2025-12-10 22:30:43Thunder rolled over the city like an angry god demanding attention, rattling window frames and shaking the quiet July night of 2011. Lightning flashed in jagged streaks, turning the world outside into a chaotic strobe of white and shadow. Rain slapped against the glass in hard, furious taps, as if the storm itself wanted to be let in.
Inside the dim living room, Ares Valen sat curled up in the corner of his couch, wearing soft, white pajamas and staring at the warm glow of his monitor. The house felt unusually empty, especially tonight, especially with the storm raging like a warning. He tried to lose himself in the comfort of familiarity, clicking and commanding as Rome: Total War unfolded across the screen. Legionaries marched in tight formations, cavalry burst across dusty plains, and flaming boulders hurled from siege engines arched through the digital sky.
But Ares wasn’t truly present. His focus drifted every few minutes, pulled elsewhere by a quiet ache in his chest.
He thought of his wife.
Seven months pregnant, stuck out of town for a work assignment she couldn’t avoid. They had spoken earlier—just a few minutes over a shaky connection. She sounded tired, overwhelmed, trying to hide it but failing. The call had ended too quickly, leaving him restless and uneasy.
He told himself he was overthinking it. Stress. Worry. Instinct. Something he’d shake off eventually.
But he didn’t.
Midnight crept closer, the storm intensifying as if competing with his anxiety. Ares moved his mouse to reposition a general unit—
CRACK!
A violent burst of lightning tore through the sky so close it felt like the universe itself had snapped. The entire house trembled. The lights flickered. Ares froze, his hand hovering over the mouse.
Then the monitor exploded in white light.
It wasn’t a flash from the storm. It was too sharp, too focused, too deliberate. A beam of burning brilliance shot outward, swarming over the room like a tsunami of raw energy. For one impossible moment, Ares felt as though the light wasn’t coming from outside the house at all—but from some deeper, unseen place ripping through the fabric of reality.
The world vanished.
No couch. No storm. No breath.
Just a blinding, suffocating field of white swallowing everything.
Cold wind slammed into him.Ares gasped, inhaling the scent of smoke, metal, and earth. The intense white faded, replaced by a dying-orange sky smeared with clouds like streaks of old blood. Dry leaves swirled in the air, carried on the chill breeze that scraped along a riverbank stretching into the shadowy distance.
Somewhere far away, the world groaned with distant war cries.
Two riders burst into view, their horses thundering across the terrain. Dust clung to their armor and sweat streaked their faces. They looked like men who had been running from death for far too long.
The older rider, Kavian, sporting a harsh cut along his cheek, yanked his horse to a stop. His companion, Hadi, muttered curses as his own exhausted mount skidded beside him.
Kavian raised a hand, pointing toward a thick patch of yellowing grass near the river.
“Something’s there.”
Hadi didn’t bother hiding his annoyance. His right hand was bound in a bloody cloth and visibly shaking. “Probably a dead boar or some unlucky traveler. And we’re not being paid to sightsee. We need to keep moving.”
Kavian ignored him, sliding off his horse and handing over the reins. His boots squelched into the wet earth as he approached the grass, pushing aside the brittle stalks.
He froze.
When he returned, his expression had darkened.
“Well?” Hadi asked sharply.
“A body. Young. Not from here. Clothes too fine.”
Hadi’s shoulders sagged. “Wonderful. As if today wasn’t cursed enough. Orc riders behind us, the northern defenses broken, half our scouts gutted, and now this.”
He tossed Kavian a waterskin and turned away. “We leave him. We don’t have the time, and carrying a stranger is a death sentence with the wolf riders this close.”
But doubt crept onto his face, deep enough to give him pause. After a moment, he sighed. “Let me see.”
They returned to the patch of grass.
A pale-faced boy, barely in his late teens, lay sprawled on the ground. Blond hair dirtied by mud and blood. Bruises across his face. Clothes shredded at the seams. Torn boots. Someone had beaten him, chased him, dragged him—something vicious had been done.
Hadi nudged him with the tip of his boot.
The boy twitched.
Then he breathed.
Hadi stumbled back as though he had stepped on a serpent. “Kavian… he’s alive!”
Kavian checked for a pulse. “Barely. Fading fast.”
Their surroundings answered for him. War smoke drifted. Screams crackled far beyond the tree line. Hooves roared in the distance—sharp, guttural, predatory.
The wolf riders.
Hadi swallowed hard. “We can’t take him.”
It wasn’t cruelty. It was practicality. To stop was death. To carry extra weight was death. To make noise was death. Everything tonight was death.
Kavian hesitated only a moment.
Then he nodded.
The two men mounted up and galloped away, their horses kicking dirt into the quiet grass that swallowed the wounded stranger once again.
Night arrived quickly, smothering the last traces of daylight beneath a blanket of cold mist. Fog slithered along the Lannon River, crawling across the land like a living creature seeking warmth. Wolves howled deep within the forest, their cries long, hollow, and hungry.
On the riverbank, the injured boy twitched.
A rasping whisper escaped his cracked lips.
“Water… please…”
The language was foreign to this world. Soft, fragile. A whisper of a life fading into the dark.
Then he fell still.
Ares Valen drifted in empty darkness.
I don’t want to die. Not yet. Not like this…
The thought echoed inside him, fragmented and desperate. Images flickered through the void: his parents aging with time, his wife’s tired eyes, the miracle kicking in her belly that he had never even felt.
Then the images dissolved.
The darkness thickened.
Until—
Ding.
A clear, mechanical tone rang through the void, sharp enough to crack the emptiness.
“Rome: Total War system initialized. Select your faction: Julii, Brutii, Scipii.”
Ares would have laughed if he could. The sound felt ridiculous, unreal—but it was something familiar in a moment of horrifying uncertainty.
“Julii,” he answered, though he wasn’t sure if he spoke aloud or only thought it.
“Select your leader: Julii Cotta… Julii Ausf… Julius Caesar.”
Ares didn’t hesitate.
“Caesar.”
A warm surge spread through him, like electricity weaving through his blood.
“Uploading linguistic matrix. Implanting the wordsmanship module. Integrating combat instincts.”
Heat rippled through his muscles. Something clicked into place inside him—knowledge that didn’t belong to him but now lived in him.
“Regeneration: eighty percent… ninety… complete.”
A breath burst from his lungs.
He felt his strength return.
His vision brightened—then sharpened—then stabilized.
He opened his eyes.
But he couldn’t move.
Panic crawled up his throat.
Am I paralyzed? Dead? Possessed?
The system continued without mercy.
“Capital city generated: Aretion. Select the first building.”
“What building—anything—Temple of Leadership!”
The world trembled.
A stone temple materialized out of thin air, shaping itself brick by brick with a deep rumble before settling beside him, as if it had always existed.
The shock snapped him free of the paralysis. He gasped and pushed himself upright, heart hammering wildly.
He stumbled toward the river and caught sight of his reflection.
He froze.
Blond hair. Blue eyes. A sharp jaw. A scar across the cheek.
Not his face. Not his body.
“Oh no… oh, absolutely not… I’m dead. I’m possessing someone. This is not my body!”
A rustle of grass behind him snapped his attention back.
Footsteps. Marching in formation.
“Cha-cha-cha!”
He spun around.
A squad of Roman militia approached, shields raised and armor glinting in the moonlight. Their leader barked something in a language Ares didn’t recognize.
The system chimed again.
“Language fusion available. Confirm?”
“Yes! Do it!”
Agonizing pain exploded inside his skull. Memories—strange, violent, unfamiliar—flooded him. Sword drills under the scorching sun. Latin instructions and ancient war cries. Dusty training grounds. Harsh discipline.
Then darker memories—ones belonging to the original owner of this body.
Humiliation. Hunger. Cruelty. A beating. A final betrayal. A desperate escape into the night.
A life cut short.
The pain faded.
The militia captain’s voice reached him again.
“State your name!”
Ares straightened instinctively, the new memories mingling with his own until he almost believed the words he spoke.
“I am Julius Caesar.”
The soldiers exchanged startled looks. The name crackled through them like divine fire.
Before anyone could react, thunderous hooves shook the ground.
Eight heavy cavalrymen charged forward, forming a spear wall as their commander glared down at the blond stranger.
“Prove your identity.”
Ares stiffened.
He had no proof.
The cavalry lowered their spears.
Grass rustled. Shadows stretched.
Then eleven armored figures rose from the darkness around him—silent, masked, lethal. Their armor was black as night, their twin blades reflecting the moonlight like hungry fangs.
The Shadowstrike Assault Corps.
In the game they were powerful.
In person they were terrifying.
A whisper touched his mind.
“Priest-lord.”
Ares nearly stumbled. Someone was speaking directly into his thoughts.
“Who… who are you?”
“The Shadowstrike Captain. We serve the Priest-lord of the Temple of Leadership.”
The captain stepped forward and addressed the militia.
“Town Militia Captain Lucius. You have insulted your superior officer. Punishment for such disrespect is flogging and execution. Your men will face decimation.”
Terror swept through the soldiers. Several dropped to their knees, pale and shaking.
Lucius collapsed entirely. “General Caesar… mercy! Please!”
Ares felt his stomach twist. This wasn’t a video game. These were real people. Real punishments. Real blood.
“No,” he said firmly. “I forgive all of them. No punishment. None.”
The Shadowstrike Captain bowed. “Your will is command.”
Lucius exhaled like he had been granted a new life.
Ares opened his mouth to speak—
A monstrous howl ripped through the forest.
Not a wolf. Something deeper. Something older. Something hungry.
Lucius stiffened. “General… they’re here.”
The ground trembled.
Eyes glowed in the dark. One. Two. Ten. Dozens.
Wolves the size of horses emerged, fur bristling, mouths dripping with hot saliva. Their riders wore bone armor, gripping crude spears and snarling with anticipation.
The leader raised his weapon.
“Kill them all!”
Chaos erupted instantly.
Militia scrambled to form a shield wall.
Shadowstrike assassins vanished into the grass like ghosts ready to spill blood.
The cavalry struggled to mount as panic spread throughout the ranks
Ares felt fear surge throughghgh him—raw, animal fear.
He wasn’t at home.
He wasn’t dreaming.
He wasn’t Ares Valen anymore.
He was Caesar.
And the first battle of his new life had already begun…
with monstrous wolves charging straight toward him.
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