THE LAST GOD SYSTEM

CHAPTER 5: THE VOICE IN THE DARK

The System hadn’t said a thing all day.

That’s how Ronan knew something was off.

He sat on his cot, his back cold against the wall, the note from the petition office lying open on his lap. He’d read it a dozen times already. Maybe more. The words never changed:

The seventh seat is empty.  

It has been empty for 743 years.  

It is waiting for you.

Everyone else was out cold. The candle had burned down to a useless nub. The basement smelled musty, like wet stone and old straw.

Ronan waited.

Nothing.

“System,” he whispered.

No answer.

“I know you hear me.”

Still nothing.

He folded the note, stuffed it in his pocket, and rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling.

“Fine,” he muttered. “I’ll just ask someone else.”

He shut his eyes.

Sleep grabbed him before he realized it.

He was on a battlefield, just like that, except this wasn’t from any memory. There wasn’t smoke or blazing fire, no soldiers colliding in weird armor. Everything here felt ancient and hushed. Grey ash stretched as far as he could see, and the sky overhead was bruised purple.

Way off in the distance stood a throne. Just one.

It looked like it had grown straight out of the ground, black stone, simple but heavy with meaning, as if it had always been there. Someone was sitting on it.

A man, tall and broad-shouldered. The man’s armor looked like someone had stitched it together from darkness and the remains of dead stars. His face wasn’t hidden. It was blurred out, as if Ronan’s eyes couldn’t or wouldn’tfocus.

Ronan couldn’t see his eyes, but there was no missing the way the man stared at him.

“You’re late,” the man said.

He sounded so familiar that it hurt a little. Ronan’s own voice, but older. Rusted with centuries of use.

“Who are you?” Ronan asked.

The man tilted his head, just a bit. “You already know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.” The man leaned forward, and suddenly the place felt smaller, his presence swallowing up the plain. “You just don’t want to.”

Ronan’s chest squeezed tight. He wanted to look away but couldn’t. He was stuck, rooted.

“Why am I here?”

“Because you’re finally asking the right questions.”

“That’s not an answer,” Ronan snapped.

“No,” the man said. He smiled, but it was the kind of smile that leaves you cold. “It isn’t.”

The man stood, and the ash swirled away from his feet like even the ground was scared of him.

“You want to know who you are,” he said, almost softly now. “You want to know why the crystal shattered. Why the System calls you ‘Host.’ Why you’ve been dead for 743 years.”

He started walking towards Ronan. Ronan tried to back away, but his body stayed put.

“But here’s the thing, Ronan.” The man’s voice dropped, barely above a whisper. “You’re not going to like the truth.”

“Try me.”

The man laughed, a sound so empty it almost didn’t feel real.

“You were never supposed to wake up,” he said. “You were supposed to stay down. Sealed and forgotten. The System wasn’t built to serve you. It was built to keep you locked away. And now that it’s awake, so are they.”

“Who?” Ronan said. His voice shook.

The man’s face finally came into view. It was Ronan’s own face, but battered and hardened, with a long scar from temple to jaw. His eyes looked like they’d seen the world end.

“The six,” he said. “They’re the ones who erased you.”

He pressed two fingers to Ronan’s forehead, steady and cold.

“Remember.”

Ronan jolted awake, choking out a gasp.

The dream was gone in a blink. The battlefield, the throne, the man—they disappeared. He was back on his cot, sweating in that damp, dark basement, blinking at the cracked ceiling.

But something had shifted.

[DEATH LEDGER UPDATED.]

The System flickered to life in front of him. Brighter. Steadier.

[ENTRY 1: FRAGMENT RECOVERED.]

Ronan watched as new words appeared.

DEATH LEDGER

Progress: 1/6 (Fragmented)

There was just a single letter: A.

Not a name. Not much, really. But it was something.

[MEMORY FRAGMENT UNLOCKED.]

[WAR ENERGY: +1]

[CURRENT WAR ENERGY: 3]

Ronan stared at the glowing text, heart pounding in his chest.

One letter. One piece. The first step.

He didn’t know who ‘A’ was or what they’d done. But he knew for sure: the man on the throne had been him. And the System? The thing guiding him, protecting him, all this time it was also his jailer.

He pulled the note from his pocket. The seventh seat. The Forbidden Division.

He was ready for his next move.

Tomorrow, he’d find the seventh student. He’d start digging for answers. Real answers, the ones the System desperately wanted to hide.

The dream had been a warning. But as he lay there in the dark, Ronan honestly couldn’t tell if the real threat was his enemies … or himself.