Chapter 529: Caesar’s Anger and Humiliation!
Caesar stood alone in his quarters, the heavy silence pressing down like a storm before eruption. His face, usually carved with composure and imperial pride, now twisted in barely contained fury.
This was not the grand Senate Castle where he once stayed mostly controlling all the senators — no, this was his private Roman estate, a fortress disguised as a mansion. Every wall was reinforced, every window sealed, every entrance guarded by the most loyal n he could find. At least, he thought they were loyal. After recent events, that word — loyalty — had begun to sound hollow, aningless.
He paced back and forth, the sound of his boots striking the marble floor echoing like the beat of war drums. His thoughts churned with disbelief and rage.
Johanna’s words still rang in his ears — broken, fragnted, almost delirious — but one thing was clear: Nathan had turned against him.
Betrayal.
The very idea left a bitter taste in his mouth.
No words could capture the magnitude of his anger — it was beyond fury, beyond humiliation. It was the cold realization that everything he had built might have been a stage, and he the fool dancing upon it.
And at the heart of it all… Septimius.
That man — that dog — whom Caesar had elevated from the dirt for his sheer strength, had sohow slithered his way into trust, into influence, into Caesar’s confidence. He was supposed to be a weapon, not a mind. A servant, not a hand. And yet, Caesar had let him rise, had let him stand beside him… only to be stabbed from within.
In the room, only two others remained: Octavius, standing silently near the door with an expression carved of stone, and Johanna, seated on the edge of a chair, trembling.
Caesar had forbidden anyone else from entering. Paranoia was now his shadow. He trusted no one — not the guards, not the servants, not even the n who swore blood oaths to him.
Whom could he believe? Whom could he trust?
He clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. It felt as though every action, every word, every decision he had made was orchestrated by Nathan’s hand. He had been played, maneuvered like a puppet on invisible strings.
The humiliation was unbearable. Even if he were to kill Nathan a thousand tis, even if he were to torture him through every century of existence — it would never be enough.
His voice trembled with restrained wrath as he turned toward Johanna. “What else did you see?”
He tried to sound calm, but the venom in his tone betrayed him.
Johanna didn’t answer. Her hands shook violently as she stared at the floor, her lips moving without sound.
“Johanna!” Caesar’s roar filled the room, shattering the fragile quiet.
She flinched, nearly falling from her chair. “Y…Yes?”
“I said, what else did you see?” Caesar’s steps were heavy as he approached her, the air itself growing tense with his presence. His eyes burned with anger, and Johanna dared not et them.
“I… I saw many things,” she stamred, voice cracking. “But I… I told you everything I managed to understand…”
She swallowed hard, struggling to steady her breath. When she had touched Nathan, visions had flooded her mind — countless mories, layered atop one another, racing past her too fast to grasp. Faces, wars, cities — all blurring into a storm of confusion.
And then ca the pain.
An overwhelming headache tore through her skull, wiping away most of what she had seen, leaving only fragnts — shards of truth. But those fragnts alone were enough to terrify her.
She had seen echoes of the Trojan War, seen Nathan himself fighting as Heiron, standing defiant against an army of Greek legends led by Hera and Athena.
Even now, the images haunted her. The battlefield was vast, a storm of blood and fla — titans clashing, gods descending, the sky splitting under divine wrath. It was like a scene from an impossible dream, or the greatest fiction ever told… except she knew it was real.
It wasn’t fantasy. It wasn’t illusion.
It was history — his history.
Just what kind of monster was he?
That thought wouldn’t leave Johanna’s mind. It echoed, again and again, pounding against her skull like a relentless drum. Her stomach twisted, bile rising in her throat as flashes of what she had seen tornted her.
She had already vomited once — and even now, the mory threatened to make her retch again. The scenes of the Trojan War were beyond comprehension: an endless battlefield drenched in crimson, gods and mortals screaming in one chaotic symphony of death. And there — at the heart of it — stood Nathan.
Or Heiron. Or Septimius.
Whatever na he went by, it didn’t matter.
Because the thing she saw fighting amidst those burning fields wasn’t a man. It was a force of nature.
He cut through legions of Greeks like a blade through silk — slaying thousands upon thousands, turning warriors into ash with nothing but his fury. The scale of the violence defied sanity; it felt less like a war and more like divine retribution unleashed upon the earth.
No — it wasn’t the war that terrified her most. It was him.
His eyes, his movents, his silence in the midst of carnage…
There was no rcy. No hesitation. No humanity.
Every strike he dealt was deliberate — a ssage, a sentence, a punishnt. He fought not for survival, not even for glory. It was almost like he fought because sothing inside him demanded blood.
Johanna trembled, clutching her arms tightly. To think she had been close to him… had even touched him. The sa man whose hands had once grasped hers had bathed entire armies in blood…
If he ever discovered what she had done — that she had peered into his mind — she couldn’t even imagine what horrors awaited her. The thought alone sent cold tremors racing through her veins.
“WOMAN!”
Caesar’s roar snapped her back to the present. His boots struck the marble with sharp, echoing cracks as he advanced on her, fury radiating from his every step.
“I don’t care what you felt!” he snarled, eyes blazing. “Tell everything you saw — even the fragnts you didn’t understand! Every piece of him, Johanna! I want it all!”
Before she could respond, Octavius’s calm voice broke through the tension.
“Caesar,” he said, his tone asured, cautious. “We’ve already warned Athena. Wouldn’t it be wiser to let her deal with him? From what Johanna saw, Athena despises that man. The goddess won’t hesitate.”
His eyes flicked toward Johanna for confirmation.
She nodded quickly, still trembling. “Y…Yes… she hates him. I saw it — during the war, there was so much anger between them. He… he wanted to do sothing to her. Even when he ca to Ro, that hatred followed.”
“What else?” Caesar demanded, leaning in closer, voice sharp as a blade.
Johanna squeezed her eyes shut, shaking. Her nails dug into her palms until blood welled beneath them. Every attempt to recall more tore at her mind. It felt as if sothing — or soone — was fighting back, clawing into her thoughts whenever she reached too deep.
Her breath hitched as another vision flickered before her.
A dark place.
Endless shadows twisting like smoke.
Nathan stood there — or Heiron, or whatever na he bore in that ti — speaking to a figure veiled in utter darkness.
A woman. Or sothing that wore the shape of one.
Her smile was faint, almost tender… and yet it radiated power that could crush a soul. Johanna tried to see her face — and instantly regretted it.
Her body convulsed, and she slapped a hand over her mouth as a sharp pain ripped through her skull. The mory shattered like glass, fragnts slipping away before she could grasp them.
She didn’t want to know.
She didn’t want to rember.
That thing — that woman cloaked in shadow — was not ant to be seen.
Caesar’s voice ca again, relentless. “What did you see?”
Johanna’s breath ca in ragged bursts. “N…Nothing!” she cried out, shaking her head violently. “That man… he’s a monster!”
Silence hung heavy for a mont. Then Caesar clicked his tongue in disgust and stepped back, running a hand through his hair.
“I told you,” Octavius muttered, his voice quiet but edged with reproach. “I told you from the beginning — he’s not one of us. You should never have trusted him.”
Caesar let out a low snort and sank into his chair, the leather creaking under his weight. He pressed his fingers to his temple, veins pulsing in his forehead.
“Do you think he planned this with Crassus?” he asked, voice lower now — cold, calculating.
Octavius shook his head. “No. He didn’t need Crassus. He ca here with a purpose — long before he t Septimius. If anything, he’s the one who found Crassus, molded him, used him.”
BADAM!
Caesar’s fist ca crashing down upon the table, the wood cracking beneath the force.
“Who the fuck is that bastard!?” he roared, his voice shaking the room.
“The Hero of Darkness.”
A calm, deep voice echoed through the room — smooth and confident, cutting through the air like a knife through silk.
Caesar froze mid-breath, his fury montarily dulled by surprise as the shadows behind him rippled.
And then, before anyone could speak, a figure materialized — stepping from thin air as if erging from a rift in reality itself.
Aaron.
His arrival carried no sound but the faint hum of distorted space. His sharp eyes swept over the room before settling lazily on Caesar, as if none of the tension mattered to him in the slightest. Without waiting for permission, he took a seat — crossing one leg over the other in quiet amusent.
Octavius’s gaze narrowed. “The Hero of Darkness?” he repeated.
Aaron gave a slow nod, resting his elbow on the armrest. “The one and only Hero summoned by the Kingdom of Tenebria.”
Caesar’s expression hardened. His mind, though clouded by anger, began to piece the puzzle together. “Wait—Tenebria? Don’t tell …”
Aaron smiled faintly, lifting his hand in affirmation.
“Yes. The most obvious conclusion is the correct one.” His voice carried a casual certainty, like a teacher explaining a lesson to dim students. “He ca to recover what we took — the Princess of Tenebria. Benjamin may have succeeded in capturing her, but that action led to a chain reaction. The Hero of Darkness followed the trail — tracked Benjamin all the way to Alexandria. From there, he took on the identity of Septimius and infiltrated Ro itself to reclaim the Demon Princess.”
“Damn it!” Caesar slamd a fist against the table, teeth clenched. “Servilia — that bitch — escaped with them just last night!”
Aaron leaned back slightly, unbothered. “Then it’s safe to assu Septimius helped them. But here’s what’s interesting — he could have taken them at any ti. He had the power, the opportunity, the ans… yet he didn’t. Instead, he stayed. He played the role. He earned your trust. He waited.”
Caesar glared at him, his rage simring just beneath the surface. “And what the hell does that prove?”
Aaron smiled — not kindly, but knowingly. “It proves one thing.”
Octavius’s expression darkened. He exhaled slowly, his voice low and heavy. “He wants to take Caesar down.”
Caesar shot up from his chair. “Take down?! Why?! He’s already recovered the won — the Demon Princess and her servant! So why not just leave?!”
Aaron’s smirk deepened, the flicker of amusent in his eyes bordering on cruel. “Perhaps vengeance? You did kidnap the Princess of Tenebria, after all. Maybe he wants retribution — to make you pay for daring to lay a hand on her.”
“Don’t screw around with , Aaron!” Caesar bellowed, slamming both palms on the table. “You were the one who wanted her! You said we needed her bloodline — that her essence was required to create a body fit to host the Box!”
Aaron shrugged, his tone indifferent. “That was then. We already extracted what we needed. Her blood served its purpose. The rest is irrelevant.”
Caesar’s jaw tightened, veins throbbing at his temple. “Then what do we do now?!” he roared. “That bastard will co for us — for ! You think he’ll just walk away after all this?!”
Aaron tilted his head slightly, as if pondering an amusing riddle. “We do nothing.”
“Nothing?”
He nodded. “You said Athena’s been inford, yes? She detests him — blas him for leading the Trojans to victory. If there’s anyone eager to destroy him, it’s her. Let her carry the burden.”
Caesar hesitated, then gave a curt nod. “Yes… Athena loathes him. She won’t hold back.”
“Good,” Aaron said with a faint smirk. “And if, by so miracle, she fails… then I have already prepared sothing. A contingency. Just in case.”
Johanna, who had been silent up until now, suddenly stood up, her face pale and drenched in cold sweat. “W…Wait!” she stamred. “Are you actually planning to fight him?”
All three n turned to her.
She trembled uncontrollably, eyes wide with panic. “You don’t understand! That man — he’s not soone you fight! You can’t reason with him, you can’t intimidate him — he doesn’t even fear the Gods! You think your threats will—”
SLAP!
The sound cracked through the room like lightning.
Johanna was thrown to the floor, a sharp sting blazing across her cheek. Her glasses flew from her face, landing near the wall — one lens shattered, the other cracked.
“Silence, woman,” Caesar hissed, glaring down at her. His shadow lood over her trembling form, his voice cold and venomous. “If you have ti to panic, use it to think. Because if that monster cos for us — the first one he’ll kill is you.”
Johanna froze. His words sank deep, wrapping around her heart like chains.
Her breath trembled, but slowly — almost chanically — her mind began to race. Fear sharpened her thoughts, twisting them into sothing darker.
And then, through her bleeding lips, a small, crooked smile began to form.
Her eyes glead behind the cracks of her broken glasses.
Whatever horror waited ahead, Johanna had just realized — she might still have a way to survive it.
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