[Triumph! You have officially gained Lordship of a territory. You have reached level five.]

[Title unlocked: Lord of Nothing]

I was a bird. I was a thousand feet into the air, staring down at a city, able to see every last house and alley despite the dark.

I didn’t like what I saw. Blood-thralls, free of the leash of their masters, rampaged through my city. Fires started to die in the onslaught of rain. Sitting on the throne felt more than right — it felt euphoric. I could feel the system’s power and control over the whole territory.

[New Domain Controller: Lord Eli Gray]

[Warning: You do not have permission for the following ongoing settings.]

[Friendly settings: ambient temperature lowered, permanent nighttime, undead regeneration.]

[Settings cleared.]

The entire city brightened within my perspective.

It had been night time when the day started, before our college was sucked underground. Now, the sun was setting, sinking through the clouds to paint the world orange.

I heard distant screams from down below as monsters prowling in alleyways erupted in flames. Screams echoed closer, coming from the hallway below. The sensations provided by the domain seat and my body sitting in it clashed, creating a dissonance that shook me awake and sent me stumbling out of the chair. I was unbalanced as I stepped forward.

It was difficult to tell how long I had been sitting in the chair. Steve was curled against the wall now, his body moving only slightly as he breathed.

The pounding downstairs had become far more subdued. Out of the black-tinted windows of the highest level of the castle, I saw the sun sinking below the horizon, darkness swallowing the world.

We needed to kill the rest of the monsters downstairs and return to the hardware store — but only once the sun set. I needed the powers to kill the monsters below, and enough blood to survive Amber inevitably trying to kill me for turning into a monster myself.

And for that, I needed to spend the rest of my skill points.

[Class Options Available]

I focused on the prompt, and another appeared, blocking almost my entire vision.

[Congratulations on surviving long enough to unlock classes! Classes allow you to spend skill points. When you roll a skill point against a class, you will roll a skill related to that class.]

[Vampire Architect][Mythic]

[The king is dead. Long live the king! You have unlocked this class due to: Lordship Title(Lord of Nothing,) Race(Progenitor Vampire,) Knowledge (Journeyman Architect.)]

[Vampire Architects focus on the upkeep and expansion of their domain, spending blood to create ruinous, war-grade effects. They are capable of raising defenses instantly on a battlefield just as easily as completing infrastructure projects that span their city-lairs.]

[Dread General][Uncommon]

[Your dread armies march unabated. Unlocked due to skills(Progenitor’s Will,) Race(Progenitor Vampire.)]

[Dread Generals focus on the control of undead minions. They generate area passive buffs around their army, or specialize buffs into individual, elite units. This class is prerequisite to raising and controlling any sentient minions.]

[Heretic Saint][Mythic]

[You have surrendered your humanity, becoming the very type of monster you hunt and destroy. Unlocked due to Triumphs(Killed a Progenitor Vampire,) Race(Evil, Converted.)

[Heretic Saints gain skills for tracking and hunting pray, specializing in solo hunting. Their skills are powerful, but do not work with a team. Minions are excluded from counting as team members.]

[Alert: You are not permitted to view system subsystem: Knowledge. System Administrator notified.]

[HAIL THE CATALOG]

I staggered to the side as the tide of information overwhelmed me. The notes about contacting a system administrator would be more concerning if the first prompt we received hadn’t said that there were none — at least not for more than a century.

Two of the classes were mythic — Vampire Architect seeming to give me the power to make a safe place for everyone here, and Heretical Saint promising power in exchange for isolation.

Either were more powerful than Dread General. More power would allow me to save more people. But I didn’t want to save anyone else, right now. I wanted to save the man who had saved my life once over, who had led us into all this.

Russo was my only anchor. The only person keeping his head on straight at the end of the world. Even with more power, without him, I wouldn’t know what to do with it. More than power, and more than armies of undead, I needed Russo, and I needed him right now. I couldn’t unite the remaining human survivors without him. I wasn’t even sure they would talk to me.

And Dread General listed itself as a prerequisite class to any sentient undead.

I didn’t want to risk raising Russo as a braindead zombie.

Would Russ even be happy if I brought him back to life? Would he even be sentient? Would he be brain dead?

I didn’t care. I couldn’t survive this without him.

Steve was still asleep in the corner as I locked in my choice.

Something clicked inside of me, locking into place in a metaphysical way. Or maybe it was attached to me. The feeling was odd, a little spike of warmth in my chest that didn’t disappear. It highlighted that the rest of my body was ice cold.

I leaned down to Russo’s body. He hadn’t turned into a vampire. He was just pale, and still.

But I didn’t actually have any new skills yet. First, I needed to spend the skill points.

[Skill points available! Invest in general skill pool, or classes?]

I mentally chose classes. Unlike the general pool, there was no choice in the skill selection — it progressed me directly along the path.

[Dread General I has leveled to Dread General II!]

[No Rest for The Wicked I][+1 INT]

[You’ve been busy! REALLY busy! I thought for sure you’d be dead by now! No rest for the wicked grants the user the ability to raise undead servants equal to (INT/10.) (That means one servant for you.) Cost: 20% Blood]

I put another point into the class.

[Dread General II has leveled to Dread General III!]

[Blood of my Blood I][+1 WIL]

[All minions under your control within (WIL) Meters benefit from any passive buffs affecting you, including blood.]

[Eli Gray, Early Adopter][Progenitor Vampire][Level 5]

[Dread General III]

[Health: 42/42]

[Blood: 44% Progenitor][+10 CON, STR, AGI]

[STR 27][CON 41]

[INT 11][WIL 22]

[AGI 24][PER 6]

[Skills:]

[Progenitor’s Will XI][+11 CON, +11 WIL]

[Crimson Veil I][+10 AGI]

[Wicked Implement I][+10 STR]

[Beyond Death I][+10 CON]

[No Rest For The Wicked I][+1 INT]

[Blood of my Blood I][+1 WIL]

[Shadow Step I][+1 Per]

[Titles: Early Adopter, Lord of (Nothing)]

I flinched when I saw Jason’s skill added to my own. I couldn’t remember the prompts that had appeared while fighting. Just the sensation of clawing, biting and tearing.

Sanguine and Silver Chalice had fused into Progenitor’s Will. I could feel my blood as clearly as before, but the entirety of was that screaming black that I had perceived in the now-deceased progenitor vampire. Instead of horrifying, it was now comfortable, an empty stillness that contained an endless, coiled power. The system had automatically equipped the first title I received. I didn’t see any benefits from it.

Nor did I see any way to activate [No Rest for the Wicked.] The system wasn’t very accommodating when it came to tutorials.

I tried to activate it by will, and thought, and when that failed, saying the skill out-loud. The skill had said it took twenty-percent of my blood. I wondered if it was twenty-percent of the maximum or of what I had remaining.

I sighed. I knew what I had to do — I was just delaying it.

My fangs sunk into Russo’s neck. He was taller than I was — corded muscles now cold and dead at my feet. His body was stiff with rigor. I felt my blood spread out into him, filling collapsed and empty veins.

The other progenitor drinking him had damaged him internally, but the blood went to work stitching him back together.

Russo gasped, woke, and shoved me.

I stared at him with more fear than I had any right to, hoping he was the same Russo that had just died.