The Beautiful Woman of Pompeii: Love, Deceit, and Revenge

Chapter 2

After Scarface left, the women in the cell scattered in all directions, sitting or lying down. Some lazily slept with their eyes closed, some stared blankly at the black mold-covered ceiling overhead, but most of them were secretly peeking at Xu Jia.

Xu Jia knew this was not a dream.

While on a mission with her teammates, she had an accident, didn't know what happened, woke up, and was here.

This body's throat, now, is still on fire.

She suspected that the cartilage in her throat should have been contused.

Seo Jia, or Ajani as she could be renamed, still couldn't adjust from the sudden and drastic change when the black woman with the scarred face from earlier walked towards her and sat on the floor beside her.

"Hey, little b***h! I can't see you surviving Kunta! She's already killed twelve opponents in the dueling arena!"

Ajani could see the black woman. Her face took on a look of surprise.

She knew why the other woman was surprised.

The women who were locked up here were invariably huge, and standing up, their stature was no less than that of even a strong man.

And herself, that is, that princess of the Black Forest Tribe, was obviously completely different from them.

The short fight just now made Ajani feel that her current body's muscles were even, and her explosive power was almost as strong as her former self after special training, so it was evident that this princess from the Black Forest Tribe should have been a female warrior in the past as well.

However, when she was mixed in with these women, her figure was incomparably petite and delicate. In terms of strength, it was absolutely impossible to be a match for that Kunta just now. That was why the black woman in front of her was surprised.

Ajani's throat was still sore, plus she didn't know what to say, so she was silent.

"Kunta is better off dead!"

The black woman didn't seem to need Ajani's response, spitting thickly at the fresh blood on the floor, "That's one less opponent for me! As long as I win tomorrow, I'll be out of this hellhole!"

"What ...... that mean?"

Ajani asked hoarsely, finally.

"You don't know?" The black woman glanced at her.

Ajani shook her head.

The black woman showed a hint of a sneer, "Yeah, you're not like us! I really don't understand why you want to offend Lord Tumishen? Isn't it just sleeping with him? It's better than being sent here to the gladiatorial arena!"

Ajani didn't make a sound.

As if she had a premonition that she was going to leave here tomorrow, the black woman was in a good mood and continued to talk to Ajani.

Ajani finally figured out the situation.

According to Roman law, a slave reduced to a gladiator who can remain undefeated for a hundred consecutive matches can be freed and become a Roman with citizenship.

But in a gladiatorial arena where it was a matter of life and death, it was almost impossible for anyone to last a hundred fights, so in addition to this law, the Roman rulers, as a show of grace, also stipulated that on certain special festivals of the year, the last victor of the great gladiatorial tournament held in the city of Rome could choose a master whom he wished to follow - a slave. -Although his status was still that of a slave, it was a great blessing to be out of the gladiatorial arena.

Tomorrow is the Day of the Sun in May. By tradition, it is a day of grace.

"Listen little p***y, pray at night with your pretty little head that you'd better meet me tomorrow and I'll give you a good time! It's better than you falling into someone else's hands and being tortured!"

The black woman let out a rattling laugh, causing the rest of the women to look over.

A woman who had been sitting in the corner before raised her eyelids slightly and glanced over.

It was a burly, tightly muscled white man of Slavic origin. If it weren't for the feminine features displayed on his chest, it would look nothing like a man at all.

Ajani had noticed the woman since she had slowed down. Even when she had wrestled with Kunta earlier, the woman had just been sitting alone in the corner with an expressionless face. It was as if the other women were a bit afraid of her and no one dared to approach.

The black woman also noticed the Slavic woman's gaze, and after once again pooh-poohing it, she came over to Ajani's ear and whispered, "She's the Executioner Hubie, so be careful not to run into her. Of course, I'd be happy to accompany her, stepping over her corpse to leave the gladiatorial arena, it should taste good!"

Ajani met the eyes of the white woman named Hubie.

The other woman's eyes glowed with an icy bloodlust.

The hairs of sweat on Ajani's body tightened slightly, a little not wanting to meet her eyes, so she averted her gaze.

"Hee hee, are you afraid of her?" The black woman scoffed in a low voice, "It's too late to regret it now. But to be honest, I kind of admire you. Yesterday, Tumishen even sent someone to ask you to submit, but you even refused again. Nothing can save you now. Dying in the gladiator arena, this is your final fate."

Ajani slowly lay back down.

The cold, hard ground was a little uncomfortable against her bare skin, but it made her mind unusually clear.

She forced herself to ignore all that was going on around her and fall asleep as quickly as possible.

At this point, there was no point in wondering if she was alive or dead.

Only by nourishing her spirit could she try to gain a glimmer of life in that arena tomorrow that looked like it was already doomed.

Even if the chances were slim, she couldn't give up.

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At noon the next day, after a quick lunch, the thirty female gladiators held here, including Ajani, were forced to put on their armor before being herded onto a huge, fully enclosed, four-wheeled wooden wagon and driven toward the gladiatorial arena.

The body of the cart lurched slightly as the wheels crushed the not-so-smooth hemp stone road. The various noises from the streets of Rome came in moment by moment, but the dimly lit carriage was silent.

Everyone knew what awaited them next.

So not a single person made a single sound. It was as if saying a single word would bring bad luck to the life and death struggle that was to follow.

Strangely enough, Ajani had slept unusually well last night, with a dreamless night, and was now sitting quietly in a corner with her eyes closed.

This life, originally, was like a found one.

Since fate was like that, or rather, the gods of Mount Olympus who were enshrined by the Romans in their temples had put her in such a position once again, then putting her best foot forward and surviving was the only thing she needed to think about all right now.

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On the slopes of the Esquiline Hill in the city of Rome once stood the Golden Palace, a palace built by Nero, the tyrant of the Claudian dynasty, for himself.

After the 2nd century A.D., the Golden Palace gradually disappeared into the dirt, and was eventually replaced by another building, because the later Roman rulers, no one wanted to move into this golden palace, which represented luxury and corruption, so that they could show their people the difference between themselves and the tyrant Nero.

But now, the Golden Palace of the previous dynasty is still the most magnificent building in the city of Rome, lying on the slope of a hill overlooking the whole city at its feet.

Not far from the foot of the hill is the magnificent Colosseum. After Caesar and Waldawi era of expansion and renovation, it is now 2,180 Roman feet long, 998 Roman feet wide, the field can accommodate more than 120,000 spectators.

It was now filled to capacity. The noise of the spectators, whose eyes were reddened by the spectacle of bloodshed, was enough to frighten the birds that passed over into the air and make them fall out of the sky.

Ajani and the women traveling with her were herded from the wooden cart and driven through the slave passage into the vaulted room built under the seats of the arena's grandstand.

Across from the iron-barred gate was the expansive amphitheater.

It was not yet time for them to appear - the gladiators were scheduled to fight each other as a finale.

Before their appearance, the arena would first go through the middle of the program.

It was in this makeshift cell, through the bars of the iron door, that Ajani witnessed one of the craziest, and most cruel and barbaric, mass entertainments in the history of mankind.

First out of the gate, the beasts warmed up the audience by biting each other. When it was over, the handlers drove the surviving beasts back to their cages, where the slaves in service cleaned up the carcasses full of teeth, followed by man-beast combat.

The gladiators enter the arena and fight with the re-released beasts in a group fight amidst a mountain of roars from the audience.

Just a dozen paces away from Ajani on the yellow sandy ground, a strong Gallic man had just plunged his sword into the neck of a lion, and in the next instant his head was bitten off by the bite of a tiger pouncing from behind.

The disembodied head rolled toward Ajani like a ball of leather, and when it finally came to rest outside the fence gate at her feet, its bleeding eyes stared at her dead in the face, and the mouth, still writhing, opened and closed.

"Wannabe Romans-"

Ajani heard a string of such syllables come out of this mouth.

The bloodstained yellow sandy ground was littered with severed limbs, heads, and wounded beasts with swords stuck in their bodies spasming in agony ......

The air was filled with a strong scent of blood.

The roar of the spectators in the stands became even more frantic, making waves of sound that shook the archway.

Ajani could barely breathe.

She had received rigorous special training, and her mental capacity was definitely above average.

However, such a scene, which seemed like an inferno on earth, still caused a huge shock to her heart.

The Romans regarded all foreigners as barbarians, except the Greeks.

Although the Greeks had also been conquered by their force. But the Romans not only gave the Greek language the same official status as Latin, but even, they followed the Greeks' belief in the gods of Mount Olympus.

If the gods of Mount Olympus really had a spirit, would the curse have struck like a lightning storm, destroying the city of sin as the Bible records that fire from heaven destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah?

"Only a fool would stare like that!"

A voice suddenly came from behind him.

Ajani turned around to see the still unnamed black woman come up behind her, glancing indifferently at the head on the ground.

"Don't look! Look, and when it's your turn in the ring, you'll completely lose the courage to live." As she said this, she rolled her thick lips and looked flat.

It was true that none of the women in the cell were staring in the direction of the Colosseum as she was.

They were all sitting on the floor, their expressions indifferent, as if the gruesome fight that was taking place outside this barred door had nothing to do with them.

Ajani admitted she was right.

She turned around, went back to the corner, and sat down like any other woman would.

The tussle at the fence gate continued.

At the end of the day, the few men left to stagger and struggle up from the pool of blood were unsurprisingly bitten by several lions with swords stuck in their bodies.

This battle between man and beast ended in victory for the beasts.

The man-beast battle was followed by a group battle of male gladiators.

The smell of blood in the air grew stronger, and the roar of the spectators grew more and more frantic, as if it were volcanic lava gushing and rushing underground with that kind of power.

By noon, after the execution of a group of Jerusalem pagans, slaves once again on the field, with iron hooks on the ground corpses and limbs and legs, from the arena triumphal door next to the dead door to drag them out, turn over once again blood-stained yellow sand, so that the arena back to its original appearance, the whole audience is silent, waiting with bated breath for the day's last major show.

The door to the arch room opened.

Ajani rose from the floor, at the far end of the line, and followed the slave girls in front of her as they stepped through the iron doors.

From the arched room to the triumphal arch, there was a wall of ridge used to measure distances during chariot races. In the center of the wall stood a tower dedicated to the sun, bordered by many columns carved with images of the gods the Romans believed in.

The black woman paused briefly as she passed in front of the statue of Venus of Moresia, closing her eyes and moving her lips rapidly. It seemed to be in prayer.

Opening her eyes, she met Ajani's gaze. She smiled at Ajani, twisted her head and continued on.

After walking this wall, only one of their group would end up surviving.

They have the right to choose their next weapon in the group fight - that's the only power they have now.

Ajani gave up the heavy sword that most of the slave girls chose and gripped a light sword.

In terms of strength, she was by no means a match for these women. Choosing the same heavy weapon as them would only lead to a quicker death.

On top of the sword's body, it was stained with blood that was unknown to come from a man or a beast, and under the light of the strong midday sun, it glowed with a weird red color.