I Loaded the Occult Panel

Venus leaned against the colonnade, blood dripping onto the stone steps from the cracks in her mask.

Mars gripped his iron spear, its tip pointed down.

”Virtuosos cannot intervene directly,” he said.

”I know.” Matthew kept his hands in his pockets, not even bothering to look up.

”I know the rules better than you do. When I was young, I survived by exploiting these loopholes.”

He took a step forward.

The road stretching from the end of the Tiber River paved itself forward as he moved.

”I don’t fight. I only mind the road.”

Richard felt the pressure beneath his feet suddenly loosen. He tried taking a step forward.

The step carried him much farther than he expected. He nearly pitched forward, only steadying himself by grabbing a ruined wall nearby.”When the road arrives, the power arrives,” Matthew said, clapping his hands.

”You all fight your fight. The stretch in the middle belongs to me.”

Dionysus unhooked the Two-Handled Cup from his waist and raised it high.

”A toast, to a well-paved road!”

He tipped his head back and took a massive gulp. He let out a loud burp right after, the boozy sound echoing around the City of Seven Hills before it faded.

Richard could see the ether field of the city beneath his feet.

The massive maw that originally repelled all outsiders had now been propped open.

This was the traditional logic of labyrinths: wherever there was a wall, there must be a door.

”Mars,” Minerva said, sitting on the steps of the highest hill and waving a hand. ”Recite it.”

Mars planted his spear upright and closed his eyes.

”That which circles the origin of all cities, sharing the foundation of the walls.”

As the first line fell, the sound of someone plowing the earth emerged from the darkness to the southeast.

Richard heard an invisible ox panting, followed by the muffled sound of a plowshare slicing into the soil.

”That which once drew the absolute boundary of life and death with a single plow.”

The furrow curved from the southeast past the first hill, bypassed a sheep pen and a severed aqueduct, and finally closed in the northwest near the mouth of the Tiber.

”Blood has become the trench, bone has become the wall, leaving only the boundary forever encircling the world.”

The trench closed shut.

The brief respite Richard had felt instantly vanished.

This time, the city’s bite tightened even further. He had to suppress his Condensed Mirror Method to the third cycle just to smooth out his breathing.

The Great Club in Heracles’ hands grew heavy again.

”...My club was completely unhindered a moment ago,” he grumbled.

”Well, it’s hindered now.” Matthew remained standing in place.

The road extending from the Deep Realm was forced back by the trench, retreating beyond the city walls.

The voice from within the trench spoke.

”You’ve walked a long road, kid.”

”Just making a living,” Matthew replied with a cheeky grin.

”For hundreds of years, no one has ever stepped across this trench of mine.”

”That’s because they didn’t know how.” Matthew pulled his hands out of his pockets, gesturing vaguely in the air.

Right in the center of the City of Seven Hills, two Virtuosos clashed.

The fallout from their collision barely reached the people below, amounting to nothing more than a few specks of dust floating up from the gaps in the paving stones.

Richard slightly retracted his Still Water.

The entity guarding the city from the trench fought with the backing of thousands of years of accumulated history across the entire Apennine Peninsula.

Matthew refused to abide by the rules, but he was standing in someone else’s yard. Neither side held the upper hand.

The battle down below was up to the rest of them.

Heracles was already losing his patience.

The big brute had been gripping his Giant Olive Wood Club ever since stepping onto the field. An entire night of opening monologues had left his palms itching for a fight.

”Are you all done talking?”

Hoisting the Great Club onto his shoulder, he charged down the slope.

The depression beneath the Seven Hills caved in under his heavy footsteps.

As he sprinted, his lion skin billowed out behind him, a savage burst of laughter echoing from beneath his mask.

”Mars, was it! Let me open up a—”

Minerva thrust her left arm forward, hoisting a round shield.

It was covered in goatskin, its edges lined with a fringe of extremely thin, writhing live snakes.

Embedded right in the center of the shield was a woman’s face. Her eyes were closed, and her hair was made of serpents.

”Aegis!”

The moment Minerva chanted the name, the gorgon opened her eyes.

Heracles was still barreling forward, but his feet had already turned to stone.

The petrifaction crept upward. By the time it passed his knees, his upper body was still lunging forward while his lower half remained rooted in place.

He was halfway through his swing, but his arm had already hardened.

The stone quickly spread to his chest, and finally to his Lion-Mouth Mask.

His mouth hung open beneath the mask, cutting off the curse he was about to spit.

A stone statue now stood right in the center of the depression.

”...He’s petrified,” Dionysus murmured, lowering his Two-Handled Cup with a tremor of uncertainty.

The sickle on Demeter’s lap went still.

Prometheus’ dark copper automaton took half a step forward before halting.

Minerva lowered the shield, and the gorgon’s face closed its eyes once more.

”Taking out their toughest fighter right at the start will make the rest of the night much easier for us.”

Richard cast his Still Water over the stone statue. Ether was still flowing inside the rock; the man was alive.

”He isn’t dead,” Richard said.

”I know,” Hecate said. She stood in the outermost ring, holding two torches aloft.

She turned around, her overlaid gaze lingering on the stone statue for a long time from behind her Golden Mask.

”Everyone.”

”Step back.”

’Chief...’ A line of text rapidly surfaced on Nemesis’ scales.

”Wait.”

Hecate wedged her left torch into a gap between the paving stones. Then, she reached down and unhooked the key from her waist.

Richard had always assumed the key was merely symbolic. Tonight was his first time seeing the physical object.

It was copper, slightly longer than a palm, and its teeth were polished to a shine.

Hecate held the key high.

”The Keybearer.”

”Every door has a lock.”

”Every lock can be opened.”

She thrust the key downward, and the ether field of the entire City of Seven Hills caved in slightly around that single point.

Hecate began to turn it.

*Clack.*

A muffled sound echoed from the center of the stone statue.

Hecate’s right hand tightened around the key as she forced it down another half-turn...

*Click.*

The lock opened.

A fissure cracked down the center of the statue’s chest. Fragments of stone plummeted to the paving stones below, shattering into dust.

Heracles pitched forward.

He pitched forward so fast, his half-swung arm still carrying momentum, that he crashed heavily into the ground.

He lay there coughing, hacking up clouds of gray dust.

”...Fuck!”

He pushed himself up with the Great Club.

Heracles lifted his right arm, but it caught.

”Why does it feel like there’s something in my joints?”

”Stone debris,” Hecate said, withdrawing the key from thin air. It was now missing a tooth.

”I dragged you out from inside, but traces of the petrifaction remain.”

Heracles planted the Great Club into the ground and glanced back.

”Thanks, Chief.”

”I can still fight, just a bit slower.”

Hecate raised the torch that was still lit, its flames growing dimmer.

Minerva mounted the shield on her left arm, drew a short spear with her right, and hurled her first strike.

Hecate dodged to the left, but the spear still pierced right through her left shoulder.

Richard frowned; Hecate had undeniably dodged it.

Grasping the spear lodged in her shoulder, Hecate yanked it out. Silken threads continuously knitted together within the wound to seal it.

”Minerva, you cannot hurt me.”

Atop the first hill, Minerva reached her hand downward.

The spear flew off the paving stones on its own, snapping back into her palm.

”Mars.”

Mars struck his iron spear against the ground, and a bottomless fissure shot toward the Greek faction.

Heracles raised his Great Club defensively across his chest.

When the fissure reached his feet, the paving stone beneath him flipped up entirely, launching him backward.

”His Spell Formula can’t curve,” Hecate called out from behind. ”It only travels in straight lines.”

Heracles understood.

He charged forward in an S-shaped pattern, resembling a bull circling a fence looking for a gate.

Every time Mars struck his spear, another straight trench tore through the ground.

The untouched patches between the trenches became his only footholds.

Shifting left, Heracles finally swung his club directly onto Mars’ pauldron.

Right at that moment, Venus let out a light laugh.

She was still leaning against the colonnade, blood lingering on the corner of her lips.

Heracles’ swing slowed, slipping off the pauldron and striking nothing but empty air.

Mars retaliated with a backhanded spear thrust that grazed Heracles’ ribs, slicing open a gash in the lion skin.

Hecate said, ”The Goddess of Beauty’s power will make you reluctant to strike.”

”I’m plenty willing! I’m willing to bash her to death with this club!”

Heracles roared so loudly the entire hill vibrated.

”You are willing, but your hands are not.”

Heracles looked down at his own hand, still caked in stone debris.

In the next second, an arrow flew in from an unknown angle, aiming straight for Heracles’ eye.

Prometheus’ automaton, which had been trailing the charge, engaged its automatic defense mode. It shifted forward to block, and the arrow embedded itself into the seam of the automaton’s left shoulder armor.

The dark copper automaton’s left arm locked up instantly, and Prometheus let out a muffled grunt.

Behind the colonnade of the third hill, only a faint trace of residual ether warmth scraped by a bowstring remained.

”Thanks!” Heracles bellowed, continuing his charge.

Demeter swept her sickle outward, positioning it horizontally in front of Nemesis.

The first rank of shadowy figures advancing from the Roman side was uniformly severed by the blade. What spilled from their severed forms looked like wheat husks.

”What are those?” Nemesis asked.

”The legion Mars summoned,” Richard answered.

In the clearing beneath the Seven Hills, rows upon rows of shadowy figures were rising from the earth.

They had no faces, and their armor styles spanned centuries of difference.

There were the rectangular shields of the Republic era and the scale armor of the Imperial era. Fortunately... there were no firearms.

They marched in perfect, terrifyingly synchronized lockstep.

”Cut down one row, and another grows in its place,” Demeter noted, her grip tightening on the sickle handle.

”My cuts have to end somewhere.”

On their side, Hecate had already inverted her torch.

The moment she turned it upside down, every light in the City of Seven Hills momentarily went completely dark.

The sound of a copper key sliding into a keyhole echoed through the darkness.

*Clack.*

When the light returned, a dense horde of the dead had already risen to their feet.

Mars’ expression darkened.

”...You summoned those who died outside the walls of Rome.”

Hecate smiled slightly.

”I merely opened the door. They wanted to come in on their own.”

The vast horde of the dead clashed with the localized, territorially boosted Roman Legion. Though they were quickly routed, they managed to hold the line for a time.

”In that case, the two of us leaders will go at it first.”

The two Major Adepts began to trade blows.

Nemesis lowered her Whip of Discipline, letting its tip extend outward.

When she lashed out, Richard saw the whip pass right through the center of the legion’s formation, but absolutely nothing happened.

The formation merely parted half a step to either side before snapping back together.

Nemesis froze in place.

She coiled the whip back around her forearm and cracked it again.

This time, she aimed for Mars. But the tip of the whip lost all its force right before it could hit him.

”...Why?” Richard heard himself ask out loud.

’I cannot determine who to punish.’ A line of text surfaced on her scales, appearing agonizingly slow.

Nemesis’ whip exclusively struck transgressors: those who took what wasn’t theirs, occupied what they shouldn’t, or refused to pay what they owed.

But in this city, the Roman faction was only wielding what belonged to them.

Everything within the trench was Rome. The city was theirs, the land was theirs, and even the faceless soldiers churning out from the soil were theirs.

The scales could measure no injustice, so the whip could not fall.

The red-haired girl wrapped the whip tight around her forearm, turning and charging toward a fissure on the flank where figures were still surfacing.

Halfway through her charge, someone stepped into position ahead of her.

It was a man in his forties, wearing the most standard field jacket of the Hunter path, its cuffs worn white from use.

He shoved both hands forward, but the advancing column of soldiers forced him backward.

”Uncle!”

”Stand back,” the man ordered.

He didn’t look back as he spoke.

Dionysus splashed the remaining contents of his cup onto the ground.

The liquor struck the paving stones, erupting into a waist-high ring of mist.

The shadows caught in the alcohol fumes began to stagger; several collided and collapsed, unable to get back up.

”Got ’em.” But before he could bask in his success—

Atop the fifth hill, the Goddess of the Hearth made her move.

She had been sitting there all along, a clay basin at her feet cradling a small cluster of flames.

She reached out and tossed a piece of firewood into the basin.

One by one, the fallen figures within the drunken mist stood back up.

Dionysus’ expression shifted.

”That splash cost me good money,” he muttered. ”It was prime vintage.”

”Don’t splash anymore,” Richard said.

”Why not?”

”For every splash you make, she adds another log.” Richard’s gaze remained fixed on the fifth hill.

”As long as the hearth fire burns, the Roman faction can keep replenishing themselves.”

”So we need to concentrate our attacks,” he added.

”What?” Heracles roared as he dodged an incoming strike.

”Kill the Goddess of the Hearth first.”

Atop the sixth hill, Fortuna gave her Wheel of Fortune a spin.

The paving stone right beneath Heracles’ foot abruptly splintered.

It had been perfectly intact since he entered the fray, yet it managed to fracture at the exact moment he shifted his weight to spring.

Mars’ spear was already waiting.

Prometheus forced his automaton to intercept, taking the thrust straight through its bracer.

Seeing the dire situation, Hecate spared a moment to warn them, ”The Wheel of Fortune alters probability.”

”Then we...”

”Don’t think about her.” Hecate yanked a silken thread, making Minerva stumble.

”The more you worry about the ground cracking beneath your feet, the more likely it is to happen.”

Heracles bared his teeth, driving his Great Club into the earth to hoist himself back up.

”Fine. Then I won’t think about it.”

He swung his club and charged, but barely a few steps in, a second paving stone shattered underfoot.

”...I seriously wasn’t thinking about it!”

In that unguarded instant, another arrow flew in from the opposing side.

The automaton swept its right arm across its chest, absorbing the blow for Heracles once again.