I Rule Rome with a God-Tier AI-Chapter 138: The Silence of the Lambs

Deep in the foothills of the Norican Alps, the forest gave way to a small, isolated village nestled in a pastoral valley. A stream, clear and cold, ran through its center, and the fields surrounding it were neatly tended. Yet, an unnatural quiet hung over the place like a shroud. There were no children shouting in play, no dogs barking a welcome or a warning, no fragrant smoke rising from the chimneys of the simple wattle-and-daub huts. It was a village holding its breath.

The First Cohort of the Legio V Devota approached with the grim caution of wolf-pack. They had been tracking their quarry for a week, following a trail of bizarre and unsettling signs—dead animals, ritually arranged in spirals; trees stripped of their bark on one side only; stones piled into strange, geometric cairns. The trail had led them here, to this eerily pristine settlement.

Titus Pullo, their centurion, stood at the edge of the treeline, his scarred face a mask of grim anticipation. He felt the wrongness of the place in his bones. This was it. The nest. He gave a sharp, hand-signal, and his legionaries fanned out, their shields locked, their gladii drawn, advancing into the village square with the heavy, inexorable tread of divine judgment.

As they entered the open space, the villagers emerged from their huts. They came out not with fear or hostility, but with a strange, synchronized calm. They were simple folk—farmers, woodsmen, and their families, dressed in roughspun wool and leather. But they moved with an unsettling grace, their faces placid, their eyes empty of any discernible emotion. On the back of each person's right hand, young and old alike, was a mark, either crudely tattooed in black ink or branded into the skin: the spiral coiling around a broken triangle.

They formed a loose circle around the legionaries, not as if to fight, but as if they were observing a curious natural phenomenon. They did not look at the armored soldiers with fear or hatred, but with a faint, unnerving sense of disapproval, like a man looking at a loud, buzzing insect that has blundered into his quiet home.

Pullo, his heart filled with the fire of his holy mission, took a step forward, his voice a great bellow that shattered the unnatural silence. "I speak in the name of the Divine Alexius-Aesculapius, the God-Emperor of Rome, the Fire that Purifies! A false prophet has poisoned your souls with whispers and shadows! He has led you down a path of damnation!"

He raised his gladius, its polished steel catching the pale sunlight. "Renounce him! Cast off this dark magic and accept the Emperor's true light, or you will be purged by his divine fire! This is your only warning!"

The villagers simply stared. Their silence was a wall, absolute and unbreachable. They did not tremble. They did not cry out. They did not fall to their knees in supplication. One of them, an old woman with eyes as pale and grey as a winter sky, slowly shook her head, a look not of defiance, but of profound pity on her face, as if she were looking at a lost and screaming child.

This placid indifference was more infuriating, more unnerving to the Devota than any threat or curse could have been. They were men accustomed to their faith inspiring awe or terror, not this silent, dismissive contempt. The silence seemed to mock their righteous fury.

A young legionary, his nerves frayed by the oppressive quiet, lost his composure. He lunged forward and shoved one of the male villagers, a broad-shouldered woodsman, sending him stumbling back a step. "Answer the Centurion, you pagan dog!" the legionary screamed.

The spell was broken.

The woodsman, his expression of placid calm never changing, moved with a speed that was utterly unnatural. He recovered his balance instantly, his hand darting out to grab the legionary's extended arm. With a smooth, fluid motion that seemed to defy the limits of human strength, he twisted. A wet, cracking sound echoed through the square as the bone in the soldier's forearm snapped. The legionary shrieked, a sound of pure agony.

"Heresy!" Pullo roared, his voice thick with rage and vindication. This was the proof he needed. The demon had shown its face. "Their corruption is complete! They are puppets of the shaman! Purge them! Leave none alive! For the Emperor!"

The battle, if it could be called that, was a short, brutal, and utterly one-sided massacre. The Devota, a cohort of Rome's finest heavy infantry, crashed into the circle of villagers like a tidal wave of steel.

But the villagers fought back. They wielded simple farm tools—scythes, axes, pitchforks, and heavy wooden mallets—but they did so with a terrifying, coordinated grace. They moved not as a panicked mob, but as a single organism. A farmer with a pitchfork would jab at a legionary's shield, forcing him to block low, while a woman with a sickle would dart in from the side, aiming for the gap in the armor at his neck. They were silent, focused, and utterly without fear, fighting with the grim purpose of antibodies attacking a disease. They inflicted several serious casualties on the heavily armored Romans before they were inevitably overwhelmed by superior weapons, training, and raw brutality.

Pullo himself fought like a man possessed, his gladius a whirlwind of death, his shield a battering ram. He cut down the woodsman who had broken his soldier's arm, then ran through the old woman who had looked at him with such pity, his blade piercing her thin chest. He felt no remorse, only the exhilarating fire of righteous purpose. He was cleansing the world.

In less than ten minutes, it was over. The Devota stood victorious, their breath coming in ragged gasps, their armor spattered with blood. The village square was a charnel house. But as the adrenaline faded, a sense of grim futility began to set in. They had won, but they had learned absolutely nothing. There were no documents to be found in the huts, no maps, no letters, no clues to the identity or location of the "dark shaman." There were no prisoners to interrogate; in their zealous fury, they had slaughtered every last man, woman, and child. There was nothing left but bodies and the oppressive, final silence they had created.

Pullo, oblivious to this tactical failure, saw only a great spiritual victory. He strode to the center of the square, planted the cohort's standard—a golden scarab beetle clutching a lightning bolt—into the bloody earth, and bellowed, "On your knees! Give thanks to the Divine Alexius for granting us the strength to smite his enemies!"

High on a forested ridge overlooking the valley, concealed within a thicket of dense pine trees, Optio Valerius lowered the small pair of captured German optics from his eyes. His face was pale, his expression grim. He had seen the entire event, from the legion's arrival to Pullo's prayer of thanks.

He had not seen a glorious Roman victory. He had not seen a righteous purging of a demonic cult.

He had watched a heavily armed cohort of Roman legionaries systematically and brutally slaughter a village of poorly armed peasants. He had watched them murder women and the elderly. He had watched their centurion, Titus Pullo, plant the Emperor's standard in a puddle of civilian blood and call it holy. He carefully folded his observation notes, attached them to the leg of his fastest carrier pigeon, and released it into the sky to fly west, towards the Danube. Towards General Maximus. His report would not speak of heresy or dark magic. It would speak of a war crime, committed by a monstrous and uncontrollable cult, all in the Emperor's name.