Chapter 560: Beasts of Rome, Romulus and Remus (1)

"These are..."

Isis’s words trailed off, her voice barely above a whisper. A crease formed between her brows as her silver eyes narrowed at the two colossal wolves before her. She had never seen them in person—no one in this age had—but the moment their shapes erupted into reality, recognition struck her with unrelenting clarity.

Everyone had heard the myth.

The twin guardians of Rome.

The divine sentinels gifted by Athena herself.

The

last defense

—the final bulwark should the empire ever tremble on the brink of ruin.

They were Rome’s ultimate safeguard.

A concept similar to the Pharos of Alexandria—an ancient pillar capable of summoning a god in the Amun-Ra Empire’s darkest hour. Yet unlike the Pharos, these beasts were not vessels for a deity.

They

already

carried terror incarnate in flesh, bone, and fang.

And what made the sight truly chilling—what coiled dread down the spine of every divine spectator—was the fact that the hands that had summoned them were those of Julius Caesar.

Athena shot to her feet, her throne scraping the marble with a thunderous screech that echoed through the divine hall. Her sharp, calculated gaze—blue as the deepest sea, burning as forged steel—locked onto the creatures she once cradled in her own hands.

Memories surfaced unbidden.

She remembered them small. Tiny. Playful.

Puppies that once nipped at her sandals and wobbled after her like unruly shadows.

But time had done its work.

Centuries had transformed them.

They were no longer cubs that could be lifted in the palm of a goddess.

They were

monuments of war

—towering, feral, and terrifying.

The wolves turned their heads in eerie synchrony, slowly drawing their attention toward the distant coliseum. Their hackles rippled like storms rolling over dark seas. A final, resonating snort—a sound low enough to rattle stone—escaped their muzzles.

Then they moved.

Athena blurred forward before the ground even registered their first step—her speed god-like, instantaneous, a silver streak cutting through existence itself.

But even gods can be too late.

The wolves charged like twin avalanches given animal shape, their enormous bodies plowing through streets, market stalls, columns, and homes. Stone shattered. Statues pulverized. The earth groaned beneath the force of their strides.

Most of the population had gathered in the arena or crowded the heart of the city, drawn by Caesar’s commands. But not all.

And those who remained...

A pang twisted in Athena’s chest.

There had been no chance for them.

It was tragic—infuriating even. If the universe bent even slightly differently, if certain laws weren’t immutable, she would have intervened sooner. She would have saved them all.

But divine interference had limits.

Every soul had a page written long before they drew breath. The Moirai—the Fates—had spun their threads, measured their lengths, and sliced them clean where destiny demanded. These deaths, as cruel as they were, had

already been ordained.

Not even Athena—Goddess of Wisdom, Warfare, Strategy—could sever or rewrite so many threads without triggering catastrophic consequence.

This moment had always been meant to unfold.

Rome had invoked its guardians.

Now Rome would answer for its choices.

They crowned a man as divine. They lifted Caesar above mortals. They worshipped one of flesh as though he were forged by Olympus itself.

And so, they needed a reckoning.

Perhaps only then could they learn what hubris truly cost.

Athena arrived before the beasts at last, skidding to a halt with force enough to splinter the pavement beneath her sandals. Wind ripped outward, swirling dust and fractured stone.

Her lance snapped forward—glimmering, impossible, celestial steel—and struck the air before Remus, the blue-eyed wolf. The very ground beneath him ruptured as an invisible pressure halted his advance dead in its tracks.

Then, without hesitation, she swung her free hand toward Romulus, the red-eyed twin—

But her attack never formed.

Someone stood between them.

A silhouette bathed in rose-gold radiance. Soft pink curls rippling like silk caught in warm summer wind. Beauty weaponized and perfected.

Aphrodite.

"W...what are you doing?" Athena asked.

"This one—leave it to me. Or rather..."

Aphrodite’s lips curved into a small, deceptively sweet smile, her rose-petal gaze drifting toward the charging form of the crimson wolf.

"Leave it to

him

."

Romulus came like a storm.

The air fractured from the sheer speed of his gait, earth splintering beneath his claws, pillars cracking from the shockwaves of each stride. Blood-red eyes locked onto the goddess of love—not with hesitation, not with fear...but with the raw, unfiltered intent to destroy.

Aphrodite did not flinch.

Instead, both her hands rose.

There was no booming incantation.

No divine aura exploding outward.

Just a sudden

stop

.

The wolf collided against the invisible force in her palms as though he had struck an immovable ocean wall. Dust exploded outward in a circular shockwave, rattling nearby ruins, but his advance ended there—trapped, halted by the sheer might of a goddess many were foolish enough to underestimate.

Before Romulus could thrash, snarl, or retaliate—Aphrodite

lifted him.

Off the ground.

A creature the size of a siege engine, a divine beast capable of devouring demigods whole...raised like an unruly housecat.

"...You are

quite

heavy," she remarked with strained cheerfulness, arms trembling the barest amount.

Then, without warning—

She flung him.

Not tossed.

Not pushed.

Launched.

Romulus turned into a crimson streak cutting through the sky, soaring upward, upward, past broken columns and drifting clouds, until gravity finally reclaimed him. And as if guided by fate itself—

He dropped straight through the open ceiling of the Coliseum.

A perfect descent.

A perfect landing.

A perfect

delivery.

Athena exhaled sharply, realization dawning with blinding clarity.

So

that

was the plan.

The same plan she, Aphrodite, and Nathan had quietly forged.

Nathan had sworn he could handle one of Rome’s beasts on his own.

Athena, however...still had her doubts.

Remus and Romulus were not mere divine animals. They had been

forged

—built from sacred intent itself—with the express, singular purpose of killing demigods.

And Nathan, for all his terrifying potential, was still mortal.

Powerful. Unpredictable. Blessed in terrifying ways.

But mortal.

Could he

really

take down Romulus alone?

"...Don’t worry," Aphrodite said softly, sensing the tension coiling in Athena’s posture. "He’ll do it."

The words hung in the air like a spell.

Athena blinked, caught off guard—not by the meaning... but by the

source

.

Comfort.

Reassurance.

Tender, unfiltered belief.

From Aphrodite.

It felt surreal.

And yet, it made perfect sense.

Because it was

about Nathan.

Aphrodite’s smile widened, serene, almost proud, as her eyes drifted towards the distant amphitheater.

"It’ll make good training for him," she hummed.

And with a ripple of fragrant pink light—

She vanished.

Silence returned just long enough for Remus to strike.

The frost-blue wolf inhaled—not air, but winter itself. The temperature plummeted instantly, crystalline fog blooming from his maw before erupting in a beam of glacial destruction.

Athena reacted by instinct.

A divine barrier snapped into existence—golden, unbreakable, radiant. The impact of the ice blast roared against it like a mountain’s collapse, but the shield did not splinter, did not shake.

Yet even as she held firm...

Her eyes flicked sideways.

Toward the Coliseum.

Toward Nathan.

Everything was unfolding exactly as intended.

She and Remus were now locked in a battlefield far from the arena.

Pandora stood unwatched.

Caesar and Aaron believed the board was finally theirs to play.

To them, this was opportunity.

A clear path.

A moment of engineered chaos they thought

they

controlled.

They were probably elated.

Certain.

Smug in their confidence.

And

that

was the trap.

Nathan wanted them to believe things were going perfectly. Wanted that arrogant certainty to lure them out from the shadows. Wanted them exposed, reckless, careless.

A brilliant plan.

A terrifying one.

Because it balanced on blades.

Two blades, to be exact.

Pandora

—if Nathan failed to subdue her, she would not break. She would

erupt.

And Rome would drown not in battle, but in massacre.

Aaron

—if he succeeded in seizing the Box’s power from within her, the world would no longer be dealing with a corrupted empire...

...but a catastrophe with a heartbeat.

And while Athena had prepared contingencies—none of them were victories.

Just endings with less ruin.

Nathan wasn’t walking a tightrope.

He was clearly standing on a wire made of unraveling fates, suspended over the jaws of death itself.

And yet... Nathan hadn’t cared.

Not even a little.

When he first told her the plan — that he would face one of Rome’s Beasts alone, and on top of that take responsibility for Pandora — Athena had stared at him like he had spoken the language of madness.

Her first instinct had been immediate rejection.

Her second had been disbelief.

Her third had been to grab him by the shoulders and

force

logic into his skull if she had to.

But he stopped all of that with a single calm sentence:

"It’s fine."

Just that.

No long speech. No analysis. No nervous reassurance.

No hesitation at all.

At first, it sounded like arrogance — the kind that gets heroes killed in tragic stories, carved into murals as warnings.

But when she looked into his eyes...

There was no bravado.

No desperation hiding behind confidence.

No uncertainty dressed as resolve.

There was only certainty.

It wasn’t that he

believed

he would win.

It was that the concept of losing didn’t even exist in his mental horizon.

Defeat wasn’t a fear he suppressed.

It wasn’t a contingency he prepared for.

It simply... wasn’t a possibility to him.

It was only later that the realization hit her, slow and heavy.

She had seen this before.

How could she forget?

In the Trojan War, when every prophecy, every omen, every thread spun by the Moirai pointed to a Greek triumph — when destiny itself had already signed the victory contract — he had walked onto the battlefield and rewritten the result with nothing but will, blood, and impossible conviction.

He didn’t just oppose fate.

He bent it until it broke.

He had handed Troy a victory that was

never meant to exist.

So honestly...

She should have known better than to doubt him.

Some individuals didn’t walk alongside destiny.

They

dragged

destiny behind them.

Rare was too small a word — there were only a handful in all of existence, in all recorded myth, whose lives pulsed with that kind of gravitational weight.

Beings whose presence alone forced the world to shift around them.

Beings like—

Her father.

Zeus.

That thunderous, overwhelming force of existence that did not follow fate, but

used it as a footstool.

Now, of course, comparing a mortal boy to the King of the Gods was absurd—ridiculously so.

And yet...

That moment... when he revealed who he truly was... when the mask slipped, just a little...

Athena felt it.

Not logic.

Not evidence.

Not prophecy.

But instinct.

A primal, divine intuition.

Maybe she was overthinking.

Maybe she was romanticizing the impossible.

Maybe she was exaggerating.

But gods didn’t get "feelings" for no reason.