---
Sekhmet's eyes narrowed faintly. The words should have felt triumphant. Instead they felt heavy. Like medals hammered from bone.
A fraction of Blood God Blood.
That explained the weight in his limbs. It explained why his veins felt hot and cold at the same time. It explained why the hall smelled so vivid now, every cracked stone, every drop of spilled blood, every breath from every living body reaching him with impossible clarity.
His chaos energy pulsed deeper than before, less wild in one way and more dangerous in another. Even his skin felt different, denser somehow, as if the flesh under it had learned a harder language.
His bloodlust shivered again, then dropped sharply.
[Ding! SYSTEM Notification: Bloodlust pressure is decreasing.
Forbidden target lock maintained successfully.
No collateral breach detected.]
Sekhmet exhaled.
That breath felt like coming back from the edge of a cliff and realizing only afterward that half his body had already gone over it.
