Glory.
If I had to choose a single emotion, one feeling to etch into my soul of the moment, it was glory. The islands of Elsyium burned to a crisp behind me and I sailed away from it with ships full of supernatural Larua warriors and pilfered treasures of weapons and sacred rations.
To destroy was strength, to destroy the wicked was justice, but to destroy the wicked and profit off their demise was glory unbounded and unchained. I could not fail, not because I was unable to lose, but because to lose was to risk eternal damnation to Tartaros and to win was to defy death and divinity itself.
My fingers tightened on the rail of the leading ship I was on. If I had my physical body, no doubt I would have been consumed and rendered to dust by Heracles’s fire from the pride and ambition that crept within me, dominating my thoughts and driving every nerve and muscle. I could have accepted death. I could have, really. I could have just shut my mouth and stilled my body as I was taken across the river by the Ferryman, bowed to the Judges of the Underworld’s unfair ruling, gone to the Fields of Asphodel and paced away until my essence thinned and I was mist and smoke. Until my mind was dust. Until I was nothing and no one. And yet…
And yet, I was Adrias Lucion.
I was Adrias Lucion, sometimes called Adrias Heraklion, and I would climb a mountain if there was one to climb, steal a fortune if there was one to steal, and I would claim a crown if there was one to claim.
Most of all, if there was firewood to burn, I would burn it. Adrias the Servus had been dry wood and the ring that had transformed me into an Imperator had been the spark to light it. Now, I was unquenchable. I had tasted power and found it not enough to silence my thirst and now nothing would suffice but renown and greatness beyond even gods.
I was Adrias Lucion before I was Adrias Heraklion, and I knew what it was like to be worthless. To be the second son of a poor family on a distant planet from Terra that lacked even a single Imperator. Others might have feared the darkness and isolation of Tartaros, but at least they were remembered. At least they had been something, ancient villains or banished titanic deities or the cloned children of the richest of Imperial houses that could afford to create such creatures. They had had worth and they had had glory. Before the ring I had nothing. I had been nothing.
Tartaros held no fear for me, because if you were damned there it meant that your existence had been enough for gods and kings to despise you. In Elysium and Asphodel and Tartaros there were no more worlds to conquer or greatness to be seized if you stayed there, and that made them empty grandeur to me. Garbage. Trash in gold and beaches, trash in grey and fields, trash in black and silence.
To accept the Underworld was to accept that your story was told. My story had yet to be heard by the whole of the Dominium, it had not been etched onto every surface and stone, and so it had not been finished. Anything that stood in my way I would rip or tear until I was bathed in grandeur.
Elysium had been ground to dust by my command and we sailed across the waters dividing this false paradise from its walls to rejoin with Achilles, King of Heroes, and the Brights of Asphodel. I would arm those Brights, anoint them with stolen Nectar and Ambrosia, and travel with them to turn ten thousand legions of Blurs in the Fields into Brights second only to Achilles.
And then we would smash the natural order of life and order, tear it asunder, and defy Hades himself so that we could return to mortal life once more. To do anything was less than Tartaros itself to me. I would rather rage in captivity until the stars burned out than to kneel to mediocrity and self-made weakness for a day.
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What was true damnation but the worst thing one could imagine? The worst thing I could imagine was not loneliness or pain or exhaustion, I had tolerated all of those without complaint, the worst thing was to be nothing and no one. Comfort and ease were lies told to make you complacent and my only truth was that I could not be anything other than what I already chose to be.
“Adrias.” 13 said as he came to the front of the ship, his footsteps creeping along the deck.
“Yes.” I said.
“I wanted to tell you that we have permanently extinguished every life on the shores of the Isles of the Blessed.” 13 said. There was no emotion in his voice, no joy nor sadness despite the accomplishment of his mission to free his people from Elysium. “Our final remainder is leaving the isles now.”
“Good.” I said. I wondered if I should feel something more about countless Elysian deaths and the destruction of their paradise. I didn’t feel anything at all for their loss. They were my enemies and they opposed what I sought and hurt those I empathized with, so I annihilated them. Nothing more, nothing less.
Where others might have found guilt, I only found glory.
“I had wondered if the burden of the command would have weighed upon you.” 13 said.
“If it had, Kronos wouldn’t have chosen me.” I replied. “We both had the same answer to what the most powerful force in the universe is.”
“Hatred.” 13 echoed.
“Just so.” I said. “What happiness cannot reach, hunger will, and what hunger cannot gain, hatred will seize. I hate anything that would make a slave of me or those I care about and so they became ash.”
“And do hunger and hatred have no bounds?”
“Only those that are self-imposed.” I said.
“And what constrictions do you place upon yourself, my Lord of Sutures?” 13 said.
“I’ll let you know when I’ve committed a sin I cannot bear. For now, I know that my pride and bloodlust cannot get in the way of my goals.” I said. Easy enough to say when no savagery could be forbidden with these stakes in the Underworld.
The head Larua nodded.
“Why ask these questions now?” I said, eyeing him. The unstitched Larua had never questioned or wondered after my motives after the Titan had given his blessing to me. That had been enough to obey my will and sanction my orders. I would have guessed that he knew the answers to those questions by now with the strange connection that linked me to the servant army. Perhaps the fullness of my ambition wasn’t able to be confined to the Larua’s telepathic transfer web of secrets and memories.
“I merely wished to understand my leader.” 13 said. “The aftermath of a victory seemed the best time to see how you felt, whatever qualms you had that weren’t swept aside by the splendor of success are ones I would have liked to hear.”
“Then understand I have no qualms.” I said as we reached the shores of the walls. “I’m here to fight and win, not weep and despair.”
I jumped aside onto land and the great gates of Elysium opened on my call to reveal the waiting army and the King of Heroes. He walked forward to meet me, his golden eyes shining and his red hair’s color as rich and vibrant as fresh blood.
“When the gates didn’t open upon your arrival, I had worried perhaps that you had cut a deal and had abandoned us.” Achilles said.
“If there was anything I wanted in there, I wouldn’t have burned it to the ground.” I responded.
“Fair enough.” The King of Heroes said, peering over my shoulder at the distant rising smoke. “What have you brought for me?”
“An army of servants enhanced by experimentation with Nectar and Infernal Beast blood, and with them the arms, armor, and divine sustenance meant to fulfill the Blessed’s unquenchable thirst. In short, more than we expected, but less than guaranteed victory.” I said.
“I’ll take it. Nothing worth fighting for is assured so neither should escaping death be so. A little windfall is grace enough.” Achilles said.
There was still tiredness in him, but he was covering it up mostly. Most people could look at him without realizing he was worn to utmost, like a blade sharpened until all the metal was gone. So long as he could maintain himself long enough for us to return to the realm of mortals, it didn’t matter. He just had to hold on that long and I would feel the splendor of my Imperator’s body again and the chance to earn more acclaim.
“More than a little windfall,” I said. “But we’ll see how the Laruas do in battle. We should take gladness, we have what we wanted without Hades knowing and with the gain of a new army.”
“It’s impressive that you managed to turn all of them. And surprising.” Achilles said.
I shrugged. “I’m a persuasive public speaker.”
I refrained from telling him that I had Kronos’s aid, I couldn’t trust anyone fully if I wanted to escape death’s clutches and I didn’t know how Achilles would react.