Ancestral Lineage

It was suffocating. It was dreadful. It was terrifying. And above all—it was cold.

A soul-chilling cold. That was what he felt when the beast killed him. Death had wrapped its claws around him once before. Not Ethan's two-decade coma. Not Trevor's brush with annihilation. He had felt true death—raw, merciless, unrelenting. And yet, death was not his fate. Not then. Not ever.

Dragged back from the abyss, he did not return as a shambling corpse or a mindless husk. No, he rose as something greater—something terrible. He became a Ghoul King—a sovereign of the undead, master of necromancy, a will that commanded the grave itself.

But that was only the beginning. For as if fate mocked the natural order, Ethan—whose very existence was a mystery even to himself—bestowed upon him a title no other could claim. An ancestral title.

Ancestor of Death.

At first, it was just a name. A recognition from a rising star whose brilliance was only starting to blind the world. Few understood the weight of what it meant. Even he had doubted. But doubt vanished as destiny revealed its hand.

He remembered clearly the boy Ethan once was—standing against a Tyrant out of nothing but pride and for the sake of a girl. The Tyrant had won, but barely. That moment was the spark.

In less than a year, Ethan became a storm. A force that tore through every barrier, a figure rising near the peak of the world.

It was Ethan who slew the beast that had ended him, Ethan who raised him from death, Ethan who carved the mantle of Ancestor into his being. That single act reshaped his existence, driving him beyond mere kingship.

Now he was no longer just a ruler of ghouls. He was something far more. A Primogenitor. One of the rare singularities that stood at the origin of races. A root, a foundation, a forefather.

He was Lamair Thanatos Griswold. The Death Primogenitor. The Ancestor of Death.

And it was time—long past time—that he embraced the fullness of his mantle. His latest evolution had ripped open the veil of what he truly was, showing him the truth he could no longer ignore.

But power was never without price. To claim his true throne, he would need to ascend beyond his current shackles.

No longer could he remain a Grandmaster. The path demanded more.

It was time for him to take the next step. It was time to ascend to the Emperor Realm.

"I really have changed a lot, huh…" Lamair muttered, his voice low and rough, almost lost to the quiet hum of the chamber. His deathly green eyes glowed faintly, not with menace, but with a strange calm enlightenment.

"What has you so deep in thought?" came a soft voice from behind.

He chuckled. That voice could pierce through even the darkest of moods.

From the doorway, a beautiful, dark-skinned elf woman stepped into the room. Her white hair was cropped short in a daring side-shave, framing her sharp features with elegance and strength. Her figure was both muscular and curvaceous, her golden eyes reflecting warmth, yet edged with worry. Without hesitation, she wrapped her arms around him from behind, pressing her cheek to his back.

"Lusa," he said softly, "how are the children?"

"They're worried. Very worried." Lusamine's voice trembled with the weight of unspoken fears. "You know why…"

Lamair sighed, resting his large hand over hers. "I know it's dangerous. But Ethan won't always be here to protect us. It was because of him that we survived the Labyrinth Grove. Because of him that we had more than a decade of peace. Even now, he's blazing ahead, tearing down the impossible. But us? What have we done besides bask in the sanctuary he carved for us?"

Her grip tightened. "But you're going to the Underworld. You plan to fight a Messenger of Death. Even if you are the Death Primogenitor, Lamair, they stand above you."

"That," Lamair said, his tone calm yet unshakable, "is exactly why I must face them. After this war, I must claim the Death Seed."

"Darling…" Lusamine whispered, her voice breaking between worry and devotion.

"I haven't lost myself to power, Lusa." He turned slightly, enough for his green eyes to meet her golden ones. "I want to be of use—not just to Ethan, but to you, to our children, to everyone who looks to us. We've come so far. To falter now, to become complacent? That would be the true death."

Before Lusamine could answer, another voice cut in, playful yet laced with sharp truth.

"There's also the little fact that you three are in some sort of… competition."

The door opened again, and a striking blonde woman strode inside. Cassandra. Her short golden hair glinted under the room's pale lights, framing piercing blue eyes that carried equal parts mischief and fire. Her skin was sun-bronzed, her body nearly as muscular as Lusamine's, but curvier. The pair of red ram-like horns curling from her head added to her fierce allure.

"Haha! You're not wrong, Cassie," Lamair said with a booming laugh. "Ethan has already left us leagues behind. It's time we closed that gap, don't you think?"

Cassandra smirked and without ceremony plopped herself onto Lamair's lap, sprawling across his chest with shameless ease. Despite her height, his towering eight-foot frame made the action almost comical.

"You know he's probably in the middle of something insane right now," she teased, tapping a finger against his chest.

Lamair snorted. "Not probably. Certainly."

"It still stuns me that so much time has passed since that day…" Lusamine murmured, moving to sit beside him. She leaned into his shoulder, her golden eyes distant as memory flooded back. "It feels as if it all happened yesterday."

She tilted her head slightly, revealing the faint mark etched across her chest—a scythe, dark and ethereal, resting between her full breasts like a brand of destiny. It had appeared when she had mutated into a Death Elf, a race unknown before her. The transformation hadn't stolen her beauty but enhanced it, binding her more tightly to Lamair's path. And yet the scythe-mark's placement remained a mystery, as though fate itself had engraved its claim upon her heart.

Lamair glanced between the two women—Lusamine, steady and solemn, and Cassandra, fiery and untamed—and his chest swelled with both love and resolve.

Whatever awaited in the Underworld, be it Messenger, Death Seed, or something even more abhorrent, he would face it.Not for himself.But for them.