Chapter 277: The Time Arrived III
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Sekhmet stared at the wall for a brief second as if reconsidering every choice that had led him to share a roof with this creature.
Bat Bat’s eyes went round with absolute scandalized delight.
"You did..."
Sekhmet looked at her. "Why are you so naughty?"
"I am not, I guess right." She puffed up. "I always said the air between you was ridiculous."
Lily finally laughed openly.
That only encouraged Bat Bat further.
Then she noticed the items on the table. The glass. The knife. The folded cloth. The veil.
Her head slowly turned.
"What are those?"
Sekhmet’s expression became serious again at once. "We are going into the Void Land."
Bat Bat blinked. "Now."
"Yes."
Her ears perked. "Can I come?"
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
Bat Bat hovered higher in pure offense. "This is discrimination against loyal companions."
Sekhmet turned his head and looked at her until she drooped by half an inch.
Then Lily, to her own surprise, said softly, "Let her come."
Sekhmet looked at her.
Bat Bat looked at her with instant adoration. "You are wise."
Lily’s mouth curved faintly. "She will follow anyway."
That was unfortunately true.
Sekhmet’s eyes moved from Lily to Bat Bat and back again. Then he gave up with the quiet, exhausted dignity of a man choosing which disaster was easier to manage.
"Fine," he said. "But you stay where I tell you and you do not interrupt me."
Bat Bat straightened at once. "I can be extremely serious when needed."
Sekhmet did not answer because all evidence suggested otherwise.
A few moments later he opened the Void Land. Darkness folded inward and the doorway appeared before them like a living wound in the air.
Lily stepped through first this time.
Bat Bat shot in after her with delighted speed.
Sekhmet followed, carrying the glass, the knife, and the few other things he needed, the veil secured for now in hidden form.
The Void Land greeted them with its usual impossible silence.
The dark space / sky waited above.
The land stretched out, barren and vast, except for the small defiant patches of green near the spirit leaf’s side and the humble shape of Auri’s house farther off.
Auri herself noticed them quickly and emerged from near the greener edge, expression changing at once as she took in the late arrival, Lily’s presence, and the items in Sekhmet’s hand.
She was not stupid. She did not ask questions immediately. She guessed most of it.
Bat Bat, on the other hand, was already floating in place and whispering to herself like a conspirator in a bad play.
"Something very dramatic is happening. I can tell because everyone is trying to look normal and failing."
Sekhmet ignored that and walked toward the deeper section where Vera and Vela still kept watch over Sofia and Natasha.
The twins noticed them from a distance and straightened at once.
Neither woman spoke. Sekhmet thought, "Neither left her position. Good. They had done exactly as I ordered."
Sofia and Natasha looked up too.
Even sealed, even reduced, they remained dangerous in the way old venom remained dangerous after the snake was dead. But both saw the shape of what Sekhmet carried and what Lily was doing beside him, and some sharp understanding passed through their eyes.
Sofia’s mouth moved faintly.
Natasha’s expression became colder.
They knew enough.
Not all of it. But enough.
Auri approached more closely then, but stopped at a respectful distance. Her eyes moved to Lily, then to Sekhmet, then to the glass.
"What do you need from me?"
Sekhmet appreciated the directness.
"Nothing," he said. "Only silence."
Auri nodded once. "You will have it."
"Good."
Vera and Vela came forward a few steps now, their attention moving between Sekhmet and Lily. The bond in them tightened at once, not in challenge, not in jealousy, but in awareness. They understood what was about to happen. Lily saw that too and felt the air around the moment sharpen.
Sekhmet looked at the twins. "Positions."
Without question, Vera moved left, Vela right, placing themselves slightly ahead of Sofia and Natasha. Guarding them. Guarding the moment. Preventing interruption.
Bat Bat floated behind Lily’s shoulder and whispered loudly enough for everyone to hear, "I knew this was a secret thing. I am always correct."
Nobody answered her.
Sekhmet stepped toward the central open ground near the captives but not too near them. A clean rock patch. Quiet enough. Stable enough. The Void Land itself seemed to understand what was gathering there and had gone even stiller.
He spread the dark cloth over a flat stone and set the glass upon it.
The small sound of glass touching stone rang too clearly in the silence.
Lily’s breathing changed.
Sekhmet looked up at her.
"Still certain."
She met his gaze.
"Yes."
"Alright."
He let the word settle between them one last time. Then he picked up the knife.
The blade caught no real light under the void sky, yet it still seemed sharp enough to divide certainty from flesh.
Bat Bat stopped whispering.
Auri went absolutely still.
Even Vera and Vela seemed to draw their focus tighter around the moment.
Sekhmet looked at Lily one final time before beginning.
Then, without ceremony, he drew the knife across his palm.
Blood welled at once, rich and dark and alive with the power hidden inside it.
He held his hand over the glass. The first drops come out.
The first drops of his blood fell into the glass with a sound so small it should not have mattered.
In the Void Land, it mattered.
Everything mattered there.
The dark sky watched without wind. The barren ground held its silence like an old oath. Even the far edges of the hidden world felt paused, as though the land itself knew it was standing witness to something that would either deepen Sekhmet’s strength or open a new and terrible weakness right inside his own chest.
His blood kept falling.
Sekhmet did not rush the cut.
The line across his palm was clean and deliberate, not careless.