I Rule Rome with a God-Tier AI-Chapter 145: The Accusation

Alex met the old general's iron gaze, a blizzard of calculations firing in his mind. He could not afford to show weakness. He could not afford to look away. He was the Emperor. He was the divine authority in this room. He leaned forward slightly on the throne, his posture a carefully constructed projection of calm, measured power, a stark contrast to the maelstrom of terror in his chest.

"I did not summon you, General," Alex said, his voice quiet but carrying the immense weight of the echoing hall. "But now that you are here, you will show the proper respect due to your Emperor."

Maximus did not bow. He did not even incline his head. Instead, he took another heavy, deliberate step forward, the sound of his boots on the marble a sharp retort. The act of defiance was so profound, so utterly out of character for the man, that it was more shocking than a drawn sword.

"Respect is earned, Caesar. As is loyalty," Maximus said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that promised thunder. "For two years, I have given you both, freely and without question. Today, I find myself questioning what, or who, I have given them to."

With a swift, angry motion, he unrolled the copy of Valerius's report he had carried all the way from the Danube. The papyrus crackled in the still air. He held it up as if it were an indictment.

"A village of seventy-three souls," Maximus began, his voice a grim litany of death. "Nineteen women. Twelve children. All put to the sword by Roman soldiers. By the Legio V Devota, acting under your direct, holy command." He let the words hang in the air, each one a stone cast into a silent pool. He pinned Alex with a stare that demanded honesty. "This is the report of my finest scout, a man who does not know how to lie. Is it true?"

Alex forced his expression to remain impassive. This was the opening salvo. He had to meet it with the cold logic of statecraft, not the stammering of a guilty man. "It was a nest of insurgents, General," he replied, his voice even and controlled. "Fanatics who had allied themselves with a hostile power threatening the stability of the entire northern frontier. They attacked my soldiers first. The action was regrettable, but it was a necessary military measure to excise a threat to the Empire." 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

He had expected the argument to hold some weight. Military necessity was a language Maximus understood. He was wrong.

The General's face, a stoic mask of leather and discipline, finally broke. His control snapped. With a roar of pure, undiluted fury that seemed to shake the very dust from the rafters, he crumpled the report in his massive fist, crushing the neat script into a mangled ball.

"INSURGENTS?" he bellowed, the sound echoing off the marble walls like a thunderclap. "CHILDREN, CAESAR? Old women with weaving looms and babes in arms? I have fought for Rome for forty years! I have battled Marcomanni on the plains and put entire tribes of Dacian warriors to the sword on the field of battle! I have waded through blood and seen horrors that would turn a lesser man's hair white overnight! But I have never, EVER, given an order to slaughter the helpless! And I have never served an Emperor who would!"

He took another step forward, his hand now resting on the hilt of his gladius, not as a threat, but as an instinctual anchor to his own identity as a soldier. "What you call a 'military action,' I call an atrocity! It is a stain on the honor of the legions! It is a stain on the name of Rome! And by all the gods, it is a stain on YOU!"

His voice, raw with the agony of a betrayed father, filled the vast hall. Alex felt the force of it like a physical blow, stripping away his imperial facade, leaving him naked and exposed on his gilded chair. He was no longer facing a subordinate; he was facing the wrath of a just man.

Maximus's fury subsided, replaced by a sorrow that was somehow even more terrifying. He looked at Alex, and his eyes were filled with a profound, soul-deep despair.

"I have followed you," he said, his voice now ragged with emotion. "When you arrived on the Danube, a boy in a man's armor, I saw something in you. A spark. A fire I had not seen in an Emperor since Trajan. I believed in you. I watched you bring peace where others brought only war. I watched you feed the people, reform the laws, speak of a stronger, a more just, a better Rome. I told myself that your strange ways, your impossible knowledge, were a gift from the gods."

He shook his head slowly, a gesture of immense weariness. "But now... this?" He gestured around the empty throne room. "This fanaticism. This secret army you have cultivated, this 'Cult of the Scar' that whispers your name in their prayers instead of Jupiter's. This is not the strong Rome you promised me. This is the mad Rome of Caligula, who made his horse a consul. This is the paranoid Rome of Nero, who burned his own city and blamed the innocent."

He took a final step, standing directly at the foot of the dais, forcing Alex to look down on him. But it was Alex who felt small, judged.

"So you must tell me now, boy," Maximus said, his voice dropping to a deadly, intimate whisper. "You must look me in the eye and tell me the truth. Is this what it has come to? Is this the price of your new world? To burn our honor in the name of your new god?"

Alex sat frozen on the throne, his carefully prepared arguments turning to ash in his mouth. He had no defense. Every word Maximus spoke was true. From a Roman perspective, from the perspective of any sane, honorable man, his actions were indefensible. He saw the utter disgust in the old General's eyes, the sorrow for the man he thought Alex was, and he knew, with chilling certainty, that he was moments away from losing him forever. He could see Maximus gathering himself to turn, to walk out of this throne room, not just on his Emperor, but on his command, on his entire life of service—an act of moral rebellion that would shatter the Roman military and plunge the Empire into the very chaos Alex was trying to prevent.

The logic of a politician had failed. The authority of an Emperor had been defied. He realized he could not win this argument as a man, or as a general, or even as a Caesar. He had only one desperate, terrifying option left. He had to stop speaking as Commodus. He had to start speaking as a god.