The hour waited, and after Ganas ordered his men to remove their shields, the entrance ceremony began. The beasts showed a kind of laziness and fatigue under the long whip of the animal trainer, because they had eaten too much raw meat. The cages that were moved from under the gladiatorial arena temporarily imprisoned them. The cages contained small wooden wheels, and the trainer pushed them into the arena before the impatiently blushing subjects of excitement, and headed for the dark entrances that led to the underground.

The gladiatorial arena, which was cleaned up and solemn, made those subjects can't help but be in awe when they see it. With the small pieces of wood in their hands—the tickets, which indicated the corresponding areas and seats—they walked into the eighty arches guarded by soldiers.

Poets were already reciting ornate poems in praise of General Stilicco's exploits.

At the same time, the procession of the triumphal ceremony under the gates on the outskirts of Rome finally began.

Surprised and delighted by the sudden appearance of the Queen Mother, Stirico relinquished his place on the golden chariot and rode back on his horse. This is also what he, as a courtier, should do.

Arya stood beside her son, Emperor Honorius, and looked up proudly.

"I threw your swordsmanship teacher into the beast pit. After the team departed, she suddenly turned to look at her son and said with a blank face.

"You, what did you say?" Listening to the queen mother's words, Honorius felt his legs go limp, and his face immediately lost its blood. He swallowed dryly, and heard a loud "grunt" in his throat.

"Your useless swordsmanship teacher, he's grown his belly in the past six months, and now he can't even beat my new guard, it's really not like words!" said the queen mother, brushing her hair gracefully, "Before I came to the imperial capital, I went to Milan to have a look at your palace." She was clearly peeping. Arya is always like this, she will find all kinds of reasons, and try every means to insert eyeliner into her son's side, which is really unbearable - but as a son, Honorius can only secretly cry out in his heart, and he will never dare to show the slightest reluctance on the surface, let alone show any dissatisfaction or protest slightly, otherwise-

He turned his head to look at his mother, the black-bottomed golden-spotted python on her shoulder, and with its golden, cold, venomous eyes, "By the way, I also checked your teachers and homework," the queen mother continued, "and there is nothing that is not terrible! I have read those poems you have written in Greek, full of 'sorrow,' 'confusion,' and 'inexplicable heartache...... What's wrong with you? Have you eaten something unclean by mistake in the fall? Or have you been so idle lately that your muscles and bones have become so loose that you can't even talk about a man's boldness! It's a pity that the muse has led you astray. Or did you fail to woo one of them, so you suffered from the kind of boring depression that often occurs after a broken love? I read your poems and I retched all day, and finally I had to throw all the parchment paper into the fire and burn it!"

"Y-how can you?" said Honorius. You must know that he was born a child full of poetry, and writing poetry is like confiding, breathing, and life for him, and he can't stop, let alone stop!

"I have broken the strings on the harp, and I have torn up the sheet music! What kind of flowers are planted in your garden? Except for the wisteria, which is the irise, which is terrifyingly feminine; the poppies that bloom like fire, and the swagger of the flowers in the wind, which are more presumptuous than prostitutes; the lavender is as dense as an upside-down needle, and the fragrance is so smoky that one cannot open one's eyes; there are too many roses, one after another, and I heard that you still soak their buds in water to drink! Are you born a little girl? You must always retain an intoxicating aroma in your mouth? What about the purple roses that crawl all over the brick walls? I heard that you still use their petals to decorate your letterheads? The piles of daffodils blooming endlessly by the pool, and you still live as 'Naxos,' and you spend all day by the water and the flowers and shadows, where did you get all these idleness?"

"You got rid of them all?" Honorius gripped the crossbar of the golden chariot until the bones on the back of his hand turned white.

"Because of your depression and laziness, I have ordered the execution of three swordsmen this year! The reason why the ten fingers of your last rhetoric teacher were uprooted is also because you failed two exams in a row. I've brought your orator with me this time, and you're going to give a speech in the arena later, right, if you dare to stutter once, I'll have one of his teeth knocked out—"

"He's seventy-five years old, and the remaining teeth in his mouth don't add up to ten, how can you-"

"You reminded me that his teeth were already loose, and even if they were crushed, they wouldn't hurt him too much. But his facial features are still complete, so he can use a red-hot soldering iron—"

"Enough, really enough! I swear to you with this heart of mine that I will never stutter, let alone repeat a word, a word! You will let them go, for the sins you have committed because of me are enough to burn you in purgatory for ten thousand years!" Honolius tried to shout the words—the words reached the tip of his tongue—but he couldn't.

He was terribly afraid, and the more the Queen Mother was so mad, the more he was afraid of her—in fact, he hated her even more, but he was so afraid that he didn't dare to think about it.

Going along with it is the only thing he has been able to do.

The more the queen mother spoke, the more excited she became, and her emotions were also transmitted to the black-bottomed golden-spotted python, which twisted up again as if enchanted, and kept spitting out the core in its mouth. Honoliu couldn't take it anymore and twisted his face to the other side as much as he could, until his neck hurt.

"The new swordsman, a Thracian of your age, more than six feet tall, wields a great sword that rises above his head, and it is said that this great treasure has been made of volcanic rock in the bitter cold. The sword was indeed beautiful enough, erected like a golden obelisk, carved with mysterious patterns peculiar to barbarians. ”

"Oh," replied Hono attentively, and he secretly thought to himself, "at most, he will die because of me—what tricks will the queen mother use this time?, will you chop him into meat sauce with that greatsword?" Thinking of this, he suddenly felt that he could not breathe, so he raised his head and gasped heavily. The clouds in the sky were like velvet that had just been torn off, and the sunlight gilded them with a faint golden edge, and the gold seemed to glow with a faint red.

At the end of this 20-meter-wide avenue, the towering buildings of the imperial capital are already in sight.

At the moment, our Emperor was very reluctant to think about the gladiatorial arena that stood behind these buildings, which was notoriously brutal, and for some reason he was sobbing uncontrollably.

"You'll see that sword in a moment," the queen mother turned to look at her son's almost delicate side, at his white complexion, which was already transparent, and wanted to pounce on him and take a bite, "he is mine, always will be mine," she cried with a chuckle in her heart, intoxicated with an emotion of extreme pride, "I have single-handedly created his perfection and extraordinary, but he knows no of it." And he hated me—I knew he hated me! But why did this happen? I gave everything for him, I gave everything, and why did I get nothing but hatred?!"

In fact, in the bottom of her heart, she knows better than anyone what the reason is: just like if you don't let the most beautiful flower bloom, but let it grow ugly thorns, you insist on destroying the original appearance of a life, the way he wants it most, and then force him to grow into the one he hates and dislikes the most, and he is not allowed to raise any objections, let alone the slightest resistance, how can he not hate you?

He will even concentrate all the power of life into one point, and let life itself only accomplish one thing - that is, hate you!

"Oh!" said Honorius, whimpering.

Arya felt her heart tugged at by an invisible hand, but instead she stiffened her face and became colder and harder—not to let her son see that she was hurting," said the Queen Mother, in her usual unmistakable force.

"What?" said Honorius, turning his head quickly, unable to believe his ears.

"Duel—— until one side falls!" said this, the queen mother laughed, very proud, "Why, are you afraid? Shame in front of hundreds of thousands of subjects, let them see your rout—I really want to know, how bad your swordsmanship is?"

"I've been working really hard, but I'm — my limbs are always out of coordination. Honorius rubbed the back of his hand on both eyes, what happened to the tears? My poems are so badly written, let me read them Virgil, Cicero, or Homer!"

"Pen instead of gun? Good job! Then why don't you go to the border? Go to the Visigoths and recite these poems? See if they will be moved to tears like you when they hear it, and then stop fighting!" Speaking of this, the queen mother suddenly sneered, and when Honorius heard it, he felt that all his internal organs were twisted together. "Are you afraid that others will not take you as a joke? If you are not an emperor, but just a child of an ordinary family, you can write poems and paintings like this, and everyone will love you and regard you as a genius! But no matter whether the fate you have now is your luck or misfortune, you can only accept it, you can only obey it—you must always remember that you are an emperor, and you must always live like an emperor— Whether you want to or not, whether you are enjoying it or just enduring it, you have no choice, because you have already been chosen by fate, because you can't break such a fate!"

"Y-why did you give birth to me?" said Honorius, covering his face and crying.

The queen mother struck both of his hands with a loud bang, forcing him to face the hatred in her eyes,

"The subjects are watching you, what are you doing, performing the tragedy of Plautus for them? Such weakness and incompetence will only be rejected by them, and an emperor who weeps in public will never be sympathetic to others, and his fate will be worse than that of a mouse dying in the gutter. He will only be pushed down by his own subjects!" The Queen Mother took a deep breath, "Your situation is already very dangerous, why don't you know it? From the day you ascended the throne, until this moment today, you have never gained the trust of your subjects, not even the slightest! Not to mention their love and respect for you from the bottom of their hearts! But look at your father-" The queen mother pointed to Steilico, who was riding on a war horse and slowly leading them in front, such a majestic back, such a brave momentum, every time she saw it, she would deeply shock Honorius as an emperor. "But he stands like a mountain in people's hearts! Why don't you take him as an example and try to be such a man?"

"I—I can't, he's too hard! But I'm born softer than others! I don't want to stand when I can sit, and I don't want to sit when I can lie down—I'm tired and scared now! Mother, you're not really going to let me fight the Thracian greatsword for a while, are you?"

Arya looked at her son, her gaze cold like never before, "No," she said, in a voice like a tongue stirring in the sand, hoarse and heartbreaking—in fact, she was desperate, "a greatsword—yes, it's a greatsword, a rare treasure, and you're not worthy—you really don't deserve it!"

"Yes," Honorius hurriedly agreed, "such a sword, only a hero of the world is worthy of it, what did Homer say?"

He stepped into the Pieria Mountains, from a clear sky

Throw yourself into the sea and ride against the crest of the waves, like a tern

Fighting the stormy waves, through the terrible waves of the desert ocean,

Hunt swimming fish and flutter their wings in the foam of the salty water.

And there's:

The son of Peleus rushed forward like a lion,

......

It retracts its entire body, its blood basin open, and it spits

The gums are out, and the strong soul in the chest groans;

It raised its tail and slapped its belly and belly,

Muster the fury of the fight, staring at the shining eyes,

Straight into the crowd, determined to either tear them apart

One, either, on the first pounce, was flattened by them.

"The Thracian man of whom you speak must be as brave as Achilles! Oh, no, I will describe him in this way:

He is a man who has descended into the mortal world,

The god of war wielding a giant sword!"

"He's just a sword-wielding slave with tinkling chains in his legs, but I-I'd rather he be my own!"

As she spoke, Arya turned her face away and closed her eyes tightly. Otherwise, hot tears will flow down - their taste is destined to be extremely sour.