Chapter 6 - 0: A Gift?
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The notification that had frozen at the edge of Sekhmet’s vision finally settled into place, crisp and impossible to ignore.
[Ding! System notification- Void Lord John. The God of Void has given you a gift.]
Sekhmet stared at the words until his eyes started to sting.
"A gift," he repeated, voice flat with disbelief. "From a god."
He looked around the ruined throne room as if the answer might be hiding behind a broken spear or under Benimaru’s corpse. The torches still crackled. The air still smelled like smoke and blood. Nothing about this place suggested blessings.
His mind ran through every god’s name he had ever heard.
Millions of gods lived in Null. Some were ancient enough to be spoken of like weather. Some were petty and ruled tiny territories the size of a village. Some had cults that spanned entire domains. Some were so violent that their names were only whispered, because saying them aloud felt like inviting lightning into the room.
Sekhmet knew many legends.
He knew none personally.
He definitely did not know a god well enough to receive a gift.
Last time he remembered his father was a merchant in Null. A human. Ordinary by Null standards, which meant only mildly suicidal. He bought and sold goods across domains. He negotiated with monsters who considered eating him a reasonable counteroffer. He survived by being clever and by never pretending to be brave.
Sekhmet had grown up surrounded by trade talk, not divine favors.
So why would a God look at him and decide to give him something?
His head throbbed with questions.
Ba - dum
Ba - dum
His heartbeat had finally returned to a normal rhythm, but his mind refused to be normal.
In Null, gods did not hand out gifts for fun.
They handed out gifts like hooks.
Or chains.
Or invitations to wars you did not want.
Sekhmet licked his lips, tasting old blood again. He felt suddenly cold despite the torchlight.
Void Lord John.
Even the name carried weight.
The God of Void was one of the stronger gods in Null, not just because of power, but because of reputation. His legends spread like wildfire across domains. He was known as cold, not in emotionless cruelty, but in controlled finality.
He protected his own people.
He erased enemies.
There was a story every merchant knew. A story told in low voices at night when the roads were dangerous and the campfires were small.
Once, the Void God destroyed an entire city where another god lived. Not just the god. Not just the god’s guards. Not just the god’s family.
Everything.
Buildings.
Temples.
Followers.
Even the ones who begged.
The city was wiped so clean it became a warning carved into the land.
None were left alive.
Sekhmet swallowed hard.
And that god... gave me a gift.
He felt his skin prickle.
His father had never mentioned a connection to any god. His father barely mentioned family at all. Sekhmet did not even know who his mother was. His father always said the same thing when asked.
Gone.
Do not ask.
We survive.
Sekhmet’s fists tightened.
He stared at the notification again, and something inside him twisted with an uncomfortable thought.
"What if this is not a gift.
What if this is a claim?"
His mind drifted, as minds often did in Null, to the history of how things had become this way.
Gods had existed in Null for ages beyond counting. Over time, boredom had become their most dangerous enemy. A bored god was a storm looking for a city to land on.
So they brought entertainment.
They dragged mortals from universes below. They lured monsters. They collected followers like toys. They built armies, empires, cults, and arenas. They watched people fight, love, betray, and die, because endless life made simple joys rot quickly.
They mated with mortals.
They birthed half-gods.
Half-gods mated.
Their descendants became weaker, or sometimes stranger, spreading across domains like branches of a tree nobody could cut down. After billions of years, "mortal" in Null did not mean powerless.
It only meant not a god yet.
The mortals of Null were different from the mortals of lower universes.
They were born with chaos energy. Not pure. Not refined. But it existed in them from birth like blood existed in their veins.
A mortal in Null could train and climb.
And if they reached one hundred percent purity, the world itself would acknowledge them.
Godhood would become possible.
Sekhmet’s status window flashed in his memory.
[Purity: five percent.]
He almost laughed.
"Five percent.
I am so far from godhood that even the idea sounds like a joke.
So why is a god looking at me?
Why now?"
He turned his head slightly toward Benimaru’s corpse, then away again. The half-god’s body lay where it fell, huge and heavy, as if it was still occupying space out of spite.
Sekhmet’s voice came out low and tense.
"System," he said. "Why did the Void God give me a gift?"
The system answered without hesitation, calm as always.
[System notification- Void Lord John possesses an Abyss-Class Artifact. He has sent a gift to aid host growth and stabilize awakened artifact framework. Void Lord John has high expectations for the host.
Projected Outcome: Host becomes god and meets him in the Gods’ Hall.]
Sekhmet froze.
His eyes widened.
"Abyss-class," he repeated slowly, as if the words were too heavy to fit in his mouth. "He has one too."
The idea alone shook him more than the massacre around him.
Abyss-class artifacts were a myth.
Or they had been.
Now one had awakened inside his own body.
And now the system claimed that the Void God had one as well. There might be more.
A god.
With an abyss artifact.
That meant the legends were not legends.
They were the shallow surface of something deeper.
Sekhmet’s mind raced.
"Is it a system too?
Is it like mine?
Is that why he knows?
Is that why he can send me a gift like this?"
He waited for the system to answer the question that formed in his thoughts.
It did not.
Instead, the system responded the way it always did when it decided information was not for him yet.
By moving forward.
[System notification: Gift Detected. Presenting gift details.]
Sekhmet’s vision shimmered.
A second window unfolded beneath the first, made of pale light edged with faint black, like ink floating in water.
[Gift: Void Land
Origin: Void Lord John.
Type: Spatial Domain Fragment.
Function: Storage and Containment. Compatibility: System Integration Available.]
Sekhmet’s brows lifted.
"Void land," he whispered.
A land in void.
A space that did not belong to normal space.
A pocket domain.
A storage realm.
Something merchants would kill for.
Something gods would shrug at.
The system continued, layering information with clinical precision.
[System notification: Void Land can store objects. Void Land can store living beings. Void Land can function as a home for summons.
Integration Option: Bind to Blood System.]
Sekhmet’s heart beat faster.
Ba - dum
A storage.
A home.
A safe place.
In Null, safe places were rarer than mercy.
Then the next line appeared.
[Condition: Host can remain within bound Void Land for only 10 minutes.
Cause: Host chaos energy insufficient. Time limit increases as host chaos energy increases.
Note: Other living beings stored inside Void Land are not affected by the host limit.]
Sekhmet’s expression twisted.
"Only ten minutes," he muttered. "So it is not a home for me yet."
He frowned harder.
"Why does the condition apply to me but not to other living things?"
The system responded immediately.
[System notification- If Void Land is bound to the Blood System, it becomes a system function. Host access becomes universal from any location. Host presence inside a bound domain drains chaos energy rapidly due to insufficient capacity. Non-host entities are stored, not linked. Drain does not apply.]
Sekhmet stared at the text.
Then another line appeared.
[Alternative: If Void Land is not bound. The host may enter without system drain limitation.
However: Access requires physical location and anchor placement. Void Land cannot be summoned remotely. Storage cannot be accessed from anywhere.]
Sekhmet’s jaw tightened.
"So I must choose.
A powerful remote storage and summon home, but I cannot live inside it for long.
Or a domain I can use normally, but only if I travel to it, anchor it, and stay near it."
In Null, travel was a nightmare unless you were a god. Even crossing a jungle could take years. Not because the jungle was big, but because it was alive, hostile, and full of things that liked to hide time itself in their roots.
Sekhmet breathed out slowly.
The decision was made itself.
"I do not need to live there," he whispered. "I need a tool. I need a safe pocket. I need a place for the bat. I need loot storage. I need options."
He glanced at the pocket of his coat where the tiny blood bat slept. It was warm against his chest, like a ridiculous little secret.
He thought of the future.
He could store supplies.
He could store weapons.
He could hide treasures.
He could imprison enemies.
He could build a home for summons.
He could move through Null without dragging his entire life behind him like a broken cart.
Sekhmet looked at the system window.
"I choose to bind it," he said.
[Ding! System notification- Binding confirmed. Initiating integration.]
The air around Sekhmet felt different. Not heavier, not lighter. More connected, as if invisible threads had just been tied between his soul and something far away and dark.
A faint ripple passed through his awareness, like stepping into shallow water.
Whummm!
[System notification- Void Land: Bound.
Function unlocked: Void Storage.
Access command: Void Land.]
Sekhmet blinked.
It felt too simple.
He thought the command cautiously.
Void Land.
The world tilted for half a heartbeat.
Then a sensation opened inside his mind, like a door swinging inward.
He did not fully enter. He only sensed it.
A space.
Cold.
Silent.
Endless black ground under endless darker sky.
A land that was not a land.
A void that had shape.
Sekhmet exhaled.
"It is real," he murmured.
He needed to test it. Not with something small. Not with a pebble.
He turned his head toward the largest object in the room.
Benimaru’s body.
If it could store that, it could store almost anything he would carry for a long time.
Sekhmet stepped forward and placed his palm against Benimaru’s arm. The half-god’s skin was tough, thick, still carrying faint residual chaos energy like a corpse refusing to cool.
Sekhmet pushed a thread of chaos energy into the contact and thought of the command.
Store.
There was a brief pause, like the world considering whether it wanted to allow this.
Then the body vanished.
Whooomp!
Not with light.
Not with fire.
It simply folded inward and disappeared, as if reality had been edited and Benimaru had been cut out of the scene.
Sekhmet jerked back slightly, eyes widening.
He stared at the empty space where the half-god had been.
Then he exhaled, slow.
A smile flickered on his face for the first time since waking in chains.
Not joy.
Not relief.
A thin, sharp smile that said he had gained something dangerous.
"Good," he whispered.
He turned, scanning the ruined throne room one last time.
The orcs were gone.
The leader was gone.
Only broken stone and scattered weapons remained.
Sekhmet’s chest tightened again.
He needed answers.
He needed to know where he was.
He needed to know how long it had been.
He needed to understand why the Void God was watching him.
And he needed to move before another orc patrol or worse decided to investigate why their leader’s throne room had gone silent.
Sekhmet adjusted his torn coat, feeling the sleeping bat in his pocket shift slightly.
"Batbat..." the tiny creature mumbled in its sleep, then went quiet again.
Sekhmet snorted softly.
"Yeah," he muttered. "I feel the same."
He stepped toward the door, but before he crossed the threshold, his mind snagged on an old memory like a hook catching cloth.
A flashback.
Not from minutes ago.
From years ago. Almost five years.
From when he was fifteen.
His father’s voice.
A merchant’s voice, calm and careful, the kind of voice that knew the price of speaking too honestly.
Sekhmet’s foot paused mid-step.
The torchlight blurred.
And the memory rushed toward him like a door opening in his mind.
(Note: Read the Void lords John journey to godhood below 👇 👇 👇
I tagged the book.)