When Night, as their master, declared that he would conquer them through strength, the veterans took it in stride, but the newcomers all wore expressions of open disbelief.
The female Spartan warriors did not dare to open their mouths again, yet the contempt in their eyes had already betrayed everything they were thinking.
He offered no explanation.
He simply had the Spartan warrior he had been watching bring everyone to the large open ground before the estate.
He told them all they were free to take up weapons and fight him, and that they could even use real blades if they wished.
Long before he had begun recruiting his private forces, Night had already had Lucius Caesar arrange for a large shipment of weapons and equipment to be delivered to him.
By this point in Rome, after the era of the Gracchi brothers, things had long since changed.
Gone were the days of the absurd practice where soldiers drafted from the populace had to supply their own equipment.
Since Lista Night was being sent to lead troops and suppress unrest, it was impossible not to grant him a military budget.
And with Lucius Caesar lending his support, even the Senate found it difficult to hold back too much of that funding.
Besides, they did not believe Night would succeed anyway, so they had not been especially stingy about equipment.
Then, once everyone had fully armed themselves, he told them all to come at him at once.
Veterans and newcomers alike!
When they heard this demand, the newly arrived slaves looked at Night as if he had lost his mind.
How could he dare?
And then, once the shock subsided, those who had gathered their wits began to react.
One male Spartan slave warrior laughed and spoke up.
"Now this is a rare opportunity indeed.
I am going to beat that slave master until he cannot stand."
Another warrior said quietly.
"He actually handed us weapons.
That is his greatest mistake.
Perhaps after we have dealt with this aristocrat, we could escape from Rome?"
A female Spartan warrior replied coldly. "Fools. If you want to die, do not drag the rest of us into it.
With these few people, escaping from the capital of Rome, where exactly would you even run to?
That said, he has the audacity to look down on all of us combined. It is time to let this arrogant Roman aristocrat see what Spartans are made of."
"None of you had better steal my fight. I can handle him on my own! Hahaha!"
The group of warriors laughed and joked among themselves, not taking Night seriously in the slightest.
When the fight began, the veterans had already formed up with discipline, standing back to back in a defensive formation.
The newly arrived slave gladiators burst out laughing at the sight.
So many of them were against a single man, and they were huddled up like a tortoise retreating into its shell.
Was that what a real man looked like?
Since when did Spartan and Thracian warriors become such cowards?
Some of the newcomers even began to suspect the veterans were not genuinely of their own kind at all.
The next moment, a blur of motion shot past, and the one who had been laughing the loudest was suddenly kicked clean off his feet, his entire large frame slamming flat onto the ground in the middle of the open space.
For a moment the pain left him dazed. Who am I? Where am I? What just happened?
Then soldier after soldier began flying off their feet in rapid succession.
"Defensive formation! Form up now!" The newcomers finally snapped back into wariness.
They were Spartan warriors after all.
Men and women alike put aside their contempt and fell into fighting stances, giving everything they had.
At last, one of them caught sight of an attack rushing in and raised a shield to block it, only for the shield to be cleaved apart along with the arm behind it.
A crash. A rib snapped.
The body was flung backward and spun across the ground.
Those nearby drew a sharp breath as they realized that what had just split that warrior's wooden shield apart was not a sharp blade.
It was Night's left leg.
A battle-axe kick.
This made every warrior present immediately understand that it was not only his speed that was monstrous.
His strength was on the same level.
And Helena, who had arrived at some unknown point and was now sitting atop the estate's roof, watching with mild disinterest as he dominated a group of rookies, said quietly.
"Not a single one of them is worth fighting."
She could see that he was only playing around with this lot.
If he were truly serious, he could tear through every one of them in moments.
He moved like a wolf king wading into a flock of sheep, like a tyrant sweeping through the land.
As the fight wore on, when all the warriors finally realized his strength and huddled together in a defensive cluster,
Night simply let his figure slow and walked calmly toward them.
His fists could shatter the warriors' wooden shields and powerful muscles with ease.
He casually broke apart their weapons, and even the snapped fragments of a shattered sword were enough to fracture joints and ribs.
Not a fraction more force than needed, not a fraction less.
Any slight increase and he could have torn through their flesh with ease, taken their heads with a single blow.
What followed was a battle of complete and utter domination.
Time passed in a stretch that felt endless, each second stretched out like an age.
Before long, even the veterans who had known his strength and stood ready from the start were all lying on the ground.
At that moment, every slave lifted their eyes and looked at Night, and the way they looked at him had changed entirely.
Though they were drenched in cold sweat from the pain, their eyes seemed to shine with a new light as they stared at him in shock.
Was this... the power of the gods?
Night casually tossed aside a broken wooden sword and looked down at the slave warriors who had been laid flat, especially the few who had been the most foul-mouthed before, who were now gravely wounded.
Even the female gladiators had received no mercy whatsoever.
He had beaten every one of them until they were coughing bile.
Besides, those muscles of theirs that were more intimidating than a man's made it clear that holding back would have been an insult to them as warriors.
After crushing the few ants,
he looked at them and said coldly. "Submit, or die."
For Spartans and Thracians who believed in the law of the strong, there was no better way to conquer them than this, the direct and personal experience of a force that utterly dwarfed their own.
The next moment, every Spartan and Thracian pushed through the pain, forced themselves upright, and then dropped to one knee before Night.
"We will fight to the death for you!"
In that moment, their hearts were moved.
No matter how much the veterans had tried to persuade them before, no matter how many benefits and rewards had been described, none of it compared to Night personally demonstrating his strength.
Nothing was more convincing than that.
To follow such a powerful figure and forge achievements on the battlefield.
Perhaps they could never recreate the glory of the great Heracles that their ancestors had known, but at the very least they could accomplish heroic deeds of their own, and write a tale of glory that belonged to them.
Afterward, Night dismissed the slave warriors to rest, and told them that someone would be sent to treat their wounds, and that they would recover quickly.
From tomorrow onward, they would no longer hold the status of slaves.
They would be enlisted into his legion and begin military training.
This time, none of the warriors objected.
The female Spartan warriors were particularly enthusiastic, announcing they wanted to join the legion as well.
They had no desire to simply sit at home waiting to be chosen by men.
One of the female warriors stood forward and asked.
"If a man who performed well could select a female slave of his liking, then could a woman who performed well choose a male slave she preferred as well?"
Hearing her words, several others perked up, looking at Night eagerly.
After all, they were not just tools for breeding.
They were warriors no less capable than men and they didn't want to be left behind.
Hearing the words, Night nodded.
"Of course. It's the same for you.
If any of you performed well, you can select any men to your liking. "
He had not purchased the female Spartan warriors merely to have them serve as excellent mothers.
He valued their combat ability as well, which was far from ordinary.
What fool would leave such fighting strength unused?
The male warriors were left momentarily speechless.
Wait, things could work that way too?
Quite a few men who were confident in their ability to place well in the coming competitions had been excitedly preparing to select a female Spartan warrior as their partner.
But now the situation had been flipped entirely.
Damn it! How could they possibly accept that?
The thought of their spots being taken by a group of women sent a surge of urgency and wounded male pride rising through the warriors.
.
.
.