“A well-intentioned goal. The hearts of humans were a blank slate in the beginning as well. Make every one of them into masters in a universe without servants will set them free of slavery by heritage, but not of slavery forged by the warlord’s sword and the debt collector’s scroll. Take away their ancient grudges and they’ll make new ones in their place.” Apollo said.

“I’ll remain Platinum after I do it. I can course correct.” I said.

“Yes, you will remain unchanged from the moment of ascension. A walking revenant.” He said.

“If I have it in me to finish my first goal, I’ll have it in me to carry out the rest. Over and over again, no matter how long it takes.” I said. Platinum would take away further mental and physical decay from me. Whatever I was when I won it the Rank, forever I would be.

“Beware, child. That spear worships death and so long as you wield it, so will you.” Apollo said.

“Once the deed is done, I’ll cast it aside.” I promised.

The blinding glare of his solar brilliance dimmed to the red of the setting sun moments before nightfall. Blinking, my vision returned enough to see a tanned face with molten eyes and hair like golden wire. His face didn’t hold harsh judgment, but it didn’t look convinced either.

“The cost of killing a greater divinity with it will be your life, and if it cannot have that because of Platinum’s interference, it will have your heart.” Apollo said.

“What am I to do then? That isn’t one of the original plans.” I added on before the god could steer me back in that direction.

“You need to mitigate its taint on you now during your time as a Gold while still reaching the throne room on Olympus. Do you understand fully the things you bear?” The sun god asked me.

“The power of the Divine Champion and a spear chained to Death.” I said.

“Barely correct. The flames you call are not Heracles’s pure power as he is now in the heavens, for one.” Apollo said.

“Then what are they?” I said, frustrated.

“They are the flames of his funeral pyre, called back into existence eons later.” Apollo said.

“I know that. I just don’t get the difference between what I said and what you’re saying. They belong to him, they’re of Heaven itself now.” I said.

“Heracles the Champion was alive when he was consumed by his pyre. Upon being poisoned by centaur’s blood, he killed the man he believed to be the culprit before building the pyre himself and went to it willingly, his mortal half burning to ashes and his godly side rising to Olympus. When you use them, you aren’t calling upon the might of a warrior demigod slaying a beast or a triumphant god peering down on lowly humans from above, you’re drawing on a betrayed man’s vengeance and self-destructive deification. Adrias, you become savage when wielding it because you’re stamping your essence with his self-immolation.” Apollo said.

“Oh.” I said. It was the kind of truth that I preferred to look at from a more comfortable lens.

“The spear’s many components come together to infuse a simple message into any who touches it, that death is the only true goal that matters.”

“That I had already fully understood about it. The situation remains unchanged, the players are the same as before. You pick then, God of the Sun, would you rather have the same deck of cards reshuffled or have someone take these realms in hand and make something new? I have been burned by the pyre and stung by the spear’s intent, but despite all that my heart’s wish isn’t to burn everything down.” I said.

“What is it then?” Apollo said.

“To go as far as there is to go.” I said.

“This is still Eleutheromania.” Apollo said.

“No, it is Liberty.” I said.

“I see little difference. The others would claim it as readily.” Apollo said.

“I don’t want freedom to oppress others. They aren’t beneath me, they’re just behind me. I want them to walk the same road and go as far as they can go as well. My grandfather would be a Platinum king ruling above Heaven and Earth. I’ll be a constellation in the skies that others look to for what they could be.” I said.

The blazing eyes, twin stars set in an unearthly face, pierced my flesh and soul.

“Then once more for me, tell me the merit of your soul.” The god said, a metaphysical weight upon his tongue that nearly brought me to my knees.

“I am Liberation, and I carry this spear so that I may set mankind free.” I said.

A cracking sound came from my wrists as violet laurels burned for a second time.

“If I help you, then you must do something for me as well.” Apollo said.

I met his eyes, my retinas continually getting new black patches in it only for them to heal.

“Name it.” I said.

“Time weighs on us all. When you have the power, you will cleanse my memories so I can be free of their rot.” He said.

“Is that not a death of self?” I said.

“The sun dies each dusk and is reborn each morning, is it not?” Apollo said.

Reaching out a hand, I shook his.

“Swear it on the Styx.” Apollo said.

“What of Zeus? Will he hear it?” I said, thinking of the sound of thunder that had responded to my oath in the Underworld.

“I will claim it myself.” He assured me.

“Then I, Adrias Lucion, swear on the Styx that I will sever the memories you wish removed so long as you fairly assist me in my goal.” I said.

There was no thunderclap, only silence in the wake of my words as they left my lips.

“I accept this oath.”

The red of the dawn washed through the alien sky of the dreamworld. An answer as clear as any.

“What do I need to do to accomplish our plan?” I said.

“Deceive a lot of very powerful people.” The god replied.

We walked through the fields of bleached crops. The longer he remained near the stalks, the more they were stripped of color by his presence. The closest ones were rendered nearly translucent, like living glass.

“My grandfather amongst them.” I said.

“Yes, but first, Akhillos the demigod. He believes that I will be swaying you to his cause in exchange for services he has rendered to me.” Apollo said.

“Killing him will be necessary to continue to hold Augustas’s trust.” I said.

“Then you will need to use the spear, but without damaging yourself so much that you can’t seize Platinum before the Regent can.” He said.

“Something that hits home with him personally. A thought or argument that will make him accept death faster than it harms him. I don’t know him well enough for anything but brute forcing it.” I said.

I had hoped to narrow down options over the course of a fight, philosophies pared down to pinpoints to pierce the demigod and see how deep each one sank in. Then I would have gone deeper and broader with my best path and continue the painstaking process over and over again until one or both of us were dead.

“But I do know him.” Apollo said, touching his palm to my forehead.

Secondhand memories surged into my brain, phantom sensations and ghostly recollections jumping from the sun god’s searing palm through the wall of my skull, the transferred perspectives gleefully swimming through my thoughts.

Akhillos as a boy, the son of a Servus and the Skyfather, reading in his mother’s lap stories about the legendary hero he was named for. His age could have been counted on one’s fingers, and yet there is something unnatural already apparent about him. His youthful face and height contrasts with the beginnings of growing muscle and his blue eyes that have yet to turn to Gold and will never be the pupilless brown of his mother’s Path glow with a striking majesty.

Those eyes were enough to brighten a world.

…

Akhillos as a young man, barely older than me when I first took up Augustas’s transmutation ring in a junkyard of starships. His stature has increased, but his back is bent and his posture is poor as he stands before a hole in the ground. From the view the sun god gave me, I could not see Akhillos’s mother, but I knew full well where she was. He drops a bouquet of poppies, a sign of the Underworld as well as reincarnation, and turns. The mourning demigod’s irises were Bronze and tears ran down his cheeks.

Those eyes were enough to damn a world.

…

Akhillos as a prince without a crown, a Golden son of Heaven with half the blood in his veins of the least of its subjects. Not even Campeadors could see his face without craning their necks some, but his shape is fluid and malleable when he wishes it. For now, he becomes an Imperator, a haughty scion of a race he hates more than anything else. Disguised, he stares out over great mines on a world I have never set foot on, mines where his mother’s people labor in the dust and darkness as they do everywhere in the Regent’s Dominium. The Gold is covered by false violet and pretender’s Bronze, but his anger cannot be masked as easily.

Those eyes were enough to consume every world Augustas Heraclides had touched.

…

“Gah!” I said, ripping my head back as soon as the visions stopped flowing and my sense of where I was returned.

“That will give you enough, if used well.” Apollo said. “Strike quickly and fiercely once you have returned to Terra.”

“I still need more. How will I get to Olympus? When will Zeus break and open the gates of the heavens?” I said.

“He won’t. He fears Augustas too much still. Athena will open one soon to save my son, Orpheas, and your grandfather will take it gladly.” The god said.

A thought occurred to me.

“If you’re going to make one rift, will it worse our chances if a second one is made as well?” I said.

“One route is as a bad as a thousand for the Skyfather. What do we need of two though?” Apollo said.

“There’s a Muse named Arkhe imprisoned in the palace. We’re close enough that her efforts won’t do my cause much more benefit, but she’ll continue to suffer. Free her while Athena gives Augustas a way to the throneroom and he’s distracted.” I said.

“Perhaps it really is your virtue.” He said, and the illusion of fields dissolved to mist and ink.

One moment I was there and the next I was back in the Silent Citadel with Akhillos’s vines gripping me.

“Well?” Akhillos demanded, expecting an answer of whether I chose him or the other two demigods.

I pierced his heart, gifted memories flowing from me to him through the spear’s length.

“You could live an eternity as king of an empire built on Imperator corpses, but it will be an eternity without your mother.” I promised him, and the spear did the rest.

An immortal willingly gave into death rather than face a life missing the only thing he wished for. Just as I had stabbed him, his eyes pierced me too.

They were enough to condemn my soul.