The corpses of Hannibal Barca’s men filled the spacious dungeon that the water cavern fed into it. It was a staggering display of graves fashioned like military barracks stretching high into the quiet and musty mountain air. There must have been tens of thousands of them. I couldn’t even see the end, but I sure could smell the rot.

To my benefit, as my body attempted to hurl, there was nothing there. I had slept with Tanit for several days, absorbing the fish Cleopatra had made for me. I wasn’t hungry for food before, and I definitely was far from famished now, though my body was starving.

Being surrounded by corpses and ten days without rest made me very nauseous.

The hairs on the back of my neck were standing straight up as I hustled past thousands of silent dead soldiers, my feet slapping the now inch deep waters that slowly receded. I decided to use my Jupiter speed boost as much as I could. I didn’t have much time left before I collapsed, so it was best to hurry. Every once in a while, I passed by large, looming shadows. At first, I thought them to be natural rock formations of the mountain’s dungeon. But as I got closer with my Praetorian Flameblade, I flinched with shock, but shouldn’t have been so surprised.

They were the remains of war elephants. Somehow, their rotting stench was even worse than the soldiers.

How could I forget? I thought, the words in my head groggy and slow. I was losing my grasp on knowledge and history.

Time was no longer a concept for me as I trudged forward, desperate to find where Hannibal was buried. I could have been in there for a few minutes or hours. I had literally no idea. My mind and body were shutting down so rapidly and suffering from frequent blackouts that I could hardly hold onto reality.

“Hannibal!” I shouted, my lips trembling as I called his name. Tears were flowing without end as I stumbled like a zombie through the maze of bones. “T-tanit, please help!”

Tanit, despite having messed with me, listened. My Crescent Moon of Tanit glowed stronger in some portions of the dungeon, and weaker if I drifted in the wrong direction.

Eventually, after countless blackouts and wandering, I came upon an elevated stone platform supporting a dead warrior. My Crescent Moon of Tanit began to hum and glow blindingly bright as I drew near him. He was an imposing figure, even in death. Hannibal Barca lay perfectly still in a bronze cuirass and purple cloak, his rotting face covered by a Punic helmet that shielded most of it, etched with symbols of Baal and Tanit. In his skeletal hands was a curved falcata, and a small, round shield in the other.

“I hope this rids you of the smell,” I said, holding my breath as I laid the Crescent Moon of Tanit over his breast. As soon as the silver necklace touched his bronze cuirass, it immediately dissolved into a wispy light, descending into Hannibal’s corpse and exploding in a horizontal spray in every direction, passing harmlessly through me. All at once a collective gasp filled the dungeon, including several elephant cries.

Hannibal Barca sat up straight on his elevated stone altar like he’d been pulled by a marionette string.

I took a few steps back, bracing myself for a battle just in case.

All around me, the dead Carthaginians clambered down from catacomb barracks. Hannibal’s head snapped in my direction. His one vacant socket stared at me for a few tense seconds, while the other eye glared. I prepared to summon my Pilum of Mars.

“Tanit tells me you seek revenge on Rome,” Hannibal uttered through his decomposing throat. It sounded more like a guttural noise than a sentence.

“Indeed,” I said. “I-I need help d-destroying a volcano where Rome’s emperor is hiding. H-help me fight against his men and herd the p-people away, and I will release you to rest.”

Hannibal cocked his head at me, as if I was the strange one. “You look more dead than me. What is in this for you, tired one? You look like you need sleep more than anything.”

“Vengeance, for my family.”

For what felt like forever, perhaps because of the neurons slowing in my brain, Hannibal stared at me with his dead eye and empty socket. Then, he nodded, clasping his arm around me.

“Vengeance,” he growled, smiling with his cracked and decaying lips. “That is something I understand.”

“I know,” I said, my arm shaking as he shook it.

“But you want me to save Romans?”

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“Most of them, but you can kill some. There w-will be tens of millions.”

His men, whom I hadn’t realized had gathered around us like a horde of zombies, all awaited their general with bated breath. Or maybe just silence, since they didn’t need to breathe. Hannibal’s neck popped a few times as he turned to look at them.

“Let’s kill some Romans!”

As one, terrifying mob, the tens of thousands of dead Carthaginians cheered in agreement, raising their weapons in excitement.

An hour later, we descended the mountains from the snowy dungeon exit that was only able to be opened from the inside. Having relayed the plan to his men, Hannibal led the horde on one of the war elephants with me by his side on my own elephant. Much to my relief, my elephant was not as decayed as Hannibal’s. It still smelled awful, but not as revolting as his was or the other hundred that charged at the front of the army.

Having gotten used to riding a giant dragon, I fit in naturally with my war elephant, though it was much slower than Umbra. Still, it was insanely cool to be riding a zombie elephant down the white mountains at full speed to fight Julius Caesar with Hannibal Barca.

Who would’ve thought my boring, nobody life would have led to such a moment.

“Powerful, is it not?” Hannibal shouted over the winds as we navigated the treacherous terrain. “I smile knowing that Rome shall tremble before us again. Is it this Elagabalus we face?”

“No, I took him down,” I said, trying not to lay my head down on the rotten elephant’s neck. Everything in me wanted to collapse into sleep. “This man, Julius Caesar, killed me, my friends, and tried to take my wife.”

“I pray the gods favor you, Maximus. Though I will never be a friend to Rome, I shall be yours.”

I nodded in thanks, deciding not to tell him that I was technically Rome’s co emperor. I didn’t want to spoil the moment.

At my request, I had Hannibal lead the rest of the way to Mount Vesuvius while I sat numbingly on the elephant, letting it take me to our destination. I was starting to lose my vision somewhat and concentrating was impossible. I would just have to rely upon my instincts once I faced Caesar. There would be no critical thinking available to me until I slept.

Brute force and courage.

In a dark way, it was kind of nice to know it was going to end soon. Either way, I would end up in rest. While I preferred to rest with my wife and save the day, my body was dying from not sleeping, and I was going crazy. More hallucinations riddled me as we drove our dead army through the mountains. Sometimes I would look upon them and see my men from the civil war against Elagabalus. Other times I would see Bulla Felix’s bandits as if we were going on a raid. And sometimes, all I saw was snow. Endless, white powder crunching beneath the army and the elephants.

Some many hours later, towards the evening, the snow gave way. We were getting closer now. The smoky fumes of Mount Vesuvius puffed into the air, calling us forward. Hannibal Barca would bark orders at his men as we drew near.

Umbra showed up to no surprise, prompting a slurry of questions from Hannibal about a new strategy. Before he could get worked up, I lightning teleported to some hot portion of the world, probably Mexico, and teleported Umbra there before using lightning to return. I didn’t want to have to fight him nor lose my men who would be vital in saving the hordes of Romans that surrounded the mountain like an infestation of ants on an anthill.

And somewhere, deep in the lava heart of the volcano, lay Julius Caesar.

It was time for him to meet the second end to his story.

Hannibal Barca turned his rotting head towards me once we came within a mile of the horde.

“Let us make a way,” he said, nodding to me but also repeating for his men. “Let us make a way!”

Hannibal’s dead army plunged forth with discipline. As they advanced onto the mob, I patted my deceased elephant and Jupiter-leaped off of its back, summoning a lightning bolt to my pilum and throwing myself to the sky. I kept myself stationary to survey the coming battle, mentally forcing myself to hold on lest I be shot up into the sky.

A couple of arrows started flying through me the moment I activated my Shadowmail. I must have subconsciously activated it. For even though I knew Caesar’s men would try to hit me from such far distances enhanced by their skills and enchantments, my brain couldn’t functionally recall critical details like that. I carried myself further up the lightning bolt, more into the clouds, to not be bothered by them. I did, however, assist in providing fifty lightning strikes per ten minutes, slowly weeding out Caesar’s army.

Below, Hannibal’s army slammed into Caesar’s main fighting force, though many of Caesar’s men tried to break ranks as soon as they saw the dozens of war elephants charging through the first several lines, nothing stopping their dead and menacing mass. It also helped that occasionally I would wipe out fifty men in an instant, usually the larger Praetorian Guards first.

I knew from the older Historical Insight glimpses that the moment I summoned the larger, tsunami storm, all of Caesar’s soldiers would summon lightning from the storm to join me in the air, all with the singular purpose of stopping me from crushing the volcano. For me, I was sadly going to have to remove them from the equation.

On the bright side, nothing seemed to be stopping Hannibal’s army. They were already dead, so they were extremely challenging to kill unless someone had an enchanted weapon or special gift that helped to slay the undead. At least for Hannibal’s army, they would have to be dismembered to lose their abilities. That meant less of them died and more of the Roman soldiers did.

As the hours stretched on and the body count rose, Hannibal and his war elephants wiped out most of Caesar’s fighting forces and began herding the people away from Mount Vesuvius. It was long, tedious work, but it beat being responsible for all of Europe’s death had I taken the quick and easy path.

“That should be g-good,” I muttered, my brain feeling like bland soup as I activated my Jupiter blessing to summon cataclysmic storms.

It was finally time to crush Caesar.