NOVEL NEXT Chapter 420: Outmaneuvered
Aurelius stood in his office, the glow of light of the orbs in the room shimmering off the polished plates of his armor.
His silver mask sat firmly on his face, its cold sheen reflecting the massive map spread across the table before him.
He traced the lines of ink with his finger, checking the troop deployments. Red pins all over the map denoted choke points, and the tiny carved figurines represented the strength of each battalion.
He had long since memorized every inch of this map when he was a boy. Every tunnel and passage carved into the bowels of Carthage had been imprinted into his head by his father for the purpose of protecting Carthage.
He knew every advantage the terrain granted. This city, built in layers, had been designed to be impenetrable. Or so he thought.
It all started when the tremors began.
At first, it was a faint vibration beneath his boots, as if a giant heart was beating within the stone.
Aurelius frowned, bracing one gauntleted hand on the table. The vibrations grew, rattling the wine glass on his desk until it toppled and spilled dark liquid across the carefully drawn lines.
The orbs hanging on their chained fixtures swayed, the walls groaning as if in pain. Outside, frantic shouting erupted.
Aurelius snapped his head towards the window just as the ceiling above him cracked, raining dust. He stormed out onto the balcony, his cloak fluttering behind him.
What he felt made his blood run cold.
Power, raw, ancient, and terrifying power, wove itself like snakes of stone through the entire mountain. He could feel it coiling, straining, spreading like roots through the rock.
His eyes widened as recognition struck him.
"Gaia!" He snarled, the name tasting like ash on his tongue.
The ground shook harder, the kind of tremor that bent towers and split walls.
All around him, soldiers were scrambling, struggling to stand. One man fell to his knees, clutching his spear as cracks split the ground beneath him.
Aurelius snapped into motion. His voice was loud, getting the attention of everyone in the chaos.
"Messengers, GO! To all layers! Sound the horns! Call every soldier, every reserve! Arm them NOW!" His hand sliced through the air, commanding obedience. "Move civilians to the deepest shelters, and seal the gates if you have to. Do it!"
The soldiers ran, their footsteps lost beneath the roar of stone grinding against stone.
Aurelius raised a hand, the glow of his power shimmering faintly around it. Time itself seemed to quiver in the space before his palm.
He could freeze it. Freeze the mountain, break Gaia's working before it unraveled everything. His fingers trembled as he prepared to unleash his authority, to shatter this audacity with the crushing inevitability of time stopped cold.
But then he froze.
What if that was the plan?
What if this... colossal working was bait, meant to draw his hand? To force him into expending his power before the true strike came?
Aurelius' jaw clenched beneath the mask. His teeth ground together until his temples ached. His gauntleted hand shook in the air, time itself begging to be chained.
But slowly, he lowered it. His hands came to rest on the balcony railing, the metal creaking under the strain of his grip.
He would not give them what they wanted. Not yet.
And so, Aurelius stood and watched as the mountain itself betrayed him.
With a sound like the cracking of the world, the roof of the layer above them shattered. Blinding shafts of sunlight speared downward, burning away centuries of darkness.
The stone that had hidden them, shielded them, was torn away. And then the entire layer lurched. Aurelius watched as it was ripped from its place inside the mountain, pulled outward like a child tearing pages from a book.
And it wasn't just one.
One after another, the layers of Carthage were dragged into the open. The hidden cities, the vaulted caverns, the carved halls, all exposed, peeled bare for the world to see. It was chaos, a nightmare come to life.
The morning light bathed everything in cruel clarity. No longer were Carthage's layers defended by stone and shadow. Now they sprawled across the surface, spread wide like organs plucked from a body.
Aurelius' hands trembled on the railing.
Gaia had ruined everything.
All his plans, every trap laid in the tunnels, every ambush point, gone. The tunnels no longer mattered. There were no choke points. No carefully guided paths. Now Carthage was nothing but exposed layers of cities scattered across the open, each one vulnerable.
And with the way he had arranged his army, his lips curled distastefully behind the mask. The bulk of the soldiers had been moved to the upper layers, where he had planned to spring his true trap. But now? With everything exposed, many layers were left without protection, their civilians stranded in plain sight.
The thought of how he had been outmaneuvered sent a fury hotter than fire burning in his chest.
"Damn you, Gaia." He snarled under his breath.
The sound of approaching footsteps reached him. Maren reached him first, her expression as calm as it always was, and her robes whispering against the stone floor.
Kant followed, his staff tapping gently with each step. Both elders stopped at his side, gazing out at the horror of their city laid bare.
Aurelius turned his masked face towards them. His voice was cold, and they could tell how furious he was.
"This is a sacrifice." He said. "Do not think of it as anything else. Civilians will die. Entire layers will bleed. But it is necessary. We must preserve our strength for the true fight to come."
Neither elder disagreed. Maren merely inclined her head, and Kant murmured softly, "So be it."
The mountain groaned one final time, and then there was silence, save for the cries of panicked civilians rising across the exposed layers of Carthage.
Aurelius gripped the railing, silver mask gleaming in the new morning light. His city was naked, and his strategy was in ruins. And still, he would not break.
If Gaia thought this would defeat him, she had no idea who she was dealing with.