---

That was enough to make her eyes narrow slightly. Interesting, that look said without words.

Then she let it go.

"For now," Elena said, "you will get dressed, wash your face, and come downstairs."

He looked at the wrecked sheets around him. "And Bat Bat."

"She will be dressed before she is allowed near another corridor." Elena’s voice remained dry. "And preferably taught that growing up does not mean climbing onto her master lap and making weird declarations."

"That lesson may take time." Sekhmet replied.

"I am aware." She answered.

Her eyes rested on him one last second, softer now by only the smallest degree.

"You look tired."

"I was."

Elena nodded once. "Then do not make yourself more tired by thinking about this too hard."

That sentence sat in the room more gently than the others.

Sekhmet noticed Elena turned toward the door.

Then, without looking back, she added, "And for what it is worth, young master, the first maid still thinks she saved your honor."

That actually made him stare.

Elena’s mouth moved faintly at one corner.

"Do not disappoint her by looking amused when you see her."

Then she left. The room went quiet again.

Sekhmet sat there in the wreckage of blankets, sleep, and dignity and stared at nothing for a second.

Then he exhaled once, long and slow.

"Bat Bat had grown. Human-sized. She is an adult. Without any warning. Without any system notice. Without so much as a proper morning disaster bell."

That last part was what struck him hardest after the chaos settled.

He lowered his hand from his face and looked toward the place in the room where she had first seen herself in the mirror and screamed.

Then, slowly, he spoke inwardly.

"Hey, system."

He paused, looking at the empty space before him as if annoyance alone might force a more respectful answer out of the invisible thing.

"Why did I not receive any notification?"

The room stayed quiet for one heartbeat.

Then the system answered.

[Ding! SYSTEM Notification: Host Chaos Energy fell to a low operational threshold during rest.

The system entered energy-saving mode.

Reason: to reduce unnecessary interruptions while the host regenerated Chaos Energy.]

Sekhmet stared at nothing for a second.

"So you decided not to tell me a bat turned into a naked woman on my chest because you wanted to conserve energy."

The system, being the system, had no shame.

[Ding! SYSTEM Notification: Correct.]

That answer sat in the room with an almost offensive calm.

Sekhmet pressed his fingers once against his forehead and let out a very slow breath through his nose. He could not even argue with the logic completely. He had been exhausted. His chaos energy had been burning down hard through Lily’s transformation, the feeding, the movement in and out of the Void Land, the creation of the lesser vampire, and the bloodline upgrades. The system choosing not to wake him for every little development made sense. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

The problem was that Bat Bat becoming a full-grown woman was not a "little development."

Still.

The morning had already happened. Getting angry now would only mean being angry and dressed badly.

"Fine," he muttered. "Show me all the notifications."

That, at least, the system obeyed without attitude.

[Ding! SYSTEM Notification: Queued notifications available.

Displaying in order of trigger.]

The first set of information appeared.

[SYSTEM Notification: Bat Bat intelligence threshold has reached 50%.]

[SYSTEM Notification-

Threshold effect: full human transformation unlocked.]

[SYSTEM Notification: Bat Bat has entered the mature cognition phase.

Current note: The subject Bat Bat now requires self-learning in social behavior, emotional structure, physical awareness, and world adaptation.]

Sekhmet’s eyes narrowed slightly as he read through the lines again.

There it was.

Finally...

He had known for a while that it would happen once Bat Bat crossed the right intelligence threshold. She had been changing for some time now — not only in speech, but in pattern recognition, curiosity, emotional complexity, and the strange half-formed ways she tried to understand the world through imitation and argument.

She had stopped being merely a talking bat with too much personality and become something much more dangerous. Someone capable of growth.

Fifty percent. That was the line. That was why Elena had been teaching her.

That was why he had insisted Bat Bat spend time studying words, reactions, social structures, and human behavior even when Bat Bat called it tyranny and educational oppression. He had expected maturity to matter when the next shift came. He had just not expected the next shift to arrive overnight and immediately try to climb into his mouth.

Still.

A part of him, buried under the embarrassment and the chaos of the morning, felt the satisfaction of a long plan proving itself useful.

"Good," he thought. "Finally she is more mature. I was waiting for her intelligence to reach fifty. That is why I handed her over to Elena for all that studying. So all of that hard work did pay off."

Of course, "mature" was still a dangerous word where Bat Bat was concerned. Intelligence and wisdom were not identical creatures, and Bat Bat had clearly decided that becoming physically adult also meant she now fully understood kissing, marriage, and "doing what Lily did," which was... not ideal.

"Still. Progress. Chaotic progress."

He let the Bat Bat notifications fade, and the system continued.

[Ding! SYSTEM Notification: The communication stone rang twice during the host’s recovery period.]

Sekhmet straightened slightly.

Not many people had a reason to use that stone.

The system clarified immediately.

[SYSTEM Notification-

Caller identified: Blood Puppet Raka.]

"Two calls from Raka." Sekhmet’s thoughts shifted at once.

The lesser vampire. Of course.

The timing lined up cleanly. Raka would have called after the messenger arrived, or after some misunderstanding, or after the first lesser vampire reached him. Given the shape of lower-market men and the shape of fate in his current life, misunderstanding seemed almost guaranteed.

Still, if Raka had called twice and the system had suppressed the notification under energy-saving mode, then whatever happened had not yet become urgent enough to force its way through emergency override.