Reborn In 3rd Century Rome with Future Industry

The integrity of the camp’s defensive line reached its limit...

A volley of explosives struck the southern gate. The doors blew inward in an eruption of splintered wood, smoke, and earth.

"Advance!" Lucius roared, drawing his spatha.

The *Custodes* marched, their pikes lowered and their crossbows primed.

As they reached the smoking crater of the breach, Kallias’s grenadiers pushed to the front. They hurled dozens of clay pots into the mass of Roman infantry trying to plug the gap.

The detonations shredded the legionary shield wall, sending a storm of iron slag tearing through the overlapping plates of their *lorica segmentata* armor.

Before the surviving Romans could recover their footing or clear the ringing from their ears, the syndicate’s pike square hit them.

Lucius dismounted, leading the push through the breach. He stepped over the burning timber, catching the downward hack of a gladius on the crossguard of his sword.

The legionary facing him was a scarred veteran of the frontier, his eyes wide with fury. He threw his weight behind a shield, trying to bash Lucius backward to close the distance.

Lucius pivoted on his heel, using the man’s momentum against him, and drove the tip of his blade through the weak point beneath the veteran’s shoulder guard.

A second legionary, wielding a mace, swung a blow aimed at Lucius’s head.

Lucius ducked, the mace whistling inches above his helmet, but the maneuver threw him off balance.

Before the Roman could raise his mace for a strike, two *Custodes* flanked Lucius. Without a wasted movement, they drove their pikes through the legionary’s exposed ribs.

The Roman gasped, dropping his weapon, and was kicked off the shafts to make room for the advance.

The syndicate poured through the breach, their pikes forcing the Roman short-swords backward step by bloody step.

The organization of the Roman camp devolved into a slaughterhouse as the *Custodes* cornered the surviving infantry against their supply wagons.

Within half an hour, the outer perimeter was overrun by the armor of the forge.

All that remained was the command pavilion.

Tribune Quintus’s surviving Praetorian guards had barricaded the entrance to the tent with overturned supply carts and locked shields. Rather than ordering his men to charge the barricade and risk casualties, Lucius raised his hand.

"Bring up the Breaker!" Lucius ordered.

A team of engineers rushed forward, carrying a barrel packed with compounds. They rolled it against the center of the Roman carts, struck the sulfur fuse, and sprinted back behind the shields of the *Custodes*.

The barricade ceased to exist, atomized in a flash of heat that blew the canvas of the command pavilion off its frame.

Lucius marched through the dust, flanked by Valerius and a squad of guards holding loaded torsion-repeaters.

Inside the ruined pavilion, the scene was one of chaos. Huddled in the corner were dozens of unarmed quartermasters, scribes, and camp servants, clutching their heads in terror.

Standing in the center of the wreckage was Tribune Quintus. His armor was dented, his face covered in soot and blood from a gash across his forehead.

Beside him stood a patrician draped in a purple cloak... a Senatorial envoy sent by Legate Rufinus to oversee the execution of the Cassius bloodline.

Despite the oath Lucius had made to himself to leave no commanding officer breathing, he found himself faced with a logistical reality.

The scribes and servants cowering in the corner were non-combatants, innocent of the Legate’s ambitions.

Lucius sheathed his sword, his gaze locking onto the envoy.

"Are you the Legate’s voice in this camp?" Lucius demanded.

The envoy nodded frantically, his arrogance replaced by the fear of a man who realized his wealth meant nothing against explosive fire.

"I am Lepidus of the Julian house!" the envoy stammered, raising his hands. "I am a patrician of Rome! I demand diplomatic immunity! My family can pay an exorbitant ransom in gold for my safe return!"

Lucius looked at Valerius.

"Execute him," Lucius commanded.

"Yes, Dominus," Valerius replied.

The commander gestured to his squad. Four *Custodes* stepped forward, raising their torsion-repeaters.

Lepidus shrieked, falling to his knees. "No! You are a Roman! You cannot—"

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Four darts punched through the envoy’s chest in unison. Lepidus collapsed onto the rugs of the pavilion, dead before his face hit the floor.

Quintus watched the execution in horror. The Tribune stared at Lucius as if looking at an alien creature wearing his friend’s face.

Lucius ignored the Tribune for a moment, stepping over the corpse of the envoy to address the scribes and servants huddled in the corner.

"I am Lucius Cassius, Master of the Forge," he announced. "Your Legate marched you here to burn my home. But so long as you do not raise steel against my men, no harm will come to you. You are prisoners of the Syndicate now."

The lead scribe, weeping with relief, pressed his face to the dirt. "Thank you, Dominus! We are under your mercy!"

A smile touched Lucius’s lips as the imperial servants submitted to his authority. He turned back to Valerius.

"Chain the Tribune. Have the surgeons patch his head wound," Lucius ordered, turning his back on Quintus. "Leave a garrison of three hundred men here to secure the camp’s grain and weapons. The rest of the army marches on Civitas Aurelia within the hour. The province is ours."

"Yes, Dominus!" the *Custodes* roared in unison, their voices echoing over the ruins of the camp.

Lucius had shattered the vanguard of the Seventh Legion, securing his first victory in the field.

Despite this triumph in the northern valleys, the Roman Empire was vast, and Legate Rufinus commanded tens of thousands of men further north...

However, as Lucius prepared to march his army south toward the capital, he was unaware that he wouldn’t need his siege engines to breach the city gates.

The capital was burning, and the patricians of Gaul were left trapped inside the chaos, struggling to save their wealth from the spreading fire.

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