My muscles seized with the celestial energies of the lightning. I blinked rapidly, tears coming to my eyes and came to my hands and knees. I stared at my hands, they were far larger than they had once been and were paler and completely hairless and poreless. My skin was firmer as I touched the back of my right with my left fingers. Like flowing stone. The ring was blackened and as I flexed my fingers, it collapsed into charcoal dust and metal flakes. I stood. I stretched and felt new changes and proportions to my body. I had healed of my mortal death wounds and been altered in the healing process.

I was taller, having gone from five foot eight to what I estimated to be roughly seven feet tall. A veritable giant compared to most Servi. I was more muscular, more aesthetically built in a way more than my diet and my Path had allowed for before, even with regular exercise, training, and the occasional street fight. My senses were sharper, my hearing perceiving far off movements and my eyes picking up greater detail and ranges of shades of colors than I had with the eyes of a Servus.

I was also completely nude, my clothing and exoskeleton seared by the lightning and then broken by expanding muscle and bone. I wasn’t cold though. I felt warmer than when I had been a Servus swathed in clothes for the cold of the mines. What was I now? A mutant freak of a Slave? One of the legendary Militares soldiers? An entirely new Path altogether that had never existed before now, a Thirteenth Path to the original Twelve? I had no idea. I heard pawsteps and huffing breath and the beginning of barks and growls with my enhanced hearing. The Hellhounds. They had heard the lightning and were now attracted to my lifeforce with their infernal life sense.

They quickly found me, bronze legs, steel claws, eyes like coals. Snarling mouths full of diamantine teeth. Brutal, devilish things. One charged me and I kicked it thirty feet into the air. I laughed in the boldness of the move and the comedy of how the Hound of Hell had yelped as I kicked it like a ball in a game of checkerball. Another charged me and I smashed its face in with a forward punch, breaking and smushing the metal and bone with its head. The next I threw at the fourth and I grabbed the fifth by the jaw and the snout and ripped its face in two before shoving my hand down its gaping throat and ripping its tongue out.

I wrestled the sixth to the ground and started pummeling its ribcage, caving it in as it ineffectively scratched at my naked body with its steel claws. Evidently the claws were not sharp or hard enough to do more than leave thing white lines on my pale skin. The seventh howled at me, scraping at the ground and circling me. I screamed back as loud as I could, the decibel level reaching far more than I could ever have done in my sixteen years on Lavinius as it circled our sun of Apollo. The Hellhound whimpered and ran off. The third and fourth Hounds of Hell followed fearfully, running away from my fury and superhuman body. This was what being Silver should feel like!

I walked back to the city of Illivea, the colors of the passage far more vivid and visible to me now. The dirt had been a reddish brown to me before but now seemed a rich scarlet and the pallid yellow sky of Lavinius had become a warm golden. It was entirely far more pleasing. What a fantastic way to see the world. My body had been perfected but it was like the world had been reshaped itself along with me.

I felt stronger now, enough that I could take on the House of Cantion and its patriarch Gavias with better odds. He may be a Silver, but I was something else entirely now. We were no longer equals with myself as a slight disadvantage as the younger party. I hopped from one foot to another, sending dirt splashing under the force of my jumps and the weight of my new body. I smiled, this was easier than when I was wearing exoskeleton to enhance my movements.

As I entered Illivea, people began to stare at me and point. Then they began to kneel and prostrate themselves before me. I was a Militares, I decided.

“Imperator…” A woman said in awe.

I froze. Imperator? No. It couldn’t be. Those born on the Path of the Emperor were the supreme lifeforms of the Dominium. First among unequals. King of kings. Demigods. Semidei. Saints of saints. They were said to be the strongest and the fastest and the smartest and the cruelest of all the genelines of the Path system. Beyond anyone else in all of existence, born to rule and master and slay all those that stood before them and to subjugate and dominate and constrain all those who followed at their backs in holy war.

“Imperator.” Another man said to me, kneeling.

They reached out to touch my legs as I passed. No one seemed to question my nudity, I was so beyond them that I was no longer a sexual object. Now I was like a marble carving of a man without clothing. Art. Something transcendent. Something to be appreciated and be awed by and to be obsessed with. Still, I felt uncomfortable as I walked among them.

“I need clothes.” I asked of them. Then I felt stupid. They were so much shorter than me now, how would they have clothes to fit me?

The Servi were more inventive than I would have thought though and a man brought me a long towel and a belt to secure it so it didn’t fall off.

“Thank you.” I said.

“Lord.” He acknowledged, shivering under my piercing gaze.

I wrapped the towel around my waist, leaving my chest and midriff bare and then took the belt from him, pulling it tight around the towel and buckling it. I walked on and the mob followed, silent as a grave. There was noise at the edges, but only from people who had not yet walked into the main road of long, grey cobblestones of rough make and who had not been made aware of my presence and been shushed to silence by those already following at my back. The closest of them stayed seven paces behind me, no closer and no further, as if an invisible magnetism from my form pushed and pulled at them to an exact length of appropriate distance.

I walked to the Cantions’ demesne and wrenched the door off of its hinges and tossed it aside. A woman threw a vase at my head and I caught it and set it down on the table. I looked at her. She paled.

“I didn’t know it was one of you-“ She said and laid flat on the ground. The rest followed.

“Should we alert master Gavias to your presence so he can humbly greet and assist you?” One of the servants asked with trepidation in his face. They had no idea what to do with my presence. This was a scenario they could never have possibly planned for.

“No. Where is he now?” I asked.

“In his master bedroom and study.” The Servus servant said.

“And where is that?” I replied.

“Up the stairs, to the left and the third door on the right.” He said.

“Thank you.” I said and strode past him. I walked up the stairs, took the left and paused in front of the third door on the left. Justice. I would have justice now, for my family so brutally treated and the attempt on my life that had nearly left me banished from Illivea and dead by Hellhounds if it wasn’t for the power of the ring. I turned the brass doorknob and ducked under the door frame. Stupid Servus doors not being made for Imperators’ height.

I walked in to see Gavias Cantion at a mahogany desk, drinking a long draw of wine. As I entered and he caught sight of me, he spat out his wine to the side of him and started coughing and wheezing like he had the plague. His Silvered eyes stared at me with horror and awe at my majesty and unexpected presence in his office today.

“Gavias.” I acknowledged him.

He sputtered some more.

“I’ve come to see you,” I said, smiling viciously. He didn’t seem to pick up on the violent intent in my tone.

“Great master.” He said, tossing the cup aside and wringing his hands. “How many this puny and weak and lesser servant of yours assist you?

“You can die.” I said coldly.

His face froze. “Apologies, Lord. I do not understand your grievance with me. Let me know what it is so your humble Servus can alleviate that burden from your shoulder. Please, Great Master, please. I have children and a wife and a household who will starve without me. What can I do for you?”

“You can bring the Lucion family back from the dead, excluding Flavias.” I said.

“…so that’s what this is about. I assure you, Lord, their killing was demanded by my sacred honor, I could hardly let them live after how they defiled my daughter.” Gavias said.

When you want to kill a Servus, go for the head. I thought to myself of the lesson I had taught Dellias Canton in the mines.

I reached out and crushed Gavias’s skull in my left hand. Gobbets of brain tissue and spurts of scarlet blood and clear cerebrospinal fluid shot out through his nose. I let go of his caved in head and he fell with a crash to the ground.

Something shifted in the corner of my vision. I turned. A girl with eyes of Servus brown and Copper and pale skin that had never been allowed under the sun’s blazing shine. The girl Flavias had been spent his nights wooing, driven by his lust. I felt tired. I felt ill. I should have looked to see if anyone else was here.

“Why did you have to kill my father?” The girl asked.

“The gods weighed his heart and found him wanting.” I said. “I’m merely the messenger.”

“This form suits you, Adrias.” Tullia Cantion said. “It is as cold and hard as you are. Like a statue.”

“That is not my name.” I lied. No one had recognized me so far, how had Tullia? I had barely known her, seen her only a few times. How had she looked upon my Imperial face and known the former Slave that lurked beneath?

“Yes, it is. Flavias would tell me about his family when he came to visit me.” She said.

I snorted. “’When he came to “visit” you? Is that how we’re saying these things these days?”

She ignored that. “When he talked about you, what he emphasized was that you were hungry. More than was fit for a Servus. I still see that hunger in your eyes, even if your face has changed and your eye colors have shifted. You are Adrias Lucion, no matter what Path you’re on or what Rank you present as. You’ve crushed my father’s head; you can at least be honest with me.”

I considered her. We were all alone and even if she did tell someone, no one would believe her that I had magically become an Imperator.

“Yes. I am Adrias.” I said.

“Why did you kill my father?” She asked again.

“Because he killed my family brutally and destroyed my house and tried to kill me.” I said bluntly.

“What about Flavias?” She asked. “My father said he escaped with you. Is he an Imperator too?”

“Flavias is dead and desecrated.” I said. “With all of the rest of the Lucions’ bloodline now besides me. If I even share enough blood with them anymore to call ourselves kin.”

“I begged my father not to hurt him.” She said.

“I’m sure you did.” I said. She seemed quite taken with my bastard of a brother.

“I really loved him. And he loved me.” Tullia said with tears in her eyes.

“No, he didn’t.” I said. “I’m sure it felt like he did when he was whispering love poetry into your ear, but my brother loved nothing but himself."

She stared at her father’s body again for a time and I felt awkward.

“Why? Why couldn’t you have run? Why couldn’t you have decided you were above the killing of Servi? You’re a lesser divinity now.” She asked again, my previous answers of the gods willing it and my need for vengeance after my family was killed not enough for her.

“Because mercy is no virtue.” I said. I heard thunder overhead and violet laurels burned around my wrists. Not advancement, something else, something I didn’t understand yet. Something of the world of demigods and geneforged tyrants. The violet laurels faded but I felt a buzz to my blood that thrummed to an esoteric and celestial rhythm of mystic potency.

“Goodbye, Tullia Cantion.” I said to her and walked downstairs. I sighted servant Servi of the House of Cantion.

“Fetch me a mirror.” I commanded.

A woman brought me back a handheld one.

I stared at myself in the mirror. I had white hair, violet eyes with pupils set in them, surrounded by sclera of Copper, and a handsome face that could call a fleet of a thousand star ships to my aid like Haelena of Troja. Copper. Damn. That meant I had started over when I switched my Path from Servus to godsdamn Imperator. I mean it was worth it, but I guess automatically ascending to the high ranks of the elite was too much to ask for. I needed to start my journey advancing again. Journey before destination, I guess, as the philosopher of old Xanderzin had said.

Trick was I didn’t know how to advance. When I was on the Path of the Slave, I had speedily advanced past my peers and my elders by working harder in my daily labors, in training my body rather than sleeping, in devising simple yet time consuming tasks that dominated my hours. I had pushed advancement forward through laborious struggle. That wouldn’t work for someone on the Path of the Emperor. Menial work wouldn’t call forth a tingle of advancement lightning. How did a demigod advance further on the path to divinity? How did a genetically and spiritually superior being ascend the pyramid of the soul and body’s ascendance?

Victory. Conquest. Domination.

I couldn’t advance in the city of Illivea, not that I would want to spend another moment in the city of my family’s murder, but I likely couldn’t even stay on Lavinius. Where were the battlefields, the debate stages, the combat schools? Not here, certainly.

I clenched my fingers around the metal of the silver mirror, indenting an impression of my fingers into it. What was I thinking? Was I really planning on going all the way on the Imperator’s Path? The distance between Copper and Bronze was five footsteps and between Bronze and Silver twenty footsteps but between Silver and Gold was a hundred. Did I really possess the hubris to dare to stand as a Golden Imperator, first among men, king of kings, son of the heavens? To even try for it? Maybe I should just use my natural rank as an Emperor to secure some cozy little life for myself on a remote planetoid.

And yet…

And yet, I knew that would never be enough for me. My family was gone, my last chains to earth brutally and bloodily snapped, and even as a Slave I had dreamed of heavenly heights beyond my reach. A Copper Imperator would live centuries, could I stand wasting that time away? Pretending that lightning hadn’t struck me and given me the opportunity to be more than what I was born as?

No. I decided. Victory, conquest, domination. I could do that. I would do that. I had been chosen by the heavens and I would not squander this chance to be a king of men.