Chapter 45 - Inscriptions and bloodlines

Hati felt enlightened at his father's new information about runic inscriptions, but he still wanted to know more. "So where does the inflexibility from runic inscriptions come from? Does it have something to do with the fact that this cage seems to only work on you?"

Belphegor smiled at his son's intelligence and nodded, "That's right. You see, inscriptions work based on layers; the more layers you add, the more powerful it becomes. However, every new layer must add a new condition to the inscription's effect."

He pointed at the runic inscription on the floor, "Take this one, for example. I have not personally spent much time studying inscriptions, but I do know a little of them, and after having inspected this one, I have some idea of its construction.

They started with something simple, inscribing that no one was allowed to cross this line. But this is only a single layer, making it less robust than paper. Well, at least to sixth-revolution power levels.

After all, layers only make an inscription stronger relative to their original power level, so a single-layered inscription from a sixth-revolution inscription master is still likely to obstruct someone at the fourth-revolution. At the same time, the fifth revolution will only stand a decent chance against it.

After stating that no one was allowed to cross that line, they added another layer, saying that no one was allowed to cross from the inside to the outside. This is followed by a rule that only women are allowed to cross the line, and then a layer says that only non-demons are permitted to cross that line. And so forth.

As long as you can supply the energy needed to add extra layers, which increases exponentially, you can keep writing until you cannot think of any more conditions to put in, with every layer making the inscription stronger.

Of course, you need to be careful not to add too easily circumvented conditions, at least when you make an inscription that is supposed to work as a prison. 

If, for example, you add a condition that people with a certain number of hairs on their body are not allowed to cross the line, then it will work, assuming you went through the trouble of counting your target's hairs but only so long as the target doesn't simply pull out a single one of those hairs. If they do that, then the entire inscription suddenly becomes useless."

Hati nodded along with his father's explanation, now understanding how arrays had pushed out inscriptions. After all, the only way to truly make an inscription powerful was to add as many layers as possible, and every condition makes it less flexible.

Of course, inscriptions had more uses besides creating barriers, but the principle remained the same: power in exchange for inflexibility. Combined with the higher difficulty and increased time consumption compared to arrays, it was no wonder inscriptions were now a thing practised by only a select few.

Hati then looked at the surrounding destruction as he realised that the barrier truly stopped nothing except his father's physical body. Even the power generated by Belphegor's attack was free to leave the border, meaning only his father's physical strength could break the barrier.

Belphegor shrugged and said, "Anyway, despite the many flaws that the art of inscriptions possesses, its power and durability are potentially unmatched. If an array imprisoned me instead, I have no doubt I would be free by now."

As Hati was thinking more about the potential and pitfalls of runic inscriptions, he suddenly remembered something his father had mentioned, 

"By the way, Father. You mentioned something about non-demons, and I haven't actually had the chance to ask you about the blue skin and, you know," he put his fists next to his temples while sticking out his index fingers as he wiggled them, clearly indicating Belphegor's horns, "the horns."

Seeing this, Sif smacked Hati on the back of the dead, "Don't be rude to your father!"

Hati grinned and rubbed the back of his head as he said, "I was just asking!"

Belphegor shook his head at the antics of these two and said, "It's okay; he deserves to know where he comes from anyway. Yes, I am a demon. 

A snow demon, to be precise. Most demons have horns, but my blue skin stems from my snow demon heritage. And before you ask, demons don't currently exist in Asgard, as we are native to another of the six worlds, Hel."[1]

Hati had a thoughtful look as he asked, "Right, you mentioned the six worlds before. What are those worlds exactly? Earth is one of them, right? And why did I find no information about this in the books back home? Also, your name is the same as Earth's mythological demon of sloth, any relation?"

Belphegor laughed, "Now, now, I can't answer everything at once, and some of that information can wait for a later date. But yes, Asgard, Hel and Earth are three of the six worlds. We can talk about the others another time.

As for why you found no information, that's because the connections that used to exist between the worlds seem to have been broken, and over time, most people in Asgard have forgotten about it, as it seems that most literature on the subject was destroyed by the same people that broke the links.

You see, around the time I fell into a slumber, the six worlds were in great turmoil as a particular organisation fought to sever the connections between the worlds. We called that conflict 'Ragnarok'.

I fell asleep before the conflict ended, but I guess the Norns managed to fulfil their goal. Although clearly, someone transported my sleeping body to Asgard before that time.

As for your last question, well, I am a demon; I visited Earth a few times, and my control over the sloth shard was minimal back then. So you can draw your own conclusions from that.

Earth was always a weird world, though; it was the only one without any spirit energy, and no one could figure out why. 

I'm guessing the loss of their connection with the other five worlds set them back quite a bit. Although, judging from your memories, they seem to have made up for it in different ways."

Hati nodded and quickly realised that there was something wrong with the timetable. His father couldn't have walked the Earth 2000 years ago when Christianity had its conception; if Earth was still connected to other worlds back then, there was no way there wasn't any knowledge of that, even if this organisation had tried to destroy it all. 

It was likely that this all happened much further back in Earth's history, and the bible's version of Belphegor was based on stories from that time.

This realisation also made him think about his father's age, which was likely very high, at least thousands of years. However, he had clearly slept through a considerable part of that.

Still, to have a father that old was a little intimidating. Hati wondered if he had any siblings but decided he would ask about that another time.

It didn't seem like he would get any more information about this from his father right now, but there was still one other thing he had to ask about. "So, uh, not to be crude about it, but shouldn't I have some horns or something?"

Belphegor and Sif suddenly got complicated looks on their face and looked at each other for a second before Belphegor spoke up, "Actually, that's a little complicated."

Belphegor rubbed his chin, "Maybe I should explain a little about the differences in your bloodlines. First, you have your human side, originating from Fenrir's wife, who was a sixth-revolution human with the blood element as their physical element.

Then you have your wolf side, originating from Fenrir himself, who was a sixth-revolution calamity wolf and, just like most other beast species, had a powerful affinity with a single element, in this case, the lightning element."

While calamity wolves are powerful because of their lightning element, which is relatively rare, they are far from the top of the food chain, as they are still a beast species with only a single element. In contrast, the truly powerful beasts have two or even three elements.

But clans that claim to possess the bloodline of one such mighty beast species are few and far between because usually, only the weaker sixth-revolution beasts would be willing to live among humanoids and outside the beast wilds.

Belphegor continued, "Last, but certainly not least," he said with no small amount of pride, "is my bloodline, that of a royal sixth-revolution snow demon."

Hati's eyebrow shot up at those words, "Royal, you say?"

Hati's question caused Belphegor to cough a little before he cleared his throat, "Ehm, yes, but let's keep that discussion for another time."

[1] Again, I am using the spelling from Norse mythology, which calls its underworld Hel, with one l.