One never felt so popular and appreciated as when they were surrounded by gunships and hordes of flying Silver Imperators.

“Keep her steady.” I told the crew. They were professionals and bred for it under the Path of sailors, but the sight of impending doom swarming around our ship like a flock of predatory birds was enough to quicken their beating hearts and make their fingers tremble.

“They’re going to tear us to shreds if we keep moving.” One pilot protested.

“If they wanted to do that, the Silvers would have already teleported in to rush Toni and I.” I said. “Keep calm, keep moving.”

That was not entirely true. Enough weaponry and high levels of cultivation and they would probably be able destroy the ship before Toni or I could protect the whole length. The killzone in the aerial cyclone of the defensive forces was looking grim, especially with the number of fightercraft or levitating Imperators growing with every passing second.

This was much more of a threat than the accelerator ring’s watchposts, and the ‘real knife to my throat’ was whether or not I cared to preserve the lives of everyone onboard my flagship. I did, but they couldn’t know for sure until they tried it.

Killing intent was flaring from Toni, his warped halo appearing. The crewmates shuddered.

“Calm down.” I said to my friend.

“Because the welcoming party will shoot us?” Toni asked, his frightening aura receding a bit.

“Because you’re going to make our pilots have heart attacks.” I said.

“Fine.” He grumbled.

I switched to telepathy. “This is very, very strange though.”

“They’re guarding us too.” Toni sent back silently. “The inside of the swarm of ships has most of their weapons pointed right at us. Like, literally at us, you and me-“

“I got it. Cut to the chase.” I replied.

“But the exterior side has them pointed outwards.” Toni said in my mind.

“Could just be standard procedure for suspect arrivals moving into the Palace’s airspace. Majority ready to shred us, the remainder prepared to protect us as important visitors.” I sent back.

“I can smell the division in them.” Antonias thought to me. “Like two packs of wolves forced into the same territory.”

I extended my perception, my eyes piercing through solid metal to get a better understanding.

“They’re wearing different uniforms. Slightly altered ones.” I realized.

“You pick up being a fashion expert in your free time?” He said.

“Shut up, Toni.”

Subtle, almost unnoticeable variations, things I would have not picked up on more because of their mediocrity than inability to peer into places I wasn’t supposed to be looking into.

The metallic composition of the cufflinks on uniforms were varied, the soldiers more hostile to us had Jovium buttons on their sleeves versus the ones protecting the outside wore cheaper cufflinks of alloyed gold and nickel metal.

Minor changes in fabric material, finer quality in the antagonistic guards and rougher textures in the uniforms of the unknown.

Puzzling. Was this an economic disparity between my grandfather’s underlings? The poorer side liking me out of some strange sense of kinship?

My unease kept growing.

We had uncloaked and the nature of our purpose and verification of my identity was being broadcasted since the flagship had broken through the upper edges of Terra’s atmosphere. This made little sense, they knew who I was, and my identity was pretty polarizing in these times, a uniform opinion should have been reached. One leaning far to the extreme of trying to murder me to the last man or to honoring me as a scion of their true master.

Augustas had all kinds of enemies and was creating more by the moment with his plans coming to fulfillment. If these were Imperators and their servants who were worried about being replaced by humanoids shaped and sculpted to Augustas’s liking, then they would not be escorting me to the Palace unharmed. The same with if they were the minions of the two demigods or the Heavens themselves.

I distracted myself by watching the surface through a monitor as we neared the Palace. I had gone in spiritual form before, but this was another thing altogether.

The Regent’s Palace complex was massive, a monument to the enduring backbone of the Dominium. It stretched in diameter wide enough to fit cities in its grounds, and it dominated the landscape. There was great artistry in the carved columns, but no color. Nothing that suggested lavish luxury or regal opulence, only a brooding testament to one man’s will to master the universe.

The flow of hovercraft to and from the Palace in all directions made me think of the branching veins of a leaf.

“At least they’re letting us skip the line, eh?” Toni said to me, nudging my shoulder with a partially stretched wing.

“Don’t test them, you know some of them can hear us.” I said telepathically to him.

“Roger that. I’ll alert you if I happen to find your sense of humor.” Toni said.

The traffic swam through the air like scared fish as our escorts brought us directly to the palace.

“They want you to exit the ship, Lord Adrias.” The Navita captain of the ship said to me, reading from a transmission’s transcript on his screen.

“Fetch Livia.” I said to Toni. “And Persias too or he’ll complain.”

“Alone.” The captain said nervously. “They want you to go alone and meet with Augustas within the Imperial Palace. In the-“

“-the laboratory.” I said, thinking of every meeting I had had with him through visions.

“No, sir. They want you to go to the Temple of Remembrance.” The captain said.

I had no idea where that was.

And while I did not mind leaping into the unknown, I did dislike leaving my own crew and followers behind while I left them.

“Sir, what should we do if they attempt to board us after you have left?” The captain said nervously.

Very aware that armed forces outside our hull would be listening while our shields were down, I spoke.

“Captain, are you frightened of my good friend Toni?” I said. “Speak freely.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Captain, are you frightened of my good friend Antonias Calion, resurrected Leechling and Fourth Rank Imperator, my brother in arms, the man who drained Nero Aezion’s blood like a juice box to seize Gold?” I said. That got a reaction outside.

“…yes, sir.”

“Good,” I said. “Because if our lovely hosts come in here to harm or imprison my dearly cherished crew, Toni will teach them why they should be too.”

“Hell yeah,” Toni said, rubbing his palms together.

I teleported upwards, flickering to a standing position up on top of my flagship. Automatic weaponry mounted on fightercraft hovering above and landed around us pointed directly at my face. I turned, getting a good look at all of them, staring through tinted cockpit windows directly into their pilots’ eyes.

No words, no flames, no ranting.

Just a cold reminder that even if they thought I wasn’t watching them in particular, that I was. And that I knew which ones among them flinched when I met their gaze.

I leapt from the roof of the hull, an arcing fall that I cushioned with levitation to avoid shattering my grandfather’s steps that lead to an entry gate. Onlookers and fellow visitors to the Palace scrambled out of my way, even before I got close to them.

The pattern held as I entered the cavernous halls, great corridors emptying before me. I had no idea where to look for Augustas. The computer systems would not link with my mind and the only way I could grab someone to use as a guide would probably be considered kidnapping and would involve flying at high speed while screaming in someone’s mind telepathically to help me find a map.

I tried my nose, but I was not Toni.

I tried my eyes, but the Palace’s walls had some material in them that blocked my unnatural vision.

As a last resort, I tried my ears and listened for his heartbeat, something too herculean and potent to be anyone else. Levitation made it faster, but the Regent’s domain was as massive as I remembered as a projection.

Finally, I came to worn oak doors in an older section of the Palace. The marble walls seemed to be yellowing from oxidation.

Even the lights were archaic, flickering glass bulbs that hummed with vibrating filaments.

I knocked on the doors, feeling small next to them despite my seven feet of height.

“Open,” said Augustas to the doors. He spoke with his own voice rather than another’s.

“Grandfather.” I said, before taking a knee. This was the first time meeting him for real, might as well make it a little more formal.

“Rise.” Augustas said. His beard and hair had been tamed for once, though he wore simple clothing. Clean, and sized for a giant, but nothing that deserved to be worn by an emperor.

“Take a look around.” He said, waving a gigantic hand around in the direction of the displays.

Primitive knives preserved in stasis fields to avoid rusting, works of art like oil paintings sealed in glass displays, aged scrolls and books on the verge of disintegration lined the room.

“The Temple of Remembrance is an apt name.” I said, without the knowledge to really know the true value of the artifacts.

“Temple of Remembrance?” Augustas chuckled. “Is that what they’re calling it now?”

“Just a museum then?” I said.

“I call it my room of keepsakes and souvenirs.” Augustas said. “Fine time that you came, the conflicts are beginning to boil over.”

“Had an odd situation on the flight to the Palace.” I said.

“Oh?”

“We were surrounded by an escort swarm of aircraft and Silvers, and it seemed like most of them were very unhappy with us but wouldn’t shoot and the remaining were guarding the exterior. Oh, and their uniforms were strange as well. The angry ones had nice quality uniforms while the more agreeable soldiers had cheaper clothing. Gold alloys rather than Jovium, different fabric.” I said.

“They’re all my descendants. Your family, indirectly. Heraklions. Nations’ worth of them after all this time though I had few children. The ones who dress more shabbily, shall we say, do so to emulate me. Material extravagance is less to my taste than many others.” Augustas said.

“They are angry about me or about your experiments.” I guessed.

“My bloodline likes to get angry about lots of things. It comes with the ingrained belief that they should be special because of their ancestry while also being made expendable by how numerous they are.” Augustas said.

“Well, I told my crew and them indirectly that Antonias would show our escorts why my crew is terrified of him.” I said.

“Might as well get some use out of his diseased mutations.” He grunted. “Your handiwork leaves something to be desired at times.”

“About that.” I said. “I had another incident with altering someone and them living with damage.”

“In what manner, Grandson?” Augustas said.

“The medical and biological testing kind.” I said.

Interest flared in his eyes.

“Go on.” He said. “Always heartwarming to see one of my family members follow in my footsteps.”

“I had an… old friend, I guess, who knew me since the beginning on Lavinius. She was a Servus and convinced me to make her into an Imperator.” I said.

“What was your process?” The Regent asked.

“I combined scrimshawed runes on her bones, rejuvenation nanites, alchemy and divine command together to reverse her apparent age to an embryo and then alter her genetics then and there. After I put her back to her normal age and she started bleeding. Bleeding that Heracles’s voice would not stop.” I said.

He furrowed his brow. “That does not sound so overly unsuccessful a plan to go that wrong. A Copper Servus to Copper Imperator should be within your reach.”

“Livia was a Silver Servus.” I admitted.

My grandfather didn’t speak for a moment.

“I see. And how did you solve this?” Augustus said.

“I purged her with flame of spiritual resistance. It affected her memories and she still bleeds from the face periodically.” I said. “I was hoping you could help fix her.”

“Boy, that was uniquely foolish of you. And stupid as well.” He replied.

“I didn’t give her anything other than baseline Imperator instead of using my own blood, I took precautions to limit the risk.” I said.

“It is good that you did not give the girl your genetics. Your work was still crude and amateurish. The backlash of being made into a Silver Imperator is nasty enough on her spirit, but trying to make her exactly like you and to replicate my gift would have defiled her.” Augustas said.

“Killed her, you mean.” I said.

“Only if you were lucky.”

“And if I was not?” I asked.

“Then she would live on as a folded and warped mess of agonized nerves and twisting muscle. It is in this universe’s cold reality. For every action, there is an equal force against it in reaction. The harder you defy nature, the harder it pushes back.” He said.

“Until something breaks.” I whispered.

“Until someone breaks usually.” Augustas said. “An unfortunate observation, but long true in my experience.”

“Surely you’ve made mistakes in your time.” I said.

“Oh yes.” He said. “You may claim that your foolishness came from myself, if you wish. Many a wretched mistake.”

“What kinds of wretched mistakes?” I said.

“We started with in vitro fertilization. At first it was to try and reverse infertility amongst our Path, but then it became to select for superior specimens of the bloodlines. Why leave your children’s appearances and abilities up to chance?” Augustas said.

“And then it went further.” I said.

“Yes. If the limits of human excellence has been reached, why stop there?” He said rhetorically.

I watched as he began to pace, lost in old failures.

“Do you know what damned our Path, Adrias?” Augustas said. “Guess.”

“Pride. Anger.” I said, throwing out answers. “Greed and gluttony.”

“Those came in time, but first it was envy. Despite our preeminence, despite our appointed place on the throne of humanity, Imperators began to envy what few gifts the gods had doled out to the other Paths. The beauty of a Hetaera, the strength and bulk of a Campeador, the speed and grace of the Venator. It wasn’t enough to be first among many, our Imperial brethren began to want to be the best in every attribute and trait.” Augustas said.

“It leads to inefficiency.” I said.

“It leads to degeneracy.” Augustas said. “And I allowed and encouraged it because I thought it was merely just another example of our Path securing power. The advancements I gave the Dominium corrupted the Path’s spirit even in the bloodlines that never altered their purity.”

“How did it do so? I’m not sure I fully follow.” I said.

“Imperators of this empire think their Path is about being nobles or leaders or kings. It is not. They think this because our resources are used to make everything easy. The genetic modification of Imperators has long since been a crutch to soothe egos. To gain stature and wealth, they distort themselves with engineered advantages, not knowing that the relative difficulty is the point. Our Ranks come from conquering, not ruling, and the value of the victory is determined by the struggle.” He said.

“Am I not the same as them though? I too am a lab experiment, a Servus coming across a castoff ring and becoming an Imperator. I’m as artificial as any.” I said.

Green vines curled around my hand as I held it up. A hint of distaste lit in his golden eyes when he looked at them.

“The difference is in the result. There are many Heraklions, but only one of my blood speaks with thunder and wears fire. You deviate in some more ways than I’d like, but the outcome speaks for itself. Come look at this.” Augustas said.

He walked over to a glass case and showed me a stone carved with runes.

“Do you know this script, Adrias?”

“I got a Scholarium education.” I said. “I know how to read Thaekyrian. More or less.”

“Thaekyrian was the language spoken by my people, the first major Imperator polity after the gift of the Paths. I meant if you knew the origin of it. The true one, not what you might have been fed as a Servus.” Augustas said.

“Given by the gods?” I said.

“Hardly. The runes of Thaekyr were Germanic letters, ones called Elder Futhark. And the language of Old Thaekyrian was not even quite a distinct dialect from Alemannic. Only later did we manage to cannibalize Rome’s Latin to add to it during the First Conquering of Terra.” The Regent said to me.

“All things march to Chronos’s beat.” I said.

“And what would you say is the reason why immortals and the long lived would continually mash their languages apart with the addition of new ones?” He asked.

“Your people, the young and non-Imperators, spoke new things in new ways inevitably. Street slang works its way up the ranks eventually, distance creates dialects. The undying have to adapt to control the future generations.” I said.

“If I wanted to keep Old Thaekyrian as a tongue, I’d enforce it by making all commerce and legal matters required to read, write and speak it fluently. I let the words of my mother and her ancestors fall to the wayside because I came to find it ugly and primitive.” Augustas said.

“Then Dominese is the perfect hybrid of linguistic features,” I guessed. “Give or take some drift over the ages.”

“What we communicate with now is a constructed language of my own making. I leave nothing now if I can up to the fumbling fingers of Man or the meager charity of Heaven. Purity is being flawlessly fit for one’s role. It is why I despise the disgusting mashing together of the Path’s genetics by noble houses and their scientists. Different is not better. Form and function being seamlessly united is.” Augustas said.

“And yet you rise up above your ordained place as a demigod and an Imperator.” I said.

“That which does not change, Adrias, cannot grow. And that which does not grow decays.” My grandfather mused.

“Even those with immortality?” I asked. It seemed a contradiction of the word’s meaning.

“Oh, they decay, they just don’t die.” He replied. “Even Zeus’s inaction tells me as much about his fitness for the throne of the cosmos as his actions do.”

“It didn’t sound like we’d be fighting the elderly in the heavens from what you have previously said.” I said.

“Not a physical lessening, a mental one. You could make a man’s skin and bones indestructible, heal every organ instantly the moment it is even slightly damaged, but the mind is the weak point even as it sits in the body that remains young and strong. You’ve managed to escape the Underworld and defeated Vespasias and Nero for this reason. The weight of millennium after millennium shredded their minds while their physical bodies remained as glorious as when they ascended to Gold. An Imperator cannot regress in Rank, but they became less than they were when they earned it. Time ravaged them more, I think now, than perhaps even other factors.” Augustas said.

“You kept them in captivity here though.” I said. “I think that was the crux of Vespasias’s ravings.”

“They could never embark upon what you and I are doing in challenging Zeus. The universe itself would become their cage, the Nine would have forged their own chains. Our Path’s advancement and nature does not select for people who know how to shatter their sword and live humbly after they seize their last dominating victory.” Augustas said.

“And this is true of all things that last for eternity?” I asked carefully. There was an unspoken flaw in his words.

“Yes.” He replied.

“What about you, once you reach Platinum?” I said. “Will you not truly live forever?”

What cancers lay in your subconscious? What cracks in your psyche? I wondered.

“Platinum Rank will make the mind as eternal as the flesh. It freezes what you already are in a living stasis.” The Regent said.

A new error presented itself to me to replace the first. Augustas was ancient now, having lived even longer than the Nine.

“There is one more thing waiting for you here, Adrias. One might say it has been waiting for you for the last ten thousand years.” Augustas said.

I followed his gaze towards the back of the hall to a glass exhibit covered in cloth. Somehow, I couldn’t see through it anymore than the walls of the Palace.