A compacted cloud appeared in front of Jean. Across the cloud, countless faces twitched and turned, subconsciously calling out to those around them. Each face represented a soul trapped in the sea of souls, and there were a lot of them.

Jean rose her halberd. Her eyes turned pitch black as she poured all her might into the sea of souls.

All 12 billion souls started boiling. Faint screams echoed through the bridge of the flagship. They started to go from innocent, harmless human souls into violent wraiths demanding for blood. Their eyes turned red. Their bodies became half-solid.

The process dragged on for quite a while. Jean held onto her weapon tightly. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. 12 billion souls was more than anything she has handled before. The Mask of the Ice Wolf worked at full capacity. Without it and the enhancement she received at the Dream Realm, Jean could never reach all the billions of souls at once.

On the ground below, the Roman archers started unloading on the Swordguard ranks. The few Cruiseguards present were already gunned down. The three Capitalguards were no longer attacking, so the archers diverted their attention onto more pressing matters.

Hails of projectiles went above of the head of the Roman ranks and landed among the Swordguards and pinned them onto the floor by the squads. Most of the Swordguards weren’t instantly destroyed. Their CPU and energy source, as well as their rune energy converters, were still intact, but the arrows were fully lodged into the ground and they couldn’t break free. Without their mobility, these Swordguards were quickly decimated by the overwhelming Roman legionnaires.

The yellow lines were pushed further and further back.

At the head of the Roman charge was a man in his forties. The Roman Legatus in command of this expedition, he wore a golden armor that obviously distinguished him from the rest of the legionnaires. He was holding onto two large swords. Rune blasts and rune blades were easily deflected as he mowed down Swordguard after Swordguard with ease. A small group of elite legionnaires followed tightly.

One Swordguard leaped onto him with both rune blades slashing down. The Roman Legatus didn't bother with games. His sword went straight for the Swordguard’s head. The Swordguard’s blades clashed with the Roman Legatus, but the Roman tilted his body at the last moment, making sure the sword hit his armor rather than his face.

The Legatus’s strike took off the Swordguard’s entire upper body. The Swordguard didn't bother with rune shields. Inside its calculation, it decided trading the life of a Purifier foot soldier with a Roman commander would be a good thing to do. Unfortunately, even with all power to the blades, the Swordguard still didn't have enough damage output.

A few more Swordguards moved their rune blasters and started firing at the Roman Legatus, but that was when his elite guards stepped forward and formed a shield wall. Without additional fire support, the Swordguards had no way of breaking through with just rune blasters.

Now with a moment to breath, the Roman Legatus looked around. He had to admit this was more than what he expected.

Messengers from the first expedition reported that they broke through the local defenses with ease. This was a well to the desert that was the situation of the Roman Empire. For a moment, every warlord within the Roman Empire was fighting for the chance to storm across the portals and devour the world beyond.

But that excitement didn't last too long. The locals employed some sort of mass destruction weapon that exterminated every single Roman in the other world.

Members of the Roman Empire High Command immediately calmed their mind and returned to the cautious military commanders they are. They made no attempt to blindly storm through the portal again. Instead, they used a diversion by increasing the energy input to the first portal. The idea was that they would pretend like that would be the point of entry. Just as they had no idea how many defenders there would be on the other side, the local defenders would have no way of knowing how the attackers were positioned.

But the might of the invasion forces were positioned at a different thousands of miles away.

When the first portal encountered heavy resistance, the Roman High Command knew it was time to follow through with the attack.

Five thousand Equites were the first to go. One of the best cavalry forces in the Roman Empire, these Equites were meant to simply overwhelm any defender position. They would take out the enemy artillery and do enough damage so armies of legionnaires could follow up with the advantage and overwhelm the enemy.

That part didn't work as well as expected. The Equites took heavy losses as soon as they touched the ground. The local resistance, despite being small in numbers, was still fierce, and it was much more powerful than what the first group reported. When the best Equites of the Empire finally broke through the meat grinder that was the Warden ranks, the enemy reinforcement arrived.

Thankfully, the swarms of legionnaires that followed arrived just in time to clash against the hostile reinforcement. It seemed like the enemies have already emptied their arsenal. The Romans kept on pouring in, but the defenders were numbered.

As the archer regiments came in and took down the flying enemy ships, the battle was close to an end.

The Legatus has already ordered a messenger to go back across the portal and inform the rest of the Roman High Command of the victory that would soon come, as well as telling them to send help.

The Roman Empire, in theory, dominated the entire planet in their own dimension, but it was hardly unified. The Emperor sat at his throne in the grand city of Rome while dozens of smaller warlords controlled either armies or territory or both. All of these warlords answered to the Emperor, but they had enough sovereignty and enough ambition to rise in the social hierarchy if the opportunity presented itself. The warlords knew it. The Emperor knew it. But he couldn’t do anything because of one simple fact. If he tried to cut the power of one warlord, the rest would join forces and take him down.

After decades of being stuck in their own world without a world to conquer, the Emperor and the warlords saw the assault on the new world as an opportunity to increase their power. The warlords wanted to become the Emperor, and the Emperor wanted to terminate the warlords and replace them with loyalists.

Legatus Calvinus was one of such warlords. In fact, he was one of the weaker warlords. His territory was only a dozen cities, and his forces were no more than 22,000. Compared to most of the billions under the Empire, he was like a god, but when compared to the other warlords, he was easy prey.

When the portals were opened, the Emperor and the more powerful warlords were a bit more cautious. They had no idea who would be on the other side. The ones who opened up the portals, the self-proclaimed Aggressors, claimed that the ones on the other side would be easy targets, but the Romans knew little about the Aggressors, including whether they could be trusted.

But the Legatus couldn’t afford to wait. He could sense tension rising within the Empire. He and a few other weaker warlords suspected that the Emperor and the stronger warlords have changed up their tactics. Instead of being concerned with facing each other, they might have decided to combine their forces and go across the portal. No doubt, the first move of their alliance would be to remove the weaker warlords and absorb their forces and territory so they could attack the foreign dimension without having to worry about what happens at home.

If he stayed in the Roman Empire, he would like meet a mysterious accident soon. After that, a stronger warlord would no doubt step in and take possession of everything he owned. His men. His house. His family. Everything and anything he had would belong to someone else.

Legatus Calvinus knew he couldn’t hope to resist the Emperor by force, so he tried an alternate route. He made it clear to the world that he, Legatus Calvinus, would selflessly lead his own forces on an expedition toward the foreign world with the intention of spreading the glory of the Roman Empire outside of their own dimension.

The media exploded. Millions marched across the streets and cheered his name. The Roman Empire was built on war. The quickest way up was by winning wars. A nobody could go from a foot soldier to a Legatus in mere years with enough prize under his belt. But when the Roman Empire finished conquering every piece of soil on the planet, that path was gone.

Now, it was restarted.

Legatus Calvinus was portrayed as a hero. The other warlords gave him more than enough support. Gold. Weapons. Armors and horses. They did everything in their power so he could be their minesweeper and explore the dangers of the other world for them. If he won, then they would know to advance. If he lost, then they would’ve gathered enough information to make further plans. They went as far as providing covering attacks across all the portals to stretch the defenders thin and help with Calvinus’s assault.

Calvinus knew he was being used, but he was fine with it. Being a chess piece was better than being nothing at all.

It turned out his gamble was worth it. He lost thousands of men, but in the end, he has broken through the best this world has to offer. Now, it was time to kill and plunder.

That was when, a distance away, a cloud approached.

The Legatus frowned. His instincts screamed at him, telling him to get the hell out of there. All around him, horses bred for war were startled. The few of them that survived the previous onslaught unfazed turned around and started running away blindly. A few Equites were tossed off their precious mounts. These animals were so scared they no longer paid any attention to their owners they were raised to obey.

Legatus Calvinus wasn’t a common beast. As a veteran, he was able to suppress the urges to flee, but that was hardly good news.

As the cloud got closer, Calvinus realized where the urges to flee came from.

The cloud wasn’t a cloud. Well, at least not in the common sense. Instead of water vapor and other gas, it was composed of countless wailing faces. All of them had sharp teeth and black cheeks. Their eyes fully red.

A single look of them sent a sea of chills down the spine of Legatus Calvinus.

This...this wasn’t something that the mortals could beat! What was going on?

This was the last thing Calvinus expected. He and his men were slightly caught by surprise by the hail of bullets and artillery, but they have faced firearms before. During the last stage of the war to conquer the world, some of the Empire’s enemies were wielding muskets and cannons. But those firearms didn't save their users from the fate of being overwhelmed by countless Equites and legionnaires.

The firearms of this world were much more advanced, but the Romans were still able to push through.

But...what even was that? Ghosts? Phantoms? Wraiths?

Across the Roman lines, thousands of elite soldiers that saw the cloud froze in fear. As the killing machine of the Roman Empire, they have killed more than their fair share of people, but never have they faced a foe as deformed as these.

They weren’t ready for this at all.

But the 12 billion wraiths didn't care. All they knew were two things: their instincts and Jean’s orders. Now, their instincts wanted them to devour the tens of thousands of souls in front of them, and Jean’s orders wanted them to do that quickly.

The 400 Roman souls were in the front. They were much stronger than the 12 billion pumped up human souls. Within moments, they were upon the Roman lines.

They wasted no time to smash into their former comrades. At least a dozen of them surrounded a single Roman. Their teeth and their claws dug into the Roman bodies and ripped their souls out piece by piece. The unfortunate victims collapsed, screaming. Their bodies were fully intact, but their souls were feasted upon.

Their souls were much stronger than ordinary human ones, but against a dozen wraiths pumped up by the Power of Death, they weren’t enough.

The first hundred or so victims were quickly devoured. The wraiths that consumed their souls immediately used all the soul energy to enhance themselves. This had some serious repercussions, but considering they would be dead in a few hours, none of that mattered.

These wraiths quickly got back up and joined the rest of the sea of souls, which washed over the Roman lines.

“What are they?”

“Have the gods abandoned Rome?”

“We have angered the deities! This is hell!”

“Run! Run for your lives!”

All around Legatus Calvinus, men collapsed and screamed. Some of them rolled on the ground, but it was a futile effort. A few men of them were in so much pain that they reached for their blades. Instead of using the blades on the enemies, they were turning those weapons on themselves. But even that wasn’t a way out. The soul could survive for up to an hour after the body perishes. The souls would be lucky to have a minute before being devoured.

All the while, the Purifiers kept on striking down on the defenseless Romans. Rune blasts put down legionnaire after legionnaire. In the sky, Cruiseguards started unloading. Their guns were trained on the area in front of the portal. Their job was simple. Some of the Romans would try to escape through the portal into the cover of their homeworld. The Cruiseguards were here to make sure that wouldn’t happen.

Calvinus let out a scream. His loyal guards positioned themselves between the screeching wraiths and their commander, but they were no more than human shields. The wraiths quickly consumed the guards. Neither their armament nor their training were enough to protect them from suffering the same fate as all those around them.

One wraith went for Calvinus’s head. Calvinus slashed his sword out like he did hundreds of times before, but it was useless. His blade went clean through the wraith, which quickly leaped onto Calvinus.

And then the second. And then the third. Before he knew it, a sea of wraiths was upon him.

Immediately, Calvinus felt himself being consumed piece by piece. Worst of all, there was nothing he could do about it. As he felt his body being torn apart, his thoughts went back to the one thing he cared about, his wife and child.

If he dies here, along with all his forces, the warlords at home would no doubt prey on his territory and his treasures. Expecting them to take care of his family was like expecting a starving lion to let a crippled lamb go.

The populus wouldn’t care either. They would no longer see him as the hero who ventured into the unknown with all he’s got. All they would see was a fool who doomed tens of thousands of men. He would be lucky if the populus didn't come after him themselves.

Legatus Calvinus knew exactly how the warlords would treat his family. He has done it countless times before. His wife, the gorgeous Camilla, would be ripped away from their household. With any luck, she would be taken into the household and become the mistress of one of the warlords who has heard about her beauty. If things go poorly, she would be sold into slavery. A lot of people would gladly have a taste of the wife of a Legatus.

His son, his precious, would find his throat slit at night. The other warlords wouldn’t let him live to, one day, rally resistance from whatever influence the Legatus had left.

The man screamed again. For a moment, the dozens of wraiths on him were like nothing. Step by step, he moved toward the portal. A mountain of wraiths dangling on him.

Until a rune cannon round from a Cruiseguard landed right in front of him and sent him flying back into the wraith onslaught.

Within the fraction of a second, the Legatus was gone. His willpower evaporated in front of brute force. The hatred of countless disgruntled souls consumed his love and his determination.

Jean watched quietly on the flagship as the twenty thousand Romans on the ground perished. Countless in the back with a small chance to flee back through the portal hesitated. In the rigorous Roman army, fleeing from battle meant death. That hesitance cost them their lives. When they finally decided that getting beheaded was better than being eaten alive by wraiths, it was too late. A storm of cannon rounds came down and generated a vacuum between them and the portal. Anyone trying to enter the vacuum found themselves melted alive.

Before long, the Romans were gone. They were twenty thousand strong, some of whom were the best of the Empire. Equites. Archers. This was an army capable of exterminating the entire United States of North America with some proper tactics, but against Jean’s powers, they were slaughtered within minutes.

If Jean could do this at command, she could easily walk over the Roman Empire, but she couldn’t.

First of all, she needed souls to do something like this, and quality souls were hard to get. The single sea of souls that Jean used cost her 3,000 coins, which otherwise could’ve generated multiple entities with the CAS in the hundreds. Instead, it was depleted as a one-timer.

Even so, Jean’s Power of Death was exhausted. It would take her at least a few hours to regenerate that. In a more extreme situation, that could really screw her over.

Fortunately, none of that mattered here, and now, Jean was facing a field of twenty thousand Roman corpses.

Billions of wraiths circled around above the corpses. The 20,000 souls were devoured to the last. Gradually, the prey-less wraiths grew restless. Some of them slowly turned to the direction of the local cities. They could sense more food there to go after.

But Jean couldn’t let them do that. She still had to protect the locals. Instead of allowing the wraiths to follow their instincts, she turned her halberd and directed the billions of wraiths toward the portal.

Some of the wraiths screeched and resisted, but it was useless. They formed a black flood and ran into the portal. Every moment, thousands evaporated under the energy of the portal. But at the same time, the portal was weakened. Jean could sense energy coming in from the other side and strengthening the portal.

Wraiths cried in agony, but Jean pushed on mercilessly. These wraiths would perish in a few hours anyway. She might as well have them die off now fighting for her.

Finally, as the smoke cleared, the sea of wraiths were gone, and the portal was destroyed. At its last moment, the portal exploded into a wave of rogue dimensional energy, but Jean sent the rest of the souls at the explosion and shut that down too.

Jean Turner v.s. Roman Legion.

Jean reigned victorious.