The best thing about Elysium’s servant force was that their uniforms of masks and robes completely covered their body, and they were unable to speak. In other words, one could go anywhere without question if they pretended to be a Larua. One, of course, meaning me.

My Larua agents were on the move all over Elysium, ready to seize Ambrosia and Nectar, raid the armories to give to the Brights of Asphodel, and to kill the Blessed with unnatural weapons. Then we would flee on the ships I had ordered made and meet with Achilles who had just arrived with Asphodel’s army. 13 and I had fought like devils to get everything ready in the short time between my meeting with Kronos and Achilles appearing at the gates.

I led my group of masked murderers into Maximos’s courthouse. We were here to assassinate important targets drawn to Poros by him on my subtle suggestion in the wake of the army’s arrival. I had told him I was too busy with my work to attend, which served to make him more comfortable with the idea. Maximos liked to be the most powerful man in a room and keeping up the charade of theatric hatred would be irritating.

The six of us came bearing gifts for the meeting’s attendees, beverages on a platter and poisoned knives hidden in our brown robes. The white mask I wore made my exhaled breaths feel hot against my face as anticipation built within me. Callidas was here as well as were other heads of different islands and important personnel with strong influence. Prime targets that I had chosen personally to deal with.

“Hades will crush them. We’ve already sent a signal to him through the beacon and his response will be swift.” A woman said.

A beacon that I had disabled. I thought with a hidden smile. Hades wouldn’t hear about this until we were knocking on the doors of his palace.

“I still say we put the dogs down ourselves before he arrives. Take the glory for ourselves!” Callidas said, bloodlust in his eyes.

“Ah, refreshments.” Maximos said eagerly. He took a glass of holy drink from my tray and downed it in one gluttonous gulp.

“You can go.” He said waving a hand as I still stood motionless in front of him. He glared. “Did you hear me, you idiot slave? Go. Leave.”

Hot rage poured through me the moment he called me a slave, a dormant insecurity boiling up inside me. I reached into my left sleeve with my right hand and felt the hilt of the blade secured there. The eerie sensation of all the servants in Larua watching me made my neck prickle. On my signal, and by Kronos’s will, they would unleash their violent purposes.

“Did that fool Adrias put you up to this?” Maximos demanded.

I pulled off my mask and tossed it aside. “That fool Adrias did put me up to this when I talked to him in the mirror earlier today.”

“What are you doing, boy!” He growled. “What kind of cheap trick is this?”

I drew my blade, as did my countless Larua followers all over the islands. It was covered in a glistening black slime that clung to the cold metal.

“A mixture of Infernal Beast blood and Nectar. Nine-tenths blood to one-tenth Nectar.” 13 had told me of the serum used to make Laruas. It cursed them and enhanced them in equal measure.

The fluid that coated my blade was the same kind that killed my predecessor as Lord of Sutures, and it was the inverse of the Larua-making concoction. Nine-tenths Nectar to one-tenth Infernal Beast blood.

It was strange to me that a slight amount of something rejuvenating to something vile created a concoction that made a new, if twisted, kind of life while the reverse killed the immortal undead. 13 had told me not to think of it as I would of natural chemicals, but symbolically. A little good could cleanse evil, but a little evil could infect good slowly over time, turn it pungent and sour. Darkness could be contested with courage and light could be corrupted with contagion.

I stabbed Maximos in the heart. I still didn’t fully understand the metaphysical mechanics, but the sound and feeling of a dagger sinking into flesh was perfectly clear to me. The man screamed as his skin turned to stone and then crumbled into gravel and dust.

“Why?!” Callidas said, his eyes wide as my subordinates butchered this meeting of high ranked Blessed.

“Because you people disgust me. This place is as diseased as Tartaros, it just hides the filthiness of it better.” I said. There were few things more foul than biting into a pristine apple to find it completely rotten inside.

“You dense idiot, don’t you think we know that? Don’t you think we’re trying to change that? The vast majority of Elysium are sacks of sloth and excess, but we’re trying to fix the problem!” Flecks of spittle came out of his mouth as he furiously spoke.

“I’m not talking about your little merit system of governance; I’m talking about the Laruas.” I said.

“What about them?” He said, bewildered. Callidas had never even considered that might be what I was fighting for. I thought he might have been simply unable to entertain the idea that one could care about the agony of lesser beings.

“They’re slaves in constant pain from their sewn together lips.” I said with coldness.

Callidas Aezion’s face took on a paternal amusement, like a father watching his son struggling to understand why he had to do his chores.

“Their minor suffering buys a greater good for the Blessed. It as the fable of the city of Omilio where the pain of a single child brings the rest of the city prosperity and happiness.” He said. “You are blinded by self-righteous pity to the point you can’t see what is obvious.”

“It isn’t just one child, though that is disgusting as well, it is thousands of people.”

“People? It is thousands of the sinful damned, wretched clones, made less men than they are Infernal Beasts.” Callidas laughed. “They are nothing and no one.”

“Their creators made them clones, Hades made them damned to the Pit, and Elysium made them unwilling slaves transformed halfway into Beasts.” I said. “None of those things were their faults or their own doing.”

“Abandon this foolishness and perhaps you will be forgiven after Hades strips you of your position. Elysium exists by the will of the gods.”

“And I defy them.”

“Why?” Callidas said.

“How could I stand to look at the Laruas and do nothing?” I said.

“Then don’t look at them. If you wish, you could abandon this place for Asphodel once Hades or we the Blessed crush this absurd rebellion outside our walls. Go live among those lifeless souls and be free of your guilt. No longer will you benefit from them; no longer will you see them working silently.” Callidas said. “Will you stay in Omilio or will you walk away? Those are your two choices, Adrias Heraklion.”

“Neither.”

“Neither?” He said, confused.

“I will raze this place to the ground, seize its arms and riches, and burn and break my way back to life.” I replied.

“Impossible.” Callidas scoffed. “You will be cast down to the Pit for this long before you even get close to leaving this realm.”

“I’ll have my historians note your opinion once I’ve returned to the mortals.” I said.

He was growing more and more anxious as my Laruas finished their jobs and stood behind me.

“Elysium is the only heaven in the lands of the dead that mortal men could earn their right to. You would annihilate paradise to soothe a far lesser pain than the pleasure gained? You make all the worlds worse as a result.”

“I never said I existed to make the universe better. I am a destroyer. Perhaps someday a tyrant restrained by reason and wisdom. But not a builder or a healer.” I said.

“You’re insane.” Callidas said.

“I am the Flame and I will rule over a kingdom of ash before I suffer people like you to exist. If I lived in your fable, every stone of Omilio would be cast down too.”

“Wait, wait, you need me. If you want to get out of the Underworld you need my help, only I know how to get out.” He said with desperate fervor.

“The servants who you had carry the goods and make the trade for you answer to me.” I said as his eyes widened. “If you wanted to make yourself valuable to me, you shouldn’t have chosen to be the middleman of the operation. I don’t need you.”

Then I stabbed him as well in the heart. I wondered if Dio felt the same dark satisfaction when he had done the same to me. When I stepped out of the courthouse, I was plunged into a world of screams and chaos. I smiled. That was one promise I had fulfilled of my four.