Hero of Rome

Lucius, Gaius, and Tiberius awkwardly pat their pockets, realizing too late that betraying Maximus didn’t come with a severance package, and now Charon just stares at them with the same disinterest Caesar did before ordering their deaths.

I leaped out of the boat immediately with Camilla in hand and with my golden oar in the other. Camilla gripped the remaining fragment of a femur weapon as a knife.

My Historical Insight whirred into motion inside my head as we ran towards the sound of Marcus Aurelius being tortured. The futures were everywhere and all in one place simultaneously with my enhanced memory, making it feel like a singular present reality that I could change at any moment. As we ran up the cracked and desert-like bank, I could see in my mind other decisions I could make to alter the future. All it took was for my will to focus on a different possible future and my present reality would rearrange itself. Like before, I could still see the long term reality for each potential future, but I would no longer have to go back to the present and try to remember them from scratch. I could look ahead, choose, and act, all at once.

I was going to need that for what lay ahead.

This sixth ring of hell, for heretics, looked like the Sahara Desert filled with crumbling temples that were deep in the sands. Everything was barren and ruined. There littered toppled marble statues of various gods all across the sands, but that’s not what caught my attention. In between the ruins of the temples were thousands of flaming, open graves with prisoners inside each one. Like with Dante’s Inferno, those burning eternally inside were heretics who went against religion and taught false teachings.

Something that I had always wondered when reading the story was why the heretics simply didn’t escape from the flaming tombs. If I was being cooked, and the experience was liken to roasting alive in a bronze bull, I would make it my mission to escape. The answer came from the hundreds of lamia coiled over the tombs. The snake women had long, beautiful golden tails like that of a serpent, which replaced their legs and stretched impossibly long, making me think they were all connected somehow. But that was just because they all overlapped each other in a dizzying pattern that writhed and wriggled across the sands. For their torsos, they were breathtakingly beautiful, looking more like expensive courtesans than the evil monsters they truly wore. Many of the lamia had gems and gold braided into their hair, their lips the color of pomegranates that looked delightful to enjoy as they spewed taunts against the heretics they kept entombed.

Only, this false image of beauty was frequently disrupted by the sudden, violent lashing out from the lamia as they hissed and sank their teeth into anyone who tried to refute their lies.

One such unlucky soul screamed not far from the shore. Camilla and I hid behind a toppled column to watch the scene unfold.

“Isn’t hedonism so wonderful?” one such lamia hissed, smushing her golden tail against an old, bearded soul.

“This is not how it’s supposed to be!” the tortured man screamed.

“Poor Epicurus,” the lamia laughed. “Too blinded by the desirees of the present. I hope you don’t mind if I indulge in you.”

Before Epicurus could respond, his personal demon lunged and tore apart his neck, squeezing her coiled tail around him as he screamed.

Epicurus was not the only one. The other heretics received similar taunts and bites as they burned in their tombs. All of it made me want to puke.

“Oh my god,” I whispered, looking with horror at Camilla.

“Look, over there,” she whispered, pointing to a familiar face in the far distance. Marcus Aurelius looked to be having the same fate as Epicurus, which confused me all the more. His screaming subsided as his lamia resumed her taunting.

“I don’t get why he’s here,” I said. “Isn’t he a polytheist? He’s not like Epicurus in any sense.”

“The judgment of souls, which we avoided thanks to Charon, can be overturned. Cerberus took my sister and others Pluto and Persephone wanted to punish them. With Persephone in charge, there’s no way Marcus would have ever reached Elysium.”

“What did he ever do to her?”

She looked at me calmly for a second with a small smile, as if it were obvious. “Why, he was your mentor. He represents reason, which is the opposite of her irrationality. She feared death, being Pluto, and he said—”

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live,” I said, remembering his quote. “So she would punish him for eternity all because he mentored me? That seems a bit harsh.”

“Well, if you’ve already lost, and there is no going back, pettiness becomes you. What other victory is she to have being enslaved to Pluto again?”

“Enslaved?”

Camilla nodded. “Well, at least that was her story. She was freed temporarily when reborn into Antiquitus. Pluto tried everything to get her back.”

“Could she not have appealed to Jupiter or any of the other gods to help her, rather than try to enslave everyone herself just like Pluto?”

Camilla frowned, as if it were obvious. “She despised them too, equally so. Jupiter, her father, also took advantage of her and she bore a son. She lives in eternal hatred of the gods and everything they’ve created. If she can’t enthrall them to her ideal world, she will do her best to torture them, even the very best.”

Looking at Marcus, though he was the least deserving of such cruel treatment, I could see where Persephone was coming from. To think of being abused by your own father, only to be bound to another abuser for eternity. Of course that would make one so bitter to all of creation. It made me sick to even think about it.

“Horrible life aside, we need to free him,” I said, preparing to test my Historical Insight into the best path through the winding, twisting golden serpents. “He does not belong there.”

“I agree, but we will certainly die if we try to free him.”

The only answer I had for her was more wisdom from Marcus. “Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.”

Camilla rolled her eyes. “Very well, wise one. Lead the way.”

“Let’s go,” I said, jumping to my feet with her hand in mine. “Don’t let go.”

It was pointless to debate what to do. We set off to a steady sprint into the desert of tombs and snake women. Epicurus and others like him cried out as we ran by, immediately alerting the lamia of our presence. All at once, the hundreds of snake women hissed and turned to pursue us.

“Help me!” a string of voices cried out, the victims in the burning tombs. There were too many to pick out, but one made his voice particularly known as we began our race.

“I am Lucretius!” he said, his terrified and scorched face poking through his lamia’s tail. “Free me from these—”

His lamia effectively snapped his neck with her strong tail.

The entire time we ran, I paid careful attention to my footwork, hopping over endless golden snake tails that seemed to be everywhere. At some points there wasn’t any sand to land on, so we had to use the tails instead.

I only slipped once in our race to save Marcus. A lamia’s tail suddenly slipped right out from underneath me, causing me to violently fall head first into another one. Expecting a fleshy embrace, instead my neck broke from the intense impact. Camilla screamed as our pace halted and she was swarmed by the lamia.

The futures shifted so that I hopped over it. Only, it was Camilla’s turn to die, again, as she slipped and broke her neck from the lamia.

I hate these things, I thought, the future shifting to where I pointed out the trap and helped her over.

To see what we were up against, I imagined what it would be like to take one of the lamia head on that got too close. It was an instant mistake. Even if I could avoid the first bite from the seductive serpent, whacking her head with my golden oar, our weapons would not be enough. The lamia were too fast and would strike again and again, proving dauntless, until the other lamia slithered in for assistance and tore us to pieces with their deadly teeth and two pointed fangs dripping with poison.

No fighting then, I thought, guiding Camilla far away from that deadly scenario as we finally reached Marcus and his personal lamia. At least, no full on fighting.

Upon our approach, my old mentor and the wisest man in the world looked up with relief across his scorched face and patchy beard, and then, fear. He knew the impossible odds.

Since the prophetic futures were limited by my decisions, I would have to rely upon my own wit to save him. I couldn’t just see the best possible path. It had to be within the realm of possibility and something I could conjure up. As soon as we would come in reach, the lamia trapping Marcus would strike like lightning at me. It was all I could do to jump out of the way, only for the seductive monster to gorge her teeth on Camilla’s neck. Her feeble femur proved ineffective against the golden snake skin.

Unless…

The future rearranged. This time, instead of ducking, I swung my golden oar like a baseball bat as the lamia struck. Because of my Historical Insight, my aim was perfect. The golden oar struck true and knocked out both fangs while the rest of the lamia’s head turned briefly to gold.

“Get Marcus!” I yelled, snatching the fangs from the desert ground before the hundreds of lamia could seize on us.

Item: Dual Fangs of the Golden Lamia (Legendary)

Description: These curved, golden fangs radiate a cold malevolence, and their edges glisten with a permanent sheen of poison. Their lethality lies not only in their sharpness but also in the potent toxins that seep into every wound they inflict. The fangs have an uncanny ability to slice through both flesh and spirit.

Damage: 40 (each)

Durability: 150/160

Weight: 1.8 kg each

Special Effect: Has a 10% chance to paralyze the target for 2 seconds, rendering them immobile but still conscious of their surroundings. Also striking enemies bound to the Underworld deals an additional 20% damage, as the fangs are attuned to punish the damned.

Worth: 75,000 Denarii

The lamia recovered from the blow just as I sank both of them into her chest. The terrifying beauty gasped, only to fall over a second later, paralyzed. Then she gasped again, fully erect, only to fall over again.

What?

Oh god, I thought, instinctively stabbing her over and over again. The moment continued to repeat itself, my muscles moving like memory. If I didn’t stab her in the chest, she would break my neck with one powerful smack from her golden tail, resetting the future. So the stabbing repeated again and again, running on an endless loop.

“What am I supposed to do?” I screamed, killing her for the fiftieth time in frustration. Destroying her would free Marcus, who was busy struggling to get out of the flaming tomb by Camilla who tried to get past the serpent coils blocking her.

But no matter what I did, everything seemed to revert back to me stabbing the lamia. Most of my ideas should have worked, like smacking the lamia in the head again to get away. It just didn’t seem to like that.

“What am I doing wrong?” I said, trying to jump out of the way, only for the moment to revert. The same sight and feral gasp of the seductive lamia began to drive me crazy hearing it hundreds of times. There was no end in sight.

“I’m losing it,” I said, continuing to stab. This truly was a random event.

The Chrono Loop didn’t like when I tried any other variation of the event that made sense to do. It was like the future was inevitable, completely planned out. Nothing could break the order, of the way things should be. Would that mean something chaotic, unpredictable could reverse it? Nothing else seemed to be working. It had to be worth a shot.

But what could I do that was chaotic, so unpredictable that not even the lamia would suspect it?

A thought passed by, making me laugh nervously.

No, I thought, my hands trembling as I dwelled on it, heat blushing in my face. No, that is so, so wrong.

But that’s the idea, another voice in my head said, completely irrational. Embrace it.

After thinking about it for a few dozen more kills, I followed through on the crazy idea. I snatched the Dual Fangs from the ground just as the lamia recovered from turning gold. And like all of the other hundreds of times, the lamia hissed with broken fangs, preparing to break my neck with her long, golden tail. But unlike the other times, I did what she would least expect.

I took a deep, quick breath, leaned in, and kissed her.