Chapter 212: Subduing the Enemy Without Fighting
Even as they barked accusations at him, the senators all understood the same truth.
They had been played.
The Einzbern they had invited was clearly intimate with Adjutant Rowe. And worse, the senators had trusted the raw power she displayed so completely that their confidence had turned into blindness.
They had all come to the scene themselves.
Now that fact became a knife turned inward.
"How much did you gain, Ligurido Gatuso?"
Every gaze pinned the senator who had pushed the hardest to invite Einzbern.
"I am not. I did not."
"And how do you prove you did not?"
"What proof do you need? This is an emergency!"
Ligurido's pale brows twitched violently.
But perhaps it was precisely because it was an emergency that the others became obsessed with the cause. If they were going to lose, then at the very least they wanted to understand how.
Ligurido wanted to scream that he truly did not know.
It had been coincidence.
A cruel alignment of timing and rumor.
But who would believe that now?
"Ah. No matter how much time passes, humans always look the same."
Moonlight spilled across Antium, turning rooftops and marble into silver. The fighting outside the palace still rumbled on, metal striking metal, shouts rising and falling like waves.
Athena stood beneath the bright moon, silver hair stirring faintly in the wind. The red eyed goddess laughed softly.
This was not a scheme she had prepared with Rowe.
After she manifested in the present era as a spirit, she had walked the world while perfecting the soul materialization mystery she had comprehended. It was a process that embodied the authority she called future. She moved while following Rowe's presence, sensing his direction like a needle drawn to a lodestone.
At first she had been little more than a hazy soul.
But the more people she met, the more deeply she witnessed human order, the more her unfinished mystery completed itself. In the act of refining, her soul condensed into a physical vessel.
During that process, she gained fame.
Ordinary people called her a saintess.
Those who understood the hidden side called her a magus.
That fame reached the Senate.
When they approached her and spoke of assassinating Adjutant Rowe, Athena accepted without hesitation. She displayed enough power to flood their hearts with certainty, so much certainty that they all arrived in person.
And now, even after being exposed, she could still ignite infighting among them with nothing but a few words and a smile.
"Goddess of Wisdom," Rowe said lightly, watching the silver haired girl nestled against him. "Truly terrifying."
He held her at the waist, his arm secure and relaxed.
"Compared to you, I am still lacking," Athena replied. She tucked a stray lock behind her ear, revealing her crimson eyes more clearly. "What do you think, esteemed sage who manipulates hearts?"
"Athena."
"My name is Einzbern now."
"What is a name?" Rowe's smile did not change. "As long as it is you, that is enough."
"That is true, but gods and humans still need a boundary." Athena's eyes narrowed with a teasing warmth. "A pure god cannot remain with you, can she?"
Her lips curved.
"So my name is Einzbern."
Rowe's gaze drifted over her, measuring the sound as if it were a spell component.
"That pronunciation is long. I will call you Ein."
"That is fine." Athena's voice softened. "If it is your address, nothing else matters."
She rose on her toes and kissed him again. The curve of her mouth showed she was pleased in a way she did not bother to hide.
Across a thousand years, she had finally touched the wisdom she craved again.
Neigh.
Horses cried out in the night.
Orderly footsteps followed. Torches appeared in the distance, lines of fire linking into a moving chain.
The senators stopped their quarrel at the same time and turned.
Rowe and Athena separated, looking as well.
Rowe smiled.
"They are finally here."
"Yes," Athena replied, unhurried. "They are here. What have you planned now?"
Rowe's tone remained calm, almost amused.
"Of course, it is how to properly receive your gift."
What approached from afar was unmistakably an army.
Athena's manifestation as Einzbern had pushed the senators into committing everything at once. And surrounding this small city was not only the force that had entered Antium, but also the third of the empire's legions the Senate still controlled.
About ten legions.
Seventy to eighty thousand trained soldiers.
They had sealed the city from the outside and pinned down the accompanying legion stationed nearby to protect the Emperor.
Only the senators' trusted troops had entered the city.
They were not wearing the legion's standard equipment.
Assassinating an adjutant was not regicide, but it was still a crime severe enough to demand plausible deniability.
The plan had been simple.
Their private troops would disguise themselves as bandits, disrupt the banquet, and kill Rowe in the confusion.
Afterward, the seventy to eighty thousand outside would enter under the pretense of guarding the Emperor.
The senators present on site would transform from assassins into loyal officials who had rushed to protect their sovereign.
And with the legions inside the city, they could also control the Emperor.
A clean method.
A cruel method.
A method that required one thing.
Einzbern to do her job.
But Athena's betrayal at the final moment shattered the blade in the senators' hands.
Now, more Roman soldiers appeared, marching in with discipline.
"By order of Adjutant Rowe, lay down your weapons!"
Torches rose. Javelins gleamed. Roman troops surged from all directions like a flood finally released.
At their head rode a woman with long red hair streaming in the wind. Emerald green eyes. A delicate face carved with stubborn heroism. Armor that guarded vital points over a white dress. A body athletic and vigorous, chest high, waist tight, hips shifting with the horse's movement.
Boudica of Britannia.
In an era without stirrups, riding at speed was pure balance.
She did it effortlessly.
Her sword lifted. Her voice carried.
Tens of thousands of soldiers moved as one.
More forces encircled Antium, including the legions the Senate believed still belonged to them.
An overwhelming military mass.
The senators fell silent.
Their internal cleansing could wait.
The present demanded their attention.
"It seems," one senator said hoarsely, "that from the beginning Adjutant Rowe calculated everything."
Athena said nothing. She only stood behind Rowe, watching the man she loved, watching how he held the field without raising his voice.
Rowe stepped forward and answered plainly.
"Yes. Ten legions. Originally, Your Majesty Nero wanted them as escort. I reduced the scale, but the mobilization happened."
"A pit dug long ago," another senator murmured, understanding dawning. Large troop movements could not be hidden from the Senate. But if the army was mobilized, then halted, then mobilized again, it could slip beneath attention.
A blindness created by familiarity.
Darkness under the lamp.
"You deliberately allowed only one legion to accompany," a senator pressed. "Was that also for this purpose?"
Rowe did not deny it.
"If there were more, you would not dare to act."
That was the truth.
The Senate could only control one third of the empire's legions. If Nero had marched with ten legions beside her, no one would gamble on a coup in the open.
Even without Athena, Rowe had already outmaneuvered them.
Of course, his original target was not merely the senators.
It was the army.
The legions the Senate still held.
"Adjutant Rowe," a senator asked sharply, "do you plan to use this to erase our influence in the military?"
"Yes," Rowe replied without softness.
"Rome is not your Rome."
"Nor should Rome's legions be."
"But Rome never belonged to Augustus," a senator snapped, fist clenched. "When Rome was founded under the republic, it belonged to us. To the Senate."
"And what does this gain you?"
It was, at its core, their final attempt to define Rowe's position.
Rowe was an adjutant.
Not First Consul.
Not Emperor.
A subject.
A minister.
In theory, a minister should fear an overly strong Emperor more than a fractious Senate.
Rowe only shook his head.
"That is why I said you do not understand me."
"And you certainly do not understand Nero Claudius."
"I have little interest in Rome's power, and even less desire to waste myself on court struggle."
"What I want to do, Nero will not stop. Because what Nero wants is the same."
It was not emotion.
Not romance.
Not personal favoritism.
It was shared aspiration.
That was stronger than any alliance of convenience.
"What do you want?" one senator asked, unable to hold it back.
Rowe smiled.
"I want a magnificent and powerful empire."
"I want stable and happy people beneath its protection."
"I want economic prosperity. A convergence of technique. A heritage of spirit."
"I want to become a king of consciousness. To lead the liberation of thought."
"I want this world to be rid of you."
The oldest senator exhaled slowly, as if the breath had been sitting in his lungs for years.
"So that is it."
"Your ideals are noble. Perhaps, as some say, you are like a saint."
"But this world has never been as sacred as you imagine."
He raised his chin slightly, and the other senators regained their composure as if they had remembered what they were.
"Just as our influence in the military is not something you can dismantle by speaking."
"And before you dismantle it, you cannot kill us."
Their confidence returned, thin but real.
They believed they carried Rome on their backs.
They believed their state level influence served as protection.
In a world of human order, influence was a kind of weight. A thickness. Not mystery, yet still a force that could resist certain kinds of mystery.
Rome was a powerful nation.
To influence its direction was to influence the continent itself.
If Rowe killed them recklessly, turmoil would follow.
That would contradict his own goals.
"Influence," Rowe repeated.
Then his voice turned almost curious.
"Do you still have influence?"
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The ground trembled faintly.
All the senators' eyes widened.
Astonishment cracked their faces open.
In the distance, the legions they claimed to control threw down their weapons in unison.
A single coordinated surrender.
Shouting rolled across the night, but the voice was different now.
"Umu. I am Nero Claudius. Soldiers of Rome, lay down your weapons. Do not point them at Rome. Those who surrender will be forgiven."
The night was deep, but it could not hide her.
A fiery red figure stood atop a chariot, inspecting the assembled legions as if she were looking at her own limbs.
Where her gaze fell, she was beloved.
Where the Emperor stood, hearts turned.
The senators realized, too late, that the sounds of fighting near the palace had faded.
Their trusted retainers lay scattered across the ground.
The battle was over.
And the ones who had ended it were not human.
A woman in heavy armor, greatsword resting with effortless weight, stood there with brilliant golden hair and an exaggeratedly muscular build. Her expression was bored, as if she had been made to swat flies.
"How boring. Ordinary humans."
A red haired girl in a flowing dress stepped lightly, fringe swaying.
"How could ordinary humans be your opponents, Barghest?"
The armored woman snorted.
"That is why I said to leave it to me. Why did you have to act, Baobhan Sith?"
"Because I am also one of the apostles."
The girl called Baobhan Sith bowed toward Rowe in the distance.
"Rowe, we arrived."
Two fairies.
Two of Rowe's twelve.
Rowe nodded once, then turned back to the senators whose faces had gone rigid with disbelief.
"What you forgot," Rowe said, voice calm, "is that all your influence comes from two things."
"The army."
"And the people behind the army."
"But we can give them more."
"Soldiers are people. They have families."
"Our policies have brought stability and development to those families."
"Our actions showed them what Rome should be."
His gaze did not harden. It did not need to.
"From the beginning, you lost."
"Or rather, I should thank you."
"By gathering the legions, you gave me the chance to wipe away your last influence in the military in a single stroke."
Influence could be overwritten.
Nero's position was inherently above theirs.
And now, the senators' hold over the army had been crushed beneath Nero's authority.
Or rather, beneath the countless ordinary lives that stood behind the soldiers.
They had lost the protection of their state level influence.
Rowe spread his hands.
In the night breeze, his tailored adjutant's uniform made his tall figure appear even sharper, even more unmistakable.
"Do not waste words trying to sway me. Do not attempt to recruit me."
"And yes," he added, tone almost courteous, "thank you for wrapping yourselves and delivering yourselves to my doorstep."
The senators exchanged glances.
The oldest among them stared, then coughed violently.
His last reliance had shattered in front of him.
Blood spilled from his mouth.
Athena murmured softly behind Rowe, voice touched with something like admiration.
"Terrifying," she said. "And captivating as ever."
Rowe smiled.
The purge was complete.
Natural.
Inevitable.
Schemes and intrigue were only scenery.
He had built momentum long before tonight.
When the moment arrived, he simply placed weight onto the board and let gravity do the rest.
In later years, the story would be written into reform chronicles.
At the beginning of the Common Era, Rome's revitalizing reforms were not without resistance. The Senate aristocrats launched a rebellion, bringing a third of the empire's legions into revolt.
Yet the Adjutant of Rome suppressed it with a single method.
He leveraged the people behind the soldiers and seized the support of ordinary men within the rebel ranks.
A rare method in human history.
Strength countered by strength.
Rowe became known as the greatest strategist of the early century for that reason.
The Reform of Rome.
Rowe lowered his hands.
"This," he said, "is what it means to subdue the enemy without fighting."
[TL: Damn]
The struggle between Senate and Emperor ended here.
The Senate lost completely.
Utterly.
With no room left to maneuver.
.....
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