The rider was dead before he reached the gate.
He slumped forward in the saddle, held upright only by the ropes binding his wrists to the pommel. His horse, foam-flecked and exhausted, plodded up the Appian Way, ignoring the startled cries of the farmers and merchants.
The City Guards at the Capena Gate lowered their spears.
"Halt!" a centurion shouted.
The horse stopped. The rider didn't move.
The centurion stepped closer. He reached out to grab the bridle.
Then he saw the rider's face.
Or what was left of it.
The skin had been peeled away. From the hairline to the chin, the man was a raw, red mask of muscle and bone.
But it wasn't just his face.
He wore fine Parthian silk robes, now stained dark with dried blood. But beneath the robes, the skin of his chest had been carved.
The centurion gagged.
"Get the Emperor," he choked out. "Now."
Galen stood over the body in the cool stone room of the Palace morgue. The smell of rot and iron filled the air.
Marcus stood by the door. He wasn't looking at the face. He was looking at the chest.
"He was one of ours," Narcissus said, his voice unusually quiet. "Lucius. I sent him to Ctesiphon six months ago as a merchant."
"They sent him back," Marcus said. "As a message."
Galen leaned in with a magnifying glass.
"Look at the carving," the physician said. "On the sternum."
The skin had been flayed to reveal the white bone beneath. Scratched into the sternum was a symbol.
It wasn't Latin. It wasn't Greek. It wasn't even Farsi.
It was a complex, angular character. Sharp strokes.
"What is that?" Narcissus asked.
"It's Chinese," Marcus whispered.
TRANSLATION: WAR.
The word hung in the air like a guillotine blade.
"There is something else," Galen said.
He used a pair of forceps to probe the wound in the rider's shoulder. There was an arrowhead embedded deep in the clavicle.
Galen pulled it out. It hit the metal tray with a heavy clink.
It wasn't bronze. It wasn't iron.
It was dark, gleaming metal. The tip was still razor sharp, despite having punched through bone.
"High-carbon steel," Galen breathed. "Tempered. Folded. This is harder than anything our smiths can make. If you hit this with a gladius, the gladius breaks."
METALLURGY MATCH: HAN DYNASTY BLAST FURNACE TECH.
HARDNESS: 60 HRC.
THREAT LEVEL: EXTREME.
Marcus picked up the arrowhead. It felt heavy. Cold.
"The Parthians have the horses," Marcus said. "The Han have the steel."
He looked at Narcissus.
"Your axe will shatter against this."
Narcissus looked at the bronze weapon hanging at his belt. For the first time, the giant looked small.
"They have formed an axis," Marcus said. "A superpower coalition. They aren't just defending the Silk Road anymore. They are weaponizing it."
The War Council met an hour later.
The mood was grim. The map on the table showed the red tide moving West.
"Two hundred thousand men," Varus said, reading the spy reports that had been sewn into the hem of the dead rider's robe. "Heavy cavalry. Crossbowmen. Siege engineers."
He looked up at Marcus.
"That is double the size of the entire Roman army. Even if we strip the Rhine and the Danube, we can only field a hundred thousand."
"And if we strip the borders," Pompey added, "the Germans will invade from the North while we die in the East."
"We can hold the mountains," Varus suggested. "The Taurus range in Turkey. We can bottle them up."
"And let them burn our eastern provinces?" Pompey argued. "They will take Egypt. They will take the grain. We will starve."
"Pompey is right," Marcus said. "We can't defend."
He walked to the map. He slammed his hand down on Syria.
"Defending is losing. They have the numbers. They have the steel. If we let them choose the battlefield, we die."
He looked at his generals.
"We have one thing they don't."
He reached into his pouch and pulled out a small clay sphere. A grenade.
"We have the Black Dust."
"So we attack?" Narcissus asked. "Against two hundred thousand?"
"We attack," Marcus said. "We use Total War doctrine. We don't just fight their army. We burn their supplies. We blow up their bridges. We terrorize them."
He looked at Galen.
"Are the Dragons ready?"
"Twelve are finished," Galen said. "Twenty more by the time we reach Antioch."
"Good," Marcus said. "Pack them."
He turned to the door.
"Mobilize the legions. We march at dawn."
The Forum was packed.
Fifty thousand soldiers stood in formation. But they didn't look like the legions of old.
Their armor was blackened to prevent rust and reflection. They carried satchels of grenades instead of pila. Behind the infantry, heavy ox-carts pulled the "Dragons"—massive iron tubes covered in canvas.
The air smelled of anticipation and fear.
Marcus rode out on a black stallion. He wore his battle armor—the Secutor plate he had worn in the arena, but upgraded. Reinforced.
He didn't give a long speech.
"The East is coming to enslave you!" Marcus roared, his voice echoing off the Senate house. "They want to turn Rome into a tributary! They want to make your children servants to a distant Emperor!"
He drew his sword. It was a new blade—Galen had forged it from melted-down Parthian steel.
"I am not going to let them knock on our door!" Marcus screamed. "I am going to burn their house down first!"
The army roared. It was a sound of industrial violence.
Marcus turned his horse toward the Appian Way.
He didn't look back at the Palace. He didn't look back at the life of peace he would never have.
He rode.
As he passed the city gates, a sound chimed in his ear.
Ping.
It wasn't a text message. It was a radar ping.
Marcus slowed his horse. He pulled the laptop from his saddlebag.
The screen was glowing red.
SIGNAL DETECTED.
FREQUENCY: ULTRA-HIGH BAND.
SOURCE: HIMALAYAS.
Marcus froze.
Ultra-high band? That wasn't possible. Radio didn't exist yet.
ANALYSIS: DIGITAL ENCRYPTION.
SIGNATURE MATCH: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.
Marcus stared at the screen. The blood ran cold in his veins.
The signal wasn't coming from JARVIS. It was coming to JARVIS.
Someone else was broadcasting.
Someone else had an AI.
"The Chinese Emperor," Marcus whispered. "He's not just smart. He's... like me."
He looked at the Eastern horizon. The enemy wasn't just a massive army. It was another player. Another time traveler. Or another anomaly.
The game had just changed. It wasn't Man vs World anymore.
It was Player vs Player.
"JARVIS," Marcus said, his voice shaking. "Did you just find a brother?"
UNKNOWN.
SIGNAL DECODING...
MESSAGE: "HELLO, WORLD."
Marcus slammed the laptop shut.
He kicked his horse into a gallop.
The war for the world had begun. And he wasn't the only god on the board.