For his part, the King of Heroes ignored me, turning his head marginally instead to glare at Krassas with his blazingly golden eyes.

“Why have you come here, Claudion? I told you the last time that if I saw you again, I would break every bone in your body over and over until you Blurred.” Achilles said coldly.

I looked at Krassas in surprise. He had said he didn’t have a lot of pull down here, but I had taken the impression that he simply had failed to become integrated into the groups of Brights residing in the Fields of Asphodel, not that he had actively angered someone, let alone one of the greatest sons of Grecia.

“My apologies, Great One.” Krassas said, his head bent and his face turned towards the ground, not daring to even look at the King.

“Your answer?” Achilles said, a wave of heat boiling around him.

“I brought you a Heraklion.” He replied, looking towards me.

“And?” The King of Heroes said, his radiance and majesty dimming as he looked towards me curiously. “I’ve seen plenty of them, what makes this one of note?”

“He swore an oath on the Styx that he was the greatest of Augustas’s bloodline.” Krassas explained.

“I heard the thunder.” Achilles replied. “This justifies why he has sought an audience with me, being worthy enough to stand in my presence and pay homage, but not why you have stepped foot here.”

“I was the one to lead him to you, he wouldn’t have known where to go.” Krassas Claudion protested.

“He would have stumbled his way to me eventually. All we have is time down here, after all.” Achilles fell silent and the weight and gravity of the eerie quietness that came stole whatever words I might have tried to get out. It was not telepathy or divine power, but rather his sheer presence withdrawing and his changed expression that killed my desire to speak. In the Fields, he was the Brightest of the Brights and his very voice was like the rising dawn. The lack of it was like every light in the universe winking out until there was nothing but shadow and coldness.

Finally, he continued. “Oceans of it. Oceans upon oceans of time. Enough to sail beyond the stars on those temporal waters, enough to drown a trillion souls in it, enough to quench the fire of every glory…”

Achilles had the face of a young man, but I was struck at how ancient he seemed in that moment. There were no wrinkles on his youthful visage and not even a hint of grey in his flamingly red hair, but he was worn all the same. A fossil of a forgotten time left in the mist and dampness of Asphodel. It was the tiredness behind his eyes, I thought, like you could fall through them into a realm so decayed and ruined that even gold would rust and every sun would dim to a cinder’s lifeless glow.

“Oceans of time…” He repeated, softly, more to himself than anyone around him.

I finally mustered words to say and the will to speak them.

“How long have you been down here?” I asked him.

His golden eyes found me and life and focus returned to them, and my tongue froze like he had caught it with steel pliers.

“Sixteen thousand years. Maybe more, maybe less, it becomes harder to tell as ages pass.” Achilles said.

“Most people stop counting after a thousand years spent here.” Krassas commented.

The King of Heroes’ burning gaze flicked back over to him and Theseas’s ancestor shut his mouth with a click. If I had telepathy, I would have told Krassas that it might be best to keep silent except when absolutely necessary when in the presence of a legendary warrior who had told him he would break every bone in Krassas’s body if he came back.

“Claudion, I consider a man who cheats at dice to try and steal from me little more than a dog. In life I would have planted your head on a spear.” Achilles said, Krassas leaning so low to the ground in deference that his forehead touched the ground of the Underworld.

So that was what the man had done. I shook my head at the insanity of the concept. A man in my hometown might have broken a swindler’s nose if the sum taken was significant. And Krassas had thought the shade of a warrior demigod was someone to try and hoodwink?

“However, I suppose while you may be very stupid, I haven’t found you to be very brave either. Always scurrying around the edges of the Brights in Asphodel, searching for an in or an opportunity, but never daring to truly stick out your neck and risk consequences. You clearly thought whatever this is is worth the danger, so I will allow you to prove it.” He said.

“Thank you, lord.” Krassas said. “I am your humble-“

“If you disappoint me, my response will be severe.” Achilles finished coldly.

I shifted slightly at the thought, a part of me unconsciously moving into being ready for a fight.

The King of Heroes noticed even the tiniest of my movements though.

“Do you imagine that you could face me in combat, little Heraklion?” Achilles said.

“No.” I said, my pride warring with the unmistakable truth.

“Do you think you could defeat me with a legion behind you then?” He asked me, his expression neutral and his position on his throne of fused souls relaxed.

“No.” I whispered. I had gone up against Silver Imperators and Red Haloed hybrids and alchemical monsters without the hint of worry or fear, but in a strange way it almost seemed easier to imagine casting the Skyfather down from his seat on Olympus than to dream that I could make the King of Heroes’ skin shed blood.

Achilles looked back to Krassas, but my pride wrestled out of my control once more in its never-ending quest to get me killed above and Blurred down here.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“I couldn’t win with worlds behind me, but I’d still fight anyways.” I blurted out.

“Why?” He said.

Different answers came to my mind.

Because I never abandon my friends. Except I barely knew Krassas Claudion and Pollixa was living- or rather, unliving proof that I would let my compatriots die if I had reason enough.

Because maybe there’s a chance of winning that I can’t see yet. Except I might as well have placed a bet on Apollo system’s star winking out tomorrow, billions of years before its destined fate.

Because…

“Because I left my home to become legend and myth itself, it’s why I’m not Blurred right now. This Brightness I have now was not glory I was born with and I did not grow up bearing the name Heraklion, raised on sacred Terra. My legend was taken with deeds, my myth watered with pain and blood until it grew, my Rank of Copper Imperator raised to Silver before I turned eighteen. I could have used my Imperial abilities to have an easy life free of stress or responsibilities. I could have tried to live a life where I just tried to be happy.” I said.

“But you did not.” Achilles said.

“No. I wasn’t able to. The moment I realized what I could do, still covered in the blood and brains of my family’s murderer after I avenged them, I was unable to escape the desire to rise up and become more. This whole time the only way I’ve managed to advance and achieve what I wanted was to push myself and face things beyond me. There’s no true rationality in that, I didn’t know for any of my most dangerous battles that I would win, but I was drawn to them anyways. I love the fight, the rushing of blood in my veins, the sheer adrenaline of walking on a knife’s edge between victory and death. We both know I couldn’t win against you, but if you think I would give up a chance to cross blades or spears with the greatest soldier of the Trojan War, you have far more faith in my self-control than anyone who has known me for more than twenty minutes.” I said.

A hint of amusement flickered in Achilles’s expression with the slightest quirk of his lips in a subtle smile.

Fish grinned with a distant look.

“Flames like the swirling sea… poison in the air…” Fish said, his eyes hazy as he imagined something I didn’t even remotely understand the context of.

“Well, at least this has been entertaining. Perhaps I won’t Blur you, Claudion, even if you disappoint me after all. Speak.” He commanded Krassas.

“You see, Lord, this is…” Krassas hesitated and I realized I had never told him my name.

“Adrias.” I supplied my first name to him.

“Adrias Heraklion. He has brought to me to me a plot of escaping the Underworld.” Krassas stated.

“It won’t work.” Achilles said dismissively. “Every thinking person in the Fields wants to get out, if it were possible there wouldn’t be any Brights left here.”

“People have escaped.” I pointed out. “Orpheus the musician. Sisyphus who cheated death twice.”

“Orpheus was a living man who was allowed to leave, Sisyphus left the first time by chaining Thanatos and the second by tricking Hades. Both involved fundamentals, Orpheus was not dead and Sisyphus escaped the inaction or allowance of the divine. You don’t have a living body and I find it… unlikely that you’ll be able to deceive or dominate the gods of this realm. Their power will prevent you from exiting even if you found a way out.” Achilles said, some of that haunting tiredness and exhaustion leeching back into him as he discussed the impossibility of what I wanted.

I felt disappointment, I had been hoping that by causing a mass disturbance and then leaving in the chaos through a way to the mortal realm, we could just step out and be free. Silly, I suppose, to hope it would be that easy.

“What if we deceived the Corpsefather?” Pollixa asked.

“There’s a reason why there’s only a handful of those examples. It isn’t happening, child. Once tricked, gods grow either wise or cruel, and both will make your plans crumble.” Achilles said dismissively.

That left one more thing.

“What if we dominate him?” I said.

“You, a shade of only a Silver Imperator, capable of only an Unpathed human’s strength in this form, wish to provoke and conquer the god of the dead in his own realm?” The King of Heroes said slowly. “With what army?”

I waved a hand around panoramically at the rest of the endless Fields of Asphodel. “We’re surrounded by them. The largest army in human history.”

“They’re Blurs.” He said bluntly.

“Not if we make them Brights.” I said.

“You don’t have enough blood to make fifty of them.” Achilles said.

“As I understand it,” I said. “The Nectar and Ambrosia in Elysium sustains those there, keeps them permanently shining and radiant. If we steal it, we can use small amounts to get a lot of Blurs functional again.”

“You’re not getting through Elysium’s guards and defenses even if I order my followers to follow you. It’s not enough.” He said.

“And how about you? Are you enough?” I challenged him.

Krassas’s eyes went wide, the whites showing strongly. “Adrias-“

Achilles held up a hand to stop him. “Of course. Why should I help you though? You aren’t my kin or my sworn brothers in my mortal life.”

“It must rankle.” I said, preparing to yet again inflame someone’s emotion in a risky move. “It must burn, to know that you’re the only great hero sent to Asphodel while all the others went to Elysium.”

His face was cold like ice.

“The Judges of the Underworld are flawed, fallible men, and on a whim, you got sent here for all eternity. It’s probably the most unfair thing I’ve ever seen.” I said.

Goosebumps formed on my flesh, the touch of his steely gaze making me feel like I was a mouse staring up at an owl as it swooped down with its claws ready.

“You were a hero, a living story every moment of your existence. And yet, for all your glory, you sit in grey fields and damp mists on a throne of pressed together ghosts, surrounded by lesser beings. Yes, it must anger you. The fruits of Elysium, the drink and food of the gods, should be yours. They can be yours, if you take them with me.” I said.

Achilles sighed, anger giving way back to tiredness. “We can breach Elysium, steal the Nectar and Ambrosia, restore ourselves and others to make an army, but to fight divinity like Hades, you need divine power yourself, and mine is only a faded remnant of what I had before. The moment Hades takes the field, your ‘largest army in human history’ will be swept aside like logs in a flood and we the leaders will be cast into Tartaros. I’m not willing to sacrifice what little I have here for an inevitable punishment when we fail.”

“I didn’t realize the son of Thetis was a coward-“ I got out before I felt his grasp on my throat, he had moved monstrously fast. I had pushed too far.

“I think I like the idea of the punishment I promised Krassas for you.” Achilles said coldly. “The one about breaking an annoyance’s bones repeatedly as they heal until said annoyance fades to a mindless ghost.”

“O… O-ocean-“ I choked out through his rock hard hold on my neck.

“What?” He said, loosening his grasp.

“Oceans of time.” I said. “That’s what you said we all had waiting for us, oceans upon oceans worth of time spent in these Fields. Except that’s not true. Most of us, we’re not that important, our stories aren’t so enduring that we’ll last forever. But you, son of Thetis, your legend is more immortal than the gods themselves. So long as humanity exists amongst the universe, you will remain as you are. Even if you don’t do it now, I will fade in time to a peaceful and unconscious state like the rest of the Blurs. But you, Achilles? You will drown in those oceans of time for longer than you can imagine.”

His gold irises were blindingly bright and his expression was unreadable.

“What is pain to a man like you? What is the darkness of Tartaros to a man like you? What punishment could possibly be worse for great Achilles to live in mediocrity for eternity? I see the tiredness in you. That’s going to get worse. Do you want to see the sun again, to feel the wind on your cheeks?” I asked him. “I do, more than anything right now.”

He released me and I rubbed at my throat.

The King of Heroes ran a tan hand through his red hair. “Alright. Fine. We can… we can do this.”

“I don’t think the Underworld has ever had a civil war, has it?” I said.

Achilles smiled, the tiredness being replaced by passion and vitality. “Let’s change that, little Heraklion.”