For an entire day and the long night that followed, Ares Valen never once stepped beyond the heavy doors of the Governor’s Hall.He did not go outside to breathe the open air.He did not pause to eat.He did not even stand long enough to stretch his aching legs.From the moment the first pale light slid across the polished marble floor to the hour when oil lamps replaced the sun, Ares remained seated at the great stone table. Scrolls and parchments lay scattered before him, stacked and restacked until they resembled the remains of some half-assembled creature. Ink stained his fingers black. His sleeves were wrinkled and smeared. Some documents were neatly written, others violently crossed out, rewritten, then discarded entirely.Slowly, painfully, something took shape.Not a dream.Not a theory.A republic.A real one.Ares knew better than anyone that a republic could not simply be copied from memory and forced into existence. Ideas did not survive on parchment alone. They survived t

“Oh! Almighty Goddess of Light—no, wait—Almighty Jupiter! Praise the god!”“Enough with the praising,” came another voice, half-laughing, half-disbelieving. “Didn’t Lord Caesar say it himself? Everything harvested today belongs to the people who cut it.”“…All of it?”“All of it. Not a single grain spared.”The words spread like wildfire.A ripple of astonishment moved through the fields, soft at first, then swelling into laughter, gasps, and whispered awe.“My heavens…” someone breathed, almost in a trance. “What kind of grain is this? I swear… I’ve lived all my life and never—never seen anything like it.”The free folk couldn’t contain themselves. Fingers reached out, brushing the golden stalks carefully, almost as if they feared the miracle would vanish with one careless touch.“This…” a Roman farmer muttered, clearly unimpressed by their wonder. He looked at them with that faint, superior air only a long-time farmer could carry. “This yellow one is wheat. And the dark fruit? Olive

Ares Valen grabbed the free citizen by the collar without any warning at all.One moment, the man was still trying to explain himself, words tumbling over each other in a nervous rush. The next, his feet barely touched the ground. Ares’s grip was merciless. His fingers locked tight, strong and unyielding, like iron forged for war rather than flesh.Sunlight reflected in Ares Valen’s deep blue eyes, but there was no warmth there. Whatever madness had once lived in those eyes was gone. What remained was far more dangerous. Calm. Cold. Controlled.“Speak,” Ares said.He did not shout. He did not need to.“What are these creatures?”“L Lord Caesar, I” The man’s face drained of color so quickly it was almost frightening to watch. His legs shook violently, not from fatigue, but from pure terror. He had assumed the lord already knew about the fishmen. Everyone on the frontier did. And besides, wasn’t this Caesar? The infamous mad prince of Rome, the man whose temper was said to be as unpredi

“Chris, you…”The words stopped halfway out of Ares Valen’s mouth.Only moments ago, he had sent Mabel away. Not gently. He had grabbed her by the shoulders, turned her around, and pushed her down the corridor, telling her not to come back no matter what she heard. He had seen the fear in her eyes, but he had done it anyway.That was what commanders did. They chose who stayed and who survived.So this should have been over.Yet when he turned back, Chris was there again.Standing beside him.Calm. Unmoved. As if she had never left at all.For a brief moment, Ares Valen simply stared at her.War was a man’s business. That was how he had grown up thinking. How he had been trained. How every battlefield lesson had been framed for him. Men bled. Men died. Men made the ugly decisions.And yet, again and again, women stepped into the fire at the worst possible time.“I won’t leave.”Chris said it plainly.Her voice was steady. Not raised. Not emotional. Just a statement of fact.“And the tr

“Kill!”The shout tore across the battlefield, harsh and violent, like cloth being ripped apart by a blade.For a heartbeat, everything froze.Then Ares Valen stepped forward.The ground beneath his boots felt solid, familiar, yet something deep inside him shifted. It was not fear. Not hesitation. It was recognition, as if a buried instinct had finally been called awake.War Priest Level One Skill: War Roar.The instant the skill activated, heat surged through his veins. It did not feel learned. It did not feel borrowed. This power felt ancient, as though it had always been waiting for him to reach out and claim it.His eyes hardened. Veins rose sharply along his temples, dark and pulsing. The muscles across his bare upper body tightened and swelled, cords of strength twisting beneath his skin as raw force gathered inside his chest.He drew in a breath.Deep. Rough. Almost painful.It scraped his throat as it went down, filling his lungs to their limit.Then he roared.The sound did n