Lokus tore into the food like an animal, stuffing his face with such intensity that one might believe his life was on the line.

As he ate, his headache slowly faded with time, allowing him to lose himself in his meal. He didn’t take the time to savor the taste or the texture, scarfing down mouthful after mouthful with rabid fanaticism.

Even Ibmund, the demon with multiple mouths, didn’t eat as ravenously as its master did, although from no lack of effort on its own part. Entire chunks of meat disappeared down the demon’s gullets one after another, but compared to its master, it might as well have had the manners of nobility.

When Lokus finished his meal, stifling a burp, he laid back on the stone floor of the barn, closing his eyes wearily as he rubbed his burgeoning stomach

‘Maybe I ate too much.’

Ibmund let out a hacking sound that Lokus recognized as a snort in between bites, but Lokus just shot his Egone a look.

‘All those mouths, and I still finished eating before you. Pretty embarrassing, if you ask me.’

The demon didn’t dignify that with a response. Sometimes it liked to savor its food, and shoving it down like Lokus did was bound to lead to digestive issues.

Lokus smirked at the demon’s lack of response before summoning his system’s screen. ‘So, if I’m remembering correctly, there are three things I need to figure out right now.

‘First, what exactly is Phantom Frost? How does it differ from the Frost affinity I had before? Second, I need to investigate the reward for the quest, that Beckoning something-or-other Throne. Third… what’s a blood trait?’

This question was directed toward the system. He could intuit what it was on his own, but would rather be sure. And sure enough, his system didn’t disappoint him this time.

[A blood trait is an ability inherited from one’s bloodlines. For your list of blood traits, please see the Blood Trait Menu.]

‘Blood Trait Menu.’

[Blood Traits

>Grimn’s Mark. Bloodline Origin: Grimn.]

‘Uhm.’ Was there any way for the system to tell him what it did? ‘Expand? Description?’

A small wall of text appeared after his second try, and he read over it carefully before nodding to himself. ‘Much more useful than Frost Aura. Although, that isn’t exactly a hard bar to clear.’

This new blood trait of his, Grimn’s Mark, had several useful capabilities that all stemmed from one thing: creating the eponymous mark on a living thing via skin-on-skin contact.

Their limbs would stiffen over time, as if they had been trapped in a blizzard and were slowly turning into ice popsicles, and their chests would constrict, making every breath a chore.

This on its own was quite useful. Lokus’ current highest stat was Endurance, meaning he’d have a far easier time than others to wait out the mark’s effects. But if that was all that the mark did, Lokus would have dismissed it as trash.

It was the second part of the mark’s effects that turned this blood trait from something worse than Frost Aura to easily the best ability he currently had at his disposal.

Whenever he killed a creature bearing Grimn’s Mark, he would receive three benefits. First, he would plunder the remaining life force of the victim, healing himself by one stage.

So, for example, if he was suffering from a serious wound, it would heal by one stage to a moderate wound. This in itself was enough for Lokus to seriously consider shifting his entire fighting style to revolve around this ability, but that wasn’t all.

The final two benefits were similar, in that both affected his stats. When he killed a marked being, some power beyond Lokus’ ability to understand would increase his Endurance and Strength.

It wasn’t by one stage every kill, and in fact he needed an ever-increasing number of kills to improve his stats this way each time. The first would be ten kills, then a hundred, and then multiplied by ten every time after that.

The count didn’t reset after every threshold at least, but it would eventually become impractical to use. For now, however, Lokus was more than content to exploit this ability to boost his stats.

The only thing hindering Lokus in the long run was the limitation of the mark.

Only one person or thing could be marked at a time, and while he could remove the mark with another touch or the death of the victim, he wouldn’t get the benefits from it if the mark wasn’t on the victim at the time of death. Plus with that method, the mark’s stiffening ability would be a moot point.

But while this did dampen his spirits a smidge, it wasn’t enough to fully douse his excitement at being able to test this new blood trait out.

Grrrrrrr…

“I think you’re right, Ibmund,” Lokus said. “It’s time to leave this place. Make sure that bag has the meat I requested while I go buy some water. When I get back, we set out.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

…………

Lokus huffed lightly, slinging the sack of meat over his shoulder as he and Ibmund departed from Saddoton.

He didn’t know where they would go, but with the ring Vera had given him, he didn’t see himself getting lost.

Speaking of…

When Lokus had put some distance between him and the fortress, so as to avoid prying eyes, he pried his ring off of his finger and funneled some Majesty into it, taking note of the direction they were leaving from and the one they were going in.

“They said it was impossible to return to the surface…” Lokus said to no one in particular. “We’ll have to see about that ourselves, won’t we, Ibmund?”

The demon grinned a toothy smile with its many mouths, a certain understanding passing between the two.

The surface was their end goal, yes. But who said that in pursuit of said goal, they couldn’t have some fun wreaking havoc on the local demon population?

………

GRAAAA! Squelch!

“Oh, right.” Lokus slapped his own forehead with a casual air, as if his axe wasn’t buried in the head of a demon. “I got a Throne too, didn’t I?”

It had been hours since they had left Saddoton, and yet Lokus had yet to check out this new addition to his skill set. He had already tested Frost Aura and his unnamed Edict on the demons on the way in order to parse apart Phantom Frost, but couldn’t pin down any changes. Either there were none yet, or he just wasn’t looking for them the right way.

So, with nothing better to do, he checked his Thrones.

[Thrones

>Opening of the Celestial Gateways (Noble Throne, Prince).

>Phantom’s Beckoning (Imperial Throne).]

‘No rank? And what’s the difference between an Imperial Throne and a Noble one?’

For a moment, he expected to be greeted with the usual silence from his system, but for whatever reason, it decided to be helpful this time around.

[A Noble Throne is a supplemental technique intended to train oneself in various ways. These are graded based on the intended rank of the user. For example, a Prince Noble Throne is best used by Princes, while a King Noble Throne is best used by Kings.

An Imperial Throne, on the other hand, is more unique. Its intended use is to strengthen one’s Sovereign Gateway, which in turn strengthens one’s Mantle, Majesty, and corresponding affinities.

These Thrones stay with a Monarch for life. They are integral for progressing past the Prince rank, and are required to become a King.]

‘Oh. It actually responded.’ That surprised Lokus, given the system’s track record of being vague or just refusing to answer his questions properly, like when he had asked it about Majesty.

[The Majesty statistic is a measure of the strength of your Majesty.]

Lokus sighed deeply with an aggrieved expression on his masked face, but buried his resentment as he pulled up the description of his new Throne and read it over. His eyes narrowed shortly thereafter as he began to doubt his what he had read.

‘So it does strengthen my Sovereign Gateway. But the way it does so is… strange.’

Then again, he wasn’t really one to talk about strange. For all he knew, this method was common in the world of Monarchs. Since he had been one for less than… a month? A week? However long it had been, he was learning as he went, and the concept of Imperial Thrones was entirely new to him.

But back to the topic at hand, Phantom’s Beckoning did, indeed, promise to strengthen his Sovereign Gateway. According to his Phantom Monarch System’s description of the technique, however, it would be painful. He’d have to try it out on the next demon he found.

[Tutorial quest received!

Name: Taking the Crown

Description: Use your new Imperial Throne and become a King.]

‘Huh,’ Lokus thought. Why did the quest only show up now?

Lokus’ thoughts were interrupted as Ibmund crept closer to the demon corpse on the ground, like a dog expecting a part of its master’s meal, its mouths opened and drooling with saliva.

Lokus gave it an amused look before pulling his axe out of the demon and stepping back. “Have at it. The next one is min-.”

Ibmund lunged forward before Lokus could even finish, taking the offered Majesty from its master and ripping chunks of flesh off of the deceased demon that it then crammed into one of its many mouths.

In minutes, the corpse was nothing but bones, teeth, and claws, the last of which Lokus retrieved and put away. He grabbed the large bag of meat and snapped his fingers at Ibmund.

“Wipe that blood off yourself and come on. The other demons can probably smell the blood by now, and I’m not in the mood for a forty-on-one.”

………

Lokus was growing anxious.

Ibmund wasn’t doing that disturbing growl to ward off the demons down there, and Lokus regularly made noise to let any passing demons know that they were there, and yet they had seen none since an hour ago.

Lokus couldn’t help but think that another demon was stalking them just as Ibmund had done before, but he threw that idea out pretty fast. Ibmund would have noticed such a thing if it were occurring, and so far, the demon had made no move to warn him of anything of the like.

But still, Lokus couldn’t shake this feeling of unease.

Since leaving Saddoton, demon encounters happened often. Some ran away as soon as they noticed Ibmund’s presence, others fought until they were grievously wounded and then scampered off, while a rare few fought to the death.

They had appeared in groups from one up to twenty, but none were above the Prine rank, so he and Ibmund had made short work of the ones that stayed around long enough for the duo to do so.

The demon horde Vera had summoned didn’t appear to have much of an effect on the local demon population, and if anything seemed to burgeon their numbers.

Demons from all over the underground cave system were drawn to something Saddoton had to offer. Whether that was some lingering power of Vera’s Ritual, the stench of blood and death from the dead, or something else entirely, Lokus had no way of knowing, but what he did know was that they still numbered in the hundreds, possibly the thousands, and that was just in the vicinity of the fortress.

And yet, they hadn’t seen anything in an hour? How could something not be wrong?

‘Maybe they had all bunched up close to the fortress?’ Lokus wondered. He had made quite some distance between himself and Saddoton by now, and that sounded like a reasonable explanation.

Without a way of knowing for sure, Lokus could only chalk this discrepancy up to Vera’s summoning of the demon horde.

‘I still should’ve seen something by now though, right? This place is huge, and they wouldn’t leave me alone before. There’s something going… on…’

Lokus paused in his steps, his Domain catching on the edge of a stone wall.

That anxious pit in his stomach suddenly ballooned to a mild panic, his heart speeding up in his chest as goosebumps popped along his arms.

‘Wha-. What the hell is this?’ He thought to himself.

It looked like a normal wall, so how was it evoking such a strong feeling?

More importantly…

What was it doing here?

A sudden urge overcame Lokus, and against his better judgment, he began to walk around the wall until he found a wide opening.

Rather than a doorway, it was more like a section of the wall had been smashed out to make way for something, leaving a rough and oddly shaped hole behind. It was surrounded by skeletons both human and demon, which looked to have been undisturbed for decades, if not centuries, based on the layers of stone dust covering them.

A chill wind blew through the wall opening, grazing Lokus’ cheek. It should have been impossible since he was wearing a mask, and yet it caressed his cheek like a sadistic murderer mockingly pretending to soothe their victim before they drove in the knife.

‘This place…’

What was it?