Cyrus strode through the carnage, delicately striding over the battered, mangled corpses of his legionaries. Eyes constantly scanned the fear-contorted faces in hopes of finding survivors among the fallen. There were none. No movement or sound. There was simply silence, broken only by the clatter of his caligae landing upon metal and stone.
He wished that his rescuer was here to keep him company. Alas, he had disappeared after Cyrus had fallen unconscious.
After an hour of searching, constantly double-checking the area, the Decanus finally gave up. He glumly trudged back to the portal. The man tapped the button beside the doorway and watched the night sky transform into the familiar blue vortex.
Sighing, Cyrus shook his head and dragged his feet through the portal. As his eyes readjusted to the light, he prepared his mind for the worst. The roman wouldn't put it past his enemies to have melted the entire cavern down with their black raindrop magic.
Thankfully, the massive chamber had remained relatively unscathed during his captor's occupation. A few tents were uprooted. A couple training dummies were missing. But aside from that, it remained untouched.
His eyes took in the empty white rows of fabric, the vacant obstacle course, the deserted parade ground and the lines of dummies standing alone, lost without their playmates. His heart plummeted. The stillness seemed to accuse him, the silence judging him for his failures as a commander... And they were right.
His men had died for naught! The outcome would've remained the same without his soldiers' participation. Regrets bubbled up inside of him.
His blurred, watery eyes found themselves once again at the treeline, staring out into the carpet of bodies and soon-to-be dead soldiers hopelessly fending off the Gauls' advances. They fell, one after another. Each death was accompanied by roaring laughter and the thud of a dismembered corpse crashing into the dirt.
The roman tried to blink away the images, wiping the salty water off his eyes with his blooded linen cloth. Yet the respites were brief as more drops of the crystal-clear liquid overran his eyeballs.
The bodies continued falling, over and over. The gruff laughter of barbarians transformed into the sickly sweet giggle of the demons. The liquid spraying from wounds was no longer red in colour but black, hissing as they splattered on the soil. Deceased legionaries no longer collided with dirt but with stone. The gladiuses transformed into short swords and scutum into round shields. The dark sky faded into a cobblestone surface. The barbarians melded into a single, heavily armoured man with their battle axes reshaping into black gloves. The same scene played over and over in his head.
His futile mental blockades were washed out instantly, crumbling upon first contact with the storm of memories.
He heard his general's final remarks echo in his head, "Your overconfidence will be your undoing..." Cyrus wanted to scream, "IT WASN'T OVERCONFIDENCE." But deep down, he knew the true reason for all his disastrous defeats.
The Decanus lacked power and military strength. If he had either, overconfidence wouldn't have mattered. His elite soldiers would merely crush the enemy no matter how he viewed them. If Cyrus had military strength, it would've allowed him to easily amass more troops, drowning his foes under a mountain of bodies if all else failed.
Cyrus let his mental gates down, embracing the tidal wave of regrets and memories. He reforged his heart using the steel armour and swords of the dead. He drenched his willpower in the blood and flesh of the fallen.
"Never again," he whispered fanatically. Over and over, Cyrus repeated those words, engraving them into his mind. As the tsunami of thoughts trickled to a stop, he made one last promise, "With the gods as my witnesses! By fire, by the sword, by any means necessary, I will purge the demonic cultists and their god from this world as long as I draw breath!"
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The air around him began to hum with energy, covering his being in a layer of invisible paint. It felt solid yet intangible, wavering in and out of existence. With each state change, a lightning bolt of pain would strike his mind. It was but a pinprick. Cyrus's world spun like a spinning top. Pain lashed out continuously as the two existences, intangible and tangible became interchangeable. Blood-red notifications constantly flashed in front of his face.
[Would you like to initiate [Oath of Vengenace]?]
[Y/N]
"Yes," Cyrus snarled as the throbbing headache transformed into an incorporeal hammer slamming continuously against his temple.
[Are you certain? [Oath of Vengeance] cannot be undone.]
[Y/N]
"Yes," the roman reiterated, his shaking hands now clutching his head.
[This is the final confirmation that you wish to enact [Oath of Vengenace]!]
[Once confirmed, it cannot be undone.]
[Y/N]
"Yes," Cyrus mumbled as his teeth ground against each other.
[Oath of Vengeance Detected!]
[New Quest Detected!]
[Retribution..]
The pain vanished.
Cyrus flicked the notification out of sight. There was work to be done.
As the roman reopened the troop spawn sheet, he felt a tug at his being. The sensation wasn't like someone pulling on his shoulder or tugging at his hand but as if the air around him was latching onto his clothes.
Before the man could react, a physical hand grabbed onto the back of his shirt. Yanked backwards, he saw a flash of white light. The air turned cooler as if he had transferred to a new room.
Blinking furiously to remove the black patches from his vision, Cyrus found himself in a white, sterile room that mimicked the senate house back in Rome.
Yet the differences were distinct. There were no idiotic men dressed in white togas or wooden seats. In their place were men and women with bodies of absolute perfection dressed in strange, black two-piece tunics that extended all the way down to their feet. Their top shirt exposed a lot of their chest, revealing a second white layer beneath the first. On their necks were these peculiar, black triangular tails. Why anyone would choose such strange fashion statements was beyond him.
The seats these weirdos sat on was another matter. While the wooden chairs were by no means bad, the inbuilt, plush, red pillows and the overall smooth interior were in a league of their own. Cyrus had high hopes that he may gain the opportunity to snatch one for himself later on.
He was broken from his ogling by a quiet cough. He turned around, coming face to face with his saviour. Much to his dismay, the man looked even more handsome than their last encounter.
"Magnās grātiās tibi agō," Cyrus mumbled...
The roman felt just a tad bit inferior in looks compared to these god-like people. He quickly adjusted his linen undershirt, tugging at the bottom to remove the creases before realising the man was still looking at him...as if wanting him to speak?
He cleared his throat, "Salvete, patres conscripti? Huic velim gratias pro auxilio duorum haereticorum salvandorum. Si quid est quod possum tibi rependere, fac ut sciam..." His voice trailed off as he realised the room had fallen silent. That was never a good sign. The people sitting before him were looking oddly at him in...confusion?
Cyrus began growing doubts, "Have I misjudged this group. They seem educated. They are surely not..." Then the realisation hit him.
He was in a different realm... speaking Latin...
But it didn't make sense. He could read the language just fine... The dungeon fairy was a citizen of this world and they had conversed just fine before he killed her. As he scratched his chin, pondering this unexpected boundary in communication, he heard a voice call out.
"Try it now," a woman said.
"Thank you, lady," Cyrus stammered, utterly stunned by her musical, harmonious voice. "Is this the avatar of Orpheus," he wondered internally... He quickly got over that fact as he repeated his previous speech but in a universal language? Cyrus was unsure.
"I'm afraid that your patron is in serious trouble little one. You are here at his request."