I Enslaved The Goddess Who Summoned Me

Chapter 545: Johanna’s judgment (1)

There was no hesitation in the soldier’s answer. “Behead her, my lady — and bring the head to him.”

Johanna smirked widely.

“No…what?!” Freja exploded, the sound tearing out of her throat. Her hands went for her sword before common sense and fear yanked them back.

Johanna did not flinch. She pointed with a single, imperious finger toward Servilia. “Bring her to her knees.”

Servilia met the gesture with the same placid composure she wore like armor; she looked at Johanna as if addressing a troublesome child rather than a woman issuing an executioner’s command. The contrast only sharpened the cruelty in Johanna’s expression.

“W…wait! You can’t!” Freja cried. She moved again, this time with eyes burning with desperate intent, but the soldier at Ida’s throat tightened his grip. The cold ring of steel pressed deeper until a thin thread of dark blood escaped and welled against Ida’s skin.

“No!” Elin’s voice sliced through the square. She lunged forward, but two soldiers planted themselves between her and the others, blocking every step with disciplined brutality.

Freja’s limbs betrayed her. She stopped as if rooted to the spot; color drained from her face until she looked ghostly under the courtyard lights. The terrible calculus of the moment unfolded across her features — if she moved they would kill Ida, her friend and classmate; if she froze, they would kill Servilia, a woman she did not know intimately but had enough of a memory of to understand she was kind, someone who had offered gentle words and quiet reassurance to her about her classmates. The knowledge of Servilia’s decency made the choice like swallowing shards of glass.

Johanna’s smile widened as if savoring the turmoil. “What are you waiting for?” she taunted, addressing Servilia with that same thin, contemptuous amusement.

Servilia stepped forward. Her gait was unhurried, each footfall measured, her face composed as still water. Her serenity made Johanna’s smile twitch into something darker — irritation at calm in the face of humiliation.

“S…stop…” Elin managed, voice thick with tears. They pooled in her blue eyes and threatened to spill.

Johanna’s response was mockery. “Don’t cry, Elin. You’ve seen a lot of people die, haven’t you? This will be just another one. You can even close your eyes if it’s too much.” She spoke as if offering a kindness.

“You are the worst!” Elin spat, the words cracking on the edge of her grief.

Johanna laughed softly, the sound without warmth. Then she turned her attention to Servilia, savoring another small cruelty. “Must be hard for you, Servilia. I stole your place as Caesar’s—” she interrupted herself with a contemptuous chuckle “—and now I’m going to have you killed for my amusement.”

Servilia’s reaction was almost imperceptible. A small smile played at the corner of her mouth, strange and untroubled. That tiny, serene expression — neither fear nor pleading — was worse than any outburst could have been for Johanna; it undermined the spectacle with an unexpected humanity.

“On your knees,” Johanna spat, the order like ice.

Servilia looked first at Johanna, then at Ida — the girl whose blood trembled at the edge of the soldier’s knife — and then began to bend. For the briefest instant she appeared to submit, the motion slow as if to give Johanna the triumph she craved. But halfway down, she stopped. The momentum shifted; instead of lowering herself into servility she straightened, chin lifting.

“I don’t want to,” Servilia said simply.

For a heartbeat everything froze. The words were small, ordinary, and yet they carried a steel that rattled the authority Johanna pretended to hold. Johanna’s mouth went taut, then hard.

“What did you say?” Johanna demanded, eyes narrowing into knives.

“You heard me,” Servilia replied without haste. Her voice did not tremble. “I don’t want to bend my knees to a prostitute worse than the ones in the Senate Castle.”

The insult landed like a stone. Johanna’s face flamed. She snatched a sword from a nearby soldier — the metal clanged as she drew it — and made as if to sever Servilia’s head herself. Her hand rose; triumph glittered in her eyes.

But then something shifted in the air behind Servilia — not a sound but a presence. Johanna’s hand froze mid-reach. The shadows themselves seemed to pull tighter, and a chill threaded through the courtyard.

She turned slowly, and the sight that met her made the breath go out of her all at once.

There, hovering indifferent and impossibly still, was the last person she wanted to see.

Nathan floated as if the world’s rules did not apply to him. The sunlight hitting the streets of Rome — caught in his hair and left it pale and spectral. His crimson eyes fixed on the assembled group with a coldness that cut deeper than any blade. He watched them as a man watches an insect at the tip of his finger, detached, lethal in a way that needed no show of violence.

Everyone held their collective breath.

“S…Septimius!” Elin cried out, her voice breaking with sudden, unrestrained joy. Relief poured from her like water bursting through a cracked dam.

Freja’s breath hitched. For a heartbeat she doubted what she was seeing. The figure in the air — his pale hair, those piercing crimson eyes — it could only be him. Nathan. Septimius.

Johanna, however, felt something entirely different. When her gaze met Nathan’s, her body betrayed her — every muscle locking in primal terror. The chill that ran through her veins was unlike anything she had ever felt. For a moment she couldn’t move at all. Then, forcing herself through the paralysis, she stumbled behind Servilia and yanked her upright, pressing the blade against her throat.

“D..Don’t move!” she shouted, her voice shaking despite her best efforts to sound commanding.

Nathan’s eyes flicked toward her — and in that instant, Johanna’s soul felt exposed. He didn’t even glare at her; he merely looked. Coldly. Dismissively. The way one might glance at a worm writhing underfoot.

He descended slowly, deliberately, his presence weighing on the air like an invisible pressure. The moment his boots touched the ground, every soldier around him flinched — weapons trembling in their hands. Johanna’s own sword quivered at Servilia’s throat.

“I said don’t come any closer!” she shrieked, panic cracking her voice. “I’ll kill her! I’ll slit her throat, do you hear me?!”

Nathan tilted his head slightly, his tone calm, almost curious. “What are you waiting for then?”

The words hit her like a blade. Her breath caught in her throat as he took another unhurried step forward.

Her body screamed to move, to strike, to do something — but her limbs refused her. She tried to press the sword closer against Servilia’s neck, yet her arm wouldn’t obey. Something unseen held her still. It wasn’t ice, nor any visible magic — it was as though the air itself had hardened around her, trapping her in an invisible cage.

“W..What… what is this?” she gasped, eyes wide with disbelief as panic clawed its way up her throat.

“Servilia,” Nathan said softly.

At the sound of her name, Servilia smiled faintly and slipped free from Johanna’s paralyzed grasp, moving as gracefully as a dancer. She brushed her hands together as if shaking off dust and turned toward Nathan with unwavering trust.

She had known — from the moment she felt that familiar presence — that he would come. There had never been fear in her heart. Not even once.

Johanna’s panic returned in a wave of desperation. “What are you doing, idiots?!” she screamed at the remaining soldiers. “Kill that girl! Help me, now!” She didn’t care about Ida anymore. The plan, the secrecy, the politics — all of it vanished in the face of raw terror.

The soldier holding Ida hesitated for a split second — then lifted his blade.

“Ida!” Freja shouted, launching forward, though she knew she was too far away to reach her in time.

But the soldier never struck. His body went rigid, the sword slipping from his frozen hand. His face twisted in silent confusion, locked mid-motion like a statue.

So was Johanna.

Their eyes darted wildly, but not a finger moved.

It wasn’t Nathan’s doing.

From the shadowed edges of the street, hidden from all eyes, Medea watched — her presence cloaked by illusion. Her magic extended silently through the air, threads of invisible power coiling around her prey. Paralysis, woven with precision. She had waited for the perfect moment to intervene, and when she did, the battlefield changed entirely.

Her spells reached farther than most could imagine — and deadlier still was their subtlety. To be struck without even knowing where the attack had come from was terror in its purest form.

Nathan stepped forward again, seizing the moment. He raised his hand — and the world itself seemed to shudder.

A gust of frost swept across the square, sharp and sudden. Within an instant, every one of Caesar’s soldiers froze mid-motion. Crystals of ice crawled across their armor, their weapons, their faces — spreading like vines of death. The courtyard became eerily still, lined with gleaming statues of men who would never move again.

Johanna could only stare. Her breath fogged in front of her lips as she tried to scream, but even her voice trembled too hard to form words.

She had no soldiers left to command. No escape. And no audience. She had cleared the streets herself earlier, ordering her troops to block the nearby paths so that no witnesses could see her privately execute Servilia who was a very famous and loved figure in Rome, all women of Rome admired her even. Now that same isolation sealed her fate.

The silence was broken by a cry — not of fear, but relief.

“Ida!” Freja ran to her, unimpeded at last. She dropped to her knees, pulling Ida into her arms. The girl was trembling, tears staining her cheeks, but alive. She clung to Freja with both arms, sobbing into her shoulder.

Elin hurried forward too, joining the embrace. The three girls clung together tightly with Freja comforting Ida while Elin was already healing her wounds.

Meanwhile Nathan stood there in the stillness, the street now deathly silent save for the faint crackle of frost along the stones. His crimson eyes, devoid of warmth or pity, were fixed upon Johanna’s frozen form.

Johanna trembled uncontrollably, her lips quivering as she tried and failed to hold his gaze. “P…please…wait…” she whispered, voice brittle and soaked in despair. The defiance that had once defined her was gone — replaced by pure, animal fear.