Alex's grand ideological gambit was, by every available metric, a stunning success. The reports flooding into his command center from Perennis's network of frumentarii painted a clear and startling picture. His sophisticated, multi-layered propaganda campaign had not just blunted the appeal of the Creed of True Silence; it had utterly reversed it. The flow of new converts, which had once been a torrent of desperate souls, had slowed to a miserable trickle.
His "Temples of Imperial Purity" were the masterstroke. In a world of brutal hardship, the promise of free bread and skilled medical care was a far more compelling sermon than any philosophical argument about the nature of the soul. The common folk, who had been drawn to the Creed's promise of an end to suffering, were now flocking to the temples, which offered a more immediate and tangible alternative: the alleviation of it. On paper, it was a total victory. Alex had met the enemy on the battlefield of hearts and minds, and he had won.
But victory, he was learning, often breeds new and unforeseen monsters.
The problem was not the success of his myth, but the nature of its most fervent believers. A new, disturbing pattern of behavior was emerging from within the ranks of his most loyal and fanatical soldiers: Titus Pullo's Cohors Praesidium. They had listened to the Emperor's new doctrine, and they had not just accepted it; they had embraced it with the terrifying, unblinking certainty of the truly devout. They had taken his carefully constructed narrative and sharpened it into a weapon.
A new, unofficial faction had formed within the cohort. They called themselves the "Purifiers." They had heard the story of the Emperor's "tragic, purifying flame," and had taken it to its most brutal and logical conclusion. If the Emperor's touch was the only true cure for the spiritual plague of the Silence, and if its followers were not heretics to be slain but sick children to be healed, then it was their sacred duty to bring the sick to the divine physician. Whether they wanted to come or not.
Whispers first, then official reports, began to trickle in. Squads of Praesidium soldiers, acting without official orders, were raiding homes in the dead of night. They were not killing or torturing. They were identifying suspected Creed sympathizers—a man who spoke too fondly of the 'great quiet,' a woman who refused to offer the proper sacrifices at the new temples—and dragging them from their beds. These were not arrests; they were abductions. The Purifiers were running a religious kidnapping ring, spiriting away dozens of civilians and marching them in chains toward the main camp at Carnuntum for their mandatory "healing."
Alex summoned Titus Pullo to his tent. The commander of the Praesidium arrived with a new light in his eyes, a righteous fire that Alex found deeply unsettling. He looked less like a soldier and more like the high priest of a dark and muscular new faith.
"Your men are running a religious kidnapping ring, Titus," Alex began, his voice a low, dangerous growl. He gestured to a report on his desk detailing three such raids in the last week. "They are terrorizing the very populace we are trying to win over. This was not the plan."
Pullo stood ramrod straight, his expression one of utter, unshakeable sincerity. There was no apology in his eyes, no hint of guilt. Only a profound and unbending conviction. "My Emperor," he said, his voice ringing with a zealot's passion. "They are not kidnappers. They are saviors. They are merely acting on the divine truth that you yourself revealed to us on that stage. You taught us that this is a sickness. You taught us that you are the cure."
He took a step closer, his voice dropping with an earnest, compelling logic. "A physician, my lord, does not ask a plague victim for permission to administer a cure. He does not allow the ravings of a fevered mind to prevent him from saving a life. He acts, decisively and with mercy. My men are simply bringing your lost, sick sheep back to the one true shepherd. Is that not a holy act? Is that not the purest form of loyalty?"
The words struck Alex with the force of a physical blow. Pullo's argument was a perfect, fanatical, and utterly irrefutable reflection of the very myth Alex himself had so brilliantly and cynically constructed. He was being beaten with the stick he himself had carved. He had wanted to create a useful narrative, a tool of statecraft. Instead, he had birthed a living, breathing, and uncontrollable faith in the hearts of his most dangerous soldiers. He had created a monster that now wore his own face and spoke with his own words.
He realized with a chilling certainty that he could not simply order them to stop. Their faith was no longer just loyalty to him as a commander; it was devotion to him as a messiah. To contradict the foundation of that faith now would be to admit his own 'divinity' was a sham, potentially shattering the morale of his most elite and psychically-resilient troops. A direct confrontation could spark a crisis of faith, or even a mutiny. He had to be smarter. He had to redirect the monster, not try to cage it.
He walked around his desk, placing a hand on Pullo's shoulder in a gesture of shared, solemn purpose. "You are right, Commander," Alex said, his voice now filled with a weary, divine gravitas. "Their faith is pure. Their actions are born of a fierce and holy love."
Pullo's face shone with pride.
"But," Alex continued, his tone shifting, becoming heavy with the burden of his unique power, "their methods are… inefficient. This 'miracle,' this 'purification'… it is not a simple act. It is a great strain upon my spirit, a channeling of divine energy that leaves me drained. It is a power that cannot be expended for every sad, misguided soul who merely whispers a prayer to the Silence in a moment of weakness." He let out a heavy sigh, the perfect performance of a burdened god. "It must be reserved for the truly damned. The source of the infection. The arch-heretics."
He saw the idea take root in Pullo's fervent eyes. He was not forbidding the hunt; he was elevating it.
"Your Purifiers are a holy instrument," Alex declared, his voice ringing with new purpose. "And a fine blade should not be used to chop wood. Their sacred duty is too important to be wasted on rounding up simple farmers and weavers. From this day forward, they have a new, holy quest."
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "They will become my Inquisitors. My chosen hunters. Their new mission is to hunt down the leaders of the Creed. The priests like Marcus, the secret emissaries of the Conductor, the true sources of the spiritual plague. They will hunt the wolves, not the sheep. And when they have found these arch-heretics, they will bring them, and them alone, before me for judgment and purification."
Pullo's eyes widened, then narrowed with a terrifying, ecstatic focus. This was a purpose worthy of his men's faith. They were no longer just guards; they were the Emperor's holy inquisitors, the right hand of his divine wrath.
"It shall be done, my lord," Pullo breathed, bowing low. "We will not fail you."
He strode from the tent, his back straight, his purpose renewed, a man utterly consumed by his holy mission. Alex watched him go, a profound sense of unease settling over him. He had done it. He had successfully channeled his fanatical monster, aiming it away from his own populace and turning it into a guided weapon to be used against the enemy's command structure.
But it was a devil's bargain, and he knew it. He had just officially legitimized a holy inquisition within his own army, giving his most fanatical and brutal commander a divine license to hunt, torture, and condemn in his name. And worse, he had further committed himself to the public performance of his terrible, soul-draining "miracle" on demand, whenever his new inquisitors deemed it necessary. He had solved one immediate problem by creating a much larger, more dangerous, and far more permanent one. He had put a leash on the wolf, but the leash was held by the wolf's own fanaticism, and it was tied firmly around his own neck.