The Commander sighed, rubbing his temples as he prepared to curse the idiot for wasting his time. But when he looked up. The cigarette fell from his lips.
"By the g*ds…"
From the Mausoleum's entrance, they came. An endless marching stream of warriors, their black, red and white combat uniforms pristine, their camo painted steel helmets gleaming in the sunlight, their movements precise, disciplined, unstoppable.
24,000 warriors. Marching in perfect unison, their weapons slung across their chests, their boots striking the dirt in synchronized thunderclaps.
At the forefront, tall signifers held massive crimson banners, each emblazoned with the Imperium's spiritual beast and Roman numeral, their golden laurels glinting in the morning light.
And leading them. A figure draped in myths and legend. Mounted atop a massive black beast, a creature unlike anything seen before.
An Iron Fenrir, a wolf of black iron and crimson, its predatory golden eyes glowing with primal intelligence, its muscles shifting like living steel beneath its alloy hide.
Its presence alone was enough to send shivers down the spines of hardened soldiers. And on its back.
A demig*d of war reborn. The prince of Death. Dracula Von Death no longer a disgrace, no longer a drunken fool.
He was clad in the armor of the First Imperator, the meteorite greatsword Reaper strapped to his back, his tattered fur half cloak billowing with each step of the monstrous beast beneath him.
And atop his head. The Imperial Roman helmet, its red plumes horizontal, its white skull faced epilate concealing his expression, leaving only his crimson eyes visible through the dark slits.
A gaze sharp enough to cut through souls. The Praetorians fell silent. This was not the same man who had entered the Mausoleum. This was Alucard Von Death reborn.
And as the Iron Fenrir passed them, its golden gaze flickering in their direction, they felt it. Something primal. Something ancient and unrelenting. A force of nature that could not be tamed.
The Commander dropped to one knee.The rest of his soldiers followed instantly, their weapons clattering against their armor as they bowed their heads in reverence.
Because even though their minds screamed that this was still Dracula Von Death. Their souls knew otherwise. This was no drunken prince. This was a warrior from another age.
An Imperator reborn. And so, as Lupa led the procession forward, as the paratrooper cohorts marched in his wake, the truth settled over them.
The Empire was no longer in the hands of politicians. The g*ds had chosen their champion. And war was coming.
...
Cerberus Headquarters, Nova Roma.
Inside the Cerberus headquarters decorated with banners of the three headed hellhound the guardian of Elysium aka Hades personal pet, the air was thick with the scent of burning tobacco and oiled steel.
At the center of it all, standing behind a massive masterfully crafted wooden desk, was Praetor Augustus Cornelius Maximus, the Commander In Chief of Cerberus a man feared by senators, patrician families, nobles, and generals alike.
With his neatly trimmed white beard, a scar cutting across his left cheek, and a broad shouldered frame that looked like it could break lesser men in half, he was the embodiment of Imperial discipline and ruthlessness.
And right now? He was roaring into the landline phone like a man possessed.
"HAVE YOU GONE MAD?! First Its the p*ssy prince suddenly growing a pair of balls and cursing the Pythia and then cursing the all father?!"
His voice boomed through the marble walls, making even the hardened officers in the room flinch.
"And now you expect me to believe that our one and only Imperator that has been dead for centuries ALUCARD VON DEATH has suddenly risen from the f*cking dead?!"
He slammed his fist against the desk, rattling the bronze Iron Wolf statue perched atop it.
"AND HE'S LEADING 24 COHORTS STRONG ARMED TO THE TEETH LEGIONNAIRES THROUGH THE MAIN ROAD ON THE BACK OF A G*DSDAMN IRON FENRIR THATS SUPPOSED TO ONLY EXIST IN MYTHS AND LEGENDS?!"
The aide on the other end of the line stammered, trying and failing to form a coherent sentence.
"P-Praetor! Sir! I..."
A tight, sharp click sounded from outside. The sound of thousands of synchronized boots hitting the ground.
A sound too familiar to any veteran of decades of military service. A sound that meant only one thing.
Marching. The Praetor's grip on the receiver tightened, his teeth grinding against each other. Then, slowly, he put down the phone, his face a mask of stone cold disbelief.
He turned. And walked to the tall windows of his office, the panoramic glass giving him a perfect view of the city below.
What he saw made his blood run cold. Down below, the main boulevard, a road so massive it could fit four marching legions side by side, was flooded with the thunderous procession of the Imperator's army.
The citizens of Nova Roma had frozen mid action, their daily routines grinding to a halt as they watched the impossible unfold before their very own eyes.
A fruit vendor, an elderly man with a hunched back and a lifetime spent peddling apples and pomegranates, dropped a handful of figs onto the hardened dirt road, his wrinkled hands shaking.
His mouth moved, but no words came out. Then he fell to his knees, pressing his forehead against the ground.
"The Imperator has returned… The Imperator has returned… The Imperator has returned…!"
He repeated the words like a prayer, his frail shoulders trembling as tears slipped down his cheeks at the prophecy passed down after the Imperators death finally coming true, another failsafe that the author wrote for the MC.
Nearby, a young mother, clutching her toddler, whispered to her child, pointing toward the figure on the Iron Fenrir.
"Look, little one. Look at the man who built our world."
Her child, no older than five, stared wide eyed, his tiny hands gripping his mother's shawl.
"Mama, is he a g*d?"
The woman smiled softly, her own eyes glistening.
"No, my son. He is greater than a g*d. He is our Imperator."
Not everyone reacted with awe. A group of merchants, skeptical and wary, stood by their market stalls, their expressions twisted in uncertainty.
One of them, a portly man draped in expensive furs, scoffed.
"Tch. Just another political stunt. The patrician houses must be trying to rally the people again."
His partner, a slender man with calculating eyes, leaned closer, his voice a whisper.
"You don't understand. Look at the soldiers. Look at their weapons. We don't have anything like that."
The fat merchant hesitated. That was true. Those rifles, those helmets, those uniforms they were unlike anything the Spartanum Ducatum had ever fielded.
And then there was the beast. The Iron Fenrir. The thing that had been spoken of only in whispers and legends.
Something that simply shouldn't exist. The merchant's throat went dry. He turned to his assistants.
"Shut down the stall. Close everything. If this is real, if HE is real, then bloodshed is coming."
From balconies and terraces, wealthy aristocrats and high ranking retired senators watched the scene unfold, their reactions ranging from stunned silence to outright panic.
A retired senator, draped in a purple toga, turned to his colleagues, his face ashen.
"We need to inform the Senate immediately. If this is truly Imperator reborn…"
He swallowed, his hands trembling.
"Then everything we've built is about to change."
Another noble, his face contorted in disbelief, spat onto the marble floor.
"This is madness! This Is no Imperator reborn It's just some kind of sick f*cking stunt!"
But a young patrician woman, standing by the railing, her gaze fixed on the Imperator, whispered.
"A deception? Tell that to the two meters tall wolf with alloy plates Instead of fur marching forward"
The noble's face turned ghostly pale. He said nothing more. Children dozens of them ran through the streets, weaving between stunned adults, their laughter ringing out in stark contrast to the stunned silence of their parents.
"The Imperator! The Imperator is back!"
They cheered, waving makeshift banners, their small feet kicking up dust as they followed the legioneers, running alongside the Iron Fenrir like an unstoppable tide.
One small boy, no older than ten, raced alongside the formation, his tiny hands reaching out toward the passing legioneers.
A paratrooper, without breaking stride, reached down and clasped the boy's hand for the briefest moment before releasing it.
The child stopped running, staring at his own hand, the hand that had touched a warrior of the reborn Imperator.
His chest swelled with something indescribable. A dream was born. A dream of one day marching beside them.
From his vantage point, the Praetor stood frozen, his fingers trembling as he gripped the railing of his balcony.
He had seen many things in his lifetime. Wars. Coups. Assassinations. But this? This was something else. This was history in motion.
Soldiers knelt, their eyes filled with reverence, after all the Imperator was their role model.