All across the sea horizon a black, electric filled storm emerged. It came to me, at my beckoning with a raised hand, howling with a terrible roar as it churned the dark seas and began picking up momentum. It moved as I pulled on it with one hand, as if I were scooping it up from the sea.
At first a small wave, the more it traveled by the wind’s aid, the larger it grew. Well before it reached the shores, the tsunami that drained my stamina to build had reached the staggering height of the Empire State Building. It shimmered like liquid glass that reflected the red-orange fire of the volcano it intended to destroy. It would be absolutely lethal if anyone ever fell victim to one of them.
It looked like Julius Caesar was about to have a first hand account of that experience.
Behind me, tens of thousands of Jupiter-blessed rose to counter me, hurling lightning bolts at me. Because it was already dark again, I simply tapped into my Shadowmail, avoiding every strike as my health drained. Had I not, I would have died instantly. Caesar was really going all out with trying to kill me. With the tsunami raging, I chugged one of my last two stamina potions before turning onto the Jupiter-blessed. I couldn’t tell if these Romans were under Caesar’s dream control or not. Either way, they had to go.
Just to even the playing field, I lightning dashed into the thickest grouping of Jupiter-blessed and immediately twisted the air around us to form a tornado. I kept one hand pulling the tsunami towards Mount Vesuvius, while the other spun in circles to wrap up the thousands of Jupiter-blessed into a storm. Though keeping the storms up drained fifteen stamina per second, I was still able to maintain them if I let go for three seconds and reengaged them, such was the power of Jupiter’s blessings.
The Jupiter-blessed were totally powerless to the violent vortex that swept them up. Many of them still tried to destroy me, but because of how chaotic they spun around me and because I was impossible to hit, their lighting bolts ended up incinerating their allies.
I didn’t have enough stamina to kill every single one of the tens of thousands of Jupiter-blessed individually. Good thing I didn’t have to.
With an entire army of Jupiter-blessed caught up in my tornado, and with the tsunami now roaring over the land to crush the volcano, I decided to put two and two together.
In a mighty, fatigued scream, I shoved my right hand controlling the tornado into my left, pushing against the incredible force, angling them down to the ground. The tornado obeyed. In just a few seconds, the black vortex threw down the tens of thousands of Jupiter-blessed at the base of the tsunami where they were quickly smashed by the roaring tidal wave, forever erased.
My brain was way too tired to acknowledge or even read the red text notifications that came my way from such an impressive attack. Instead, now that I was free of distractions, I turned all of my attention to guiding the tsunami wave with both hands.
C’mon, I thought, hauling the colossal wave over the newly restored Pompeii. Anything in the tsunami’s path was instantly flattened.
Hopefully no one remained and Hannibal Barca and his men removed them to safety. I could see them herding the hordes out of the corner of my eye. I could only hope they would be okay.
In a sheer moment of absurdity, I unstably chuckled at the black thought that Pompeii had been both destroyed by fire and water. My mind was reaching the edge of losing it, so even the most awful things seemed funny.
Once Pompeii was no more, the tsunami finally reached Mount Vesuvius, which bubbled and smoked with fire. It would be no more.
In one aggressive push, I shoved the mountain of water into the volcano.
Everything exploded.
Chunks of lava rock and steam erupted as the two forces collided, sending water everywhere. I was even hit with water being so high up. The volcano was no match for the crushing impact of the tsunami, and so its structure collapsed in on itself, followed immediately by a mushroom cloud of ash that instantly polluted the dark skies. The force of their collision was so great that it shook all of Rome in a deafening roar.
The devastating power was far more than I imagined. As the tsunami wave splashed up high into the sky, it began its downwards trek at a blinding speed. Hannibal’s army and the tens of millions of Europeans would be flattened if I let it run its natural course.
“No!” I shouted, my mind temporarily blacking out as I scrambled to stop it. From previous Historical Insight visions, I knew Titus and Livia would be part of that horde.
“No further!” I screamed, struggling to hold back the tides that barrelled down. Though I was its master, gravity was still an uncaring force of nature to contend with. With all of my fleeting strength, I heaved on the tsunami waves. It quite literally felt like I was deadlifting a million tons, such was the force of the water.
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And it held.
The waters obeyed, cowing to my superior strength and pulling away from Hannibal’s war elephants by a dozen feet, splashing them nonetheless. My mind continued to blackout repeatedly beneath the strain, like someone was flipping the light switch on and off, over and over. The strain was so disorienting that my flesh screamed to give up, to let go and finally sleep. But something deep within me, stronger than any System stat or power, resisted the urge to quit.
Blood streamed from my nostrils as I successfully lifted the waves away from the horde of innocents. And with a final, mighty push, I channeled the tons of water back to the sea where they belonged.
The moment I let go, I collapsed from the exhaustion, plummeting without control down to the soaked and steam-filled ruins of the collapsed Mount Vesuvius. I was extremely lucky that I received no fall damage thanks to Jupiter, for I crashed with the force of a meteor into the ground. Though, my armor did not share the same blessing, nor did my lungs which struggled to breathe from the impact. From the several thunderous cracks that simultaneously occurred as I hit the ground, I was pretty sure my gear was ruined. Nothing could have survived that fall. From my last stamina and health potions to my armor and most of my weapons, save for my Pilum of Mars and Achilles’ Spear, all was ruined.
Everything in me wanted to die. I could hardly raise my head to see where I had fallen, let alone breath when the ability to suck in breath finally restored a minute. The air around me was thick with hot ash and steam, causing my lungs to hack and shudder. Coughing was the only thing keeping me conscious.
And there, emerging from the hot ash like the god of war Mars, glowing with golden, molten-enchanted armor from head to toe and wielding a lava-dripping gladius in one hand and the Orb of Morpheus tied to his hip, was Julius Caesar. The golden armor mixed with fire made him look like an immortal.
His sudden appearance shot fear into my weak and trembling body.
Caesar wasted no time in trying to murder me. With a grunt, he slammed his lava gladius down on me. It was purely instinct that I summoned my Pilum of Mars at the last second, keeping it from a fatal blow.
“ENOUGH!” Caesar growled, pulling back my pilum with ease. He didn’t even give me a chance to react before ramming the lava gladius down into my chest. The sword disappeared into shadow thanks to my blessing, sparing me from an instant kill. “Fine, I shall wait. It will be less than two minutes anyway. I know every power you have, Max.”
It was true. Thanks to his maxing out of Minerva’s blessing, he could see everything I had and knew how to counter me.
Caesar planted his gladius in my face where it would return from the shadows in less than a minute, when my body would have to otherwise I would die from my Shadowmail.
Health: 120/150
Health: 119/150
My electric aura should have been shocking him, but it seemed he was withstanding the consistent current through the use of potions or some unknown enchantment. He didn’t even flinch.
“I really didn’t expect you to pull that off,” Caesar said, frowning. “I am impressed, especially with the usage of Hannibal to spare the people. But unfortunately, it was never enough. You were never enough Maximus. You were not born to be a man, a conqueror. You were always destined to be a slave, kissing the feet of greater men than you.”
His words were a blur as I scrambled with ideas on what to do. Every time I tried to summon my Pilum of Mars, he would dance gracefully out of the way. I still couldn’t move thanks to having the wind knocked out of me, and my body, so tired from ten days of no sleep, was finally catching up with me. The fall and the fatigue combined were fatal. Every other second was a temporary blackout and I could hardly focus. It felt like someone was slowly running a knife through my brain.
My health kept slipping faster with every moment.
To stall, I tried to distract him.
“W-why?” I could barely squeak, raising a trembling hand to the Orb of Morpheus which glowed on Caesar’s hip, only for my hand to fall limp again.
Caesar shook his head, as if I were nothing more than a child. “For all of your wisdom and books, you are really quite foolish. I know you read of my campaigns and the accounts of historians. You know how my life was taken from me, how my family ended. I have been given a second chance by the gods, and I have seized it without apology. The Orb of Morpheus has given me my life back. Rome is mine again.
“And so is Julia, and her child.
“My only daughter died so young, and was again taken from me by Elagabalus in this second life.” Caesar looked away from me for a second, his thought a million miles away. “The Orb of Morpheus was my only key to taking him down and bringing her back to life. But by the gods, you helped me take down Persephone and Elagabalus, making my victory so much easier. And now, I have Rome again, rightfully so, and my family is once again with me.
“And don’t worry. Now that I know you took the Carthaginians to war, I will quickly have your Cleopatra. A few of my scouts are on their way to capture her now, as I sent them right away once I heard of your march. I will have your spawn dashed upon the rocks and your wife for my mistress, forever, while you rot in the grave. Your name shall be forgotten. Not even your courtesan wife will remember you.”
Thunder rumbled up above as if to emphasize his words. The storm still raged, with only a few minutes left before it ran out, just in time to see me totally defeated. Lightning spread across the sky in a spectacular show. Tears trickled down my shadow cheeks as I watched helplessly.
Health: 7/150
Health: 6/150
The storm…
Lightning…
“There,” Caesar growled with pleasure, seeing my health finally run out. “Veni, vidi, vi—”
Just as my body naturally released my Shadowmail perk, I threw my head violently to the right, only my ear being singed by his magmic sword. Simultaneously, I summoned a bolt of lightning from the dwindling storm with my weak hand, aiming straight up to space, while I wrapped the other around Caesar’s hip, Orb of Morpheus included. The moment my hand touched the lightning bolt, both of us exploded into the freezing, fatal embrace of outer space.