, silent void. He felt no pain. No anger. No hunger. Only a profound, absolute nothingness. Was this death? It was... quiet. He had expected fire. Or screams. Something more... orcish.
Like a never-ending feast or an honorable duel.
He slowly opened his eyes to see, but it made no difference; everything was still dark.
So he gave up, closed them, and went back to sleep.
"Hoo~... such a mindset," a strange, feminine voice echoed in the void. "So simple. So... boring."
Suddenly, a blinding white light erupted in the void, forcing Valkar to shield his eyes. He slowly lowered his hands and saw a figure standing before him.
However, before he could even get a good look at the figure, Valkar felt his body falling at a terrifying speed.
"UGHAAA!"
Instinctively, he tried to move, but he couldn't. He was a statue falling through an endless abyss. Panic, cold and sharp, clawed at his mind. Then he hit.
But there was no impact. No jarring violence.
Only a change.
One moment, he was plummeting through white light and darkness alike. Next, his butt was planted on something cold and solid.
He blinked, disoriented. The void and the light were gone. He sat on a pristine white floor that stretched endlessly in every direction. Walls of pure white light rose into an invisible ceiling far above.
The air was... clean. Too clean. No dust. No rot. No scent of blood or sweat. Just nothing. The kind of sterile emptiness that made a warrior's teeth ache.
He stared down at his body, finding it whole again. His severed arm, the mangled leg, the holes in his chest, the deep gashes in his side—all gone. Not even a scar remained.
Valkar flexed his fingers. Then his toes. He stood slowly, half-expecting his body to tear itself apart again—but it didn't. His muscles were solid. Strong. Stronger than before, if his instincts were to be trusted.
He thumped his chest with a fist.
Solid.
"Huh…" He frowned. "Valkar… alive?"
A soft, amused laugh echoed through the white hall.
"Not quite, little orc."
The light in front of him rippled, folding in on itself like silk drawn through invisible fingers. From it stepped a woman.
She was tall—taller than any orc Valkar had ever seen—but her proportions were… wrong. Too perfect. Her skin was pale, almost luminous, etched with faint pink sigils that pulsed like a slow heartbeat. Long hair cascaded down her back, shifting between shades of rose and violet as if it couldn't decide what color it wanted to be.
Her face… Valkar found himself staring.
It was beautiful in a way that made him feel small and clumsy. A delicate jaw. High cheekbones. Lips that curved into a knowing, almost mocking smile. Her eyes were the most unsettling part—not because they glowed or changed color, but because they didn't.
They were a soft, gentle grey, the color of mist at dawn. And they held absolutely nothing.
She wore a long, flowing black robe, embroidered with patterns that seemed to writhe at the edge of his vision. She held no weapon. She carried no shield. She stood there barefoot on the endless white floor as though she owned the very concept of stillness.
"Hmm..." Valkar kept staring at the woman for a good ten seconds. He was about to ask if she was the bat-thing, but gave up on that idea quickly. This 'humie woman' didn't feel like a 'bat-thing creature.'
She was something else entirely.
"You..." He finally spoke, breaking the silence. He held a finger toward her.
"Be my mate," he said as if stating a fact rather than a question.
"-_-"
The woman blinked slowly, the smile never leaving her lips.
After a long pause, she let out a soft laugh.
"Hehehe~? That is... an interesting proposal." She tilted her head, her grey eyes considering him with detached amusement. "Bold, I'll give you that. Did you fall in love with me or what?"
Love?
The word was foreign. Unnecessary.
Valkar simply pointed at her.
"You look strong," he stated simply. "Valkar needs strong mate for strong offspring. You are strong. No?"
The woman's smile widened, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Is that all you see?" She walked toward him, slowly. "How about beauty?"
"Hmm..." Valkar stroked his chin, thinking for a bit. "Valkar thinks you... beautiful... second beautiful."
"Second?" The woman stopped tilting her head. "Who is the most beautiful then?"
"Valkar's mother."
"-_-"
The woman's smile finally faltered. A flicker of something—surprise? annoyance?—crossed her face before being smoothed away.
"Did I just lose to an orc?" she asked herself, but loud enough for Valkar to hear.
"Lost what?" Valkar asked, confused. "You not lost. You strong."
This was starting to get too much for the orc's simple mind. The conversation was going nowhere.
He looked around, trying to make sense of this place. He needed to know what was happening.
"Where Valkar?" he asked, changing the subject. "Dead world?"
"A dead world? No," the woman sighed, waving a hand as if dismissing his lack of poetic taste. "Think of it as the space between the pages of a book. And I am the one holding the quill."
She began to circle him again, her eyes scanning his green physique with a newfound, almost clinical interest.
"I summoned you here because you made contact with something of mine."
She held out her slender palm. A pink orb, identical to the one he had fought so desperately to destroy, materialized in her grasp.
"The orb?" Valkar's jaw tightened. The memory of the battle, the pain, the biting, tearing, and chewing flashed in his mind. The satisfaction of the kill.
"Orb is... yours?"
"Yes. My little lost toy." She held it up, admiring its gentle, pulsating glow. "This thing is a powerful artifact... a custom-made system for my champion."
She stopped right in front of Valkar and adjusted her height to be the same as his.
"You see, this orb was stolen by a greedy little bat goddess... she thought she could use it to build her own army of champions."
She rolled her eyes, a gesture so out of place in her ethereal presence that it seemed almost childish.
"You kill her," Valkar stated the fact again. "Steal not good."
"You think so?" The woman raised an eyebrow. "Good... because I did kill her, but I never thought that her body would still be able to create an avatar and try to awaken the system."
She leaned closer, her face now just inches from Valkar's. Her grey eyes were like bottomless pits, drawing him in, stripping away his defenses.
"You did something interesting. Something I haven't seen in a long, long time. You killed a divine avatar."
Valkar stared into her eyes, sensing pride and satisfaction in her words. She was happy about the death of her enemy.
"Valkar warrior," he said, puffing out his chest. "Warriors kill."
"Indeed." She smiled again. "And in doing so, you claimed the right to awaken the system."
She held the orb inches from Valkar's chest.
"So tell me, what do you want, little orc?" Her tone was that of a merchant trying to sell a rare item. "Power? Wealth? A place among the gods?"
Valkar didn't even think.
He didn't want abstract things like wealth or godhood.
He wanted something real. Something tangible. Something he could hold, touch, and fuck.
"You." He pointed at her. "Be my mate."
The woman stared at him for a long moment, her smile gone, replaced by an expression of utter, complete bafflement.
Then she started to laugh.
"HAHAHAH!"
It wasn't a soft, amused laugh this time. It was a full-throated, belly-shaking laugh that echoed through the endless white hall. She laughed so hard she had to bend over, clutching her stomach.
"You... you... you want... ME?!" she gasped, tears of mirth streaming down her cheeks. "An orc wants to mate with ME?! HAHAHAHA!"
She looked at Valkar as if he were the most amusing, ridiculous creature she had ever seen.
Valkar just stood there, his arms crossed, a frown on his face.
"Funny?" he asked, genuinely confused.
"Oh, nothing, little orc. Nothing at all." The woman finally straightened up, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "You are something else. Truly. But fine. If that's what you want... I shall grant it, but you have to defeat me first. Isn't this the orc way?"
Valkar's eyes widened. A fight. That was something he understood.
"Valkar will defeat you," he declared, cracking his knuckles. "Then we mate."
"Not so fast, little warrior," she challenged with a smirk. "I'm a goddess, a divine being, and you're a mortal. You don't have a chance."
She was right, and Valkar knew it. Even with his body fully restored, he could feel the immense power radiating from her. It was a pressure that made a mountain seem like a gentle hill. She was not a creature of flesh and bone. She was something else entirely.
"We'll leave the mating aside for now," she said, her tone back to that of a calm, collected goddess, "and talk about the system."
She again held the pink orb, and it began to glow brighter.
"This orb is a gateway. A key. It will connect you to the power of the divine. It will give you strength, abilities, and a chance to shape your own destiny," she explained. "You killed its last master. In doing so, you've earned the right to claim it."
She then placed her index finger on his forehead.
"I want to make a deal with you, but since I'm the goddess of justice... the deal must be fair."
She closed her eyes.
"I will remove the genetic locks on your intelligence. Do you understand?"
"No." Valkar shook his head. "But Valkar likes your voice."
"Of course you do," she sighed. "I'm going to fix your tiny brain, so we can have a proper conversation."