THE LAST GOD SYSTEM

CHAPTER 8: THE DIVISION

Ronan didn’t sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, that seventh desk haunted him. Someone was always there, just sitting, waiting.

Morning rolled in, all cold and gray. The basement dorms emptied one by one. The F-rank kids trudged off to their classes and support jobs, quietly heading toward lives nobody would remember.

Ronan waited. When the hall finally went quiet, he stood up, strapped his battered sword across his back, and climbed the stairs.

He found the door right away. It’s expecting me, he thought.

He knocked, and the door swung open.

The Forbidden Division was already awake.

Lyra was at her desk, still staring into that untitled book. Silas Crow sat cross-legged in his chair, blindfolded, head tilted like he was tuned in to something nobody else could hear. Mira Solenne had her hands folded, lips moving through some silent, rhythmic prayer. Darius Vale slumped in his chair, arms crossed, eyes planted on the entrance. Kael Draven was busy carving into his desk again, pressing a new mark even deeper.

Six students.

The seventh desk stared back empty.

Ronan walked to the center of the circle.

“You came,” Lyra said.

“You said the others wanted to meet me.”

“We did.” She closed her book with a soft thud. “This is everyone. The whole Division. The Academy’s forgotten children.”

Darius snorted. “Speak for yourself.”

“You are forgotten, Darius.”

“I’m an inconvenience.”

“Same thing.”

Silas spoke up. He didn’t even turn his head. His voice was soft but certain, the sound of someone who spent more time listening than talking.

“He brought something with him.”

Ronan frowned at him. “What?”

“Something is clinging to you. A shadow. It’s been following you since you walked in. It doesn’t feel human.”

The room went still.

Mira opened her eyes. “I felt it too. When he first walked in. Something… ancient.”

Kael put his knife down with a loud click, dark eyes locked on Ronan. “What’d you bring with you?”

Ronan had nothing. Not a word.

[ANOMALY DETECTED.]

System text flickered at the edge of his vision.

[SPECTRAL RESIDUE: HOST-BOUND.]

[ORIGIN: UNKNOWN.]

[WARNING: ENTITY IS OBSERVING.]

Entity.

Ronan’s hand crept toward his sword.

“You can see it?” he asked Silas.

“No. I can’t see anything.” Silas managed a faint, knowing smile. “But I can feel it. It’s right behind you.”

Ronan spun around.

Nothing.

Just a closed door and a silent room. Empty air.

But he felt it. Heavy, ice-cold pressure pressing on his back. The same feeling he’d had in the basement three nights ago, right before the thing in the dark lunged for him.

It hadn’t let go. It’d been stalking him the whole time.

“What is it?” Lyra asked. Her voice was tight.

“I don’t know,” Ronan said. “But I fought it once before.”

Silas whipped his head toward him. “You fought it?”

“Three nights ago. F-rank dorms.”

“And it didn’t kill you?”

Ronan met the blindfolded boy’s gaze. “No.”

Silas went quiet for a long moment, then turned to Lyra. “He’s not a student.”

Lyra blinked. “What?”

“He’s not a student,” Silas said, standing up, voice growing stronger. “He’s a survivor. Something came for him, and he’s still here. That isn’t normal. That isn’t even possible.”

Lyra turned her eyes on Ronan, sharp, gray, searching.

“What did it say to you? The thing in the dark. What did it say?”

Ronan hesitated. Then, the words came.

“You were not supposed to wake up.”

“You don’t even know what you are.”

“You’re nothing but a shell wearing a dead god’s skin.”

Silence washed over the room. The kind that presses in from all sides.

Mira’s face went pale. Darius sat straight up. Kael’s hand drifted to his knife.

Lyra broke the quiet, voice almost a whisper. “‘Wearing a dead god’s skin.’”

Ronan just nodded.

“Ronan,” Lyra said, voice steady but hands trembling, “The voice that never stops. The one that’s always watching. It spoke to me last night, too. Right after we talked.”

He looked at her. “What did it say?”

“It said: ‘The throne is waking. The seal is breaking. He is coming back.’”

The room felt even colder.

The seal is breaking.

Ronan’s mind jumped to the System. The status: [WAR — SEALED]. His divine affinity was stuck at zero instead of a hundred. And that man on the throne, the older version of himself, with those hollow, lifeless eyes.

You’re not going to like the answer.

“Who’s coming back?” he asked.

Lyra didn’t flinch. “You are.”

[QUEST COMPLETE: JOIN THE FORBIDDEN DIVISION.]

[REWARD: WAR ENERGY +1.]

[CURRENT WAR ENERGY: 5]

[NEW QUEST AVAILABLE: FILL THE SEVENTH SEAT.]

[REWARD: FIRST MEMORY.]

[FAILURE: THE SEAL HOLDS.]

Ronan stared at the screen.

First Memory.

He looked at the seventh desk, still empty, still waiting.

He took a step closer.

Behind him, the shadow moved.

No one saw.

Except Silas.

And Silas kept it to himself.