Imperator: Resurrection of an Empire

When Julius rode out from the Eastern Vanguard, no banners fluttered.

No horns sang.

Just a line of thirty Praetorian cavalry, their dusk-black armor absorbing the morning light, cloaks a muted swirl of imperial purple as they moved like a single, breathing machine around him.

No fanfare.

No prayer.

Only motion.

His command had already passed: Sabellus and Caetrax would hold the east.

Elheat would keep pressing the western scar.

Gallius circled north, gathering whispers and converts.

And Julius?

He rode toward something older than victory.

Something older than war.

~

By mid-afternoon, the trees began to lean inward.

The Aigrette forest wasn't dense—just... resistant.

Every pine and oak seemed to bend toward the path as if eavesdropping.

The air turned heavy, the kind of quiet that prickles beneath the skin.

Even the birds withheld their songs.

They found the shrine just where the scouts said it would be—hunched at the base of a moss-choked ridge, like a forgotten god with its back to the world.

It hadn't been buried.

Not truly.

But time had pressed down on it like a patient fist—stone cracked by creeping roots, stairways sunk partway into the loam.

Julius dismounted without a word.

His boots met ground that hadn't felt iron in decades.

Behind him, Veyne—the Root operative—moved in silence, as she always did.

A shade in human shape.

Up close, the structure was unmistakable.

Too precise, too architecturally intentional for any organic ruin.

He remembered it now.

Saint-Agrais Shrine.

This was a regional wonder, one specific to the Francian nation, assuming one was to play Imperator as the Francian nation however the shrine itself came with conditions, the structure didnt offer any benefits simply because you were playing as Francia.

First you had to develop Francia to reject the pagan faith in favor of the ever growing might of Christendom, and become a bastion of faith giving rise to the national religion of Catholicism.

Once completed that was where the shrine could truly shine, after the above conditions were met you could then discover the shrine within your territory and from there enact a series of five project to revitalize, and then enhance the shrine.

Growing Francia's theocracy further while the completed structure would act like a bonus to the nation.

Offering not much more than a place of faster healing and faith in the beginning but by the end upon errecting the grand cathedral, knight complements could be raised as a militant wing of the church, blessed with the awakened powers of mana.

Late stage Francia could be a true force to be reckoned with, with higher than average mana art users within its military.

A ghost of a system.

Left behind.

But not gone.

He stepped beneath the entrance arch.

Light slanted through fractured stonework, painting shards of gold across the dust-hung air.

The sigil was still there.

He'd seen it in the reports.

A sun, pierced through its core by a downward blade.

"Not a symbol of hope,"

he murmured.

"A crucifixion."

Or a claim.

He passed through.

~

The inside was colder than expected.

Still and dry, despite the rot at the edges.

Stone pews lined both walls—some intact, most half-swallowed by vine or shattered by roots.

At the rear of the chamber, beneath a vaulted alcove, stood a narrow pedestal.

Bone-white quartz.

Smooth, unmarred.

A bowl.

He recognized it too.

The Relic Socket.

In-game, this was a point in which discovered or created relics could be bound to certain structures applying the relics power but on a greater scale, for example being a Shrine if one was to enshrine the relic Vas Vitae, otherwise commonly know as Aesculapius's staff.

A silver and gold chalice etched with serpents coiling around a staff.

Historically on earth this was known as a divine tool wielded by the god of medicine.

On it's own the staff could perform miricles simialr to Julius's own Holy Nova skill allowing for an AOE style healing effect, but should the staff be enshrine within the shrines socket.

That same healing effect would come to effect everyone within the shrines territory turning the location into a massive hospital.

"Did the scouts enter deeper?"

he asked, eyes still fixed on the bowl.

"Only the first chamber,"

Veyne answered.

"Some reported... anomalies. Whispering. Names spoken in their native tongue. One claimed he saw his mother."

Julius didn't turn.

He placed a gloved hand on the rim of the bowl.

And just like that, his System blinked to life.

⚠️ Unattuned Shrine Detected

[Saint-Agrais | Faith Anchor Site]

▪ Local Belief Density – High {Correct Faith not detected}

▪ Pilgrimage Status – Inactive

▪ Relic Slot – Empty

He dismissed the interface with a flick—but the implications lingered, coiled like smoke at the edge of thought.

It had recognized the shrine.

But far from being ready to activate, it remained still.

It was waiting.

He stepped away from the relic pedestal, boots tapping gently over cold stone.

As he walked, a faint tug stirred behind his eyes—a memory, perhaps, or something stranger.

The architecture wasn't quite right.

Too symmetrical.

Too deliberate.

Not just a shrine.

A node.

A part of something older.

Larger.

A spoke in a wheel that spun long before Joan ever lit her first torch or spoke her first sermon.

"Veyne,"

he said, low and sharp.

"Sweep the grounds again. Then leave me."

The masked operative hesitated—not from fear, but something like concern—but obeyed.

A silent bow, and she vanished into shadow, the Root's trademark grace swallowing her whole.

Julius remained still for a beat, letting the quiet settle.

Then he turned back to the wall.

At first glance, it was nothing—worn stone draped in moss, the indifferent erosion of time.

But there, just above eye-level, a square panel.

Low-relief.

Deliberate.

Script.

High Imperial.

The Old Tongue.

Qui solem portat hanc portam custodit.

[He who bears the sun watches this gate.]

Not poetry.

A password.

A lock.

He unclasped the chain beneath his cloak, letting the Imperial Seal drop into the light.

Gold, sunburst-marked, its runes near-invisible save through the interface.

Not his origional ring which had been lost previously accessing a vault but this ring, this one was Yuri's gifted from her at the cost of a finger, one he'd replaced of course but still.

He raised it to the panel.

Nothing.

Then—click.

A sigh of shifting stone.

Air stirred from behind the wall, warm and stale, and the masonry split open like parted curtains, revealing a narrow passage cut into black-veined basalt.

No torches.

No invitation.

Still, he stepped forward.