Chapter 31 Five Hundred Miles of Madness
The bunker was still warm with death.
Not fresh blood—though there was plenty of that—but ozone, charred armor, and the quiet hum of machines that had slept for centuries until I kicked the door in. Zeus's Wrath sat beside me on a rust-worn console, its scorched casing venting faint wisps of steam. The glow along the capacitor lines was fading now, but the thing still pulsed like it was waiting to be used again.
I didn't blame it.
Weapons like this weren't built for peace.
I knelt beside the core terminal, patched my Focus in, and let the handshake begin. Glyphs flooded my vision—old-world code, military structure, clean, cruel design. This wasn't tribal salvage. This was the raw blueprint of warfare.
[PROJECT BLUELANCE – Archive Node Active]
[Years Since Last Access: 984]
[Integrity: 73% Operational | Secure Subroutines: Partial Lock]
[Begin System Cross-Reference? Y/N]
[Y]
It wasn't enough that Zeus's Wrath still worked. I needed to be sure it would keep working. One glitch—one corrupted capacitor loop or busted thermal overflow map—and I could lose my arm the next time it fired. Or worse.
The cannon was almost a thousand years old. Cryo-stored in sealed vault conditions, maybe. But tech this advanced wasn't immune to entropy. And I wasn't about to bet my spine on a corrupted weapon schematic.
[Commencing Cross-Reference…]
[Local Files Matched: 61%]
[Inconsistencies Detected in:
→ Capacitor Cooling Tree (ZWR_SCHM_044B)
→ Charge Relay Delay Protocol (ZWR_SUBSYS_12_Δ)
→ Firing Safeguard Sync Drift (ZWR_CTRL_07A)]
Recommend: Restore from Vault Copies?
[Y]
I sat back on my heels, exhaling through my nose.
"Three corrupted subsystems. That's three too many."
One by one, the files trickled in from the ancient servers buried in the wall—slow but steady. The core schematics. Redline thresholds. Emergency vent procedures. All stripped from clean backups buried deep in Project BLUELANCE's sealed node.
This wasn't some petty energy rifle. This was a goddamn Tesla cannon cranked to eleven—coil-driven plasma arcs designed to vaporize machine cores and blast through alloy like wet paper. Every safeguard mattered.
I watched the progress bar inch forward, each segment loaded into my Nanoboy rig, each confirmed match tightening the knot in my chest just a little more. I'd used the thing in the fight against the Legion, felt the heat bite through the grips, seen the light eat men alive in less than a second. It was effective.
But it was barely holding together.
I opened the weapon's side panel—just beneath the vented recoil chamber—and slotted the backup crystal into the primary data bus. The cannon's surface flickered. Once. Then stabilized.
[Restored Subsystems Verified. Status: Green]
[Capacitor Response Curve — Synced]
[Overheat Compensation Tree — Active]
[Charge Relay Protocol — Calibrated]
I leaned back and let out a slow breath.
"Good. You're not gonna fry me next time I pull the trigger."
For a moment, I just sat there. Letting the bunker hum. Letting the past breathe.
This wasn't just about fixing Zeus's Wrath. It was about preserving it. The full archive—schematics, diagnostic tools, construction protocols—I was downloading it all. Not because I planned to build another. But because someone else might.
GAIA, when she was rebuilt, would need more than terraforming systems and override spikes. She'd need weapons. Real ones. Ones capable of burning out the infection in this world—machines twisted by the Blight, suborned by Nemesis, or just too dangerous to leave breathing.
And Zeus's Wrath?
It was the prototype.
I set the weapon back into its sling and watched the last file finish syncing.
[ZWR_ARCHIVE_FULL_01 — BACKUP COMPLETE]
[Stored: Focus Unit + Nanoboy Compression Module]
[Tag: For GAIA Reboot Protocol Use — Unmodified]
I stood, stretched my shoulder until the pop echoed through the bunker, and looked back at the flickering terminal one last time.
"Sleep tight," I muttered.
Then I turned and walked out of the archive.
The last archive sync had barely finished when my HUD pinged. Not a soft alert, either—this one hit with a chime, sharp and out of place, like someone had installed a casino in the back of my skull.
A holographic roulette wheel spun into view just above the Focus interface, bright colors gleaming in that clean, infuriatingly cheerful UI style I'd come to associate with one thing:
Bullshit systems.
I blinked. "Wait. Seriously?"
Then it clicked.
Dungeon flag.
Of course.
Back when I dove into Walker's bunker, I'd been so focused on survival—and then on murdering Moth-Eater's spine out of existence—that I hadn't noticed the system skip the "Congrats, you beat the boss" gacha payout.
No.
It had skipped the reward.
Because unlocking the Kure bloodline had counted as the payout. And even this janky-ass world knew giving me two power-ups for one delve would be unbalanced as hell.
But this time? I'd finished the delve, killed half a Legion platoon, downloaded centuries of kill tech, and didn't unlock any new bloodline cheats in the process.
So the gacha was triggered.
And ready to be spun.
"Well shit," I muttered, stepping back from the console and letting the wheel float dead-center in my vision. "Time to spin the wheel."
I tapped the projection.
The wheel began to spin—sections whirling with names like Shock Fang, Thunder Snap, Surge Spike, Greased Coil, and Tempest Shell. All of them variations of electrical ammunition—high-conductance rounds, arc-chained slugs, overload capacitors packed into casings meant to drop a Behemoth from across a canyon.
My revolver system hadn't gotten much love lately, but this?
This was pure lightning.
[GACHA RESULT: THOR'S JUDGEMENT — RARE TIER]
Description: Chain Lightning Revolver Round
Charges jump between hostiles, prioritizing conductive armor and exposed servos.
Initial impact triggers 300kV discharge.
Range: Moderate
Jump Targets: 5 max
Cooldown: Per-shot basis
Award: 6x Thor's Judgement Rounds (Pre-loaded)
Blueprint: Unlocked
Crafting Materials Required:
– 1x Snapmaw Capacitor Core
– 2x Conductive Coil (Any type)
– 3x Broken Circuitry (Fallout or Horizon variant)
– 1x Refined Charge Cell
A bolt of electricity danced across the loaded round in my belt feed, snapping the air with a loud crack before the wheel flickered and collapsed into code.
Another notification scrolled into place.
NOTICE: All electrical-based ammunition types have been removed from Gacha loot pool.
Reason: Redundancy Prevention / Category Complete
I huffed out a laugh, half-amused, half-exasperated. "You finish the thunder tree and the game just says 'get the hell out.' Fair enough."
The revolver felt heavier on my hip now. Not physically, but with potential. I thumbed one of the new rounds and felt the static crawl up my arm. These weren't bullets. They were portable storms.
I holstered it with a smirk.
"Zeus's Wrath. Thor's Judgement. World-Cleaver..." I trailed off, eyebrows raised behind the visor. "I'm building a pantheon here."
I reached down and tapped the haft of World-Cleaver, the weapon still faintly glowing from its last brutal outing.
"Hell, you could be wielded by either Angron or the Doom Slayer and not look out of place."
I snorted to myself.
"Gods and monsters. That's what this world's shaping me into."
Then I looked down at the six rounds resting neatly in their display slot, each one humming with barely-contained lightning.
Let's see how many sins we can fry with these.
And with that, I turned and walked out of the vault—pantheon of storms strapped to my back, and thunder tucked into my hip.
...…
Third person Pov
Above ground, the air was clearer—but not cleaner.
The smoke still hung in thin curls from the open bunker doors, ash swirling in the morning breeze. The cries of scavenger birds had returned, circling high above the Golden Plains camp like vultures eager for scraps. But down on the dirt, beneath the crumbled barricades and soot-smeared tents, Gildun wasn't looking for salvage.
He was gathering memories.
The Oseram delver crouched low near the edge of the fire pit, sorting through the scattered belongings of the fallen. Burnt satchels. Singed gloves. Pouches half-filled with shaped charges, rope spools, dented goggles. Trinkets tucked in bedrolls. Metal-flask journals. Tags carved with clan glyphs and worn soft from years of rubbing.
Some of them had died when the Gatecrasher first struck the outpost—reduced to paste beneath crumbled scaffold or scattered across the stone in bloody arcs. Others were picked off during the early delve attempts, caught in the red-light fury of auto-turrets buried in the bunker's throat. And the last few?
They'd died just hours ago.
Cut down by Legion blades. Torn apart by defense systems. Some even by Rion's hands when Finnker's betrayal unraveled.
Gildun didn't sort by cause.
He sorted by respect.
He wasn't like most Oseram. He didn't hoard every cog and coil out of greed. He delved because he loved the act—the danger, the mystery, the old echoes beneath the earth. But he also understood that every delver's tools were more than gear. They were part of a story. And stories deserved to be brought home.
He carefully rolled each item in soft cloth and placed them in a sturdy bag, sealing it tight with a braided scrap-cord and marking it with a tag labeled "For Claim Return." Not for resale. Not for parts. For family.
For remembrance.
He stood before the grave sites—simple markers now, dug just beyond the ridge where the sunlight could still kiss the earth. No pomp. No pyres. Just stone, soil, and silence. Gildun tugged off his goggles, held them to his chest, and bowed his head.
"I'll make sure they know," he whispered. "That you were the ones who found this place first. That you delved it honest. That you took the risk and paid the price."
He wiped his nose with a grease-smudged glove and sniffed.
"Whether the Kansani let your families claim the site or not… that ain't mine to say. But I'll make damn sure they get what's left of you. And I won't let Finnker's rot touch your names."
He stood there for a while—just breathing. Just being.
The others… the ones who'd been part of Finnker's crew, the ones who'd helped set up the betrayal or stood silent while it brewed—they were different.
He found a few of their packs scattered near the back tents, untouched. Gildun checked the names. Cross-referenced them with what he remembered. When it clicked, he set their gear aside—not for return.
That wasn't cruelty.
It was law.
Unspoken, but iron-bound. If someone betrayed you—even tried—you had every right to take their belongings. You didn't even have to be the one who landed the killing blow. Once betrayal happened, the dead forfeited everything. And their kin? They couldn't raise a claim. Couldn't call a feud. Doing so would brand the entire bloodline with a stink no forge would welcome.
Cowards. Dishonorable. Untrustworthy.
If you died in betrayal, you didn't get honor. You got memory-wiped.
Gildun didn't spit on their graves. He didn't curse them.
He just took their gear. Bagged it. Marked it with a different tag. One meant for use—not for tribute.
He would sell those pieces later. Not proudly. But with clean conscience.
That, too, was part of delving.
By the time he finished, the sun had risen high above the ruins. The camp was quiet again. The earth still smoked from blood and lightning. But Gildun stood straight, bags slung over each shoulder, sweat streaking his soot-dusted face.
Behind him, the vault still waited. Rion was down there somewhere, doing whatever gods and monsters did when the world wasn't watching.
But up here?
Gildun was making sure the dead weren't forgotten.
That some part of them walked home.
....
Rion's Pov
I was halfway up the last flight of stairs when I caught the sound of rummaging. Fabric shifting, gear clinking. Gildun's voice, low and muttering.
The sun hit my visor as I stepped out into the open, the cool sting of the bunker's air fading beneath the warmth of daylight. My boots crunched over cracked stone and hard-packed dirt as I rounded the ridge.
That's when I saw him—Gildun—bent over a satchel, arms elbow-deep in someone's pack. The second he spotted me, he froze like a busted Watcher.
Then he dropped everything.
"This isn't what it looks like!" he shouted, hands held up like I'd caught him elbow-deep in someone's pockets mid-funeral.
I raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "Relax. There's nothing wrong with being a loot goblin."
He blinked. "A what now?"
I didn't answer right away. Instead, I turned and made a beeline toward Finnker's tent. The bastard's canvas flap was still zipped tight, a rusted lock securing the side chest near the cot.
I crouched, gripped the lock, and ripped it off with one clean pull. Metal squealed and snapped, the shank flying into the dirt with a thunk. The lid creaked open.
Residual adrenaline still hummed in my veins like electricity. I didn't question it. I just started digging.
Inside the chest: a cloth-wrapped pouch stuffed with shards—heavy. A quick shake told me it was damn near bursting.
I unwrapped it.
Five. Thousand. Shards.
Sitting beside it was a rusted prewar medkit, sealed with faded military stamps. I pried it open and found a full cache—twenty-five stimpaks, still secured in foam like time hadn't touched them. Each injector had a faded serial and that sharp, sterile tint that meant they were real. Unused.
"You've gotta be kidding me," I muttered.
"Ah," Gildun said behind me, catching up now, rubbing the back of his neck. "Unspoken rule, you know."
I glanced over my shoulder. "What rule?"
"The rule," he said, nodding like it was common knowledge. "If someone betrays you, their stuff's fair game. Doesn't matter if they died in battle or choked on a rock after—if they crossed you, it's yours. Can't call a blood feud either. Not unless you want your whole clan labeled as untrustworthy cowards."
I snorted. "Sounds efficient."
"It is," Gildun said, setting down his bags beside one of the other tents. "It's like, uh… cleansing the ledger. They break the bond, they pay the price. Pretty simple."
I turned back to the loot, slipping the stimpack case into the Nanoboy, the pouch of shards following. Easy enough to redistribute later—or spend.
"You still didn't answer me," Gildun said after a pause. "What's a goblin?"
I stood, brushing dust from my coat, and smirked.
"Depends on the Old Ones' media," I said. "Usually? Goblins are small, ugly, green-skinned cave freaks obsessed with shiny things. Weapons, gold, trinkets. They hoard it. Talk to themselves. Sometimes bite."
Gildun's eyes lit up. "That's Hernar."
"…What?"
"My cousin Hernar. That's exactly him. Green skin, sharp teeth, weird obsession with scrap metal and anything shiny. Does real strange things."
"Like what?" I asked, already regretting it.
He held up fingers and started counting off.
"Well, he mumbles to himself. Sleeps upside down sometimes. Once ate a centipede raw. Big one, too. Saw him catch a squirrel with his bare hands and just crack—bit the head off before it even stopped twitching. Oh, and he talks to his hammer like it's his wife. Named it 'Sweet Nora.' Keeps it in a fur wrap and everything."
I stared at him.
"Once caught him trying to build a trap that fed on blood. Said it 'tastes better than oil.' He meant it, too."
Gildun gave a thoughtful shrug. "We always thought he was just touched in the head. But hearing this 'goblin' thing? It fits. It really does."
I blinked. "You said he was green?"
"Oh yeah," Gildun said. "Used to be yellow as an Oseram work tag. Liver-sick, most likely. Then he started working with silver full-time—melting, grinding, licking it sometimes, for Forge's sake—and slowly turned a kind of bluish tint. The green came later. Just... sorta blended."
I stared at him.
For a long moment, there was only wind.
"…So you were the normal one," I said at last.
Gildun looked vaguely offended. "Of course I am. Why does everyone act like that's weird?"
I shook my head and walked away from Finnker's tent, not even bothering to answer.
Because honestly?
It wasn't worth the argument.
....
The road to Ironwood Grove was long.
Not the kind of long that hurts your feet or blisters your hands. No, this was mental long—the type that drags on forever, with too much sky, too few landmarks, and the kind of silence that makes you start inventing problems just to have something to solve.
Gildun trudged a few steps ahead, packs jangling with salvaged gear and his prized pile of parts wrapped tight. Every once in a while, he'd hum a forge chant or mutter about hammer balance.
But soon I faced an old threat that I could never defeat as my ADHD kicked in.
Boredom.
The kind that crept in like a fog and started gnawing at your brainstem.
That's when it happened.
A stupid, cursed song crept back into my skull.
A leftover from binge-watching How I Met Your Mother in another life, another universe. An episode with a road trip, a broken cassette player, and one song on loop.
One.
Damn.
Song.
I didn't even realize I was saying the words until I was halfway through the first verse.
🎵 "When I wake up, well I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you…" 🎵
Gildun turned, brows raised under his goggles.
"What you singing?"
I ignored him.
🎵 "And when I go out, yeah I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you…" 🎵
I pointed a finger at the horizon like the beat was leading me somewhere.
🎵 "And I would walk five hundred miles—" 🎵
Clap
🎵 "And I would walk five hundred more—" 🎵
Clap-clap
Gildun stared. "Is this some kind of war hymn?"
🎵 "Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door—DA DA DA—" 🎵
Now I was stomping in time, just to keep the tempo going.
"Where did you even learn that?" Gildun asked, half-concerned, half-curious.
"Ancient knowledge," I replied deadpan. "From a sitcom with too much narration and not enough payoff."
He blinked.
"Sitcom…Is that a tribe?"
"Yeah," I said. "The Lost Clan of Binge-watchers. Their rites were loud, repetitive, and profoundly addictive."
He didn't get it. But that didn't matter. I kept singing, louder now, voice echoing over the open plain.
🎵 "DA DA DA! DA!
DA DA DA! DA!" 🎵
A bird took off from a nearby tree, startled. Gildun shook his head.
"I think the sun's gotten to you."
"Nope," I said, grinning. "The boredom has. Big difference."
And then I kept going.
Because out here—between broken lands and ruined machines, betrayal and monsters and gods forged from code and steel—sometimes the only thing that kept you sane…
…was remembering the dumb things that once made you smile.
Even if it was just one stupid song that refused to die.
And yeah.
I would walk five hundred miles.
Because this world wasn't going to save itself.
...….
A few hours later, the sun had shifted westward, casting long shadows over the rolling grass and cracked stone trails that marked the old trade roads. The wind carried the scent of machine oil and sunbaked salvage—typical for Kansani lands.
But the sound?
The sound was not typical.
Far from it.
🎵 "DA DA DA! DA!
DA DA DA! DA!" 🎵
Two figures marched in loose, exaggerated rhythm across the plains—one armored in scorched gear and silent fury, the other bounding beside him with a bundle of tools on his back and zero shame in his lungs.
🎵 "AND I WOULD WALK FIVE HUNDRED MILES—" 🎵
🎵 "AND I WOULD WALK FIVE HUNDRED MORE!" 🎵
Rion and Gildun, both now fully invested in the madness, stomped across the path like a pair of drunken festival drummers. Gildun had even worked out a clapping beat using two scrap bolts and was waving them in the air like makeshift maracas.
They were loud. Off-key. And not even trying to stop.
About fifty yards off the path, hidden in the tall grass near a boulder cluster, a Kansani scout crouched with one knee down, a long cloak fluttering behind him in the breeze. His braids were tied back for visibility, his chest marked with the sun-striped sigil of the Plainswalker order. Beside him, ears perked and head low, his wolf companion crouched silently, tracking the movement ahead.
At first, the scout thought he was witnessing some kind of ritual. Maybe a war chant or a grief rite.
Then the lyrics became clear.
Then came the clapping.
And then the chorus hit—again—with full-body choreography.
The wolf turned its head toward its handler, brow furrowing in a silent canine "What in the Blight is this?"
The scout slowly reached down, gave the wolf a gentle tap on the shoulder, and whispered, "Other way."
The wolf didn't hesitate.
They both turned, slipping back into the tall grass, heading anywhere but toward whatever lunacy had overtaken the horizon.
Some fights, the wise simply don't join.
And on that day, two warriors walked five hundred miles in perfect, ridiculous harmony.
And the Plainswalker scout walked five hundred more…
away from them.
...
A few hours later….
The towering trees of Ironwood Grove loomed into view as the sun dipped toward the horizon. Massive trunks carved with clan glyphs framed the path forward, their roots spreading wide like the bones of giants asleep beneath the earth. The outer palisade, half grown from living timber and half forged from reinforced scrap metal, gleamed in the fading light.
And through the front gate came the unmistakable sound of madness.
🎵 "AND I WOULD WALK FIVE HUNDRED MILES—" 🎵
🎵 "AND I WOULD WALK FIVE HUNDRED MORE!" 🎵
Two figures, arms flailing in mock-dramatic harmony, staggered up the final hill like a pair of festival drunks who'd taken a wrong turn through time and forgotten how to shut up.
Rion, scorched armor and weapons rattling, still sang without irony.
Gildun, bolts in both hands, swung them like rhythm sticks, bouncing along to the beat.
At the gate, Sula stood with her arms crossed.
She stared. Blinked once. Then again.
A long, heavy silence passed.
Her face twisted—not in anger. Just… incredulous disbelief.
She sighed. Loudly.
"By the Suns and Stones," she muttered. "Do I really want to keep pursuing this man?"
Rion stopped mid-verse, finally noticing her, and offered a grin that was way too confident for someone who had just walked the last three miles singing a dead sitcom's anthem at full volume.
"Sula," he said, like nothing was wrong. "You're just in time for the encore."
"No," she replied, voice flat. "I'm good."
Her eyes flicked to Gildun, who was now trying to figure out how to bow with one foot still tapping.
"And… who is this?"
Rion slung an arm across Gildun's shoulders. "This is Gildun. He's what's left of the Golden Plains camp. Everyone else tried to sell him to the Legion."
Gildun gave an awkward thumbs-up. "Hoo boy, did they regret that."
Rion nodded. "They all died. Along with most of the Legion force they were negotiating with. Guy in charge was named Henoc."
At that, Sula's face darkened. She didn't recoil—but her expression shifted into something colder. Older.
"I know that name," she said quietly. "Henoc was… one of the more honorable war leaders we faced. He didn't strike at civilians. If we were forced to retreat, he didn't pursue. He let us go."
She stared past Rion, into the trees.
"He wasn't soft. But he was fair. That's rare."
She paused, then asked, voice low but firm, "Did he die well?"
Rion didn't hesitate. "He did."
That pulled a long breath from her.
"Well," she muttered, "that's not necessarily good. The Elders will need to know. Henoc's death might change the balance in the east. Not always for the better."
Her jaw tensed. "We've lost a known enemy. We may gain an unknown nightmare."
With a final glance at the two of them—Rion grinning, Gildun still slightly bouncing on the balls of his feet—Sula shook her head.
"Fine. Get your… friend settled at the Spike Paw."
Gildun perked up. "Is that a tavern? Sounds like a tavern."
"It is," she said dryly. "Tell them the Kansani vouched for you."
Once the delver was off with a local runner, Sula turned to Rion and jabbed a finger at his chest.
"Then we are going to the Warchief's longhouse. Now."
Rion just smiled.
And for the first time in hours, he didn't sing.
...…..
Rion Pov
The longhouse doors swung open, and we stepped inside to find Jorta seated once again on his throne, his posture rigid yet weary. Curie was hovering beside him, carefully replacing his bandages. The wounds from Hell's Angel were severe, carving vicious paths across his flesh, but there was a hardness in Jorta's eyes that told me he'd be ready for the rematch. One month was plenty of time for a warrior of his caliber.
Curie's sensors turned toward me, and the Miss Nanny gave a small bob of acknowledgment. "Congratulations, Rion," she chirped in a light, teasing tone. "You've managed not to become irreversibly scarred for once."
I chuckled softly. "Always appreciate your optimism, Curie."
Jorta leaned forward slightly, studying me with narrowed eyes. "This confirms what I knew," he said, voice gravelly yet firm. "Each time you return, you return stronger—vastly stronger. I can see it clearly. Your combat forms—they are blending. Evolving."
I shrugged lightly. "You adapt or you die. I prefer the first option."
He nodded thoughtfully, settling back against his throne. "And the Gatecrasher? Did your hunt go as planned?"
I offered a faint smirk. "Better, actually. Took it down pretty quickly, with some timely help from a new Oseram friend. In exchange, I made sure he didn't end up as merchandise for Caesar's Legion, thanks to some traitorous bastards from Golden Plains."
Jorta raised a curious eyebrow, intrigued. "Oseram? Interesting allies. And what else did you find in the depths?"
I carefully drew out Zeus's Wrath, the weapon pulsing faintly as though still eager for battle. Jorta's eyes widened slightly, curiosity clear. "An experimental weapon," I explained. "Crafted by the Old Ones during their final days. Best I can describe it is a portable thunderstorm—pure lightning in your hands."
Jorta's lips twisted in approval. "A fitting weapon for someone who battles storms."
My expression sobered slightly. "And the Legion was down there too. Led by a man named Henoc—I've learned he was fairly important among them."
Recognition flickered in Jorta's eyes. "Henoc," he murmured slowly, considering the name.
"Faced his son, Maxus, first," I continued, recalling the brutal duel vividly. "Competent warrior. Had to get dirty, rip his face open to win. But before I could finish him, Henoc stepped in. Sacrificed himself for his son—and his remaining men."
Silence fell across the longhouse. Jorta's face hardened with respect. Henoc was an enemy, yes, but one deserving of honor. After a long pause, he finally spoke, voice quiet but resolute.
"Henoc died as he lived—with honor."
Jorta fixed his intense gaze upon me, searching for more.
"Did you pursue this Maxus?"
I shook my head. "Let him live. The rest of the Legionaries were already breaking ranks."
Jorta's face darkened. "Hmph. That might've been a mistake."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, gaze sharp. "The boy survived your Deathclaw Kenpo—blended with close-quarter Old World killtech—in a confined space built for ambush and slaughter. That's not luck. That's something worse. Talent."
He let the words hang for a beat, then added, "You've started a blood feud with Maxus. Might not be you who pays the final price. Could be your kids. You and Sula's."
There was a pause.
Then the heat hit my face like a torch. I looked at Sula. She was already flushed, jaw tight, pretending to focus on some speck of dust on the floor.
I panicked.
For a second, I imagined Jorta hurling his chair aside and breaking my ribs with one swing of that arm. My mouth opened, closed. The sentence that wanted to escape tripped over itself and died in the back of my throat.
Jorta just laughed. Big, rough, almost fatherly. "Please. I know the two of you are circling each other like drunk hawks. Honestly surprised it took this long."
The mood shifted then. Something heavier moved in behind his eyes. He leaned back in his throne, exhaled slowly.
"I had my own feud once. With Lanius."
That name always felt like stone—heavy, jagged, final.
Jorta's voice dipped low. "Part of the reason he razed the Lonaki wasn't just conquest. It was spite. I'd been courting one of theirs. Her name was Marrsa."
Sula stiffened, breath hitching for half a second. I didn't look at her, but I didn't need to. Marrsa. That name was burned in more places than one. She was supposed to be Sula's aunt.
Jorta kept going, quieter now. "He found her. Not by chance. Someone told him. He didn't send others—he went himself. Put her to the sword. Said it was retribution. For the scar I gave him."
His fingers flexed slightly, curling in memory. Not regret. Just pain. Old and permanent.
"The duel you're about to fight," Jorta said, voice steady, "it'll end the feud. Fate didn't bless the monster with a son. So it ends with his death."
He paused. Just long enough to make me nervous.
"But," he added, and the weight of that word settled over the room like a stormcloud, "he does have a daughter."
My blood turned cold. "What?"
Jorta didn't flinch. "Her name is Valeria."
He let it hang there, then dropped the rest of the truth like a hammer. "She's Caesar's granddaughter."
I stared at him. "What?"
"Born from the Emperor's only child," Jorta said. "A woman named Octavia. She died about ten years back trying to give Lanius a son. Didn't survive the birth. Neither did the boy. But the girl lived."
Valeria.
Fifteen years old. Pale as moonlight. Hair so white they call it silver. "They call her the Silver Lion," Jorta added. "That girl is the only surviving bloodline left between Caesar and Lanius. That makes her heir to the empire."
I swallowed hard. A memory from another life slid in like a blade behind the ribs—dusty cave, faint firelight, a burned man wrapped in gauze cleaning a pistol. Joshua Graham. The Burned Man. Back in Fallout: New Vegas – Honest Hearts. I could still hear his voice, calm and grave.
"When Caesar dies… and Lanius falls… the Legion will devour itself. Infighting. Collapse. That's how it ends."
That was supposed to be the failsafe. The weakness built into the monster's bones.
But not here.
Not in this twisted version of the story.
Because here? They had Valeria.
A stabilizing factor.
The Legion wouldn't collapse—not if they rallied behind a name. A legacy. A Lion in silver.
"But…" I said, clinging to one last sliver of hope, "New Rome doesn't let women lead. That's law, right?"
Jorta nodded slowly. "Traditionally. The monster's daughter won't be allowed to lead—unless something major changes."
My stomach twisted.
Because I knew something else. Something the game had only whispered—something you only learned if you dug deep enough, followed the right quest chains, asked the right questions.
Caesar is dying.
The man says it himself, if you ask. A tumor. Inoperable. Untreatable. His time is short.
Which meant…
It was only a matter of time.
Time before the throne stood empty.
Time before blood hit sand.
Time before every brutal dog in the Legion snapped its leash and lunged for the crown.
There was going to be a power struggle.
And it was going to happen in the shadow of the Arch.
One girl stood at the center of the playing field for the throne.
Valeria. The Silver Lion.
And somewhere out there, another piece had just been moved into position. One I hadn't intended to place.
Maxus.
I realized it then—my fight with him, the way he survived me, it mattered more than I'd thought. In a world where survival is reputation, the fact he walked away from a fight with me—me—was going to mean something. Especially after I buried Lanius.
Because I didn't plan on dying.
Not to the Blade of the East. Not to a war dog with a god complex.
And once he fell?
Maxus would be the one who fought me and lived to tell the tale.
He'd have scars.
He'd have the story.
He might even have followers.
I didn't just let a man walk away.
I might've created a new player in the game.
Jorta saw it.
The way my jaw clenched. The shift in my stance. The way my gaze drifted—not to the present, but to the horizon where the real game was already starting to unfold.
He saw the pieces falling into place behind my eyes.
And he nodded.
"Now you see why I said it might have been a mistake."
I didn't answer. Couldn't.
Because he was right.
I didn't just let Maxus live.
I gave him a story. A legend. A reason for others to follow. The son of Henoc, spared by the man who would kill the Blade of the East. A survivor. A symbol. A spark.
I might've created my own Lanius.