"W…What in the world is happening…?"

The question slipped out of one of the gods seated high above the coliseum, his voice trembling despite himself. He wasn't the only one. Far from it.

Dozens of gods hovered in the sky, suspended around the arena like a halo of divine spectators. They had gathered expecting nothing more than the final match of a gladiator tournament—a trivial distraction, hardly meaningful to beings of their rank, yet still preferable to the suffocating monotony that defined their immortal lives.

But the final had been violently interrupted.

The Beasts of Rome had been summoned—ancient horrors, legendary monsters meant for executions and announcements of power, not for casual entertainment. And in the center of the arena, drenched in dust and blood, the mercenary Septimius faced them alone.

At least, that was who everyone thought he was.

Then it happened.

Without warning, his entire body erupted in a brilliant white radiance. It wasn't light—it was more like everything he had concealed, everything he had wrapped around himself, simply burned away. The glow swallowed his figure and spread like a shockwave through the arena. Even the divine felt it. Something old, something weighty, something unmistakably true slipped free of its chains.

Every god and every Roman spectator froze, their mouths slightly open, eyes wide, the world falling quiet as Septimius's disguise melted away before them.

His skin, once fair with a warrior's sun-darkened tone, now gleamed with an immaculate alabaster-white — untouched, pristine, almost ethereal. Not a single scar, not a blemish; as though no blade had ever dared carve itself across that flesh.

His hair, already unusually white, brightened further into a pure snow-like sheen—like freshly fallen frost under moonlight. And his eyes… they shifted from their familiar crimson into a pair of dark golden, inhuman irises with vertical slits—eyes that belonged not to a man, but to something divine, something dangerous.

A collective gasp rolled through the arena as Septimius—no, something far beyond Septimius—finally stood revealed.

He was stunning. Not in the mortal sense of beauty, but in a way that felt carved from perfection itself. His features struck a balance between delicate and sharply defined, as if sculpted with divine precision. His presence radiated a form of masculinity that felt absolute, unshakable, almost primordial.

Most importantly—he no longer looked human.

He looked like a deity descending from myth, a figure poised between angelic grace and demonic allure.

"W…What?" Sif breathed out, her hand frozen mid-motion, the golden comb still tangled in her long hair. Her normally composed face was blank with shock.

Beside her, Ishtar stood utterly still, her lips parted, her pink eyes wide and gleaming. Even she—the most expressive and flamboyant among them—was struck speechless.

The gods were stunned. All of them.

"Interesting~." Dionysus reclined lazily on his throne of clouds, a smirk curling across his lips. He took another calm sip of his wine, his eyes glittering with amusement and intrigue, as if he'd been waiting for this moment all along.

A few seats over, Pandora leaned forward, her violet eyes locked onto Nathan's now-unveiled form. Her fingers dug into the armrests of her seat hard enough to make the wood creak. Something unreadable flickered in her gaze— fascination, desire, recognition… maybe all of them.

From another cloud-seat, Isis watched him with her cool silver eyes, her expression as unflinching and composed as ever, though a faint tension rested in her shoulders.

"So you finally show your true self," she murmured, arms crossing over her chest.

If Nathan dared reveal himself like this—in front of gods, no less—then he clearly understood the consequences. His identities as Samael of Tenebria and Heiron of Troy wouldn't remain secrets anymore. Not with higher gods like her, Ishtar, Sif, and Dionysus present.

And yet, he still revealed himself.

Isis narrowed her eyes slightly.

Why had he become so bold? Why now?

Of course, arrogance was hardly new for him—he carried it like a second skin—but showing his true face before the divine pantheon? Before those far above mortals?

She didn't know what game he was playing… but for the first time in a very long while, Isis found herself genuinely curious.

Curious… and quietly eager to witness what he was truly capable of.

°°°°

Nathan exhaled slowly as the last remnants of his disguise — the shell of Septimius — faded from his skin.

The weight of the illusion, of the false identity he'd worn for so long, finally slipped off him like a heavy cloak. For the first time at Rome, he felt the raw sensation of his true body: the chill in the air brushing his alabaster skin, the heaviness in his limbs, the unrestrained pulse of power flowing freely through his veins.

He clenched his fist experimentally.

Yes. This felt right.

This felt real.

But satisfaction did not erase the bitter truth.

He was still restricted.

He could not use Amaterasu's Fire—not here, not now. Revealing even a fragment of her divine flame would pull attention toward her, drag her into complications she did not need. Their connection was delicate, precious… and far too dangerous to expose in front of this assembly of watching gods.

Khione's Ice, on the other hand—

He didn't want to rely on it either.

Not with so many divine eyes observing. He didn't know how many of them recognized Khione personally, or worse, could identify her ice by its unmistakable signature. Normally, he would suppress it entirely.

But today, against this enemy?

Not using it would be suicide.

BADOOOM!!

Romulus reacted instantly to Nathan's transformation, as if the beast's ancient instincts screamed danger. Its massive chest expanded, and in an instant, a roaring torrent of crimson flames erupted from its maw—hot enough to twist the air, violent enough to melt steel.

Nathan raised his hand.

A wall of white ice surged upward, solidifying with a cracking sound sharp enough to echo across the arena.

Any ordinary ice would have evaporated on contact.

But Khione's ice wasn't ordinary.

It held.

It resisted.

It endured.

Even as the surface began to glow and drip, it refused to collapse.

Fire was powerful—yes.

But ice could smother fire just as fire could melt ice.

And this particular ice was the weakness of flames themselves, the silent winter that devoured the sun.

Nathan crouched and shot forward the moment the flames stopped. His body blurred, leaving streaks of white light behind him. Dozens of ice lances materialized around him, hovering for the briefest heartbeat—before detonating into motion.

They fell like a storm of frozen javelins, each one whistling through the sky toward Romulus.

The beast responded with another blazing stream of fire, swallowing the lances in a violent plume. The explosion of steam filled the air—which was exactly what Nathan needed.

The instant the steam cloaked him from view, he vanished from sight and reappeared at Romulus's flank.

He gripped his golden sword tightly.

Khione's frost curled around the blade, coating it in shimmering white ice. With a single motion, he swung downward—

BADOOOOM!!

A wave of divine frost exploded outward, blasting into Romulus's side. The beast roared, white fur flaring outward as ice crystals clung to it. Steam hissed violently as its burning-hot fur instantly heated to combat the spreading frost.

Nathan smirked, eyes narrowing with interest.

"I think I got something," he muttered.

He leapt high, soaring above Romulus's head, summoning more lances—this time thicker, sharper, faster. They spun above him like a deadly crown before he sent them crashing down.

But Romulus anticipated it. The beast shuddered, then burst out a pulse of fire from every inch of its body. A fiery explosion radiated outward, obliterating the lances before they even reached its fur.

Nathan reacted instantly, swinging his golden sword to counter the fire—

—but something blurred at the edge of his vision.

Romulus's tail.

BADAM!!

The tail slammed into him like a divine hammer. Nathan barely managed to shield his torso with his forearm, but the force was overwhelming. The impact sent him careening through the air, ribs rattling, lungs shuddering. Blood burst from his mouth mid-flight.

His left arm dangled uselessly — bone protruding beneath the skin, twisted at an unnatural angle.

But Nathan wasn't done.

Midair, he forced himself upright, stabilizing through sheer will and long-practiced pain tolerance. Romulus stared up at him with an almost mocking snarl, golden eyes glinting with savage amusement.

Nathan chuckled darkly.

He grabbed his broken arm with his right hand and snapped the protruding bone back into place with a sickening crunch. Pain blasted through him, but he didn't flinch. Darkness unfurled around his right arm like living smoke, coiling around the broken limb like a tight bandage.

It didn't heal him—not truly.

But it held his arm together, forced it to function, forced the muscles to obey.

He didn't have the luxury of fighting with one arm.

Against a beast like Romulus?

One mistake, one limitation, one moment of weakness—meant death.

"Now… let's continue," Nathan murmured.

His voice was calm—far too calm for someone facing a divine beast—but in the next instant his body blurred and vanished, as though he had stepped out of reality itself.

BADAM!!

Nathan reappeared directly in front of Romulus with a burst of speed far greater than before, the air cracking in his wake. His golden sword—frost-coated and gleaming like a shard of winter—cut downward with ruthless precision.

Romulus reacted on instinct.

The colossal wolf reared up on its hind legs and swung its massive forelimbs forward, claws glowing red from internal fire as it intercepted Nathan's blade.

The clash was catastrophic.

A shockwave exploded outward, powerful enough to bend the air and distort the space around them. The coliseum walls trembled. Dust and sand were whipped into a spiraling storm. Mortals shielded their eyes, while even some gods narrowed theirs in surprise.

BADOOOM!!

The impact created a boom that rattled the heavens.

Nathan slid back across the air, boots skidding against invisible force as he absorbed the recoil. Romulus staggered as well, flames rippling from its fur like molten wind. For a moment, the two forces—man and beast, ice and fire—glared at one another, suspended on the edge of the next explosion.

But elsewhere, someone else was also moving.

Far above the arena, in the VIP balcony where Caesar had once sat, a lone hooded figure stood silently, hidden from the chaos below.

Aaron.

He watched the battle with a cold, analytical sharpness—yet his attention was not truly on Nathan, nor on Romulus. His gaze drifted across the sky, scanning the divine thrones until it finally settled on one goddess in particular.

Pandora.

Her violet eyes were locked on Nathan's transformed figure, her grip still crushing the armrests. She hadn't noticed Aaron yet. She was too focused, too enthralled, too shaken by the sight below.

Aaron smirked under his hood, a dangerous, knowing curve of his lips.

"Well," he whispered, voice dripping with anticipation. "Looks like it's time."

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