In the once-prosperous City of Seven Hills, thick smoke now billowed everywhere as terrified civilians fled in all directions. Quite a few nobles who had already laid down their military posts and were recuperating in their estates were also being assassinated by infiltrating Assassins.
Chanting, furious roars, crashing impacts, and screams filled the air without end. The Lupercalia, the festival symbolizing the founding of Rome, had been dyed red with blood.
"You beasts! You defile my land and slaughter my people. Repay it with your lives!"
Upon the Great Altar, the Divine Ancestor Romulus saw the carnage before him and flew into a rage. Raising one hand, he pressed it against the Sacred Tree. Crimson blood flowed along the grain of the trunk, seeping through it and driving its divine power into motion.
All phenomena, all things, converge upon my spear! All things are born of my spear!
In an instant, emerald branches and leaves drew in countless threads of blood energy from every corner of Rome, condensing into city walls that severed space itself. At the same time, a massive golden halo spread outward and covered the city. One after another, crimson spear-like pillars burst from the earth, forming a terrifying forest of spears that skewered hundreds of Assassins and Meteor Archers who had infiltrated the city, impaling them from below and leaving their corpses hanging in the air.
For a moment, the Roman legions locked in bitter fighting felt the pressure on them ease sharply. They began breaking through the blockade and converging on the Pantheon.
But at the exact moment the Divine Ancestor Romulus made his move, Cyrus and Ramesses II seized the opening and launched an all-out assault.
"O Father of Flames, radiant as the sun. O Lord of Light, who grants all wisdom, dignity, and strength. Witness my heart, my thoughts, and the deeds I am about to accomplish. Come, god who created the stars, the moon, and the blazing sun. Heed the command of my words and grant me the strength to face a hundred alone, to let a hundred face a thousand, to remain unconquered in battle and victorious in ten thousand wars!"
As he chanted solemnly, the Persian King invoked the authority of Verethragna, the war god who serves Mithra, Lord of Light. The strange golden greatsword he tossed into the air split from one into two, from two into four, and in the blink of an eye multiplied into thousands upon thousands, all of them aimed straight at Romulus on the Great Altar.
As the final word fell, the golden rain of swords descended, dense as meteors tearing across the night sky.
"O Almighty God, bear witness to my great deeds! Kneel! My infinite radiance, the Sun God shall descend upon this place! The Great Temple of Radiance!"
At the same time, the Pharaoh King raised his gold-and-blue scepter high. Bathed in brilliance like the sun, his body rose into the air, while thunderous rumbling echoed above the Great Altar.
Those mysterious triangular symbols, paired above and below and each bearing an embedded eye, solidified under the gathering force of Ramesses II's divine might, becoming pyramids infused with the power of law as they crashed against one another.
"Civilization is the world, and the world is Rome! Nothing that is not Rome shall exist within the world. Let the stars above bestow their blessing here, let the eternal kingdom descend here. My love embraces all things! My spear reaches all things! Our arms shall carve open everything, all the way to the very heavens!"
A crushing divine pressure of unimaginable weight came crashing down. The ground split apart and sank with sharp cracking sounds, while Romulus's body groaned from every corner under the unbearable burden.
The Divine Ancestor made his decision at once. Grasping the trunk of the Sacred Tree, he used the Spear of Nation-Building to frantically draw in and compress the power leaking from the Pantheon into the city of Rome. The condensed crimson spearhead shot upward to meet the colliding pyramids and the descending rain of light head-on in midair.
Boom!
At the point of impact, space first collapsed inward violently, then twisted to its absolute limit before exploding with a thunderous blast. Seven-colored beams of light erupted in all directions, and a savage tide of Ether swept outward like a catastrophic storm. Wherever it passed, walls collapsed, houses caved in, and trees and plants were shredded apart.
Under the roaring shockwaves of divine might, the streams of Ether light raised before Cyrus and Ramesses II shattered and dispersed. Blood spilled from the corners of their mouths as both were sent flying backward.
Even that magnificently impressive Solar Ship lost cohesion from lack of Mana and dissolved into Ether particles.
But on the Great Altar, facing the combined force of the Persian King and the Pharaoh King, the Divine Ancestor Romulus, now deprived of the Pantheon's support, fared even worse.
The man, drenched in blood, braced himself on the Spear of Nation-Building and knelt on one knee inside a conical crater several meters deep, blue smoke curling from it and radiating cracks spreading all around. His exquisite and ancient golden armor had been shattered to pieces, exposing a powerfully built body split open with wounds.
As expected. Without the support of the Kronos Crown, fighting two at once was still too much.
The Divine Ancestor coughed up foul blood, leaned on his spear, and struggled back to his feet.
Rumble!
The Palatine Hill shook violently. Fully one-third of it cracked apart and collapsed, breaking away from the main mass into scattered earth and stone as entire clusters of buildings came crashing down.
But this was not the first disaster Rome had suffered.
Only a civilization that survives crisis after crisis and still stands unbroken can endure for eternity.
If they wished to shake my nation and my land, then they would have to be ready to fight to the death and leave at least one of themselves behind.
But do they dare?
The Divine Ancestor wiped the blood from his lips. A cold smile curled at the corner of his mouth, and his sharp gaze toward the two figures in the sky cut like blades.
Whish! Whish! Whish! Whish!
Suddenly, piercing sounds tore through the dust behind him. Romulus merely raised an eyebrow and casually turned the Spear of Nation-Building, sweeping aside dozens of incoming throwing knives.
Splurt!
The spear thrust forward, tearing through the dust in a single strike. It pierced straight through an oncoming figure, lifted the body high into the air, then hurled it aside and smashed it into pulp, leaving a horrifying splash of crimson across the stone pavement.
As the wind and dust dispersed, more figures emerged from the shadows and rushed in, men and women, young and old alike.
A thousand shifting forms, a hundred different faces...
Hmph. Just as I thought. Rats from the nest.
Romulus was devoting all his attention to guarding against the two great enemies, the Persian King and the Pharaoh King. He had no intention of wasting effort on this pack of fodder. The Spear of Nation-Building gathered a spiraling crimson Ether storm and swept forward, carving through the vermin surging in from every side.
Splurt! Splurt! Splurt! Splurt!
Under the sweep of that crimson storm, bodies were torn apart and blood mist burst into the air. Before that overwhelming divine might, the so-called Old Man of the Mountain was utterly powerless.
Cyrus and Ramesses II gave the Divine Ancestor no time to breathe. Forcing down their injuries, they unleashed another burst of divine power.
At the instant Romulus drew back his spear to counter the powerful enemies in the sky, his heart suddenly clenched. As if sensing something, he abruptly turned his head.
Within the dispersing blood mist, his scarlet eyes reflected the image of an utterly ordinary old man at the edge of life.
He should have been reduced to a mangled heap along with those split-off figures...
Bzzzz!!!
The trembling air rang with a grim resonance like a tolling bell. The Divine Ancestor's pupils contracted violently, and his lips moved in a silent murmur.
Old Man of the Mountain? So that's how it is.
In the next instant, a chill gleam that condensed darkness and death to their utmost limit tore through the blood mist and unleashed peerless brilliance.
At the same time, outside the city.
The Ancient Serpent, who was in charge of intercepting Altera, suddenly turned back as if he had sensed something.
Crack!
The emerald Divine Tree hanging over Rome shattered and collapsed, and the luminous barrier it had established broke apart inch by inch.
But what Samael found even more unbelievable was that the aura on the Palatine Hill, the one that had seemed to link heaven and earth, had vanished.
Boom!
Wild winds swept across the land and thunder rolled through the sky. A crimson rain of blood began to fall over Rome, as though the heavens were weeping and the world itself were bleeding.
A god had fallen...