Chapter 164: Ghouls and numbers
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Sekhmet lay on his back, eyes open, staring at the dark ceiling of his room.
The candle on the side table had already burned low. Wax had pooled around its base like a small pale lake. Dawn House was quiet in the way old houses always became quiet at night, as if the stone itself decided to sleep.
Bat Bat was not here.
Elena had taken her to finish homework, and Bat Bat had screamed about letters being evil, then lost the war because Elena’s voice had the same unstoppable force as gravity.
The servants had withdrawn.
Even the corridor footsteps had faded.
Only Sekhmet remained awake.
Not because he wanted to.
Because sleep came slowly when your throat still remembered the taste of new blood and your mind still carried the weight of two kneeling vampires calling you master.
Vera and Vela were in the guest room wing. They would not leave unless commanded. They would not betray unless it was worth becoming a broken thing. That bond sat in Sekhmet’s chest like a hidden chain, not choking him, but reminding him he had created something that could not be undone casually.
Mira was somewhere in that same wing, under contract, under rules, under ink and seal.
Auri was in the void land.
And that was exactly why Sekhmet’s eyes narrowed when the air in his room shifted.
It was subtle.
Not a gust of wind.
Not a footstep.
More like the sensation of a thought bumping into the edge of another thought, urgent enough to demand attention.
Then it came.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
But clear enough that it sliced through the quiet like a thin blade.
[Ding! SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Contact Attempt Detected.
Source: Void Land Entity – Auri.
Status: Urgent Request for Host Presence.
Action: Open Void Land Access Point?]
Sekhmet sat up instantly.
His body moved before his mind finished processing the words. That was the instinct that had kept him alive for five years. You did not ignore a warning. You did not delay when something under your control signaled urgency.
Auri was not the type to panic.
If she was calling, something mattered.
Sekhmet swung his legs off the bed and stood, bare feet touching the cold floor. He did not shout for servants. He did not wake Elena. He did not wake Bat Bat.
If something was wrong inside the void land, it was his problem first.
He drew a slow breath and spoke inside his mind, the way he always did when he needed clarity without witnesses.
Hey system.
The reply was immediate, cold, efficient.
[System response... Awaiting Host Command]
Sekhmet’s eyes narrowed slightly.
"When I got the Void land," he thought, "you said I can stay there for ten minutes. But now I am stronger. Chaos Rank One. How long can I stay now?"
The system responded as if it had been waiting for the question.
[System Response: Void Land Internal Time Limit Updated.
Reason: Host Chaos Energy Purity Threshold Achieved.
Current Chaos Energy Purity: 13%
Current Void Land Stay Duration: 30 Minutes.
Next Threshold: 20% Purity.
Projected Stay Duration at 20% Purity: 60 Minutes]
Sekhmet blinked once, processing the logic.
"So that’s how it works," he murmured quietly to himself, voice barely audible in the dark room. "Purity decides duration."
He rubbed his jaw once, as if wiping away the last trace of sleep that never truly arrived.
"Whatever," he muttered, then lifted his hand.
He did not hesitate. He opened the void land.
The air in front of him tore with a smooth unnatural motion, like a curtain being pulled aside by invisible hands. Darkness folded into darkness, and behind it waited a world that belonged to him.
The void did not shine.
The void did not welcome.
It waited.
Sekhmet stepped forward and crossed the threshold.
The sensation of entering was always the same.
A moment of weightlessness.
A faint pressure on the skull.
A quiet drop in sound, as if the real world had been muffled by thick cloth.
Then the void land accepted him, and the world returned.
He stood on dark ground that was neither soil nor stone, more like a hardened shadow shaped into terrain. Above him was an endless dim sky with no sun, no moon, no stars. Light existed only in faint glows from his own summons and the traces of chaos energy that drifted in slow currents.
He moved forward immediately. He did not have time to stand and admire his private kingdom. His eyes scanned. His instincts reached outward.
And he found them.
Not far from the usual gathering area where the bats liked to cluster.
They were all there.
Auri stood at the front, posture tense, wings folded close. Her eyes were fixed on something on the ground. She was calm, but the calm was sharp, like a blade held steady.
Bat minions swarmed around, small shapes fluttering, their red eyes bright in the void darkness. The six rare bats were present too, larger, sharper, their bodies carrying stronger chaos energy now, their movements more controlled than before. They perched like disciplined soldiers, not like wild animals.
Even the ghouls were present.
One of them, the one with a missing hand, stood slightly apart, his posture stiff like he had been told to stand and he was doing it because he was too dumb to do anything else.
And on the ground...
A body.
Sekhmet’s steps slowed slightly as he approached.
The figure lying there was human-shaped, but barely.
It looked like a corpse that had been dragged out of a dry grave and forgotten again. Skin pulled tight over bones. Jaw slightly open. Eyes half-lidded. Not dead yet, but close enough that the difference was almost insulting.
Sekhmet stared.
Recognition hit him like a small unpleasant slap.
The robber.
The scavenger thief.
The man who had tried to rob him when he first came out of the madness of purgatory, before he entered the city with Lily. Sekhmet had been angry. Also Hungry and Cold.