I Enslaved The Goddess Who Summoned Me

The second day of the gladiator tournament dawned beneath a blazing sun, the air heavy with heat and anticipation. From the moment the gates of the Colosseum creaked open, streams of spectators poured in from every street, flooding the stands until they were an undulating sea of eager faces. Today, the stakes were higher—only four groups of a hundred gladiators remained, and each would fight in turn until a mere ten emerged from the blood-soaked sand.

The roar of the crowd was louder than the day before, a living thing that pulsed through the stone walls and rattled the air. Merchants shouted from the passageways, selling wine, figs, and roasted meat; slaves darted between rows of seats, carrying platters to the more affluent guests. The smell of dust, sweat, and hot metal mingled with the fragrance of perfumes drifting down from the wealthy patrons seated in the upper tiers.

In the VIP balcony, the scene mirrored the first day’s gathering—though the atmosphere seemed more charged, more watchful. At the forefront, Julius Caesar himself sat in the place of honor, flanked by the ever-calculating Crassus and the austere Pope of Athena’s Church. Behind them, the noble entourage had taken their seats: Octavius with his piercing gaze, Julia, Servilia, and beside them Licinia, Fulvia, and Fulvius.

And then there was Nathan.

Though he was a participant in the tournament, he would not be stepping into the arena until nightfall, for his group—the eighth and final—would be the last to fight. Until then, he lingered in the VIP balcony much as he had the day before, standing instead of sitting, his back against the cool marble wall. From this vantage, he could watch the unfolding chaos below without the fuss of conversation.

When he settled into place, Caesar offered him a brief nod—a silent acknowledgment—while Crassus’s eyes swept over him with a measuring look, though no words followed. Octavius, ever the wary one, cast his habitual suspicious glance before turning back to the arena.

The women were quieter than they had been yesterday. Even Licinia, though visibly restless, refrained from speaking, though her eyes betrayed a constant flicker toward Nathan. Julia, on the other hand, could not help herself; she greeted him with a genuine smile and a small, graceful wave.

If one looked closely, they would see the effort she had put into her appearance. Her golden curls, once merely tidy, were now meticulously styled so they framed her face in perfect symmetry, glinting under the sunlight. She had adorned herself with delicate gold ornaments that caught the light at every movement, and her Roman gown—a soft, flowing garment dyed in a rich shade—had been chosen with care. She radiated the quiet confidence of someone who knew she looked beautiful and wanted a certain person to notice.

Servilia, seated near Julia, noticed this transformation at once. She also noticed the way Julia’s eyes brightened when Nathan returned the nod, and how, at that tiny gesture, Julia’s cheeks flushed and her gaze dropped shyly.

Servilia’s lips parted slightly in disbelief. Julia?

Was Nathan truly seeking death?Did his audacious schemes against Caesar somehow include seducing the dictator’s daughter? Servilia had never pegged him for that type of man—he usually seemed detached, almost indifferent, and yet… from what little she had observed, he treated Julia with a surprising gentleness. And that, in turn, clearly irked Licinia, who sat only a seat away from Julia and had a perfect view of every glance, every blush, every fleeting smile.

Nathan, however, seemed unmoved by the subtle currents of tension swirling around him. His gaze drifted back toward the arena, where the fifth group of the day was locked in brutal combat.

Below, the sandy floor had already turned a dark, rusty shade where blood had soaked into it. Hundreds of gladiators clashed in the brutal frenzy of the battle royale—steel meeting steel with ringing clangs, shields splintering, bodies colliding. Dust rose in thick clouds, obscuring the faces of the fighters until they were little more than silhouettes in a storm of violence. Shouts of rage, pain, and triumph echoed upward, mixing with the deafening roar of the crowd.

Far above the roar of the Colosseum, suspended in the boundless blue sky, the thrones of the Gods floated in quiet majesty. From the mortal world below, they were unseen, but to Nathan’s eyes—trained and cursed to pierce the veil—they were as clear as the midday sun.

As on the previous day, Athena sat at the center, her presence radiant yet stern. At her left lounged Dionysus, the ever-languid god of revelry, a cup of dark wine in hand, and on Athena’s left sat Pandora, still her face veiled. But this time, there was another addition to their small circle—Hermes, clad in light traveling garb, winged sandals glinting faintly, watching the arena with an amused, almost knowing smile. Nathan recognized him instantly.

Elsewhere, Ishtar and Sif hovered together, just as they had yesterday. The way they stood close, leaning toward each other in easy conversation, made Nathan wonder if they were friends—or perhaps rivals bound by a shared curiosity. But they were not alone today. Scattered across the sky were more divine figures, their thrones gleaming like jewels in the sunlight. Gods and Goddesses from different realms had gathered in unusual numbers, all peering down at the spectacle below as if it were some rare entertainment.

It wasn’t hard for Nathan to guess why.

The whispers of Pandora’s challenge had clearly spread—rumors of whether there existed a man capable of subduing, or even handling, her. Such a notion was irresistible to the idle immortals.

Athena, however, did not share in their amusement. Her face was a mask of composure, but blue eyes betrayed displeasure. She tolerated Hermes’s presence only because he was her half-brother; the others, she considered uninvited intruders. Her gaze sharpened toward Ishtar, the notorious gossip of the heavens, who was almost certainly the one responsible for attracting so many curious onlookers.

The insult was compounded by the blatant trespass of gods from foreign pantheons. Sif, after all, belonged in the Norse realms, aiding the bloodthirsty Vikings in their campaigns against King Ælfred and the Angelic races that supported him. Ishtar should have been in Babylonian lands, not drifting casually above Rome’s skies. Athena could not fathom how they crossed boundaries so easily—or so brazenly.

Nathan, watching from below, found himself sharing some of Athena’s irritation. The more divine eyes that lingered over the tournament, the greater the risk that one of them might pierce the disguise Aphrodite had granted him. Though she had been thorough, and he was confident in her craftsmanship, the presence of so many deities with perceptive, all-seeing gazes unsettled him.

Do the gods really have nothing better to do? he thought wryly.

The earthbound world paid no mind to the silent gathering above. In the Colosseum, the atmosphere had reached a fever pitch. The clash of steel and the roar of the crowd formed a deafening wall of sound.

Groups Five and Six had already fought their bloody battles, the sand of the arena dyed in streaks of red before slaves and attendants rushed in to drag away corpses and scatter fresh sand over the stained ground. From those rounds, twenty gladiators remained—ten from each—men Nathan had quietly observed from the balcony. Some were skilled, even dangerous, but none had yet proven themselves exceptional enough for him to draw firm conclusions.

Except one. Spartacus.

That name alone carried weight, and from what Nathan had seen, the man deserved it. There was a raw force to his movements, an aura that made lesser fighters hesitate. Nathan found himself almost eager to speak to him, to measure him up in person.

Now, however, his attention turned to the newly assembled hundred of Group Seven.

Nathan’s gaze swept the chaos until it halted abruptly. His eyes narrowed slightly. There—among the swirling dust and flashing steel—was a figure unlike the rest.

The man was clad in full bronze armor, helm to greaves, the sunlight sliding across the polished surface in a molten sheen. In his grip, he held a longsword that seemed forged for destruction, its weight evident from the depth of his stance.

One of the gladiators, foolish or desperate, charged him head-on.

It was over in an instant.

The bronze-clad warrior’s blade swept through the air with lethal precision, cleaving the man in two as though slicing through parchment. The momentum of his strike carried forward, and several others—unfortunate enough to be in his path—were felled in the same motion, bodies dropping like cut stalks of wheat.

Nathan’s gaze sharpened, his eyes narrowing as he studied the bronze-clad warrior with a predator’s patience. There was something in the man’s movements—an ease, an authority—that didn’t belong to an ordinary mortal. His strikes were too fluid, too precise, and every motion carried a weight that spoke of inhuman strength.

Not a normal man…

The realization struck him like a whisper in the back of his mind. This was no mere gladiator—he was a Demigod. The divine blood in his veins was faint, perhaps, but unmistakable to someone like Nathan. Yet there was no familiar mark of a celebrated Hero, no name or reputation he recognized. Whoever this man was, he moved in the shadow between obscurity and legend, and that made him dangerous.

On the throne in the sky, Athena’s blue eyes also narrowed. Her expression, usually calm and calculating, tightened with faint interest. Even Pandora, who rarely betrayed curiosity, leaned forward slightly in her seat, her lips curling into the ghost of a smile. The bronze warrior had caught their attention as surely as he had Nathan’s.

The chaos of the battle raged on, bodies falling one after another until the final ten emerged, battered but victorious. The bronze-clad man stood among them, his armor splattered with blood that was not his own. He left the arena without a word, slipping away like a shadow despite the weight of eyes—both mortal and divine—fixed upon him.

The hush that followed was broken by the booming voice of a Roman herald, his armor glinting in the sun as he stepped into view.

“Now!” he bellowed, his voice carrying across the stands. “In but a few moments, the last group—Group Eight—will take to the sands! Are you still with us, people of Rome?”

The answer was a roar that shook the very stones, thousands of voices surging together into a thunderous cheer.

Nathan let his eyes close for a moment, shutting out the sight of the crowd, the sand, the gods above. His heartbeat slowed, steady and deliberate, as if he were drawing himself inward before a storm.

It’s time.