Capítulo 85: Chapter 1

The Republic of Rome, Rome, the start of the Second Punic War, just after Hannibal crossed the Alps...

The city was considered the capital of this extensive kingdom of the ancient times called the Roman Republic. A prosperous city filled with different kinds of people, building, places, monuments, and many more.

The massive Roman Republic stretched from northern Italy and up to the southernmost part of Italy including some parts of Sicily

This day was like almost always the same as before. People minding their own business, carts filled with goods with traders trading their things on markets. City defense force patrolling and many more.

Unbeknownst the everyone, there's a peculiar transportation vehicle that just slowly hovered above the ground as the insignia of the Imperium on the forest near the city.

The massive skull shone due to the sunlight penetrating between the branches of trees. As the transportation vehicle gently landed, the sound of the massive rotor blades can be clearly heard.

Animals are startled and flew away in safety, leaving the vehicle and whatever or whoever was inside alone on this dense and thick forest.

"Everything in order? Then let's go." said the boy around 18 years old. He was wearing a peculiar set of Roman armor. The chest plate, the shin guards, arm guards, and many more are of Roman design.

He was also carrying a large rectangular shield called a Scutum and a set of short spears called Pilum. For his sidearm, he's carrying a Gladius, a short sword of Roman design.

He truly looked like a Roman foot soldier with his getup.

He has a normal looking Roman face for his appearance. He decided to use a disguise just like his squad.

His squad of 9 men on the other hand also wore the same set of equipment and carried the same weapons.

They've trained how to use all of them effectively as they're top notch fighters on their colony. But they won't be able to show their full strength on this mission as they risked having the Romans sniff on something they shouldn't.

Or probably connect them to be a son of a god in the Roman pantheon. They need to hide their full capabilities and only show that they're on the top 1% of fighters.

Their equipment are but an illusion to anyone seeing it. In reality, these are all nanotechnology related equipment and can restructure itself at a moment's notice to anything needed.

They chose it to be like this because sharpening and taking care pf your equipment is too much of a hassle to do and the equipment that will be given to them later on are to be thrown away secretly.

The color of their equipment are red, signifying that it's of Roman descent.

This squad will help him accomplish all of that in the same exact time as shaping the whole world to be ready for the great appearance.

"Let's move! We must join the group of Publius Cornelius Scipio who's recruiting to fight the army of Hannibal who have crossed the Alps!" shouted the boy as they started to move and the transportation vehicle started to hover and finally flew away.

They walked down the forest and finally reached the end of the forest as the large white walls of Rome stood before them with city defense force soldiers guarding the gate tightly.

They observed the walls at a distance and decided to use a more common looking pieces of clothing as the equipment disintegrated and restructured itself. The weapons structured itself to become some sort of leather bag from the outside for less eye catching things.

As they approached the city, a Roman soldier called out for soldier recruitment matters as a group of people surrounded him.

Just before they entered, the city guards stopped them for an inspection.

"You're here for?" asked the Roman soldier with his deep voice and good sounding latin. The group reacted properly as they unsling their bags and showed it before speaking.

This action was something they picked up from the colony as anyone must do this to enter a public establishment. Old habits die hard.

"Joining the army." replied the boy as the soldier just nodded. He was then confused on why the group showed the contents of their bags, but nonetheless, he just loked at the inside on a quick glance.

He didn't know why they did this but he tried to reason it on his mind but can't seem to comprehend it. So, he just threw it at the back of his mind and carried on.

"The recruitment is there. You can get your equipment after you registered as the army will depart tomorrow morning before the light first strikes the great city of Rome. Roma Invicta!" said the soldier as the group thanked them and proceeded to the people in charge of recruiting men.

On the place of recruitment, a simple table with parchments of paper and a quill can be seen as men from all ages eligible to join can be seen lining up.

The line slowly moved and finally, it's the boy and his squad's turn to enlist on the army.

The recruitment officer looked at the boy and asked.

"Name?"

"Lupus Spinther" answered the boy named Lupus as the officer nodded and wrote down his name before telling him a set of instructions he should follow.

Sometime later, the whole squad was finally enlisted as they proceeded to the armory to get their equipment and to the barracks to find their assigned quarters.

After everything, they then went to the barracjs to rest the night. Although they're all artificially enhanced as everyone is on the Imperium, they still chose to sleep to avoid any suspicions.

As they entered the room, they saw 50 other men there, nost was topless, some looked like fresh recruits, while some looked like veterans.

They picked the farthest beds, dropped their bags on the side and lied down to rest. The other men didn't really care as they're busy doing their own thing.

But a rather peculiar veteran who has only one eye didn't thought of such a thing. He's a sergeant and he needs these newcomers bend the knee as to properly command them in battle.

Who knows as they probably won't listen to him and just run wild without point. So, he walked to them to assert dominance which he will regret later on most likely.

Somewhat like the initiation in gang sort of thing.

The sound of footsteps on a wooden floor board was heard as the sound attracted the attention of everyone.

The sergeant then stopped in front of Lupus and asked, he deemed him to be weakest amongst the group so he started with him.

"What's your name? Who's your superior?"

...

Dark space, the space between galaxies...

Darkness, no light penetrates this empty void. As if demons roamed this space as nothing, literally nothing can be seen.

You can possibly howl here as loud and as long as you want and no one will care. A perfect place for introverts.

A lone space probe can be seen with lights that acted as spotlight was slowly travelling this dark space as the spotlight has managed to light a spot on a gigantic hull like object, floating dormant in the darkness of space.

The space probe then searched for a way inside this large spacecraft as after thousands of years of individual survey on the millions or possibly billions of things like these but on a smaller scale, the probe has finally found the mothership.

The space probe ventured and mad eits way inside and after hours, it finally came across a large spherical object glowing bright red as it searched for a port to connect.

The spherical object has lots of different thick wires connected to it as it was protected by thick glass looking encasement.

But then the orb started to speak in a weird language which the probe easily deciphered. The probe presumed that the orb was the central intelligence of thw whole mothership and in extension the whole massive fleet.

"Who are you? Who sent you?" asked the orb as the space probe used binary language and transformed it into sound.

"I am not given any name. I but a lone space probe tasked on surveying this part of the whole galactic supercluster. I am sent by the highest of high." answered the probe as the weird sound of binary was heard on this room.

"Highest of the high? Who are they?" the orb then sounded curious as even after billions of years and innumerable cycles, this is the first it heard such a phrase.

It can't refer to the Leviathans as they aren't powerful enough, it knows it! So who could this Highest of the high could be? Is it like it? An artificial intelligence? Or possibly some sort of organicsturned synthetics or something else?

The space probe was floating as a small antenna potruded and started to spin.

The questions are innumerable and the answers are few. The orb is getting impatient but the space probe didn't move.

Just then, the antenna finally stopped spinning and entered the space probe once more as the sound of binary was heard.

"Fight us if you want to know..."

...

Mars, Sol system...

"You ordered the space probe to send this message?" asked a technopriest as he looked at the contents of the message on his data tablet.

The accused was a rather new technopriest. Someone full of curiosity and he's in charge of monitoring a specific space probe. He's given the absolute order of never give any order to the probe without the consent of the higher ups, but due to curiosity, this man did it anyway.

"Y-you're dead..."