All Chapters of Rise of Aretian: The Roman War Priest: Chapter 91
- Chapter 100
117 chapters
Chapter 91: Army of the Eastern Crossbows
No one who truly understood warfare would ever call a ballista a crude weapon.That was something only outsiders believed. People who had never stood beside one while it was being loaded. People who thought war was all muscle and shouting. In truth, building a ballista required restraint. Precision. A kind of patience that bordered on obsession.Wood, iron, rope. Yes, those were the materials. But forcing them together meant nothing without care. A fraction of misalignment, a tension pulled too tight or not tight enough, could ruin the entire machine. Worse, it could kill the crew operating it.Within the Siege Engineering Corps, ballista design had been refined for decades. Each generation improved upon the last. Errors were shaved away. Power increased. Accuracy sharpened. And when the gray dwarves joined the process, everything changed.They were short folk, broad and heavy, with hands scarred by years of metalwork. Their instincts leaned naturally toward balance and tension, gears
Chapter 92: Divine Favor (Part One)
“What?”The word slipped out of Lucullus before he even realized he had spoken. It was not loud. Not dramatic. Just a quiet sound pulled straight from his chest, raw with disbelief.The reinforcements had arrived too quickly.Far too quickly.For a brief, terrifying moment, his mind simply refused to accept what his eyes were showing him. It felt like watching a nightmare unfold while knowing you were wide awake. You see it. You know it is real. Yet some stubborn part of you keeps insisting it must be wrong.From both sides of the battlefield, troops poured in without pause, without hesitation. Banners snapped sharply in the wind. The sound alone was enough to set teeth on edge. The ground shook beneath tens of thousands of marching feet, a low, constant tremor that crept up through Lucullus’s boots and into his bones.Dust rose in thick, choking clouds. The horizon blurred and then vanished entirely. And inside that rolling haze marched an army so vast that Lucullus felt his stomach
Chapter 93: Divine Grace (Part II)
The Holy Legion withdrew without a single shouted command.Steel boots pressed into frost hardened earth. Armor brushed against armor. Shields shifted. The sound was low and steady, like a tide moving back at the pull of something unseen. No one panicked. No one hesitated. Every soldier knew what was expected of them, and they obeyed as naturally as breathing.The battlefield slowly opened.When the dust settled, the space at the center stood bare.Almost bare.One man remained.Ares Valen stood alone beneath the open sky, golden armor catching the pale light of noon. Behind him were no more than five hundred soldiers. They stood close, shoulder to shoulder, unmoving. Their weapons were ready, their faces calm. Not one of them looked away from the vast enemy force gathering in the distance.Five hundred against tens of thousands.The numbers were laughable.And yet, not a single man stepped back.Ares Valen frowned.This was not a tactical maneuver. It was not part of any plan he had
Chapter 94: Divine Grace (III)
Divine punishment is a prison.It is cold. Narrow. Unforgiving.Once inside, there is no room to breathe. No space to question. Only judgment pressing down until the soul bends or breaks.Divine grace, on the other hand, is the sea.Endless. Deep. Alive.One confines and crushes, measuring every sin with merciless precision.The other opens its arms, lifts you from the ground, and pulls you beneath its surface until even doubt forgets how to exist.The grace of the gods has never been about gentle mercy or blind kindness. It is not soft, nor is it comforting in the way mortals expect. It is vast beyond comprehension. Overwhelming in its presence. Like an infinite ocean of stars burned directly into the fragile chambers of the human heart, too immense to resist and too deep to measure.To receive divine favor is not a reward. It is surrender.You are carried into something eternal, something that does not ask permission. It arrives like a spring breeze, subtle at first, almost tender,
Chapter 95: Fighting for Faith
“What is your name?”The question did not echo across the battlefield.It struck.Lucullus was already kneeling, his forehead pressed firmly against the cracked stone beneath him. The ground was still warm, as if the battle had only just ended moments ago. Not long before, this place had been filled with chaos. Men shouting orders, steel colliding with steel, the sharp metallic scent of blood hanging thick in the air. Now there was nothing.Silence.Not the peaceful kind, but a heavy, oppressive stillness that felt unnatural. Even the wind seemed uncertain, as if it did not know whether it was allowed to move anymore.“Lucullus,” he answered, forcing the words past his dry throat. His voice trembled despite his effort to remain composed. “I am Lucullus. A Roman general and a consul of the Senate.”He did not lift his head.He could not.Above him, the sky bore the scars of divine wrath. The clouds had been torn apart, scorched by lightning that did not belong to this world. The air it
Chapter 96: Population Migration
Rules were a strange thing.People often said rules existed to be broken, yet the truth was rarely so simple. Imperfect rules were still rules. They shaped the world quietly, subtly, tightening their grip the moment one believed they had escaped. The Overgods liked to think they stood beyond such limits. They believed they had risen above restraint, beyond structure itself. What they failed to understand was that those very imperfections were what bound them most tightly. Every flaw demanded correction. Every exception forced revision. And in refining those rules again and again, they remained trapped within them.If they ever looked back honestly, they would see it.They had never truly left the cage.Baroman’s words refused to fade.They lingered in Ares Valen’s mind like a coal that would not cool, glowing faintly somewhere deep beneath his thoughts. He could feel it there, quiet but persistent, warming and burning at the same time.What had Baroman truly meant?The imperial chambe
Chapter 97: A Sacred Mission
The decision to send an imperial embassy to the Kingdom of Tailand was not something Emperor Ares Valen made lightly.It came after three long, restless nights. Nights spent staring at maps until the candlelight burned low and the ink on parchment blurred together. Sleep had come in fragments, if at all. When it did, it brought no rest.On his desk lay charts of rivers and roads, lists of trade goods, estimates of troop movement and supply capacity. Those were the obvious concerns. Necessary ones.But they were not the real problem.The true calculations were harder to measure. They involved people. Loyalties. Old grudges. Quiet ambitions. The invisible lines of trust and fear that held the human world together, barely.This mission was not a polite exchange of envoys or a ceremonial gesture meant to keep appearances. It was not about seals, signatures, or carefully worded promises.It was the first move in a war that had already begun, whether the world admitted it or not.A war that
Chapter 98: An Anomaly
The Dark God Realm existed in a state that never truly changed. It was not day, and it was not night. It was not alive, yet it could not be called dead either. Everything was trapped in an endless twilight where time felt heavy and unmoving. Black stone towers rose toward the unseen sky, tall and solemn, like ancient guardians that had forgotten what they were guarding. Their surfaces were carved with runes older than memory, glowing faintly as if the realm itself still breathed through them.A cold wind swept through the vast hall.It carried the scent of decay mixed with divinity, a sharp and unsettling blend that clung to the senses. It was the smell of a place where gods ruled and mercy did not exist.Casimo stood beneath the towering pillars.He did not move.His posture was rigid, almost unnaturally so. His back was straight, his head lowered, his hands clenched tightly at his sides. His fingers ached from the pressure, but he did not loosen them. Pain was familiar. Pain was hon
Chapter 99: Battle Qi
The sun drifted slowly toward the western horizon, lingering as if it were reluctant to disappear. Its light softened as it fell, spreading warmth across the land in fading waves.Above the palace, the sky burned.Crimson clouds stretched endlessly, glowing like liquid fire poured across the heavens. They shifted constantly, reshaping themselves in slow, restless motions. One moment they looked like rolling flames, the next like torn banners caught in a silent wind. The light they cast stained the world below in deep reds and muted gold, giving the evening a weight that felt solemn and heavy, almost sacred.Anyone seeing such a sky would expect something magnificent beneath it.And yet, hidden behind the tall, dignified walls of the imperial palace, there was a courtyard so ordinary that it almost felt wrong.It was clean.Quiet.Unremarkable.Yes, it was larger than the courtyards of common homes, but size alone was its only distinction. There were no elaborate fountains carved from
Chapter 100: Mithril
“Ha!”The sound ripped out of Ares Valen’s chest, raw and sharp. The moment his breath left him, a pale, milky-white light burst outward, spreading across his body like liquid fire. It clung to his skin, pulsed once, and settled into a steady glow that hummed with restrained power.This was battle energy.Unstable. Restless. Alive.Ares planted his feet firmly against the ground.No flourish. No wasted motion. Just a clean, fundamental stance drilled into muscle and bone through endless repetition. His body aligned naturally, shoulders relaxed, grip steady.The cross sword moved.For a fraction of a second, the blade traced a smooth, elegant arc through the air. Then grace vanished.The sword came down hard.Steel slammed into the ironwood post with a deep, bone-rattling thud that echoed across the training ground. The impact rang out like a war drum.The post shuddered.Ares did not stop.The second strike came immediately, faster and sharper. He shifted his weight, turned his hips,