It felt like a mule had kicked me.

I snapped to awareness as I lay floating in a sea of molten metal and rock. Shards of my armor were digging themselves out of my skin and reforming as I stared hazily above.

Just in time for Nero Aezion’s feet to slam into my abdomen, nearly causing me to vomit up the ring and sphere far too early. He was armored in azure psychic plate, intricate and elegant, and I seized his legs in death grips, the constructs cracking and boiling in my burning grasp.

Nero’s armor shifted and warped, even as I held onto it, his legs were slipping out of the shape like he was pulling them out of boots, leaving me holding empty outlines that quickly dissolved into thin air.

The parts of my helmet nearest my mouth slid away to make an opening like ice melting underneath sunlight, and I breathed out golden flames that scorched his shoulder as he dodged to the side.

I stood and rocketed through the air, chasing the other Gold down with a sword of light and burning anger. People had died, and I knew that they would, but it still was bitter anyways. When I had fought in the Red Sands arena, the audience only had to watch, they were never in any danger, and they were only there to witness the triumphs and tragedies. My triumphs and tragedies, never theirs.

The two Imperators were constantly scraping at my consciousness to follow them into the Cognitosphere where certain destruction lay.

The main problem wasn’t strength, but speed and opportunity. Nero was monstrously fast, in flight, in fighting, even in running on molten material, so much so that it was more of hunt than a duel. That would be difficult enough, but still manageable, if it weren’t for the fact, he had a partner.

Vespasias was slower but as a fellow Afrit Order Imperator, his control of and almost perfect invulnerability to heat and incineration took all the bite out of my strongest attacks. Every time I closed the distance on Nero, the other Gold would pounce from above or below or the side.

Speaking of which, I turned just as he was rushing in yet again.

“Shatter!” I roared, focusing all my will and borrowed authority on Vespasias’s breastplate, before hammering my gauntleted left fist into it.

Spiderweb cracks shot through it, but it held.

I could practically feel his amusement. Mental constructs weren’t true matter or energy and this one was under the mastery of a Fourth Rank Imperator, it held adamantly steadfast.

Which is why I had planned more for it.

I latched onto his shoulders and then followed through with my knee, cracking it further.

Once more with a divine command, or three times without. I thought.

I could feel Nero whipping towards me, and I made the hast decision to kick him the face, the resulting shock sending us both flying through the air.

Flight gave a man false assurance that even the sky would give him leverage and stability, but that surety only lasted until you couldn’t control the situation. Then you were just falling in a random direction.

Catching myself, I went back to the game of chasing one only to get tag teamed just before the lethal moment of carnage and slaughter.

Power. I needed raw power. These two had thousands of years to practice and hone their abilities, the only true advantage I had was semi-divinity. It was my edge on them, but the fear remained that I would lose control entirely. I wished for the same inhuman strength that I had against the dragon-man Subgovernor on the planet of Amatius but reaching that had required the emotional trauma of losing Toni and I wasn’t willing to let him die again so easily.

A construct of a box formed in my stomach, and then another around that, and a third around the second. The psychic construction was intended to shield the ring and the sphere inside me from getting far too toasted for their own good.

“Do not break or burn.” I told myself quietly, aiming the intent of the holy words at the box. No doubt the Golds were confused on who I was speaking to, there was no way to hide my voice from their senses no matter how whispered it was.

With that dubious protection in place, I opened myself up to victory or self-immolation.

“Make me burn with godhood as Heracles did on his pyre.” I ordered my own flesh and bone pleasantly in one of the most foolish plans I had ever made, even with my Afrit Order protection. Persias had tried to make me promise that this idea would only be a hypothetical.

Exalted organs and enhanced tissues screamed within me as the scorching energies enveloped me. There was pain right up until the surge hit my mind and then it just became fearless fury and encompassing ecstasy.

My skin burned and my exposed muscles and veins glowed like coals, my golden armor blowing to smithereens from built up pressure. I almost forgot about my enemies right up until Vespasias fired some little contraption at my head, puncturing the bone.

I pulled the projectile out and crushed it. Puny and weak.

Telepathic messages slithered near my mind, but I ignored them.

Nero came close, saying something, but nothing seemed to matter anymore. I backhanded him with a hand that was mostly bone, sending him flying.

What was I supposed to be doing? The thrill of the rush and the noise in my head made it so hard to focus.

I was…

“-idiot, you’re setting the atmosphere on fire!” A voice came distantly.

What?

Vespasias came nearer and I realized the voice was him. I struggled to remember what he had said, but the ancient voices that the pyre flames brought with them were so damn loud.

He was shouting, but I still couldn’t hear. I reached out and snapped his wrist, then went for his neck.

“You’ll kill all of your people!” Vespasias shouted.

That caught my attention. What was he talking about? Why would-

I looked around, with my real eyes not just my enhanced senses that could be more easily hijacked by the pyre’s delusions, and saw that the sheer heat I was putting out was killing far more than his bomb had.

Victory has a price, the godly forces within whispered to me. You wanted this. What does it matter? These foes are merely distracting you, they don’t really care.

Emotions warred inside me before I remembered my promise earlier before the fight.

I had said to my governmental officials that, I remember my mortal life. I remember the face of my mother and the feeling of being one more soul in an endless sea of them. These two Golds will not and that is the difference between us. You have my word, upon my honor and upon my bloodline, that I will do everything possible to contain the threat and to minimize mass devastation during combat.

The divine might I had called into me craved destruction, but it didn’t appreciate oathbreakers or liars. And I didn’t appreciate killing innocents without a point when other paths existed. Or hoped they existed, at least.

The heat resisted my will for it to recede.

“Cool down.” I told myself, sagging in exhaustion.

Then I caught a diamond scaled fist to my unprotected face, fracturing my jaw and sending me diving into the liquid metal.

“You should just give in, fight in mental warfare and avoid all this death.” He said.

It was time for Plan C. I would have held off longer, but I had ruined more than I had expected already. I dissolved to protective container in my stomach and vomited up the Governor’s signet ring, the vessel that held the spatially warped and shrunken Scholarium.

I put it on. Persias had warned me never to damage it lest the warping come undone and horrific consequences ensued.

“Hey,” I called to Vespasias as he drew near. “Want a free education?”

“What?”

With telekinesis, I ripped open a crack in the face of the signet ring. Three mountains and a castle came out, rapidly expanding as they reentered real space at high velocity.

Right into Vespasias Flavion’s sneering face.

What came up must come down though, and I knew with a heavy heart that when the mass of the enlarged school and its grounds came down, it would destroy even more.

It bought time though.

Precious time to decide what I could do while Nero approached and while Vespasias pieced himself back together.

Trying to call in Heracles’s prowess had failed, it was strong enough to slaughter these bastards, but my mortal mind couldn’t rein it in to do anything and the longer it took for me to act, the more of the planet burned from my body heat.

I couldn’t fight them normally, both because I straight up couldn’t and because I had damaged myself in a way that would take much longer to fully heal.

That meant that Plan B couldn’t be used normally. There was no way I could beat up one of them enough that Antonias could latch on and drink their blood while I engaged the other Gold.

Searching out through the wreckage and devastation, I found Antonias’s mind even as Nero landed and started pulverizing my face.

“Toni. Change of plans,” I thought to him as I headbutted Nero. “I’m going into the Cognitosphere. You’ll feed on one of them while the three of us are immobile.”

“I thought the Regent told you not to do that.” Antonias sent back.

The realm of minds was something my grandfather had forbidden on the basis I would get my brains scrambled. I just had to hope that my friend would kill one of them fast enough. Triggering the teleport receiver in my stomach that connected to the one in Toni’s, I then closed my eyes.

For the first time, I stretched my consciousness into astral form.