THE ROMANS

Kyle left home that day for the airport. He took a flight to Shanghai. The recruiting base for the Roman programme in China was located in Shanghai.

He arrived at the recruit base by 7:00pm. He was surprised to see thousands of people, who also came to enrol in the programme.

He went to a checkpoint to register himself. He was registered as No. 2398 in the fourth batch. He thought that the registration was rather quick. He was amazed that accommodation was arranged for any registered person.

The accommodation was at the base. It came with a bedroom that had a toilet and a bathroom. There were no roommates, just a person in each room.

The next day, the recruits were forced out of bed by 4:00 am by hyper-buzzer alarms. Then, a voice announced through the PA systems that they should all be seen on the sprint tracks within twenty-five minutes, or there would be severe punishment for any defaulter.

Soon all the recruits were on the tracks. The recruits were divided into groups of a hundred each. Each group was given a coach.

The coaches told the groups what kind of training they were going to receive for a week before going to False Heaven.

So, it turns out that the recruits would spend a week at this base before being sent into False Heaven for the main drill.

The training at this base was preliminary. It was claimed that the training the recruits were going to receive would help their bodies rapidly adapt to the atmosphere of False Heaven.

Then the training began. The group of recruits and their coaches completed a five-thousand-kilometre course before breakfast.

The rules in the camp were strict. Breakfast was from 7:30pm to 8:00pm. Unfortunately for the recruits who couldn complete the 5000 kilometre course before breakfast, they would have to starve till lunch time.

After lunch time, the recruits in their groups would head to the gym hall with their coaches. The base gym hall was big and well equipped to accommodate twenty thousand people.

The recruits, under the supervision of their coaches, would exercise with the weights in the gym for three hours. After that, they would return to their hostels. There was nothing to do for the night.

Exercising in the morning and afternoon became the routine for the recruits for the next six days. On the eight day, they still did the same. But after the afternoon session, they were given combat suits to wear for the next day.

The recruits were being sent to False Heaven the next day.

…

The Coliseum military base, Shanghai, China. It was 8:15 AM. Five thousand recruits were standing in a formation: ten rows and ten columns in front of a teleport machine. These recruits were soldiers of the fourth batch of the Roman mission.

The Roman mission was a project that had the aim of making ordinary soldiers into super soldiers. They were soldiers who had enhanced physicality.

The people among the recruits were of different races. They were people from the werewolf race, the vampire race, the Orc race, and the human race.

Years ago, a tribe of people who were spell binders cast a spell that caused the human race to be split into other ”hideous ” forms of humanity: the Orc, vampire, and werewolf races.

This tribe of spell binders is identified by the name ”Witch Craft Faction ”.

The human race under the flag of the United Nations has declared war and is still fighting against the Witch Faction.

The witch race was all mages, and that put them at an advantage over the human race. The human race had their own boons in the extra-ordinary physicality of the vampire and werewolf people. But their strength wasn enough to defeat the witch race. So, the Roman mission was hatched to enhance the physicality of all the soldiers that fought for the human race.

The recruits for the project were sent to False Heaven so that they could strengthen their genes. If they were lucky enough to be in a fortuitous encounter, they could learn mastery of one of the core elements of nature.

A ladys voice from the P.A. system calmly spoke to the recruits. ”Teleporter opening in five… four… three… two… one… ”.

The teleporter machine was a thirty-metre-diameter ring. It was not connected to any power source. The bars of the ring were a metre thick. The machine activated when the P.A. lady began the countdown.

As the machine activated, engravings on the machines bar lit up. The figures depicted different creatures, letters, and some unknown figures that looked like animals and numbers.

The machine glowed with blue light. The recruits walked into the lumen of the ring as instructed by the P.A. voice. Whenever a soldier walked into the lumen, they vanished.

…..

False Heaven, unknown location.

Kyle appeared alone on a savanna. He knew it would happen because he and the other recruits had been briefed on the probabilities of the whole squad appearing at the same place at the same time. And the other probability of appearing at different places but at the same time.

He walked down the terrain in a seemingly straight line for twenty minutes. Then, he saw another recruited member. The soldier was a lady.

”Its nice to see one of us again, ” the lady soldier said coldly.

It was normal for soldiers to act in this manner towards other soldiers in this kind of situation. It was a code of conduct to show resilient confidence. The two soldiers talked of reuniting with the other squad members. Then, they set out together in a particular direction.

After two hours of walking, the two soldiers met five other soldiers who joined in the search party. Three hours later, the soldiers found a sickening sight. Someone or something heaped the corpses of soldiers on the ground. The dead soldiers were more than a hundred. The soldiers were rattled with fear. ”What killed them? ” The soldiers wondered if A soldier began to cry.

ZZZT! The seven soldiers felt the terrifying presence of a creature approaching them. It was coming from their eastern flank. They looked at that flank. There, the flank was sloped. A 3.5-metre tall crocodile beast standing on two feet came up the slope. It looked daggers at the soldiers. The beasts aura arrested the soldiers will. They were robbed off their thoughts, except for Kyle. Kyle struggled mentally for a split second and eventually broke free from the aura.

”Resisted crocodile-gyle aura! Exp points +10! ” A voice said in Kyles head.

He didn have time to look to see what it was, so he yelled at his comrades, ”Run! ”.

Everything seemed to happen in a second. His comrades were free of the crocodile-gyles aura. The soldiers ran for their lives.

AOE influence to resist Crocodile-gyles aura! ”Exp points +1, ” the voice repeated six times in Kyles head.

Again, he didn have the luxury of knowing what the voice was.