Chapter 312: The Price of Staying Weak III
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"I can give you and your men the same power as him."
That stopped everything.
Even Bat Bat shut up from making fun of Raka’s face.
Raka’s men, spread through the front lower hall and outer entrance in lines of rough loyalty and practiced violence, all shifted their attention inward at once.
Mira stayed very still at the desk. Raka’s one good eye sharpened like a knife.
Sekhmet went on.
"But it will change you."
No one interrupted.
"It will make you different."
Still nothing.
He let the silence hold long enough to deepen the weight of the offer.
Then said, "Are you all willing?"
It was remarkable how quickly ambition moved through a room full of underground black market men.
They had seen the lesser vampire fight.
They had seen Raka’s face.
They had seen the speed, the control, the red eyes, the difference between a man who was rank three by ordinary road and a man who was rank three after Sekhmet’s had rewritten him with his blood.
And in Null, power was not a luxury. Power was breath. Power was shelter. Permission to keep existing when stronger things wanted what you had. Men in lower districts could talk about loyalty, money, friendship, revenge, women, booze, old grudges, and new knives all they liked, but when true power stood in front of them and offered itself in ugly exchange, every other conversation bent around it.
Raka felt that move through his men instantly.
So did Mira.
No one here was sentimental enough to pretend change alone would frighten them away. Not if the change brought bigger strength.
Raka’s gaze remained on Sekhmet. "What is he? Master!"
Sekhmet answered plainly.
"He is a lesser vampire."
The phrase entered the room like cold iron.
Bat Bat looked very pleased to know something nobody else knew.
Sekhmet continued. "One step below a true vampire. One step away from becoming even more stronger."
That part hit harder.
Not because all of them understood exactly what true vampire meant. Because they understood hierarchy. They understood that one step away from something greater still meant the lesser state was already much more than what they were now.
Sekhmet’s voice remained even.
"I am giving you a choice."
His eyes moved over the gathered men, then back to Raka.
"Either become strong or remain weak."
That line stripped the situation down to its bones. It was no pretty lies. No speeches about brotherhood. No noble nonsense.
Be strong or stay weak.
In Null, those were the only two words that mattered once all the others finished dressing themselves.
Sekhmet kept going.
"You will serve me whichever you choose. I will not abandon you."
That mattered too. More than most outsiders would have guessed.
Because lower men like these had served plenty of people who would absolutely abandon them the moment they became expensive, troublesome, or inconvenient to the next plan. A promise of power without abandonment had more weight than fancy phrases about honor ever could.
Raka’s men began reacting immediately, though not with one voice.
One man said, "The same as him?"
Another man said, "Red eyes and all?"
Another man asked, "Stronger than rank three?"
A curious man asked, "What does ’different’ actually mean?"
Another man asked, "Can we still walk in daylight?"
A stupid man asked, "Can we still drink alcohol?"
A violent man asked, "Can we still kill people we dislike?"
An older man said, "That last one was not the right question."
The violent man replies, "It is an excellent question."
Raka did not silence them at once. He let the wave pass through them because this was a decision better heard in their real voices than dragged out by false discipline.
One man near the back said, "If it makes me stronger, I do not care if my eyes glow."
Another replied, "That is because your face already frightened children. You have nothing to lose."
A third, older and more thoughtful, kept his gaze on the lesser vampire and said quietly, "If we can become like that, change is not a cost. It is the price."
That line lingered.
Good line, Sekhmet thought.
Raka heard it too.
Mira, from behind the desk, watched all of this with tightening stillness.
The younger market men looked hungry at the offer. Not blood hungry. But Power hungry. The sort that had built every criminal ladder she had ever seen.
The older ones looked more cautious, but not because they wanted to refuse. Because they understood there would be a deeper cost somewhere under the word different, and only fools agreed to magical transformation without asking what it did to loyalty, hunger, sleep, sunlight, soul, and future.
Raka raised one hand at last and the noise dropped.
He looked at Sekhmet. "If we choose this."
Sekhmet held his gaze.
"Yes."
Raka’s voice remained hard. "Then what are we after? Servants. Tools. Pets. Weapons for your enemies. What are we for you?"
That question mattered.
Sekhmet respected it enough to answer without evasion.
"You are my people," he said. "But not a disposable one."
The hall listened.
He went on, "You work for me now. That does not change. What changes is what you become under me. You all became stronger. You all became harder to kill. Better suited for the work ahead."
Raka’s jaw shifted once.
Sekhmet’s eyes moved over the men behind him.
"I will not make you noble," he said. "I will not make you beautiful stories. I will not make the world respect you because it should. I will make you stronger. You need to earn rest by your loyalty."
That answer worked. Of course it did.
This room had never once asked the world for fairness. Only leverage.
Raka turned away from Sekhmet and looked at his own men.
"Speak your mind."
The discussion came in rough fragments.
Not one by one. It came by groups. Small knots of opinion muttered in lower voices.
One man said, "If it’s real, we take it."