I Enslaved The Goddess Who Summoned Me

Chapter 443: Marcus Antoinus’s fall

Night had cast its velvet shroud over the Roman encampment, a canopy of stars blinking through wisps of drifting clouds as the moon bathed the rugged terrain in a soft silver glow. The scent of charred wood and roasting meat lingered in the air while the faint crackle of a dying campfire echoed like whispers across the clearing. Marcus Antoinus, the famed general of Rome, sat near the heart of the camp, his weathered armor catching the moonlight in jagged reflections. His sharp eyes, half-lidded in thought, watched the flickering shadows cast by the firelight.

From across the flames, a voice broke the quiet murmur of the evening.

”Looks like the Emperor sent us here for more than just the mission, General,” one of the soldiers said, chuckling as he tore into a loaf of bread.

Marcus Antoinus raised a brow, intrigued by the man’s tone. ”And what exactly do you mean by that?”

The soldier, a lean man with a mischievous grin and sun-scorched skin, leaned forward. ”I mean, why else would the Emperor send Rome’s strongest general on a task as meaningless as this? Hunting cowards in the hills? Please. It’s no secret he favors you, General. You’ll soon wed the Emperor’s own daughter. And with the Gladiator Tournament approaching, your fame will be sung across the Empire.”

A low chuckle escaped Marcus’s lips, deep and unimpressed. ”Could be that.”

”I mean, the Emperor always spoils you. I’m jealous, you know?” the man added with a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

”Shut up and do your job,” Marcus said without amusement, narrowing his eyes.

The soldier laughed awkwardly and stood, brushing dust from his tunic. ”Of course, General. Just stepping away to relieve myself.”

Marcus didn’t respond, already turning back to the fire as the man wandered toward the forest’s edge, disappearing into the shadows beyond the firelight’s reach.

The man—Crenus—sighed once he was out of earshot. His smile faded into a sneer as he muttered under his breath. ”Selfish bastard... basking in glory while the rest of us grovel. I ought to slit his throat in his sleep and see what the Emperor thinks then.”

Grumbling, he stopped beneath the wide canopy of an old cypress tree, its gnarled limbs stretching like fingers into the sky. The silence here was deeper, almost unnatural. As he loosened his belt, a sudden gust of icy wind swept through the leaves, rustling them like whispers in a crypt.

His hand froze at his side. The wind felt wrong—too cold, too sharp—like the breath of death itself. His instincts screamed, and he quickly pulled up his pants, turning on his heel and drawing the short sword at his waist.

”Who’s there?” he barked, his voice cracking slightly, more out of unease than fear.

No answer.

He could still see the distant glow of the camp’s firelight, barely a hundred meters away. A comforting reminder that his comrades were nearby. That he wasn’t alone.

”If it’s one of you bastards playing tricks—cut it out!” he growled, trying to shake off the chill crawling down his spine.

Still no reply.

He waited a breath longer, then turned around to finish his business. But as he turned—he froze.

There, embedded in the bark of the tree before him, was a face.

A grotesque, pale visage fused with the wood as if the tree itself had grown around it. Eyes wide open. Lips curled in agony.

”AHH!” Crenus let out a startled cry and stumbled backward.

But he didn’t fall.

Hands—ice-cold and unrelenting—clamped down on his shoulders. He barely had time to gasp before searing pain enveloped his body. Flames erupted across his skin, burning through flesh, armor, and soul in a single breath.

”GYAAARRRHHH!!!”

His scream tore through the night, loud and desperate, echoing all the way back to camp.

The soldiers jolted to their feet in alarm, eyes wide, hands reaching for their weapons.

”What was that?!”

”It sounded like Crenus!”

Marcus Antoinus was already on his feet, his expression hardening into a mask of grim focus. He drew his gladius in a fluid motion, the metal glinting as he stepped toward the treeline where smoke and fire now glimmered faintly in the distance.

”Stay sharp. Shields up. Eyes open,” he commanded, his voice calm but cold.

The men followed, forming into formation, hearts pounding as they crept toward the source of the scream.

But Marcus stopped short.

His eyes narrowed.

There, just ahead—illuminated in the moonlight—stood a woman.

She was motionless, poised like a statue carved from divine stone, ethereal and otherworldly. Gasps spread among the soldiers as they beheld her, each man instinctively lowering his weapon.

She was unlike anything they had seen in their lives.

Her beauty was not mortal—no, it was something older, deeper, perhaps even cursed. Long obsidian hair flowed down her back like a river of silk, rippling faintly in the night breeze. Her skin was porcelain, untouched by blemish or time, and shimmered faintly in the moonlight as if blessed by the gods.

But it was her eyes that held them captive.

One eye blazed with emerald fire—green as the deepest forest. The other glowed a haunting crimson, like a drop of fresh blood caught in the light. A symbol of duality—of creation and destruction.

Her expression was devoid of emotion. Cold, calculating, timeless.

Marcus Antoinus felt his throat tighten. Even Cleopatra, with her famed beauty and allure, paled in comparison to the presence before him.

Marcus Antoinus smirked instinctively, the same self-assured grin he wore whenever a beautiful woman crossed his path. His gaze slowly raked over the mysterious figure standing in the moonlight—her elegance, her ethereal beauty, the quiet defiance in her stillness. A lesser man might have hesitated, but Marcus, ever the conqueror of both battlefield and bedchamber, thought her silence an invitation.

”Who are you, woman?” he called out, his voice rough with amusement. ”Did you get lost, or are you here to watch real men at work?”

He was testing her—teasing, even—but also watching carefully. Deep down, a soldier’s instinct warned him that something wasn’t right. She hadn’t flinched when his men unsheathed their blades. She hadn’t spoken a single word. Most of all, she hadn’t so much as blinked at the flaming death of Crenus, still smoldering somewhere behind her.

But the woman—Medea—said nothing.

She didn’t deign to respond. In truth, she found everything about this place repugnant. The crude men. Their crude glances. The arrogant general who dared to look upon her with lust in his eyes, as if she were a common woman. Her very presence among them was enough to make her skin crawl. It was beneath her. They were beneath her.

Only one man in this world had the right to look at her.

Nathan.

The thought of his name alone softened her expression by a fraction. Her crimson and emerald eyes, which had held icy disdain, shimmered now with faint warmth—love buried under layers of steel and smoke. Her beloved Nathan... the man who had shattered the chains that bound her to a gilded cage, the man who had stormed her prison on the back of a dragon and stolen her from her fate. He had taken her, yes, but he had also saved her. He gave her what no one else could: purpose, freedom... happiness.

She would kill and die for him a thousand times over. And now, he had called her—summoned her for a task only she could carry out. She hadn’t hesitated. Even in her bones, it had felt like decades since she last saw him, though in truth it had barely been more than a week. So when the request came, she gladly took Scylla’s place at Nathan’s side.

Unlike Scylla, who was prone to mindless hunger, Medea was cool, calculating, and precise. Nathan had chosen her because he needed that. And Medea would not fail him—not ever.

Suddenly, a panicked voice broke the silence of the camp.

”General! Look—around us!”

The soldier’s cry was laced with terror as the earth beneath their feet cracked and began to glow with an ominous crimson light. Intricate runes spiraled outward from a magic circle etched in fiery blood beneath the dirt. Moments later, black creatures—grotesque, twisted horrors of claw and sinew—began to rise from the ground as if the earth itself was vomiting them forth.

”What—what in Jupiter’s name?!” another soldier gasped, stepping back as one of the creatures lunged at him.

”Witchcraft,” someone whispered in a hoarse voice, and all eyes turned to Medea. The lone woman, standing unflinching amidst the chaos, her long black gown rippling gently though no wind touched it.

”GYYAAAHHH!!” a soldier’s scream rang out as one of the beasts tackled him to the ground. He slashed wildly with his sword, severing a limb—but the creature simply howled and kept biting, kept tearing. Blood sprayed across the dirt as his shrieks turned into gurgles.

Then more came.

Dozens. Then hundreds. The forest floor turned into a battlefield of shadows and fangs. The creatures clawed and shrieked, swarming toward the soldiers like a living tide of darkness. Screams pierced the night, blades clashed against hide, but for every abomination slain, two more seemed to rise from the pits below.

Yet Marcus Antoinus did not waver.

Even as his men faltered and died around him, the general kept his eyes locked on Medea. Her beauty was still there—untouched, unbothered, as if she stood in a separate world altogether. But his smile now was darker, more predatory.

”So it was you,” he said, stepping forward, his voice laced with grim amusement. ”You’re the one who killed the expedition... That’s a very bad choice, woman.”

His eyes flicked down to her figure beneath the flowing black gown, his smirk returning. ”But lucky for you, you’re beautiful. I won’t kill you... No, I’ll make you pay in other ways.”

Without another word, Marcus Antoinus charged.

As soon as he moved, a dozen of the shadow creatures rose to intercept him. But the general let out a booming laugh as he drew his sword. The blade ignited with a brilliant white light, holy and radiant, cutting through the night like a comet.

”These pathetic things can’t do shit against me!!” he roared, swinging the blade in wide, graceful arcs. With each motion, monsters were cleaved apart—one, two, ten, twenty—flesh and shadow dispersing into ash with every strike.

He stamped the ground hard, launching himself forward with practiced strength, barreling toward Medea like a thunderbolt of flesh and steel.

”Time to teach you some manners!” he growled, reaching out with one armored hand to grab her throat.

But his fingers met only mist.

Medea’s form shimmered, dissolved, and became smoke—inky black and curling like incense into the air. She was never there. Or rather, not in the way he believed.

Marcus froze, confused for a moment.

Marcus Antoinus spun around, heart pounding, breath shallow, his senses screaming—but what he saw nearly made his knees buckle.

There, at the heart of the ravaged encampment, where once soldiers had laughed and shared bread beneath the stars, now stood a throne of twisted bone and blackened roots, risen unnaturally from the blood-soaked earth. Upon it sat Medea.

Her legs were elegantly crossed, her back perfectly straight, her gown flowing around her like spilled ink. The throne pulsed faintly with dark magic, its form alive, writhing ever so subtly—as though it breathed. Her chin was tilted just slightly, a single elbow resting on the throne’s armrest, her cheek cupped delicately in her palm. She gazed down at the massacre around her as if bored by it.

All around her, Marcus’s men were screaming.

Hundreds of shadow-born horrors now prowled the camp, tearing into flesh with slavering jaws and barbed claws. Soldiers who had once marched triumphantly under the Roman eagle were now reduced to quivering heaps of gore. The ground was a painting of crimson and entrails, bones shattered and scattered like ivory debris. The air was thick with smoke, the stench of blood, and the raw terror of men realizing they were moments from death.

Marcus Antoinus’s eyes widened in horror. He could hardly believe it.

His men, hundred of them all trained... crushed.

”Impossible...” he muttered.

He clenched his jaw. Blood surged in his ears, drowning the screams. He could not afford hesitation. She was no ordinary woman. She was death cloaked in silk.

His grip tightened around his sword as he drew in a breath.

”I see now...” he growled. ”You’re not just dangerous. You’re a monster in a woman’s skin. But I’ll show you—what true strength looks like—”

A sound split the air before he could finish.

It was soft, almost wet. Like a melon splitting open.

Marcus blinked.

Then again.

He looked down and realized his right arm—his sword arm—was no longer there.

It was gone.

Severed at the shoulder, the stub spraying blood in sickening rhythm with his heartbeat. His sword clattered to the ground beside him, useless.

”Wh—what...?” he choked, staggering. The pain hadn’t even caught up yet. His mind was still trying to process what had happened.

Then came the agony.

A burning lance of white-hot torment raced up his side. He gasped and dropped to one knee.

”You are weak,” Medea said softly.

She hadn’t moved from her throne.

She simply raised a finger, and as if connected by a single mind, every shadow creature froze mid-feast. Then, in perfect unison, their heads snapped toward Marcus Antoinus.

He froze.

A cold sweat broke across his brow. His breath came in shallow, ragged gasps. The ground beneath him trembled as dozens—no, hundreds—of the creatures slowly crept toward him, their maws gaping, claws dripping, eyes glowing with bottomless hunger.

Marcus bit down hard on his lip, trying to stifle the cry building in his throat. His body screamed at him to flee, but he couldn’t. Not with the blood pouring from his missing arm. Not with that cursed weight pressing down on him.

He tried to summon magic—a divine incantation of light and protection—but nothing came. No warmth. No spark.

He glanced at his left hand.

Strange markings now coiled around it, like black vines etched into his skin. Curse seals. Ancient and unbreakable. His connection to magic had been severed.

”Scylla told me you caused a great deal of trouble for my Nathan,” Medea said, her voice now laced with venomous calm. ”You’ve spoken his name. Threatened him. That alone...”

Her eyes narrowed into slits of shadowed flame.

”...deserves an eternity of suffering.”

Marcus felt his throat tighten. For the first time in decades—perhaps ever—he was afraid. Genuinely, deeply, soul-shakingly afraid. He had fought beasts. He had faced down other generals, monsters of war, and gladiators of legend. But never—never—had he felt this helpless.

Why...? he thought, trembling. Why am I afraid of her?

But he knew the answer already.

Because she wasn’t human.

And because she didn’t hate him.

She simply saw him as... unworthy.

”Nate wants you dead,” Medea continued, her voice dropping to a cold whisper. ”But not yet. Tomorrow, he said.”

She lifted one hand.

And snapped her fingers.

In an instant, Marcus Antoinus was no longer kneeling in the dirt. He was on his back—no—at her feet.

Teleportation? Time distortion? He didn’t know. But now she loomed above him.

”Wha...?” he gasped, still unable to make sense of it.

Medea looked down at him. Her lips curled—not in disgust this time, but in amusement.

”Such a disgusting tongue,” she said.

And snapped her fingers once more.

With a sickening tear, Marcus Antoinus’s tongue was violently wrenched from his mouth by invisible force. Blood spurted as he tried to scream—but what came out was only a gurgling, agonized rasp.

”Hrrghhh!!!”

He thrashed, eyes wide, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, the pain stealing all breath from his lungs.

Medea stared at him with serene cruelty.

”But Nathan only needs you dead by tomorrow,” she said, finally smiling.

That smile—gods above. It was beautiful. Utterly radiant. And yet more terrifying than anything Marcus had ever faced. It was a smile meant for no mortal. A smile that promised an endless night of pain.

”We still have tonight.”

And so, the moon bore silent witness to what followed.

All through the night, howls of agony echoed through the forest. Screams of a man long thought invincible, reduced to nothing but a husk. Soldiers in the distant hills mistook the cries for the roar of some ancient beast—and fled.

But they were wrong.

It was not a monster.

It was Marcus Antoinus, the Emperor’s favored general, the undefeated warlord of Rome—begging for death.

And no one came.