All was quiet as I hovered above the clouds. The Somnia were no more. Because the stamina required to unleash lightning bolts was recovered every two seconds, I essentially never ran out. All that remained was a quiet wind, sweeping with rain across the early morning sea.

I breathed heavily as I read the quest notification and rewards. My mind was so fatigued and experienced another mini blackout that it took me a minute to read it.

Quest Completed: Father of All Monsters

“Error: Unable to report System feedback.”

Rewards:

* Jupiter’s Blessing Rank 10/10: Grants absolute dominion over the skies, allowing planetary-scale thunderstorms and the ability to fly while in a storm. User can alter wind speeds, summon tornados, tsunamis, and direct chain lightning strikes with a maximum of five targets within a 100-meter radius per strike, each dealing 1,000 damage. Stamina cost is 10 for each lightning strike or for every second controlling the weather. Cooldown: 1 hour for full storm summoning. Storms last 15 minutes.

* Title: Imperator Augustus Maximus, Jupiter’s Champion, Pluto’s Phoenix, Maximus the Great, Gladiator Champion, Cyclops Slayer, Mercator, Dungeon Diver, Conqueror of Cetus, Minotaur Menace, Tyrannicida, Giant Bane

* Strength (+9,410): lvl 59 (480/600)

* Intelligence (+10): lvl 9 (60/100)

* Glory (+10,000): 10,870

* Level (+13): 83 (0/850)

* Skill Points (+13): 13

If I wasn’t so exhausted with a pounding headache, I would have leaped for joy. Especially considering my muscles underneath my armor were larger and more attractive than any bodybuilder I had ever seen, which I could see with a quick peek into the alternative futures where I disrobed mid air to look. If I wanted to, I could crush most things just by squeezing them. Even my strikes with a gladius would for the most part end in decapitations and severing of limbs with ease.

Power and strength became one with me.

If only it translated to defeating Caesar.

Now, alone, I couldn’t see how I was going to destroy him, even with the ability to kill the gods. Killing all of Rome in my tsunami storm was simply unavoidable if I wanted to route out Caesar. I could see the thousands of scenarios where this unfortunately played out in the next few hours.

I tried many futures where I started first by raising the sea to the foothills of Mount Vesuvius, wiping out footing of the thirty million Europeans who gathered around it. As soon as I started drawing them away with powerful currents, Caesar reflexively forced them all to drown themselves in one massive suicide.

If I drugged them before, hammering out hundreds of sleep potions, they would all drown anyway because their limp bodies would succumb to the waves.

If I tried a tornado with them drugged, they would perish, crashing into each other and the debris I inevitably picked up. If I didn’t drug them, Caesar would have them maul each other to death before I could sweep them up.

It was simply impossible to avoid the deaths of thirty million Europeans, many of them Roman. I couldn’t see a way around it.

Was this what my third life was supposed to be? One big massacre to reclaim power, only to rule over no one save for a sea of blood? Should I have stayed with Camilla in Elysium, enjoying the luxurious rest of the fallen heroes, while Caesar reigned unchecked and greedily enjoyed the forced pleasures of my wife?

How could any of that be right?

The weight of the world bore down on my shoulders, crushing my like Atlas and the sky. Depression and hopelessness were the only reasonable reactions to all of this. I couldn’t think straight, not with how exhausted I was. It was a fight just to keep my eyes open, let alone face a new grim reality where I lost every time.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered to myself, all alone above the crashing waves. It would be morning soon, as evident by the incoming soft light. “By the gods, I am truly lost. There’s no way through.”

Perhaps because I was severely tired, or depressed, or both, I broke down. I couldn’t help the storm of tears that burst from my baggy eyes.

Time passed unknowingly as the waves of grief hit me again.

The only thing that stopped me sometime later was the projection of Cleopatra from my Cleopatra's Figurine of Eternal Bond necklace. I didn’t realize I fingered the artifact from Titus as I hovered above the waters in hysteria. Cleopatra appeared in the air before me. Her smile was more warming then the sun as she held her pregnant belly. Though she couldn’t say anything, just the sight of her was enough to give me strength.

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“I love you,” I whispered, fighting back the fatigue and the pain. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t see a way forward, and my Historical Insight is about to run out.”

I truly felt out of control. Nothing, and no one, could save me. And I was too tired to even think. Everything was going horribly wrong.

Thinking about my lovely, innocent wife brought up another conundrum: Caesar/Umbra would be back soon, and he would find Cleopatra and Sporus. I couldn’t bear the thought of either of them being taken by him. At the very least, I could protect them. Then, I could figure out what to do, if there was anything at all.

As soon as my mind thought of relocating them, a whole host of new futures appeared. This was the only thing keeping my soul from plummeting into crippling depression and hopelessness.

Where could I hide them that Caesar had no knowledge of?

I searched everywhere in the remaining hours I had left with my Historical Insight. Everywhere that was easily to moderately accessible by man would be too risky, as Caesar was now fulling enslaving the entire population under his will and could see all things. It would have to be challenging or impossible to reach, at least until I could figure out what to do.

Flying above the mountains in my alternative visions, my eyes settled on the Apennine Mountains that ran down the length of the Italian Peninsula. And there, at the end of my visions, was something I least expected.

“A Carthaginian dungeon?” I said to myself. I would never have found the stone and golden gate with a pattern lock had it not been for scanning every inch of the mountain range. But there it was, awaiting me with promises of power and loot, and maybe what I would need to succeed.

Above the entrance, engraved with gold, told me who would be inside:

Aut Viam Inveniam Aut Faciam.

I will either find a way or make one, I thought, translating it in my mind.

Hannibal Barca.

I had very little to go off of in my near trembling state of fatigue. All I knew was that Hannibal Barca was the bane of Rome, having descended the Apennine Mountains with his war elephants and men to fight the Romans. He was one of the most feared generals, and responded with that bold, courageous statement when his men questioned his plan to travel through the dangerous Apennine Mountains.

If there was anyone in Rome who could help me, it would be Hannibal.

To make sure I wasn’t going into a dead end, I searched all across the planet to see if Hannibal was alive somewhere else and already under control. To my great pleasure, he was dead. After scouring the earth and not finding him, I was only able to confirm this theory when I found the new historical records of Antiquitus by Cassius Dio. The famous historian had hidden from Elagabalus and found favor with Caesar, being granted a fine house on Palatine Hill. He was now likely with all the other Romans, grouped up in a massive horde before Mount Vesuvius, waiting for my endgame move.

In Cassius Dio’s Antiquitus notes, he had detailed how immediately upon assuming power, Elagabalus had seduced and used Cetus the Sea Dragon and the two giants Cacus and Caca to annihilate Hannibal and his army. Elagabalus, though twisted and degenerate, was smart enough to know Hannibal would pose a serious threat to his regime, and so had him instantly crushed. Hannibal wasn’t the only victim. Many of the great names like Augustus to those related to Julius Caesar in any way like Cleopatra from Egypt were similarly destroyed in the early days of Antiquitus.

But, in his writings, Cassius mused that a strange, silver glow overtook the battered and bloodied army of Hannibal upon midnight, when the moon was at its highest and Elagabalus’s monsters had receded. Cassius believed it had something to do with the Carthage moon goddess Tanit, wife of Baal-Hammon, their chief deity. Many accounts believed they saw someone moving about the fallen Carthaginians, only to disappear in the direction of the Apennine Mountains.

And by the next morning, his entire army was gone. No one knew what had happened to their bodies. Elagabalus released his state propaganda that Cetus and the giants ate all of their corpses. But nearby witnesses swore they left soon after slaughtering them.

With that in mind, the Hannibal Dungeon took on a different light. Could it be that she transported them here, to this dungeon? And if so, was it strictly for burial purposes to not disgrace her people’s champion?

Or did the quote on the wall indicate something different?

Could there be a way through the chaos, to be found or made, if one entered the dungeon?

There was an equal chance of it being a dead end, but it was all I had to go off of. I could spend all of my glory now to look further ahead, as it would give me almost another hour of Historical Insight. But from the looks of it, this dungeon would take much, much longer than that from what I could initially see. Instead of wasting my time, glory, and severely impaired brain power, I decided it was the only viable solution in the sea of a billion choices.

With purpose trickling into my veins again, I propelled myself back to Medusa’s Island with the last of the storm that began to trickle away. I landed in a painless roll and took off running to where I hid Cleopatra and Sporus. Both of them were right where I left them, having only the light from the burning gladius. Caesar began to taunt me through both of them, but I tuned him out. I couldn’t let him distract me now.

To blind Caesar to my future whereabouts, I tore off strips of Sporus’s cloak and wrapped them around each of their faces. I had to not let my eyes linger on Cleopatra’s form too long. It was too painful to be reminded of the cost of failure.

With Sporus chained to my back and Cleopatra in the other arm, secured, I lightning teleported us to the Apennine Mountains. In a blink we were there. With all of my might, I activated my Boots of Mercury, lessening our impact into the snowy peak. Once I readjusted myself, we ascended into the black crevice that was the cave opening.

Caesar’s taunt’s caesar as he tried to listen to our new environment to pinpoint where we were now. I almost preferred the chatter with how quiet the world had become now.

Once we were far enough back and completely surrounded by the pitch black cave, I set both of them down and bound them to boulders.

I’m almost done, I thought as I looked at Cleopatra, wanting to kiss her forehead but weirded out that Caesar was living through her. I will save you.

Taking a deep breath, I stood up and continued walking through the cave, where the entrance to Hannibal’s Dungeon awaited me.

“Veni vidi vici,” Caesar whispered, sending chills up my spine as I left him behind in the darkness.

I shook off his taunt, keeping my eyes fixated on the approaching entrance where I could see very little behind. My insight would vanish in a few hours.

At the very least, whatever was on the other side would push me to my absolute limit.

“Aut viam inveniam aut faciam,” I said, beginning the complex pattern puzzle to open the dungeon, carefully avoiding the wrong pattern that would lead to an instant death from a lethal gas.