Death had come to the Silent Citadel of the frozen wastes of Terra’s south pole, and I was his chariot. My sword of light was stained blue and kissed with flame of deepest night. It cut through bone and insectoid chitin like they were straw, the horrific spear seeking and finding new lives to take faster than my senses could perceive what I was killing. All I knew was that there was nothing left to do but destroy.

Every step was like falling into a void and every breath stolen from the air accelerated my descent into that raging dusk. Thoughts slithered away from my grasp and memories decayed to ash, leaving a paradox of a mental state. Mindless yet alert. Without passion yet with a heart on fire. Ecstatic yet sorrowful.

Slaughter became psychedelic, the spurts and sprays of blood and viscera turning to cosmic spreads of crimson stars, my movements and motions as explosive as supernovas in my eyes. Not until I reached Akhillos, the demigod buried deep beneath his fortress, would the spear truly start ripping my lifespan into pieces.

Hazily, I recognized that Thrax and Antonias fought at my side. Toni’s frenzied snarling and outstretched wings, Thrax’s swift combination of shield and sword demolishing everything he set his golden eyes upon. We were brothers in arms if not in blood. These Servi mutants were products of Akhillos’s alchemical tampering, and though they were little more than obstacles to me, I still noted that they were far superior to the ones I had seen before in the first uprising on Iulius.

Less monstrous, and stronger and faster. Resilient too, when cut into pieces the chunks writhed together with magnetic attraction, trying vainly to pull themselves back together right up until I brought down the spear to pierce them. Miles beneath the surface and thousands of eviscerated enemies in our wake, we reached my target.

Akhillos Alastorides, son of Zeus and a Servus woman, was as grand and dominating as my grandfather was. He stood at a stature of nine feet tall, rippling with muscle and possessing a broad frame. He looked like if you chucked a mountain range at him, the mountains would break first. The Golden Demigod was flanked by four giants, perfected variations of the alchemical brew injected into optimal Servi hosts.

“Traitor Prince,” Akhillos acknowledged me.

“I’m a traitor?” I said, laughing. “I’ve never been Heaven’s sworn agent.”

“Not a traitor to the heavens, no.” The demigod said. He flexed his fingers and vines grew from them, tendrils reaching into the air and snaking in coils around his arm.

Interesting.

“A blood traitor, you mean.” I said. “I hope you see the irony in you being half human and spending your life creating monsters by trying to make the Servi into everything they’re not.”

“It’s a means to an end. One that-“

“I have no desire to sit through a lecture.” I said, before charging in, Antonias and Thrax at my side.

The vines shot out at lightning pace, smacking aside my companions and seizing me in a python’s grip.

“Displace.” Akhillos said and the both of us were ripped through the fabric of space.

When my vision cleared, I saw we were standing in a field of crops that grew fifteen feet high. The sky above was the dark deepness of a starless night.

“What is this?” I demanded.

“Your lecture.” He replied.

“You don’t have anything I need to hear.” I said.

“I’m not the one giving it.” Akhillos said.

“Who is?” I said.

“The creature that’s been planning your life since you spoke to his oracle on Sunburst Station.” He said, fading into the vegetation. Akhillos’s flesh became one with the stalks and billowing leaves.

The dawn broke the horizon, flooding the infinite fields with a glorious blaze of light. It didn’t burn the plants to ash. That actually might have comforted me to see the familiar destructive touch of fire. Instead, the blinding light sun-bleached the green chlorophyll from their cells. I felt the outer layer of my skin scream in pain from the glare. There was no color left to wipe from the marble, and in contrast to everything else, pigment developed in my skin where the divine shine struck. It left me with a light tan, a shocking sight after spending so long looking like an alabaster statue.

The source of the light grew closer and closer, a sun hidden amongst the stalks of grains, slowly making its way to me. Making his way to me. The nearer the god came, the less I could see. My retinas were dissolving, only to reform with a Golden Imperator’s regeneration, and then dissolve once more. Blindly, I raised the spear in challenge and called upon the fire of Heracles’s funeral pyre to course through my veins. If I was honest with myself, it was less in challenge than a fearful attempt to ward off this threat.

There was something about Apollo that terrified me far more than facing Hades or even the idea of soon taking on Zeus. Something primal and ancient within my blood that had nothing to do with the Paths or what the ring had given to me. A feeling that all humans knew deep down. That though primitive man had cowered from the crash of the Skyfather’s thunder, feared the Earthshaker’s sea storms and earthquakes, and trembled at the thought of being dragged by Thanatos to the Corpsefather’s cold domains, there was another higher power to honor and dread.

It was by the will of the Sun that Terra did not freeze, by his radiating aura that all life was sustained, his passage that ordained the seasons and the days. My spear shrieked in hungry bloodlust. It dove forward to strike at something I could not even perceive.

When an unseen hand gripped it and turned it aside effortlessly, my heart stopped. The inner flame seethed, but the god breathed like he was blowing out a candle and my borrowed might vanished from my veins.

I couldn’t think. I couldn’t move.

“Tell me, son of the stars, what is the merit of your soul?” The Sun God said. He didn’t put the weight of heavenly command behind it. He didn’t need it to make the sentence slam into me.

No matter how I tried, my muscles remained immobile. Apollo laid a scalding hand on my shoulder and my nervous system was shocked into action by the stimulus.

“I don’t understand.” I managed to get those words past my numb lips.

“Apollo knows who you are, who you once were, and who you will be. Three sons of gods lie ahead of you, their knives at each other’s throats. Only one may you help. Choose wisely, for while all will know your vice, only one will bring you your virtue.” Apollo repeated what his prophet had spoken to me.

The vice was Eleutheromania, but the virtues?

“I only know Augustas’s virtue is Temperance.” I said. I still could see nothing but blazing white when my eyes healed and empty black when my vision was impaired.

“Akhillos’s is Justice and Orpheas’s is Amnesty.” Apollo whispered. The sound was soft, but it could have drowned the roar of a thousand-thousand battle cries.

“Why does it matter which one I choose, if I even picked any of them at all?” I said.

“They are all pathways you could walk. Take up the Regent’s Temperance and you will be his loyal inheritor of his earthly domain. Seize Akhillos’s Justice and you could slay Augustas.” Apollo said.

“What benefit would that get me?” I said derisively.

“Athena, Heracles and I will help you imprison Zeus in Tartarus, and Akhillos will enact his wishes for the Dominium.” He said.

“What?” I said flatly. “You expect me to believe that three of the Olympians would betray your king in order to help me?”

“Our hands have been upon you for some time. Guiding you. Safeguarding you from harm.” He said.

“Yeah, I don’t believe that.” I said.

“Do you not remember your time at the Scholarium? The cat with grey eyes that led you to an enclosure marked with the letters “ATNA”? Did you not think it was peculiar that the prejudiced institution reigned over by Theseas Claudion allowed a Copper Servus woman to teach Theurgy to young Bronze Imperators? That she called you by the name of Diomedes and left as soon as you successfully called upon the goddess’s aid to light a candle with Theurgy alone?” The Sun God said.

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I changed the subject. “What about Heracles?”

“Come now, Adrias Lucion. You’ve been calling upon his power for quite some time. If he didn’t wish for you to use it, you would be unable to.” Apollo said.

“So I didn’t earn it.” I said, feeling empty.

“No one said that. Augustas has countless descendants and none of them have been blessed by the Champion of Champions. You are what we have been waiting for. An instrument of change to break down the lifeless stasis that Heaven, Hell, and the Earthly realms have become.” He said.

“You said if I chose Justice that Akhillos would get what he wants.” I said.

“Akhillos wishes to use his alchemical research to permanently mutate the Servus race into something that is above and beyond the Imperators.” Apollo said.

“And then immediately massacre their oppressors.” I guessed.

“Perhaps.” The god admitted. “Though subjugating them would also please him.”

“What of Orpheas?” I said.

“Choose his Amnesty and both Akhillos and Augustas will be imprisoned while the gods are forced to revoke the Paths. All of humanity will be rendered equal in magnitude of ability, but without the strength to annihilate each other.” Apollo said.

“And what if I chose none of those virtues?” I asked.

“That wasn’t in the options.” The god said with hesitation.

“I reject destiny. Will you still support me if I claim another?” I said.

“This outcome was not shown in foresight. I cannot guarantee success if you go off the path that we have devised.” Apollo muttered. “Tell me what your plan is then.”

“I will slay Zeus and reach Platinum Rank.” I said.

“And then?” He said.

“I’d need to know what that Rank is capable of.” I said.

“Anything. Everything. You will be both an unstoppable force and an immovable object all at once. What will you do if I allow you to take borderline omnipotence?” Apollo said.

“Transform every human into an Imperator and wipe the memories of all of mankind so that we can start again without the old hatreds hiding in our hearts.” I said.