SPARTAN WARLORD SYSTEM: CONQUERING EMPIRES AND BEAUTIES

Chapter 7: A Second Life

Cough! Cough! Haaah!

Nathan jolted awake, his back arching as he choked on a violent breath. His lungs burned, greedily dragging in air as if he had just been hauled from the depths of a suffocating ocean. 

The air scraping down his throat was neither the filtered chill of a modern skyscraper nor the cordite stench of New Jersey. It was cold, damp, and thick with the pungent stench of horse manure, rotting straw, and sodden earth.

A blinding pain flared inside his skull. It was not the impact of Adam’s nine-millimeter hollow point tearing through his forehead, but thousands of fragmented, alien memories being hammered into his mind like white-hot iron spikes.

Sparta. The Eurotas River Valley. The Hypomeion caste.

Nathan forced open eyelids crusted with dried grime. His vision swam before gradually adjusting to the pale dawn light filtering through gaps in unmortared stone walls. Above him, the roof was nothing more than thatched reeds leaking rainwater onto the muddy floor.

He looked down at his hands.

"These are not my hands," Nathan whispered hoarsely. The voice coming from his throat was no longer the deep baritone of a thirty-five-year-old combat veteran. It was thin, raspy, and parched from severe dehydration.

The fingers lacked the distinct calluses of a sniper. They were frail, pale, and caked in dust, with wrists so slender that the joints jutted out sharply. Nathan reached for his chest. His tactical Kevlar vest was gone, replaced by a threadbare gray linen tunic torn at the shoulder. There was no bullet wound in his chest, no warm splash of Cleo's blood soaking his gear. When his trembling fingers touched his forehead, the bone was completely smooth. There was no fracture, no fatal entry wound from Adam’s execution.

Nathan attempted to stand.

His legs shook violently under his own weight. His right knee was intact, allowing him to stand without the agony of shattered bone, but his thighs had almost no muscle mass. This body had suffered from chronic malnutrition for months.

Nathan Cross’s tactical mindset took over, shelving panic to assess the raw data of survival.

This body belonged to Jackson, a twenty-year-old youth belonging to Sparta’s lowest social stratum, the Hypomeion, the castaways. His father had been a regular foot soldier who died on the northern frontier without leaving an inch of land behind. Jackson himself was a defective product of the Spartan military machine. At age seven, he had been thrown into the Agoge, the brutal training camp where Spartan boys were forged into killers. But frail health and poor endurance caused him to fail his physical trials at eighteen.

In Sparta, a man unable to bear an eighteen-pound bronze Hoplon shield and march thirty miles in a Phalanx formation was considered human trash. Jackson had been stripped of his civic rights, denied a land allotment, and discarded in a rotting hovel on the outskirts of the Eurotas agricultural district to quietly starve to death.

"Damn it," Nathan muttered, clenching his frail new fists. "From a top-tier operator to a walking corpse in the most brutal civilization on earth."

In this savage land, physical endurance and muscle were the only currency. In his current state, an ordinary Spartan warrior could snap his neck with a casual backhand.

Just as Nathan was gauging the physical limits of his new frame, a high-frequency electric whine tore through his mind.

SKREEEEE!

Nathan gripped his temples, his teeth grinding against a sharp ache boring into his consciousness.

[WELL DAMN! Look who finally opened his eyes!]

The irritating voice he had heard right before dying on that New Jersey rooftop echoed again. This time it was crystal clear, bouncing inside his skull with relaxed, mocking amusement.

Nathan straightened on instinct, his eyes sweeping the bare room. "Who is that? Show yourself."

[Relax, tough guy. You are as stiff as a board,] the voice chuckled derisively. [Here, let me show you my magnificent self so you don't drop dead from a heart attack, Boss.]

A yard in front of Jackson, motes of blood-red light swirled into a small, humming vortex of energy. The chill in the hovel softened, replaced by the faint scents of fermented red wine and rusted iron.

The light condensed into the translucent silhouette of a towering, muscular warrior clad in classical bronze armor, topped with a Spartan war helm bearing a crimson horsehair crest. The apparition was reclining sideways in midair, ankles crossed lazily, casually swirling a golden goblet of wine toward Jackson.

[Good morning, corpse!] the glowing figure greeted with a wide grin of straight white teeth. [Name is Ares, or you can call me your Warlord Harvest System. Don't look so stunned. You just scored a first-class VIP ticket to the most savage hellhole on earth.]

Nathan stared at the floating specter without blinking. There was no fear in his eyes, no terrified plea for mercy, and no superstitious awe. His gaze remained dead, cold, and heavy with the murderous resolve forged in his final moments in New Jersey.

"That Persian ring," Nathan said, his voice dropping low and dangerous. "You pulled my soul into this emaciated husk?"

The entity calling itself Ares cocked an eyebrow, chuckling as he took a sip of illusory wine.

[Whoa, take it easy, pal. Don't tell me you are still salty about your best bud putting a bullet in your head yesterday. Poor elite operator, outplayed by a rookie.] 

The entity mocked him shamelessly, his grin widening at Nathan's cold reaction. 

[That ring was merely an energy anchor. Your soul was too stubborn to die, and by sheer luck, this skinny runt named Jackson was a perfect match. His soul froze to death just before dawn. Perfect fit. Frankly, you should be on your knees thanking me for giving you a second breath.]

"I don't need a second breath if it just means being a stray dog in the Bronze Age," Jackson cut in coldly, resting a hand against the chill stone wall. "What is your angle? There is no free lunch, especially not from an entity like you."

Ares chuckled, spinning the goblet in his fingers.

[Sharp mind. Guess being a mercenary wasn't a total waste. Fine, simple terms. You want revenge? You want to grind the faces of the people who tossed you away into the dirt? In Sparta, you are a nobody. Just a pathetic Hypomeion about to be erased by history. But under my guidance, you can become the sole Emperor.] 

Ares leaned forward, his grin turning predatory. 

[I will supply you with modern weaponry, limitless supplies, and monstrous physical power. But there is a price. I only care about two things: the blood of conquest, and beautiful women in your bed. Provide both through territory expansion and building your inner circle, and I will make you the undisputed ruler of the Mediterranean.]

Before Jackson could reply, the heavy thud of bronze-soled boots struck the ground outside.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

The frail wooden door shook violently under heavy pounding, showering dust and dried thatch from the ceiling.

"Open up, loser!" a coarse shout bellowed through the wood, shattering the dawn silence. "The Kleros Council has issued an emergency decree! Get out here right now, or we will drag your corpse to the town square!"