His pickings were slim.

As he had discovered earlier, most of the bones and claws had shattered on impact. But after sifting through the rubble, he managed to find a small femur that, other than a small crack in its head, was perfectly fine.

It was rather long, at around a meter. His first thought was to use it as a club, but he had another idea as his Domain caught on something else.

He picked up a shard of bone about the size of his palm and turned it over in his hand, running his hand against it in the dark. It was shaped irregularly, like it was trying to be a square and a triangle at the same time, and it was rather flat, with one corner being on the sharp side.

“Hm…”

Taking the femur and the pointy bone shard, he found the pieces of demon hide in the dark and used the shard to cut long, furry strips off of the largest piece available. Next, he jammed the shard into the femur’s crack, leaving the sharpest corner pointing outward.

It was too big to fit snugly inside, which was perfect for Lokus. He wound the leather strips he had made around the blunt sides of the shard and the femur itself, tying the ends together on the opposite side of the head.

The end result was a weird pseudo-axe that likely looked more dangerous than it was, but it would be better than his fists.

When he finished, he gave it a few swings in the air, making sure the shard didn’t fly out when he attacked. He nodded in satisfaction, and after using the remaining leather strips to tie his bag of demon claws around his left thigh, he ventured into the darkness, determined to find a way out of this place.

………

Only being able to “see” a few meters in front of him was starting to frustrate him.

After his goosebumps went down, his Domain had expanded of its own volition. From a paltry three and a half or so meters, it now encompassed over twelve meters in every direction, over tripling what he had thought was his baseline.

But even then, since Domain only worked by touch, Lokus still felt like a child stumbling around in the dark, using his hands to feel his way around. It was a novel experience, and he was slowly adapting to “seeing” through this Domain of his, but until he became used to it, it would always feel… different.

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There was one upside to his situation, though.

[Condition: Sick.]

His poisoned condition had evaporated.

He assumed it had something to do with the ball of blackened blood he had vomited up a few hours ago.

He was still sick, according to his system, and he still felt somewhat ill, with an unsettling sensation in the pits of his stomach. But he wasn’t slowly dying anymore, so he’d count that as a victory.

The longer he walked, the more he began to worry.

It had been hours since he had set off from that lake, but these caves were endless. While he hadn’t encountered any demons in that time, he kept hearing disturbing sounds in the dark, strange gurgling and high-pitched squeaks.

The latter he attributed to bats, but the former he had no idea what it could be originating from.

And no matter how far he went, it would sound nearby, just a few centimeters out of range of his Domain.

More than once, he had tried to chase it, to give a face to the strange sound that so persistently followed him, but he would find nothing but stone, stone, and more stone.

Each time he heard it, apprehension would take root in his chest. He felt like a small mouse cornered by a cat. There was nowhere to run, no place to escape to, and the cat was far too sadistic to give him a quick death.

It preferred to toy with him, to let him think he had escaped only to batter it back into the corner with its paw. It was a profoundly unnerving experience, but Lokus was powerless to stop it. He could only tighten his grip on his makeshift axe until his knuckles turned white, and take it one step at a time.

‘I need to take my mind off of it,’ he thought. ‘Dwelling on it will drive me insane.’

Gruuuuuguguguk…

Lokus swallowed his saliva as the gurgling sound tickled his ears. To distract himself, he opened his status.

It had told him that his Perception had improved, but it was only now that he bothered to check.

[Majesty: Prince

Endurance: Prince (Major)

Strength: Prince (Middling)

Perception: Prince (Minor)]

It wasn’t a large increase, only going from Mortal to the very bottom of Prince, but it was still something. Other than that, he didn’t see any changes, but it was then that he recalled his reward for his last quest.

‘What was it called? Opening of the Demon something or other?’ He clicked his tongue when his system didn’t bring it up. ‘It was called a Throne, I think. Thrones.’

[Thrones

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

‘What? No description?’

When he asked that, a short description popped up, and after reading it over a couple of times, he frowned in thought.

It sounded simple at first glance, but due to Lokus’ lack of knowledge in this area, he didn’t know if it was as simple as it sounded, or even if it was good.

Opening of the Celestial Gateways promised two things. One was that he would learn how to open and close his pores at will, making his goosebump problem from earlier a non-factor in the future.

And two… was that it would train his Perception.

Even if this was the worst Throne in the world, to the current Lokus, this was perhaps the best thing he could have possibly received. He was effectively blind right now, and if this would alleviate that issue, then he wouldn’t turn it down.