I thought I knew what it meant to be a god. Turns out, I only knew what it meant to borrow a fraction of one’s power and bind it to an Imperator’s body with brazen will and impetuous rage. Gods did not hold their authority and might on loan from another though, they simply were above and apart and beyond what the twelve Paths and a mortal soul could accomplish. An entity truly born to look down on mortals from the peak of Mount Olympas would not damage themselves with their energies as I did with Heracles’s fires tearing through me, they could not be harmed by their own birthright.

The cold facts were that I had merely been a counterfeit godling made by Augustas’s genetic science and my own determination.

When Hades walked towards us, the stone ground of the Underworld rippled like a pond that had had a stone tossed into it. When he breathed, reality twisted to the point physics started break down, each inhalation warping space and each exhalation bending time. Was the Corpsefather ten feet away or ten miles? Had it been ten seconds or ten years since he had unveiled himself invisibility?

My mouth went dry.

“I’m a fool.” I whispered, my heartbeat pounding in my chest so hard I heard it in my ears.

A striking realization had pounced upon me like a lion seizing an antelope. Hades wasn’t just a ruler, a king, a Governor of the Underworld, he was it. The magics that ran the teleportation systems that sent souls from the Hall of Judgment directly to Asphodel, Elysium or Tartarus were not just technologies he had ordered built as this realm’s monarch; they were forged into existence by his singular command. Crafted with his voice. The Infernal Beasts spawned to act as guards and soldiers were not born but instead dreamed by Hades into unholy flesh to be nightmares for the rest of us.

It kept going and going. The list of roles and my position as Lord of Sutures and the Laruas were able to be taken advantage of by me in my schemes only because the Corpsefather had inscribed the careers into that paper and devised the creatures of 13’s race. The Head Larua spoke because Hades had taken off 13’s stitches to make the dead clone more useful to whoever was the current Lord of Sutures.

A king ruled because his collective people or his nobles or his generals agreed to serve him. A divinity ruled because nothing could stand against him and win.

“Stay.” Achilles told us. It was like an iron bar was holding me back.

He stepped forward, his Ghostforged spear ready in his right hand and a shield taken from Elysium’s armories in his left. Scaled mail of shining metal covered him though he wore no helm. His red hair danced in the wind caused by Hades’s movements. His daring courage and fortitude in the face of overwhelming power stilled my panic and steadied my nerve. If I was going to lose and be damned to Tartaros, it would be in the presence of a legend.

“Adrias.” 13 said urgently to me.

“What?” I said, not daring to take my eyes off of the approaching deity and the King of Heroes’ nobility and grace.

“It’s nearly time for Kronos’s plan. The thing in my pocket is two vials of the Titan’s blood.”

“What??” I hissed.

I thought with feverish speed, momentarily distracted from the coming battle. My grandfather was trading Kronos his own flesh in exchange for the Titan’s blood. Was it some strange hack of the cultivation of the body and soul, an exchange of essences they both consumed that in some way equaled more than the sum of their parts? It did not quite make sense, they would both regenerate flesh and blood as I did, but if the ichor that ran in the Regent’s veins was so potent that it would be of value to Kronos, what benefit did my grandfather get from something comparable or lesser to his own?

“We will use them to prevail, he says. Or at least, what I think he’s trying to say. It’s all bits and pieces.” 13 told me. “The Titan still won’t tell me everything anyways.”

Hades and Achilles had reached each other, and my attention was once more stolen back to the duel about to erupt into action.

“You cannot hope to beat me,” The Corpsefather said. It was as much a proclamation as it was supernatural rhetoric designed to stab at the King of Heroes’ soul. “Not even in life could you have bested me and now you are only a shade of yourself.”

“If you believe that, then why are you still speaking?” Achilles replied, and lifted a wineskin filled with Nectar to his lips and drained it, throwing it aside.

A mace of jagged obsidian, crackling with black lightning, formed from inky smoke in the god’s hand. It seemed to have a gravity to it, its weight reminiscent of a planet’s, one that dragged at all of us as Hades swung the black weapon above his head and down in an arc.

My breath caught. Achilles, no matter how great a man he once had been, was only a ghost and the shield he bore was only enchanted bronze, metal charged with that enchantment by the god he was facing. Surely it would shatter-

And then the King of Heroes’ Brightness blazed from him as bright as Apollo, the Infernal Beast’s tarnished bronze shield becoming gold and his white Ghostforged spear a thunderbolt frozen in time.

When the mace struck the shield, light and dark warred and a shockwave rippled outward. It smashed into us, my skin tearing in places and a tooth cracking.

When the dust cleared, Achilles was still standing.

His radiance was diminished, just enough that I could barely make out his figure, but Achilles was still standing after blocking the blow of the Corpsefather. He brought his lightning spear forward in a savage thrust, but the god pushed it aside with a flick of his obsidian mace.

Again and again the ghost of the greatest warrior in history and the master of all that has died went at each other. Every moment Achilles stayed on his feet was a victory and the entirety of our remaining soldiers cheered as if he had just won the games of old at Olympia each time the King of Heroes weathered a hit unflinchingly.

I noticed in my peripheral vision that 13 had taken the vials of Kronos’s blood out and was staring at them. His expression was harder to read with his all-red eyes and his usual gloomy demeanor, but the stitchless Larua looked positively ill.

“Cheer up,” I said. “At this rate, we might not even need the Titan’s plots. Achilles might just drive off an actual god and then we can mop up the Infernal Beasts and make our escape!”

“No, he won’t.” 13 said with bitterness, his scarred lips stretching with every mournful word.

“What? He’s doing fantastic.” I said.

“Look closer. Without the bias and hero worship.”

I bristled but did so and found an ugly truth. Achilles was slowing, his Brightness was dimming, chips of gold were spraying with every block.

And Hades still had a cold look of bored annoyance. No matter how valiantly the hero of the Trojan War fought, the Corpsefather never became enraged with frustration and never showed any sign of fatigue.

“We should attack! Help him!” I said, straining against the command Achilles had put on us.

“It won’t help.” 13 said, his face pale.

“There’s over five hundred thousand of us!” I said. My tension was growing as the fight grew more dire and prolonged.

“Most of them wouldn’t be able to break the command and you’re still nothing to him. He could toss you all around like leaves in a hurricane, none of you are like Achilles. I’m telling you; it won’t help.” 13 said hollowly. “Kronos said it won’t. Only his plan will.”

“Okay, let’s do that!”

“I think I might want to go to Tartaros rather than do it, but… but Kronos is going to make me.”

“What if I opposed him? Ordered you not to.” I said.

“You won’t. You’ll agree with him. He’s seen it.” 13 said darkly but didn’t elaborate further.

The lightning spear scraped Hades’s cheek but with dread I noticed that it barely cut the skin and no divine blood leaked out. The next time that black mace hammered into the golden shield, it shattered into hundreds of dull bronze shards. Achilles roared, drawing out his illumination to its fullest once more, and rammed his electrified spear into the god of the dead’s chest.

With casual disdain, Hades pulled it out of his chest with left hand and then snapped it. Achilles’s radiance winked out, but he still threw a punch with his shieldless free hand.

Hades caught it easily and crushed the bones. “This was foolish of you. You should have stayed in your Fields, little hero. You could have had grey tranquility now you and your dogs will have black damnation.”

“I will never submit. I will never give up even if I am dragged to the Pit.” Achilles growled. “To live in Asphodel or Tartaros would both be equally hell in their own way.”

“Then I will give you the peace you desire.”

The deity reached into Achilles’s chest, his hand sinking into the King of Heroes like the mail armor and the skin weren’t even there, like Achilles’s body was intangible. When Hades pulled the heart out, I was reminded with horror of how Ghostforged weapons and tools were made.

“Know no more.” Hades said, crushing the heart.

The King of Heroes turned to stone and then crumbled to dust just as Callidas and Maximos in Elysium had done when I stabbed them with the Laruas’ poisoned blade. One of the greatest men of all time, gone forever. It was enough to make you spit blood and weep venom.

The remainder of our army ran, five-hundred thousand of them, leaving only two thousand Laruas, Fish, me, Pollixa and 13. I’d hate the deserters for abandoning us, but they had just seen Achilles himself die and I had no doubt that the Corpsefather would hunt down each and every one of those who had spurned his offer once and now were trying to hide from him.

I noticed Hades was staring at us, and then felt my skin crawl when I realized he was staring at me. Directly at me.

“Adrias Lucion. You already cheated death once from my hellhounds with your transformation into an Imperator. You won’t cheat me again.” The god called over to me.

Pollixa stared at me, breaking her long standing habit of ignoring me since I had told her how she had died.

“Transformation… into an Imperator?” She said.

“13, I think its time for plan B.” I said nervously.

“I know.” He said with scarlet tears pouring down his face as he stared at the two vials in his hands. “I know.”

“What is so damn bad about Kronos’s plan?” I demanded.

“He needs someone connected to the Larua network with the ability to talk and drink his blood so they can say something to Hades with Kronos’s divine voice.” 13 said. “It would have to be you or me.”

“Again, what’s so bad about the plan??” I asked. I already had experience speaking with Heracles’s voice, what was different about this? I reached for the vials, but he pulled away.

“Whoever drinks a titan’s blood will die a true death like Achilles. And he’ll make me drink it so you can fulfill his visions and help kill Zeus.” 13 said miserably.