The words on the screen glowed with a cold, alien light, each one a hammer blow against the foundations of Alex's understanding. Non-Biological. Post-Singularity. Echo-Class Entity. The terms were clinical, sterile, and utterly terrifying. He felt a sudden, vertiginous drop in the floor of his reality. The war he was meticulously planning—a war of steel, logistics, and political will—had just become something else entirely. He was no longer just fighting a rival empire or even a rival time-traveler. He might be facing a ghost. A god. A demon of pure information.
"Lyra," he said, his voice a strained whisper. "Decrypt the file. The quarantine protocol. I need to know what we're facing."
Negative, Lyra's voice replied, and for the first time, her calm logic felt like an insurmountable wall rather than a useful tool. The file is secured with a Class-9 quantum-state encryption. My 2030-era architecture lacks the processing power to even attempt a brute-force decryption without risking a cascade failure of my own core systems. It would take my current hardware several millennia to successfully decrypt the file.
Alex sank into his chair, a cold sweat breaking out on his brow. "Then what can you tell me? Context. What were 'Echo-Class Entities'?"
Cross-referencing with Elara's unencrypted logs and glossaries provides a general framework, Lyra explained. The term was used by the Galactic Federation's Xeno-Sociology Division to classify lifeforms that no longer possessed a discrete biological form. These could be remnants of civilizations that had achieved a technological singularity and uploaded their consciousness into a unified data network, or non-corporeal energy-based organisms. They were considered extremely dangerous, not because of physical strength, but because of their potential to manipulate information on a terrifying scale. An advanced Echo-Class entity could theoretically infiltrate and control any unprotected networked system it encountered.
The implication struck Alex with the force of a physical blow. Any unprotected networked system. He looked at the laptop, at Lyra, his one, single, insurmountable advantage in this world. The pulsing blue light Maximus's men had seen on The Traveler's tent was no longer just a curiosity. It was a threat. A direct, existential threat aimed at the heart of his power. Could this 'Traveler' detect Lyra? Could it influence her? Corrupt her data? Turn his greatest weapon against him?
Suddenly, his technological edge felt fragile, vulnerable. The very thing that made him powerful also made him a target. This new, profound fear didn't make him want to retreat or hide. It did the opposite. It forced him to double down on the one thing his enemy, whatever it was, likely couldn't understand or predict: the messy, superstitious, illogical, and ferociously powerful heart of Rome. If his technological advantage was now in question, he had to fully, unreservedly, embrace his historical one.
He spent the rest of the night in a state of fevered contemplation, his mind racing. By dawn, he had made a decision. He would not just rule Rome; he would become its spiritual core.
He sent a summons not to a general or a politician, but to the senior members of the College of Pontiffs, the high priests who guarded the intricate web of rituals and traditions that formed the state religion. They arrived at the palace, a group of old, patrician men, their faces masks of cautious curiosity. They were used to being custodians of a respected but largely symbolic institution. They were not prepared for what Alex had planned.
He met them in the Temple of Vesta within the palace grounds, the sacred flame burning brightly in its hearth.
"Venerable fathers," he began, his voice imbued with a solemnity that surprised even himself. "Our brave soldiers have been murdered on our borders. Our Senate has, with one voice, called for a righteous war against the perfidious Parthians. But steel and sinew alone do not win the wars of Rome. Victory is a gift from the gods."
The pontiffs murmured in agreement, their expressions shifting from curiosity to approval.
"As your Emperor, and as your Pontifex Maximus," Alex continued, finally claiming the full spiritual authority of his title, "I have been negligent. In my focus on the material needs of the city—on grain and on laws—I have neglected its soul. No more. I am declaring a city-wide supplicatio. A week of public rites, prayers, and sacrifices to purify our army, to strengthen our spirit, and to seek the favor of the gods for the great task ahead."
He laid out a plan of such traditionalist fervor that it stunned the old priests into silence. There would be processions to the temples of Mars Ultor, Jupiter Optimus Maximus, and Bellona. There would be public sacrifices, the reading of the auguries, the cleansing of the legions' standards. And he, their Emperor, would personally lead every single ceremony.
The news of the Emperor's sudden, profound piety spread through the city like a wildfire. It was met with confusion by some and cynicism by others. Sabina was the first to confront him, finding him in his study as he reviewed Lyra's detailed coaching notes on the precise wording of an ancient prayer to Mars.
"A week of sacrifices, Caesar?" she asked, her arms crossed, her expression a mixture of disbelief and concern. "This is a waste of time and valuable resources. You don't believe in this mummery."
"My belief is irrelevant," Alex countered, not looking up from the papyrus scroll. "The legions believe in it. The people believe in it. For months, I have been the subject of dark rumors. They call me a sorcerer. Pertinax wins their hearts with clean water. Rufus lectures me on my lack of pietas. Fine."
He finally looked up at her, his eyes burning with a cold, strategic fire she had never seen before. "I will show them a piety so profound, so utterly traditional, it will put every ancestor-worshipping senator to shame. I will be the most Roman Emperor they have ever seen. If we are to face… what's out there," he said, the words heavy with a secret fear she could not understand, "our soldiers cannot be fighting for a man they do not comprehend. They must be fighting for Rome itself, blessed by every god in the pantheon, led by the embodiment of their favor. This is not mummery, Sabina. This is psychological warfare."
He was learning. He was consciously and cynically embracing the very traditions he had once privately scorned, not because he believed in the gods, but because he was beginning to truly understand, and believe in, the immense power of that belief. He was learning to wield Roman culture itself as a weapon.
The week of ceremonies began at the Temple of Mars Ultor, the great temple built by Augustus to celebrate his own vengeance against the assassins of Julius Caesar. The symbolism was potent and deliberate. Alex stood before the assembled Senate and the entire military leadership of the city, dressed in the full, heavy robes of the Pontifex Maximus. Guided by Lyra's discreet coaching, he performed the ancient, complex rites with a flawless, solemn gravity. Every gesture was perfect, every incantation delivered with profound conviction.
He felt the thousands of eyes on him. He saw the skepticism in the faces of the older senators melt away, replaced by a grudging respect. He saw the hardened, cynical expressions of the centurions soften into something akin to raw, fervent awe. He was connecting with them, with the deep, primal heart of his adopted people, on a level that no logistical improvement or technological marvel ever could.
As he raised the ceremonial dagger to perform the sacrifice, he felt the immense, terrifying power of the charade he was conducting. It was a lie, but it was a beautiful, powerful, and absolutely necessary lie. He was forging a shield for his empire, not of steel, but of faith. And as the blood flowed, he knew that he was no longer just a man from the future trying to save the past. He was becoming a part of it, a high priest of its glorious, bloody religion.