2025-12-10 22:32:22Spartans. Just saying the word felt like shouting courage into the void. Proud. Unyielding. Legends carved into history like steel into stone. Thermopylae… that wasn’t just a battlefield; it was a crucible, a place where men became immortal.
Xerxes, the Persian king, had inherited his father Darius’s ambition and then some. Three hundred thousand soldiers, a thousand warships, and the claim of a million men. Against him? Leonidas, with only three hundred Spartans, seven hundred Thebans, and six thousand allies from across Greece. Tiny numbers against an empire. Impossible odds. Yet for three relentless days, they held the pass. Sheer will. Discipline. Spartan fire. That was all it took. And the world remembered.
Centuries and miles later, far from Greece, across the windswept plains of the Tianyan Continent, hundreds of Spartan slaves stood in chains. They were warriors still, though iron clinked around their wrists and ankles. Their hearts were weighed down more heavily than any metal. You could see it. The fire dimmed but was not extinguished.
Ares Valen stepped forward. Eyes sharp, assessing, calculating. Silence fell under that gaze like the calm before a storm. He spoke slowly, deliberately. Every word struck like a hammer.
"From childhood, leaving parents behind,
Trained by wolves in the wilderness. A golden helmet upon the head, A white wooden spear in hand; A red cloak drapes the body, A bronze shield was gripped in the arm. Three hundred warriors guard Thermopylae, Ten thousand fierce men hesitate to advance. Their deeds resound in the enemy camp, Persian nobles everywhere were struck with awe. Standing firm against the raging waves, Sparta is the ice at the poles."Even hardened eyes softened. Years of toil, discipline, relentless struggle—they felt the surge of old pride again. Tears came unbidden. Some thumped their chests, letting grief and pride crash together in one raw, guttural howl.
“Leonidas, my king! Look at Sparta now!”
And then… one figure drew Ares’s full attention. Towering. Massive. Like a statue come to life. Seven feet of muscle, beard thick, eyes sharp as a hawk’s. Calm. Terrifyingly calm. Every step is deliberate. Every breath controlled.
“You, foreigner, stirring Spartan blood—what is your intent?” His voice rumbled like distant thunder. Commanding. Unyielding.
Ares felt the familiar surge—the tickle of battle intuition. Commander Mode. Two-star general aura. Magnetic. Unmovable. He stepped closer. Not threatening. Precise.
“Spartans, tell me your names.”
The words struck Pendragon like a hammer. The others tensed. Ready. Always ready.
“I am Pendragon!” His roar shook the air. “Descendant of Leonidas—Sparta!”
“Sparta.” The word rolled off his tongue like a war cry, a promise. His chest swelled with pride. Blood-red eyes glinted. Power radiated from him.
“Roman Youth Army! Javelins ready!” Centurion Lucius barked, gladius drawn.
A hundred Roman youths lifted weapons, aiming at the shackled Spartans. One false move and it could be a massacre.
“Lucius!” Ares’s voice cut like steel. “Lower your weapons. Now! These are warriors, not slaves. Free them.”
Pendragon didn’t flinch. His pride remained unbroken.
“This world isn’t Greece anymore,” Ares continued, tone firm but respectful. “No Sparta. Only the Tianyan Continent. Join me, or walk your own path.”
A Spartan could not be coerced. Death, threats—they didn’t bend him. Only respect, strategy, and subtlety spoke their language.
Nearby, a pudgy Roman merchant named Altoia spun around. He thought chaos was an opportunity. Deceived by the Senate, he had left Rome hoping for wealth, influence, maybe even wives. Yaletion smashed those hopes against reality.
“Pendragon!” he shouted. “Caesar’s mercy is vast! Look at the weak—the elderly, women, children—starving, unarmed! The Yellow Sands will swallow them if you do nothing!”
Pendragon’s chest rose and fell. Ignore himself? Sure. Ignore the warriors beside him? Maybe. But the innocent? The vulnerable? Never. Duty, not choice.
Ares looked at the merchant. “And you are?”
“Respected Caesar,” Altoia said, bowing, eyes glinting with ambition. “I am Altoia. Merchant. Financial overseer of this caravan. These Spartans were purchased at great cost from the Roman slave market.”
Ares nodded. The man maintained control through cunning, exploiting weakness to preserve strength.
Sparta, as it had been… gone. Pendragon exhaled, bitter acceptance in his chest. For now, he would serve the Roman cause. Yet defiance still blazed in his eyes.
“Spartans do not obey the weak,” he said.
Ares smiled faintly. Compliance under duress wasn’t respected. To earn Spartan honor, he would have to face Pendragon head-on.
Chains removed. Spartans freed. Two hundred strong Yaletion farmers joined the caravan. Lucius led the Roman Youth soldiers. Diplomat Cornelius accompanied him. Guided by locals, they set toward Glonwa, a northern fortress city of the Tyrande Kingdom. The name Yaletion would echo across Tianyan.
Dusk. The sun bled molten gold and crimson across the Yellow Sands. The last rays flickered like fire across the sand. Perfect stage for the battle to come.
The God of War Plaza, once just a training ground, now swelled. Roman soldiers, refugees from Vol Town, freed Spartans. Shadows stretched long, twisted together, anticipation thick in the air.
“Ding… Battle Mode activated! General’s armor online!”
White light engulfed Ares. Roman general’s armor materialized around him, gleaming, imposing. Pendragon faced him. Spear, shield, every muscle coiled, every sinew a spring ready to strike.
Pendragon’s childhood had been brutal. Scorching summers, freezing winters, hunger, and combat with wolves. By seven, enrolled in the agoge. Barefoot in the snow. Sleeping on reed mats. Eating coarse food. By twenty, forged into a weapon. Discipline. Unity. Excellence. Phalanx forged in fire.
He roared and charged. Spear strikes—block, catch, thrust—fluid, precise, deadly.
Ares dodged, countered with diagonal arcs of his short sword. Clang! The spear rebounded like a coiled tiger. Every strike demanded perfect timing, reflexes honed to razor edge.
“Sparta—hu!” The freed Spartans erupted in raw cheer. Roman Youth soldiers shouted back: “Caesar! Caesar! Caesar!”
Ares’s mind raced. Pendragon was a storm. Brute force, agility, precision. Standard Roman techniques? Not enough. He needed subtlety, finesse, controlled power. War God Sword? Too lethal. War Roar? Controlled, precise, enough to subdue without killing.
“You are strong,” Ares said, admiration in his voice.
“And you’re not bad yourself,” Pendragon shot back, eyes locked.
Spartan spear mastery at its peak. Mind forgetting hand, hand forgetting spear. Fluid, relentless. Even Leonidas had reached only the second level: hand forgetting spear. Pure skill. Pure will. No tricks.
The duel had begun.
Ancient Spartan discipline versus modern Roman mastery. Not just victory, not just survival. Honor. Legacy. The spirit of Sparta itself.
Across the golden sands of Tianyan, every eye watched. Every heart raced. Every soul knew: this was a battle that would be remembered for centuries.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 116: The Roman Sword (Part Two)
“Pila!”“Pila!”The command echoed again and again, tearing through the smoke-filled battlefield like a bell rung for the dead. It did not fade. It did not soften. It kept coming, heavy and relentless, until the sound itself seemed to press against the chest.What followed was not a charge.It was not a roar of men rushing forward.It was something worse.It was a storm.Days of fighting had bled the Senate legions dry. The ground told the story better than any report ever could. Bodies lay everywhere, some burned black, some cut apart, others frozen in strange positions as if death had caught them mid-thought. Numbers had dropped. Supplies were strained. Morale had been scraped down to something thin and bitter.And still, the enemy line burned.Ahead of the legions stood an unbroken wall of fire, bright enough to hurt the eyes and hot enough to make breathing painful. It moved when commanded, flared when threatened, and answered to one will alone. The beast-elf war shaman Shase stoo
Chapter 115: The Sword of Rome (Part One
he moment the Roman gladiators waded into the river, the warriors of the Nami Sea Clan knew something had gone terribly wrong.It was not fear at first. It was instinct.The Lannon River churned violently as nets burst upward from beneath its surface, spreading wide like vicious flowers in bloom. One followed another. Then another. Soon there were too many to track. They overlapped and tangled, each knot placed with care, each line designed to trap, tighten, and pull a struggling body into helpless stillness.The fishmen charged anyway.They roared and surged forward, driven by numbers and confidence, believing sheer force would carry them through. It lasted only seconds. Nets snapped shut around limbs and torsos. Powerful bodies twisted in panic. Arms locked. Gills flared as breath failed. Thin strands of wire bit into flesh, slicing deeper with every desperate movement.The river filled with confusion and blood.The gladiators did not panic. They never did.They moved with calm, rut
Chapter 114 : Roman Gladiators
The soul was never meant to leave the flesh.That truth had been passed down through countless generations, spoken by priests, scholars, and warriors alike. A soul without a body was like a blade without an edge. You could still call it a sword, but it would never cut. Ares Valen had always understood this in theory.Only now did he truly feel it.And the realization came with fear.Something essential was slipping away from him, slowly but relentlessly, like sand running through open fingers. For the first time since he could remember, Ares Valen felt helpless.He could not move.He could not feel his body.The strength he had forged through years of war sacrifices, the brutal conditioning that had hardened his flesh and instincts, answered him no longer. His body might as well have belonged to someone else. He tried to command it, tried to force it to respond, but nothing happened.It was like shouting orders into an endless void.In the realm of the soul, physical power was meaning
Chapter 113 : The Tiger Guard Camp
The name Tiger Guard was never meant to impress anyone.It was not chosen for poetry, nor for pride. No bard had whispered it into existence, and no noble had polished it to sound heroic. The name existed for one reason only.It was a warning.Once the Tiger Guard moved, they did not stop. They did not slow down. They did not reconsider. They charged, hunted, and pursued like a tiger that had already chosen its prey and decided there was no other path left in the world. Retreat did not exist for them. Doubt was something other men carried.The Tiger Guard existed to destroy.Beneath the Dragon Banner stood a thousand men.They stood close, shoulder to shoulder, boots pressed into blood-soaked earth. No one spoke. No one shifted their weight. Their breathing was steady, measured, almost unnaturally calm. It was the kind of calm that only came from years of drilling and from seeing death so often that it stopped being shocking.A thousand breaths rose and fell together.A thousand heart
Chapter 112: The Breakthrough Battalion
By the time the Breakthrough Battalion finally forced their way beneath the Emperor Mammoths, they were no longer a thousand strong.Not even close.The battlefield had taken its price early, and it had taken it brutally.The first clash had been a nightmare made real. The kind of moment commanders pray never comes, and soldiers never forget if they survive it. Entire lines disappeared in seconds. Men were trampled into the earth, crushed beneath iron-plated feet, or thrown aside like broken shields. Some died screaming. Some did not even have time for that.It should have shattered the battalion.It did not.Those still alive did what soldiers have always done when retreat is impossible. They adapted. They learned fast. They moved forward because standing still meant death.Only when they reached the dark space beneath the mammoths, behind the thick pillars of their legs and under the massive shadows of their bellies, did the Imperial Guard finally discover a way to fight back.From
Chapter 110: The Formation-Breaking Battalion
The ground groaned.Not cracked. Not split apart. It groaned, deep and low, as if the land itself were alive and already regretting the nightmare about to trample across its back.A heavy tremor rolled through the battlefield. At first it was distant, almost subtle. Then it grew stronger. Strong enough to rattle armor plates. Strong enough to make teeth chatter inside clenched jaws.Dust lifted from the earth in thin sheets.Men froze.Then the sound came.“ROOOAAR!”Eleven Imperial Mammoths surged forward at the same moment.Not one after another. Not in a staggered line. They charged together, perfectly synchronized, like an army that needed no orders.It was the kind of sight that robbed soldiers of breath.Each step struck the ground with the force of a collapsing tower. Twenty two massive legs crashed down in merciless rhythm, sending shockwaves outward in widening circles. Stones leapt from the soil. Loose earth erupted into the air. Within seconds, a wall of gray dust swallowed
You may also like
WHIT
VKBoy20.6K viewsONCE BULLIED: LYON ARMSTRONG IS BACK.
ASystem18.7K viewsProgrammer in Another World
AmeronWerschrux_16.8K viewsThe Royal Highness
Flower Spirit44.8K viewsI Destroy the Empire
Infared788 viewsTenth author's journal 2: Mikhail
Wilhelm Duy1.8K viewsBullied Hollowborn: My Tribrid System Awakening
Alexander Jackson624 viewsStranded Stranger
Author Warren II2.7K views