Let me introduce you, this is my girlfriend, the Israeli boxing champion

"That's how unpredictable things are, Ritsuka. When the most famous figure in the Bathory family, Grand Duke Vlad III of Wallachia, was fighting against the conqueror for the entire Catholic world, he would never have thought that he would become a symbol of vampires. And as his descendants, now serving the enemy that our ancestors fought against, isn't this a kind of irony?"

When she said this, there was obviously a trace of loneliness on her face. Only at this time did Ritsuka remember what the man who had just left Chaldea said when he was diving.

"So-called heroic spirits are nothing more than a second life. Apart from their own powerful powers, they actually have emotions and desires, just like ordinary people - except for some consciences, of course. Look at Altria, isn't her greatest happiness every day to be able to eat her fill? What a poor child! How outrageous is Gawain's mashed potatoes..."

At this time, Mashu, who had investigated the entire Cutthroat Castle, had returned. Facing Ophelia's question, she could only shake her head and murmured, "These soldiers died in the battle, and none of them are still alive... Is this Sparta?"

"Then let's go. Leave some people here to take over the two castles. As long as we take them, it will be like strangling their throats. If the Genoese in Crimea can't come over, it will only be a matter of time before Iran-Constantinople runs out of food."

After saying that, Li Xiang raised her head again, turned around and walked out of the castle, but at this moment, Augustus, the last of the Claudius family, stopped her.

"You can go back if you want, Ritsuka. Tell me what you really think."

Nero's first primordial fire stood before her. Ritsuka thought she knew Nero well enough, but when she saw the Roman emperor blocking her way against the sunlight, she got to know him all over again.

The sunlight was dancing in the air, and countless tiny white flocs were floating in the beams of light. No one knew what they were, and some of them fell on her blonde hair, clothes, and alopecia.

"Tell me your true decision, Fujimaru Ritsuka. Will you follow the course of history and make the Empire a thing of the past like its former mortal enemy Persia, making the entire YSL world irreversibly conservative? Or will you stay here and watch from the sidelines - after all, the Sultan's agreement with us was only a verbal agreement."

Yes, you are right. Heroic spirits are no different from ordinary people. How could their obsessions disappear after death?

Boudica, did you really have no complaints in your heart when you were in Gaul?

Seeing this scene, Mashu wanted to speak up to defend Ritsuka, but suddenly someone covered her mouth. The person's hands were slightly cold, and stopped her in time before she was about to break it all.

"Ophi, I... woooooooooooooooo."

"Do you think that Augustus of Rome would personally destroy her beloved country? Don't forget the fire of Rome."

Elizabeth Bathory's tail drooped weakly, and the microphone in her hand seemed to have lost its luster. Looking at this scene, she murmured:

"There has never been a true Heroic Spirit. Before becoming a Heroic Spirit, we were just ordinary people. Even Saint Louis of Capet was no exception, let alone us..."

It was at this time that Ritsuka gave his answer without hesitation when faced with the two options given by Nero.

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty, I have to go to Constantinople. Maybe you will resent me, maybe you will be angry with me, but for the continuation of life and for our damned fate, I must go back there today."

The singularity at least has the possibility of being reversed, but once you choose to stand by and watch, then with the help of Alvin and Da Vinci, the Purple Phoenix will inevitably be reborn from the ashes, and the ancient empire will be revived once again.

——Then she would head towards the Lostbelt. She had already experienced this when facing the Ancestral Dragon, and she didn’t want to face such a situation again:

Happy people, a world far away from war, a strong country - and he wants to destroy all of this with his own hands, just to continue living in his own imperfect world.

Therefore, in order to fundamentally eliminate all this, Fujimaru Ritsuka made his own decision decisively, even if the enemy he faced was the Roman emperor.

"I know."

Faced with this unsurprising statement, Nero slowly closed his eyes, as if what happened next was no surprise; Mashu had already broken free from Ophelia's hand and rushed towards Ritsuka with a shield in hand.

In the control room of Chaldea, almost everyone was stunned. Although almost everyone of them had a PhD in computer science, after being exposed to tinnitus for such a long time, their thoughts inevitably leaned towards the magician.

So, when Nero questioned Ritsuka, they were so shocked and confused.

These legendary heroes seem to be different from what is said in the Clock Tower.

"Director, we..."

"Can you use the spirit particle transfer technology?"

"No, there is no spiritual vein in the Rumelburg area. The spiritual veins are all in Istanbul. It is impossible to implement it."

"...Is this all we can do?"

"If Nero attacks, the only one who can save Ritsuka is Mashu." Shion said, looking at the red dot flashing on Chaldeas. "The level of that shield is not low, don't worry, everyone will be fine."

"Director Olga Marie, I think we need to change our strategy."

"...Heroic spirits are also ordinary people in a sense, right? Shion?"

The girl with long white hair just looked at the screen and said, confusion appeared on the head of the astronomy department for the first time in a long time.

"I don't know, but don't Chaldea have Heroic Spirits? Why not ask them?"

"Scathach...and Da Vinci?"

As she repeated these two names, her thoughts involuntarily went back to the scene she saw at the door of Leonardo da Vinci's workshop that day.

Father, how was your relationship with the king?

"...It is undeniable, Master, that I am convinced by you."

The primordial fire in Nero's hand suddenly disappeared. Facing Ritsuka's attack, she chose to compromise.

"I can go with you to New Rome and take part in the siege of the Theodosian Wall."

"But unless the heroes of New Rome come to fight, I will not participate in the battle. After all..."

Having said this, the Rose Emperor laughed at himself, his smile was three parts funny and seven parts sarcastic.

"Having attacked Rome once is enough to atone my sin for the rest of my life. If it happens a second time, I will probably have to turn into a beast and be killed by Romulus to pay my debt."

PS1: Wow, long time no see, I’m finally back from Night City

Chapter 153 The Story of the King of Sparta

Constantinople.

Leonardo da Vinci woke up long before dawn, feeling weak all over. He closed his eyes and clearly imagined the next two seemingly ordinary months. He just couldn't calm down.

Renaissance

As one of the representatives of this movement, she met many books and people in this small Constantinople that she would not be able to read until 20 years later. For example, Franz, who was beside the emperor, later moved to Milan and devoted himself to writing the Great Chronicle for the rest of his life.

Thanks to the Sultan outside the city, who clearly wanted to make the Queen of Cities the capital of the future empire, he ordered a three-day looting campaign, which caused irreversible damage to the University of Constantinople and the Great Library. This mess was not completely cleaned up until the time of Suleiman, and it was hard for that guy.

"If you were in my situation, what would you choose, Raphael?"

Outside the city of Galata, when Alvin rode out of the Valley of Springs, he suddenly stopped after seeing the rising sun.

"Its daybreak."

[The sun also rises, for whom the bell tolls. 】

"...probably myself."

As he said this to himself, he planned to continue along the Golden Horn towards the Wall of Sighs, but he met an unexpected person in the Golden Horn.

"General Giovanni?"

The Genoese seemed to have been waiting for a long time. When he saw Alvin, he got on the horse without saying a word.

"Mr. Leonidas is at St. Romanus Gate now. We have to hurry."

"...like the incident at Merryborough..."

"No one knows this better than the people involved. Unfortunately, we can no longer receive support from Kherson on the northern coast of the Black Sea. Now we can only accept reality."

"How is he doing now?"

"It looks fine. Of course, it only looks that way. You know this much better than I do."

The Golden Horn was still roaring, and two strangers were riding horses in the wilderness outside Constantinople. Back then, the wheat from the Egyptian province could still meet the needs of the entire empire, even after the division of the East and the West.

—Until the Prophet of Hashem comes.

In 626 AD, when the ambitious Heraclius completely defeated the Persians, the arch-enemy of the Romans, in the Battle of Nineveh and avenged Crassus, the richest man in Rome who was killed in the Battle of Edessa that year, he was working on the reform of the military district system, ready to take over the mantle of Justinian the Great and re-conquer the empire. He would never have imagined that this would be the peak moment of his life.

"Farewell, beautiful Syria."

The defeat in the Battle of the Yarmouk Valley not only caused the empire to lose the rich provinces of Syria and Egypt, but also brought them an extremely powerful enemy for the next 800 years.

After the fall of Egypt, Asia Minor became the new granary. After the Iconoclasm movement subsided, the wealth accumulated by the Macedonian dynasty in the second golden age brought the empire to its peak again under the three extremely capable emperors Nicephorus II, John II and Basil II.

"How useless are those two Ducas family members? This is probably a question many people want to know." Alvin shrugged. "It's such a pity that the Bulgarian butcher didn't leave behind any sons or daughters."

Damn, how could such a great empire be ruined like this!

"There is no need to talk about what happened after Manzikert. You and I both know what happened next. The Balkans became a new food reserve base."

Giovanni looked southeast from where he came. Now it is called Edirne, but this was not actually its original name.

"Hadrianopolis."

"To be honest, the story I heard most when I was a child was not Heinrich's trip to Canossa, nor the Guardian of the Holy Sepulchre, but the story of how Alexios of Komnenos turned the tide."

"It was the Venetians that he opened up privileges to," Alvin reminded. "But he ended up meeting this guy Dandolo. He's really a dog that can't change its nature."

"The shortsightedness of the governors of Venice has been a long-standing issue. However, considering that Philip II was a sister-con, it is difficult to infer whether there was a shadow of Augustus behind the Latin Empire."

"From Egypt and Syria, to Asia Minor, to the Balkans, and finally to this wilderness outside the city, it's really... I don't know what to say."

The Genoese stopped and looked at the wilderness. A few days ago, this place was a battlefield of war, but now the enemies who believed in the Crescent Moon have chosen to retreat.

"If Greek fire was still there, we might not be so passive. You know, Alvin, during the naval battle in the Bosphorus that day, some of my soldiers actually hoped that the Venetians would lose! How could they do that? This is crazy!"

Giovanni was a little unreasonable. Constantinople was already within reach, but he stopped at this moment. Alvin thought that he probably had something to say.

"I still underestimated the Fourth Crusade. Even if these people choose to pretend to convert to the Crescent, they will not choose the Catholic Church over there."

"So I asked the captain and his men to choose to station near the Golden Horn to avoid conflicts with the natives in the city. For them, they would rather get along with the Crescent Moon Christians than to meet the Venetians. But surprisingly, the Orthodox Christians and the Crescent Moon Christians seem to get along quite well."

"But this problem will have to be solved sooner or later. His Majesty the Emperor will probably find an opportunity to completely solve this problem. By the way, have you met Orhan, the cousin of Mamtim?"

Giovanni seemed to remember something and said such a name. It was really unbelievable. From the tone of his voice, did they have a good communication?

"I think I know what you're thinking, Alvin. Let's go meet him later. How should I put it... He is simply a collection of contradictions."

At the command tent of St. Romanus Gate, Alvin finally saw the man he was looking for.

"Hey, you two are late, but it's okay now. Do you want to hear my story about the Battle of Thermopylae?"

PS1: Speaking of it, the Eastern Roman Empire seems to be at odds with the river valleys. If Heraclius's Battle of the Yarmouk Valley and Manuel the Great's Battle of the Myriokephalon Valley had both been agreed to, the situation might not have been so bad.

However, the pit dug in Manzikert is too big and difficult to fill...it also makes it difficult for the fire captain Alexius.

PS2: I won't say more. I'll go back and open the 1180 Alexios II scenario. The first thing I did was to kill Andronicus.

Chapter 154 Mr. Leonidas, you haven't told the story of Thermopylae for three minutes.

"I need to think about where to start..."

Inside the command post of St. Romanus Gate, two young men were sitting on small stools and listening to an elderly man talk about the past.

"Then let me tell you a story about the Greeks and the Persians. When you think of Persia, Giovanni, what do you think of?"

"This... to be honest, I don't have a good impression. The places I know about are all green, whether it's Abbasid, Umayyad or Seljuk."

"Hey, hey, hey, Subukteqin is crying. Is Ghazni so unbearable?"

Alvin subconsciously wanted to correct him, but this sentence made Giovanni quite puzzled:

"What is Ghazni? Timur? That's green too."

The medieval times were not very informative...

"It's a pity that Timur didn't seize that opportunity."

The third voice sounded, tired but majestic. There was no one else except the mayor of Constantinople.

"Father has told John and me about this more than once. If Michael VIII was still in power at that time, it would not be difficult to backstab the Ottomans. Moreover, the Ottomans were in the midst of the chaos of the War of Succession at that time."

"But there are no ifs." Giovanni shook his head helplessly.

"Yes, the Rebellion of the Two Johns. That's what Ms. Mona Lisa said. Very vivid, isn't it?"

He brought a chair and sat down, joining in the previous conversation.

"As for Persia, I should know a little more than Giovanni. Parthia and Sassanid Persia are old rivals, so how can we not know their intricacies? However, we didn't expect that the Bedouins would take advantage of us."

"So you, Alvin, what's your answer?" Leonidas turned his gaze to Alvin. As the person with the most options, he was looking forward to the answer he would hear.

"The Achaemenids, the first dynasty of Persia, and Cyrus the Great; but I think that for Mr. Leonidas, perhaps the name Xerxes is the most familiar."

"So we're going to tell the story of Thermopylae today?"

The emperor was a little excited. This was the military instructor of the descendant of Hercules. If he gave him some pointers, wouldn't he be able to take off?

"No, today's story is not about Thermopylae, but the story after Thermopylae." Leonidas put down the water cup with force, and waves began to form in the water in the cup.

"Let's put it this way. At that time, we were simply barbarians in front of Persia. Don't doubt it. At that time, Achaemenid was the first country in the world to span three continents. The Greek city-states were indeed not good enough in front of the Persians."

"But the barefoot are not afraid of those who wear shoes. We won, and the Persians went downhill - of course, temporarily; while Greece ushered in its own golden age and became the overlord of the Aegean Sea."

"Then the Peloponnesian War began. As a result of the 27-year war, the Macedonians in the north reaped the benefits - the Macedonians whom we considered barbarians."