His sombre words caused my eyes to narrow and my brows to knit in confusion at his sudden change in demeanour, before I then stood up and motioned him to follow me to a more private space.

Once we were on one of the many vacant terraces in the Palace, I had Abraham and Horus stand Guard outside to make sure no one dared approach, and only then did I ask "What wrong Valdour?" My voice urgent in it's masked worry.

Valdour walked next to me, where he didn't return my gaze and instead looked beyond the railing, into the massive the castle compound around us for a moment, the jovial sounds of the party still echoing in our ears for a few seconds, before he softly called out "Alexander..."

My entire body tensed at the sound of my own name, realizing that whatever Vadlour was about to say was not something of the mundane mortal world, as he was not going to speak it under the veil of my subject or my friend, but my equal and our truest selves; he would speak to me as a fellow scion of the Gods, as a demi-god.

"Could you tell me more about the world you came back from?" He asked, his voice a fortress of seeming calmness, but with an unspoken brooding weight to it.

Peeling my eyes from him, I turn to face the same direction as him, as I ask, with a voice now haunted by the profanity of endless eons of lived memory "Why do you ask?"

Valdour felt the sheer weight of time in my voice, ringing his ears like grand bells, as he explained "That day you first visited my city, and spoke to me of your secret and of the future, you said you failed to win in your past life. You said you were slain, and the empire destroyed, with our people being exterminated to the last man, correct?"

"Yes." I answered, waiting for him to get to his point.

"How?" He asked, his tone now interweaved with threads of disbelief and confusion. "You have proven yourself a strategist of a calibre at least equal to that of the War Dragon, with the man himself admitting it. That is besides your personal strength, which might be considered slightly weak and inconsequential right now, but you are still, physically at least, a child of fifteen, and already a second gated demi-god, with a duel specialization in saber and halberd arts. And that's not even mentioning the other monsters in your service as well, like that Martial Demon, Hamilcar. So how in the name of the Forge God, did you manage to fall short?" He paused for a minute, his voice the definition of grave "Were your foes just that formidable?"

I didn't immediately reply to him, causing a pregnant silence to form between us, one that hung heavy above our heads, like an expectant guillotine, before I then expelled it, saying "The me you see before you today Valdour, is not the same one who existed back then when I was fifteen. Back then, I was not even emperor, but a banished prince who'd just lost all he cared for, while my step-siblings ripped my ancestors' work into a dozen different petty kingdoms."

Valdour's eyes widened in shock at my words, but I didn't give him a chance to speak, as I continued narrating the disgraceful past of my younger, cowardly self "In fact, I didn't reclaim my birth right and restore the legacy of my ancestors until decades from today." I then released a sound from my throat as I said those words, that sounded to Valdour like a chuckle, but it was dipped in so much poison he felt it was like acid rain dripping torturously on his ears.

"As for your question of my opponents," I continued with an eerily amused smile "they weren't so much as formidable, as they were cheats."

"Cheats?" He echoed in question, finally redirecting his pupils from in front of him and onto me, it was then that he suddenly felt a subtle chill eerily crawl it way across his skin, like a serpent slowly wrap around his body as he glanced at me.

I calmly nodded, answering "Do you remember when I told you that you were not unique and all of us would gain a certain gift or blessing from our ancestors? Well a certain goddess is the cause of both this and my defeat last time, as she broke the rules set by the rest of the Gods and gave her scum descendants a helping hand in the form of prophetic dreams."

A sense of understanding then swept through Valdour's entire being, before a frown once again marred his features, as he asked "Doesn't that mean?"

He didn't need to finish the rest of his question, as I instantly answered "Yes, her descendants will receive those dreams once again this time as well."

"When?" He swiftly inquired, his tone growing ever grimmer and his brows further furrowing, until they were almost touching now.

"In a little less than three years now." I unhesitatingly answered yet again.

My words gave pause to his thoughts, bringing back the heavy silence I had earlier removed, before he sceptically questioned "Are we ready for such a thing?"

"Can you ever be truly ready for an enemy who will know every action you will ever take, before you even think of it?" I answered in dark amusement, once again chilling Valdour to the bone, but this time he thought he sensed that my current hair-raising tone, was but a mask for a far more terrifying presence than a true reflection of my true thoughts and feelings, before I continued "No, Valdour. There is only one way to defeat a man empowered with a power as omnipotent as omniscience. Or the closest version to it without transgressing on the domain of the Gods. Pure, unstoppable, unrestricted strength."

I then turned to face Valdour, only to see him already facing me with an expression I had never seen on his face before "We need power, Valdour. Power so excessive that no amount of planning, information and schemes could ever hope to entrap. That is our goal. That is what we must achieve in the coming years, or else all will be lost, and we would have failed our loved ones yet again."

My words caused both of our eyes to suddenly and almost instinctually shine with the power of our divine blood, as the faces of our loved ones flashed through the forefront of our minds, as he knowingly asked, with a dread inducing voice; that though seemed normal, rung in the air with the sonority of a hammer ruthlessly beating against an anvil "And am I to assume that my current fifth rank gate power is not enough?"

"Do you take the coming age so lightly?!" I scoffed. "I had unlocked the second to last of my divine gates when I fell Valdour. Do you truly think a mere fifth rank pup would be anymore than cannon fodder in such a world?"

"You were an eighth gated demi-God?!" He exclaimed in disbelief, my words reeling him back like a strong, proud tree perched arrogantly at the summit of a mountain, suddenly faced with the fury of lightning whips and maelstrom winds; once again being reminded that though I appeared in the veil of a boy barely transitioning into his manhood, I was in actuality a centuries old warlord, who's seen so much war and ruin, that if I claimed I was the second most veteran man on the planet in this field, then none would dare claim to be first.

"I was." A proud smile tainted with an unsettling edge of madness graced my lips.

"And you still fell?!" Valdour asked, his earlier disbelief now returned.

"...I did." I confirmed, some spite spitting through my teethe.

"How?" He stressed.

"Too many enemies, too few allies." I truthfully answered. "That's why I have tried to bolster my own ranks this time around."

"And that's why you were so adamant on recruiting me." He uttered with widened eyes.

"Yes. Mortal men like Hamilcar, Georgios, Paladear, Hekan, Adam and all the others, though formidable now, are going to grow obsolete in the future, and only those of our kind are going to reign supreme over the coming wars." I casually mentioned, as if it were a normal thing to say.

"But Alexander... You have only me so far, and though I appreciate the compliment, I doubt the two of us alone can stand against the coming era." He said with some worry, after taking a moment to purge the dread that was threatening to strangle his heart.

"We will have a third joining us soon." I informed him, an irrepressible smile taking hold of my features, one Valdour recognized.

"The future empress?" He asked in shock, to which I nodded.

"But that's still only three of us. I still don't think that's enough." He argued.

"It most likely won't be, but if we all ascend to at least the seventh gate then we should be fine for a while. And we will obviously keep an eye out for any others we can invite to join us through the years; after all with the addition of the variable of the divine gifts our ancestors scattered across the world, with one only needing to reach out and grab it, then many who were mediocre in my past life might grow into something significant." I assured him, and revealed to him my future plans.

Yet Valdour still seemed slightly unconvinced, as he carefully suggested "Alexander why not try to recruit others who are closer to home, and ready to join the fold at any minute, you just need to the word."

"Such as?" I asked with a cocked eyebrow, not understanding who he meant.

"You have many God-blooded vassals among your subjects, two specifically with very much battle focused abilities..." I interrupted him with a displeased tone before he could continue.

"I thought I already told you that I have no interest in the descendants of the poison and fire Gods! I would prefer a single reliable warrior by my side than a hundred glutenous, lustful pigs, who do nothing but taint our names everyday."

"Just listen to me for a second." Valdour pleaded. "Yes you're right, the older generations of those two houses are as useless as a glass anvil, but their inheritors aren't. They are still young, their metal still malleable enough to create weapons strong enough to stand by our side when the time comes. And though I know you haven't told me everything that happened in your past life, I can tell that the coming era is an apocalypse upon our world, and I don't know about you, but I'd prefer that horror stay as far away from my family as humanly possible."

His words stunned me silent, before I smacked myself as hard as possible for allowing such an ingenious plan elude me all this time.

Yet before I could say anything else, the doors to the balcony we were on suddenly opened to show the two figures of his wife and my mother looking at us in exasperation, with Abraham and Horus in the background bowing in apology, saying "So this is where the two of were hiding all this time! We've been searching for you two forever!"

"I leave you alone for two minutes and you immediately sneak off to speak in matters of state. How are you meant to give me my grandchildren if you continue to act like this?!" She teasingly said, instantly shattering the grim atmosphere me and Valdour were in a moment ago.

"The last danse is about to begin!" Kora quickly grabbed her husband's massive arm before she began to pull him inside, which he obviously didn't resist with a helpless smile.

Seeing this, I weakly sigh, before obediently following behind my mother, but my mind was transfixed on the future and it's new possibilities that Valdour's idea opened before me this evening.

***End of Volume 2***