Augustas snapped his fingers and an illusory scene appeared, replacing his workshop laboratory. A familiar scene at that, the moment of the Regent and I standing above Zeus, staring down at the King of the Gods with lethal intent.

It was almost exactly like the one that Kronos had shown me when I was dead and visited him in Tartaros. Almost. In that one, my future self had been weary and melancholic, in this one I appeared proud and triumphant.

A change? Was this a sign that I was now on the path to my rightfully earned happiness?

“When did you first have this vision?” I asked my grandfather.

“Shortly after you died from the Claudion boy’s cursed blade.” He replied.

So the version Kronos had shown me had come later. Maybe. I didn’t know when the Titan had looked into the future.

“Are these precognitive insights set in stone? Are we guaranteed to succeed no matter what?” I said.

“Of course not. Each look into what may come to be is shaped by your own perspective and wishes. The further you peer forward the blurrier and more fractured it becomes.” The Regent said.

Who was right then? Augustas or Kronos? I could be happy at that moment or I could be in the depths of despair. I could even be something else entirely though I wasn’t sure what that might be.

“What do you want me to do? What is your will, Grandfather, so that I might make you Platinum?” I said.

“You must finish your advancement.”

“I have.” I said, confused.

“You have yet to select your Order from the options of the classes of Seraphs, Archangels, and Afrits. The choice you make will shape the rest of your life irrevocably so make the decision wisely. So too will you need to train with your new body and powers if you are to defeat the two Golden Imperators headed to Apollo system. When you face them, you cannot hesitate and you cannot make even a single error. Nero Aezion and Vespasias Flavion are ancient and sly and monstrous, and they will tear you apart if you show weakness.” The Regent said.

“When they meet me, they will find your fury reflected in me.” I promised. “I will break their bones and scorch them with divine fire until even their near immortal flesh finds death’s embrace.”

My grandfather smiled, patting me on the head with his massive hands, towering over even my seven feet of height.

“I know you will, boy. I have been waiting for a very long time for you, a descendant worthy of following in my footsteps and with the grandeur necessary to sit on my throne in my stead when I ascend beyond the heavens.” Augustas said.

“How do I choose an Order? It didn’t automatically give me options when I became Golden.”

“Taking upon an Order must be made with intent and fervor; it is not accidental.” He replied.

I closed my eyes and tried to force it to happen.

“You cannot do it here in this projection of your mind.” Augustas said, amused. “When you return to your body, you must assert your right to claim one of them. Verbally and out loud, using your own voice, not my father’s.”

“Which Order should I choose?” I said, filing away the curiosity that was how I couldn’t use a deity’s voice to do it.

“That’s your own choice. I am an Archangel, but your way to greatness may lead you elsewhere. Archangels are blessed with additional strength and height, Seraphs with speed and beauty, and Afrits with enhanced control over thermokinesis and pyrokinesis.” Augustas said.

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“Goodbye,” I said, readying to leave and return to my own body light years away.

“And Adrias, no matter what, do not let Nero and Vespasias draw you into the Cognitosphere.” Augustas warned.

“I have no idea what that is.” I said.

“It is the traditional field of battle for Golden Imperators, a realm formed by the minds of humanity that only we can enter in astral forms, a way to wage war without causing devastation or what the Nine consider uncivil conduct.” He said.

“Why can’t I enter it?” I said.

“They will be victorious if they goad you into entering it. The two of them are far, far more skilled with it than you could possibly learn to be in the time you have remaining until they arrive.” Augustas said ominously.

“Got it.” I said, unnerved. “Well, I’ll ignore any challenges.”

“They won’t just be taunting you, Vespasias and Nero will be psychically assaulting your mind and attempting to pull it by force into the Cognitosphere so they can flay your consciousness and then destroy your body while you are incapacitated.” The Regent said.

“I’m stubborn.” I said. Losing was one thing, but pain and trauma were nothing to me at all.

“I know. You will need to be adamantine to prevail.”

Like a rubber band stretched too far, almost to the point of snapping, I was wrenched back to my body.

It was like squeezing into a shirt that had shrunk too much.

“Thank the gods, you’re back.” Antonias said. “Do you know how long we’ve been in here? I’ve been waiting for hours! Hours, I tell you! While you just stood like a walking corpse. Your stupid divine command and vines wouldn’t even let me teleport out of here.”

I smiled, Antonias being annoyed made him seem much more like he had been before death.

“Don’t smile at me.” He grumbled.

That just made me grin wider. I much preferred this side of him to the monster that held grip on part of his essence.

“You could have always talked to Alsig.” I said. “I didn’t mean to be that long, Augustas just made me wait a while to push back on me demanding his attention.”

“How could I talk to your Daimon?” Antonias said. “Mine got taken out of me when I died.”

I stopped smiling, reminded of Alsig’s long time stuck in my head because none of my worshippers or followers dared to disturb my body to retrieve her.

Sorry about that. Sorry about leaving you again with no one to talk to. I thought to her, but there was no response.

“You could have used technopathy.” I said.

“Too much effort.” Antonias said, shrugging. “It’s just a machine.”

I felt a spike of anger from my AI.

“She’s more than that.” I muttered, though I knew it would take a lot to convince him of that.

“Anyways,” I said. “I need to claim my Order and then we can leave.”

“Wait!” Antonias said with panic.

“I want to take up my Order as is my right as a Golden Imperator.” I said firmly with the intent and fervor my grandfather had said was required.

“Let me out first, damn you!” The Leechling Imperator yelled, but I was already stepping away from the physical world for a second time.

There was shadow and then light and then shadow again.

When I came to, I was standing on a bridge under a starless sky, facing three figures.

“Hello?” I said.

They didn’t respond, though they were rapidly becoming more distinct and real until they were recognizable. They were me, three version of Adrias, three possibilities. One was tall and muscular, not as tall as Augustas but about as bulky as a Campeador. This was me as a Golden Imperator of the Order of Archangels. The middle one was handsome in a way that was more beautiful than ruggedly masculine. A face that could start wars or end them with a single look. This was what I could be if I joined the Order of Seraphs. And finally, there was a variant Adrias that had translucent dragon scales coating his hands and lower arms up to the elbow. The Order of Afrits.

The three did not speak but I could feel their pleas all the same. My choice would make one of them a permanent reality and kill the timelines of the other two existing. The Archangel promised the strength and resolve to dominate any challenge, the Seraph promised the ability to tame my solar system in a fashion that my brute force never could, and the Afrit promised me nothing more than flame and destruction.

It was an easy decision, a comforting one.

I walked to the Afrit and took that Adrias’s hand in mine and shook it. The other two held only looks of betrayal as they faded away, but the one whose offer I claimed pulled me into a tight embrace.

“Isn’t it curious that both versions of Kronos’s and Augustas’s foresight didn’t show which Order you would choose?” The Afrit whispered.

When I opened my mouth to respond, it was my real one in the true world.

“Yes… yes, it is.” I said, looking down at my arms that were covered in diamond scales.

“Can we leave now?” Antonias complained.

“Open.” I commanded the dome of vines, collapsing it. The loss of the shroud revealed that in the hours since I had created it, the grounds surrounding the temple on Persias’s estate had become covered with masses of onlookers.

“I think they want you to give them a show.” Antonias commented.

I flexed my scaled fingers and then breathed out black fire into the air.