I Rule Rome with a God-Tier AI-Chapter 119: An Alliance of Devils

Alex's study had become the nerve center of a dying body. Dispatches arrived by the hour, each one painting a grimmer picture. The Plague Legion, now armed with siege engines, was advancing with a renewed, desperate purpose, their slow, inexorable march a ticking clock counting down to the apocalypse. The legions shadowing them could only harass and delay, their commanders sending increasingly frustrated reports, begging for permission to engage and end the threat. Meanwhile, the city of Rome was a tinderbox of fear. Rumors of the approaching mutineers flew through the streets, and the price of grain had begun to spike again as panicked citizens started hoarding food. Sabina's carefully constructed economic stability was beginning to fracture under the immense pressure of a city preparing for a siege.

It was into this maelstrom of domestic crisis that the second, even greater, threat made its presence known. An imperial courier, his horse lathered and bleeding, arrived from the north, having ridden non-stop from Vulcania. He carried a dispatch from Celer, and its contents were so alarming that the engineer had sealed it with his own personal signet, a mark of the gravest urgency.

Alex broke the seal, his hands steady despite the tremor of dread in his gut. The report was short, frantic, and confirmed his worst fears had come true far sooner than he could have ever imagined. The Nomad Horde was here.

Caesar, Celer's neat, blocky script began. The horde has arrived. They have moved with a speed that defies all our projections. Their vanguard, a force of what our scouts estimate to be at least ten thousand horsemen, crossed the Danube three days ago at the Iron Gates, completely bypassing the frontier forts as you predicted. They are pouring into the province of Dacia now, a river of men and horses. The main body of the horde is right behind them. We are preparing the defenses of Vulcania, but we will soon be cut off and besieged. The Northern Fire has been unleashed.

Ten thousand horsemen. And that was just the vanguard. Alex felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. How? How had they moved so fast? How had they known the precise location of the weakest points in the Danube defenses?

He turned to his only source of true insight. "Lyra," he commanded, his voice a low, urgent whisper. "Analyze. Cross-reference the horde's reported movements with our own legionary dispositions and logistical networks in the northern provinces. Run a probability analysis on their route selection. Is it random?"

There was a moment of intense processing. The map of the northern frontier on Alex's mental screen lit up with lines and vectors, the horde's path a jagged, flowing arrow of red.

Negative, Lyra's voice replied, and her tone was colder, sharper than usual. The route selection is not random. It is optimized. The horde's movements demonstrate a precise, detailed, and up-to-the-minute knowledge of our logistical infrastructure. They are systematically targeting undefended grain depots and avoiding our major legionary patrols. Their movements are not those of a migrating people seeking pasture. They are the movements of a military force executing a planned invasion with high-grade intelligence. She paused, her analysis reaching its damning conclusion. They are being guided.

Alex closed his eyes, the terrible truth crashing down on him with the force of a physical blow. There was only one person in the world who possessed that level of intimate, detailed logistical knowledge of the entire Roman northern frontier. One person who had spent months studying those supply lines, ostensibly for the good of the Empire. One person who would benefit from the chaos of a two-front war that would stretch Alex's legions to the breaking point.

Pertinax.

The intercepted message he and Sabina had read weeks ago now made perfect, terrifying sense. The heartland is vulnerable. Be ready. It hadn't been a simple warning to his allies. It had been the signal to begin. Pertinax, the noble traditionalist, the 'Soldier's Father,' had made a deal with the barbarians. From his position as Governor of the East, he had used his network of agents and couriers to contact the Alan warlord leading the horde. He had given them maps, intelligence, schedules, the locations of every weak point, every full granary. He had offered them the riches of the Roman frontier on a silver platter in exchange for a strategic alliance. He had unleashed the horde to create a crisis so profound, so devastating, that Alex's new regime would inevitably collapse under the strain. Then, he would march back from the East with his own loyal, well-supplied legions, not as a general, but as the savior of the Empire.

Alex was facing his ultimate nightmare. He was fighting a civil war by proxy. He had a plague army armed with siege engines at his front gate, and a barbarian invasion, guided by his greatest rival, at his back. He was checkmated. He looked at the map. His legions were scattered, either bogged down in the East, shadowing the mutineers in Italy, or about to be besieged in Vulcania. He did not have enough loyal soldiers to fight a war on two fronts. He did not have enough men to defend Rome itself.

He needed more soldiers. He needed them now. And they had to be men who were already here, in the city. Men who would fight not for the state, but for a cause they believed in.

His mind raced, discarding options. The Praetorians were his personal guard, but there were not enough of them to man the city's vast Aurelian Walls. The Urban Cohorts were a police force, not an army. Then, the solution came to him, a solution so dangerous, so politically suicidal, that it made his blood run cold. There was only one person left in Rome who commanded the absolute, fanatical, personal loyalty of a large, organized, and motivated group of followers. A person he loathed and distrusted above all others.

He made the decision. It was the ultimate gamble. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

He sent a summons to the Temple of the Divine Venus, which had become the unofficial headquarters for the Widows' Fund. He requested the presence of the Augusta Lucilla.

She arrived an hour later, sweeping into his study, a picture of calm, pious concern. Her dark mourning robes only served to accentuate the fiery, intelligent defiance in her eyes. She still saw him not as an emperor, but as the imposter who had stolen her brother's body and her own destiny.

"You wished to see me, brother?" she asked, her voice as smooth and cool as polished marble.

Alex dispensed with all pretense. There was no time for their usual games of veiled insults and subtle threats. He looked at his sister, his bitterest enemy, and laid his desperation bare.

"The city is in danger, Lucilla," he said, his voice raw with an honesty that clearly surprised her. "A mutinous, plague-ridden legion marches on us from the south. A horde of barbarians, guided by the traitor Pertinax, is sweeping down from the north. The loyal legions are too few, too scattered. Rome... Rome is undefended."

He let the stark, terrifying truth hang in the air between them.

"I need more men to defend the walls," he said, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. "Men who will fight for their homes. For their families." He looked her directly in the eye. "The veterans you have helped. The sons and brothers of the widows you have comforted. The common people of this city. They do not love me. But they adore you. They see you as their mother, their protector. They would die for you."

He took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing out the words that sealed his desperate bargain.

"I need you to raise a militia, Lucilla. I need you to call upon your followers. I am authorizing you to form a new city guard, a home guard, to be armed from the city's armories. I need an army. And only you can give me one."

He was asking his rival, a woman he knew hated him with every fiber of her being, to create a private army within the walls of Rome. He was handing her a sword and baring his own throat. It was an act that could either save his city, or provide his sister with the perfect weapon she needed to finally stage her coup and destroy him forever. He could only watch her face, waiting for her answer, knowing the fate of his empire now rested in the hands of the one person who wanted it most for herself.