Lucius excelled among them. His innate skill, sharpened by echoes of past incarnations, made him swift, strategic, and deadly in the chaos of melee. He rose quickly through bloody border clashes, slaying Visigoth warriors in savage fights where blood turned the grass red and the air rang with screams and steel. His name began to be whispered in smoky taverns and frontier camps as "Lucius the Unyielding." Coins flowed into his pouch; he sent much of it home, buying better land and livestock for his family. Yet he carefully avoided all sexual entanglements, his ancient vow acting as an invisible shield around his heart.
Instead, he learned to flirt lightly, a habit observed from his father. Marcus was a natural charmer; tall, still handsome despite his scars, with a roguish smile that could disarm women of any station. He remained fiercely loyal to Claudia until his dying breath, yet he bantered playfully with market sellers, noble matrons at festivals, and even brothel workers sharing watered wine. One clear evening under a sky full of stars, after complimenting a passing widow on her graceful bearing, Marcus explained to his son;
"Flirting is harmless spice, boy. If a handsome man like me praises a woman, it lifts her spirit and makes her feel valued. It keeps her from falling for some scoundrel who will use her body and discard her like a broken amphora. But remember, make no false promises. Tease, compliment, make her smile… but keep your word true and your hands to yourself."
Lucius nodded, seeing a certain wisdom in it. In his second life, broken promises had led to betrayal and death. Now he would guard his heart more carefully.
So, Lucius flirted across the empire's fading territories; in smoky inns he praised a dancing girl's fiery eyes with a wink; at noble banquets he teased a married matron about her radiant smile; on dusty roads he complimented a merchant's clever daughter on her sharp wit. "You light up this dreary tavern like Venus herself," he would say with an easy grin, never allowing the words to lead to intimacy. Women blushed, laughed, and sometimes lingered with hopeful eyes, but Lucius always slipped away unattached. It became a careful game, a way to navigate the world's temptations without ever yielding to them.
Tragedy struck when Lucius was twenty.
His parents had traveled to a nearby border settlement for the funeral of an old comrade, a fellow veteran slain by a barbarian arrow. En route, in the foggy dawn, a band of Visigoth raiders ambushed their small caravan. Steel clashed violently. Screams tore through the mist. Marcus fought like a cornered lion, slaying three attackers before a heavy axe cleaved deep into his chest, splitting mail and bone in a spray of hot blood. Claudia, trying desperately to shield her husband, fell to a thrusting spear that pierced her side. Word reached Lucius days later through a bloodied, half-dead messenger.
Grief struck him like a battering ram to the chest. He buried his parents with full military honors in the family plot beside the Rhine, offering quiet rites to the household gods and the spirits of his ancestors, vowing silent vengeance.
Now alone with his young brother, Lucius continued as a mercenary. His fame grew amid the empire's deepening woes.
One fateful evening, returning from a successful raid, dusty, armored, coins jingling in his pouch, Lucius wandered through a narrow alley near the town forum. Twilight painted long shadows across the cobblestones. The air carried the mingled scents of fresh-baked bread and rotting refuse. A gruesome scene unfolded before him.
A young man, barely eighteen, knelt begging on the dirty ground, tears streaming down his face, his voice broken as he pleaded for death. Four burly thugs, scarred, ragged men in stained tunics, had pinned him down. One held his arms, another his legs. Their grunts mixed with the victim's helpless sobs as they violated him in turns, raw and brutal, in the hidden underbelly of the empire where such sins festered unseen.
The sight pierced Lucius like a red-hot gladius. It dragged up memories of Lord Zhao's twisted touch in his fourth life, the same sickening wave of disgust rising in his throat. Rage exploded within him.
Without a word he drew his gladius and charged like an enraged lion.
"Monsters!" he roared.
The first thug barely turned before Lucius slit his throat in a fountain of arterial blood. The second swung a heavy club; Lucius parried smoothly and drove his blade deep into the man's gut, twisting until intestines spilled onto the stones. The third tried to flee but tripped; Lucius crushed his windpipe beneath his caligae boot with a sickening crunch. The last dropped to his knees begging for mercy, a swift decapitation sent his head rolling across the alley.
Blood pooled thick and dark on the cobblestones, the metallic tang thick in the air.