Dawn Walker

Hundreds of thousands of weak sources gathered so closely together that they felt like a pale sea pressed behind the walls. The energy was dense enough to make the air near the doors feel warmer. A faint vibration travelled through the floor beneath Sekhmet’s boots.

There was something else inside too.

Something his senses could not understand properly.

It felt small... Almost dead.

Yet his blood reacted to it. It was not with hunger. It was not with fear.

It was a strange pressure that made the blood inside his veins slow for one heartbeat before returning to normal. It felt as though something inside the room had briefly noticed him without waking fully.

Sekhmet stopped outside the door.

The System did not give him a notification.

That was unusual.

His Blood Eye could identify many beings and objects, but it could not see through the heavy doors clearly enough to provide details. Even when he activated it, the energy filling the hall interfered with his vision and turned everything beyond the gap into layers of pale light surrounding one dark point.

A voice came from inside.

"You took long enough."

Dickoff.

His voice sounded different from before. There was fear in it, but it was held together by excitement and desperation. He sounded like a man standing beside a wild beast while pretending the chain around its neck belonged to him.

Sekhmet placed his hand against the partly open door.

Then he pushed it fully.

The central hall appeared before him.

The room was enormous. Dark pillars rose toward a high ceiling. Iron decorations covered the walls. Storage cases filled with low-grade chaos stones had been arranged around the floor in a wide circle. More stones rested inside open boxes, covering the ground with pale light. Several storage rings lay on a table near the centre, each one prepared for immediate use. Thin formation lines had been drawn between the cases to guide their energy toward the same point.

Dickoff stood behind that table.

His face was pale from a sleepless night, but his eyes were too wide and bright. The ancient black wooden box rested before him.

Its lid was open.

Inside lay a small black object shaped like a rough stone seed.

Sekhmet’s eyes moved toward it.

At that exact moment, Dickoff smiled.

It was not the smile of a man who believed he had already won.

It was the smile of a frightened man who had finally convinced himself that the weapon in front of him could change reality.

"You destroyed my business," Dickoff said. "You killed my guards. You captured my people. You made the whole city believe Iron House was finished."

Sekhmet stepped into the hall.

"You are finished."

Dickoff’s smile widened. His hand hovered over the open box, but Sekhmet could still see a small tremble moving through his fingers.

"No."

He placed one hand over the black seed.

"The business was only the price."

Chaos stones around the hall began to glow.

Not all at once.

The first box lit near Dickoff’s left side. Then the next. Then one storage ring opened by itself and released a stream of pale energy into the air. Formation lines across the floor brightened and carried that energy toward the table.

The black seed moved.

Only slightly.

A single pulse passed through it.

The entire mansion trembled.

Dust fell from the high ceiling. The iron decorations on the walls rattled. Somewhere outside the hall, a servant screamed before quickly covering his mouth.

Sekhmet immediately felt the danger.

Dickoff lifted the seed from the box while chaos energy began pouring toward it from every direction.

The first thousand stones turned gray.

Then ten thousand.

Then more.

Their energy vanished into the seed faster than water disappearing into dry earth. The pale light inside the hall began shrinking as case after case lost its power, yet the black seed did not become brighter. It only became darker, as though the energy was feeding an emptiness hidden inside it.

Dickoff’s body began shaking.

This time it was not from fear.

Black veins spread across the hand holding the seed. They climbed over his wrist, entered his forearm, and disappeared beneath his sleeve. His muscles tightened. His back bent for one moment before he forced himself upright. Blood leaked from one nostril, but he did not seem to notice.

He looked at Sekhmet through widening eyes and said, "Now we will see which one of us is finished."

The black veins continued spreading through Dickoff’s arm while the chaos stones around the hall lost their glow one group after another. The first few thousand had already turned gray, but the energy pouring into the black seed did not slow down.

More storage cases opened by themselves. Their lids were thrown aside as pale streams rose from the stones and crossed the room toward Dickoff’s hand.

The formation lines on the floor became brighter.

Dickoff screamed.

His fingers closed around the seed so tightly that the bones in his hand should have broken, but the black object did not move from his palm. Instead, its rough surface softened for a moment and began sinking into his flesh.

Dickoff stared at it in horror.

"What is happening?"

He tried to open his hand, but his fingers no longer obeyed him. The black seed pushed deeper until half of it disappeared beneath his skin. Blood came out around the edges, but even that blood did not fall. It was pulled back into the opening and swallowed by the object.

Sekhmet activated Blood Eye.

At first, nothing appeared.

The chaos energy inside the hall interfered with his vision. Pale light covered Dickoff from every direction, while the black seed remained like a dark hole in the middle of it. Sekhmet focused harder. The blood inside his eyes moved, and the details slowly became clearer.

A System message appeared.

[Warning: The target is receiving a temporary external enhancement.

The unknown object is using the target as a vessel.

Target’s battle power is rising rapidly.]

Sekhmet’s expression became more serious.

The object was not simply giving Dickoff energy.

It was entering him.

Dickoff bent forward as another wave passed through his body. His back twisted. The muscles beneath his clothes expanded so quickly that the fabric tore across his shoulders. Black lines moved under his skin like living roots. They spread from his right hand, climbed his arm, crossed his chest, and reached his neck.

The chaos stones continued dying around him.

Ten thousand became twenty thousand.

Twenty thousand became one hundred thousand.

The piles were disappearing faster now.

The stones did not break apart immediately. Their light faded first. Then cracks appeared across their surfaces before they collapsed into gray powder. The air filled with dry dust, but the streams of chaos energy remained clear as they flowed toward Dickoff.

He lifted his head.

His eyes were changing.

The whites became dark gray. His pupils widened until they covered most of his eyes. The fear that had filled his face only moments earlier began disappearing beneath something heavier. His mouth opened, and a rough breath came out with enough force to disturb the dust across the floor.

Sekhmet’s Blood Eye finally completed the appraisal.

[Name: Dickoff Iron

Race: Human

Temporary State: Unknown Ancient Chaos Infusion

Temporary Rank: Half-God

Overall Battle Power: 132,000

External Energy Remaining: 09:58

Warning: Target’s body is unstable.

Note: His chaos body is still of a mortal.]

Sekhmet looked at the number without allowing his expression to change.

One hundred thirty-two thousand.

His own current battle power was thirty-seven thousand.

The difference was too large to ignore.

Even Lily, the strongest among the women who had come with him, was only Chaos Rank Four. If Dickoff attacked her directly with that amount of power, she might die before she had time to transform properly.

Sekhmet immediately sent a command through the blood connection.

"Do not enter the hall."

The four women felt it at the same time.

Vera and Vela had already reached a side corridor connected to the receiving hall. They stopped beside a closed door when Sekhmet’s command entered their minds.

Mira and Lily were on the opposite side of the building. They had found another passage leading toward the rear of the hall, but Mira immediately raised one hand and stopped Lily before she touched the door.

Inside the receiving hall, Dickoff slowly straightened.

The black seed had completely disappeared into his palm.

The hole closed behind it.

Only the black lines remained.

They covered his arm and chest, and more were still spreading. His body had become taller by several inches. His shoulders were wider. His skin looked harder, especially around the right arm where dark stone-like patches had begun forming over the flesh.

Dickoff looked down at himself.

For the first time since the attack on Iron House began, he did not look frightened. He looked amazed. He opened his right hand.

A wave of black chaos energy burst outward.

The table between him and Sekhmet shattered. The ancient wooden box was thrown aside, but it did not break. It struck the floor near one of the pillars and stopped there while broken wood scattered through the hall.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!