Let me start the story with a bit of background first.
The 'Order', that hunts me at the moment, didn't always work like this. In the past, that organization worked to bring order to any World they visited, rather than fixing their timelines. Hence the name. And the first leader of the 'Order' was a legendary man, whose enemies called him Death, due to how bloody murderous he was. Later generations gave him the title 'Thanatos'. God of Death in Greek's mythology.
You might ask, 'How's killing helps with bringing the order?'. Well, Thanatos was never a man of words. He was a person of action and his understanding of order was closer to that of the famous 'Emperor of Mankind'. If there is a person bringing chaos, he won't talk with him or negotiate. He will simply kill him. Then kill those who followed the guy. Then his supporters. Then those who were connected to supporters.
By the time the first leader finished 'bringing order', there weren't many left to disturb said order any more.
And obviously, as an exceptionally powerful being with little life experience, this guy was super idealistic. He believed in the greater good, helping innocents, murder bad guys, save good guys. All that type of crap.
Another thing he really liked was time travel. And let me tell you. This guy didn't think about the consequences of his actions. And one such consequence was rewriting the history, where Gaius Julius Caesar survives the attack in Senat.
The effect of this change was huge on its own, but Thanatos went even further, which he later regretted. He granted Caesar immortality. Now imagine a genius general, that miraculously survived an assassination attempt and became immortal afterward, in the country where people seriously believe in Gods and other mythological crap?
In short, he became sanctified by the people of the Empire. Not just a demigod, but a literal God. Unfortunately, his low fertility remained to be his curse. Moreover, the impossibility to pass immortality to kids became a problem later down the road.
However, in the first few centuries, Caesar has started the Golden Age of the Roman Empire.
The year I(1) of the new Calendar, marks the beginning of the new Age, later named 'Golden Age of Roman Empire'.
In a span of 40 years, Africa, Europe, and Asia were conquered. It might sound impossible, but just imagine it, a smart and experienced general that needs no rest plus cannot be killed by no mortal means. He became an unstoppable machine.
Armies fell under his own and his battalions' might. No ruler could go against him. Plus only 20 out of those 40 years were full of wars. Later 20 years, the majority of the Old World's population knew about his immortality and might. So they surrendered. What choice they had, when defeat was only a matter of time?
Then began a time of invention. All the resources 'collected' so far were invested in science, art, music, infrastructure, and medicine. The most brilliant minds of the conquered lands were flocking to the capital, Rome, under promises of wealth and fortune.
The technological rise was unprecedented. The industrial revolution hit the Empire by the 80ties of the new calendar. First, two things that were revolutionized were transportation and medicine. After all, ruling an Empire spanning 3 continents, which at that time was considered a whole world, can be problematic without any system for communication. And, of course, a better numerical system was created, although, it took some time for a few stubborn mathematicians to accept the fact that the previous system had quite some flaws.
Strangely, most of the progress didn't directly affect the military. But from another perspective, it made sense, because the whole world already belonged to the Empire. There was no enemy to compare with. They were apriori the strongest.
After another 20 years, closer to the first big mark, century, of the new calendar, seemingly impossible thought was delivered to the table of the Holy Emperor of Rome.
'There might be other lands beyond the endless spans of water!'
This event created waves in the scientific community because prior to this date, water transportation and specifically, ships were never a focus of the Empire's research.
From then on, Fleet of the Empire was remodeled and remade. And soon after, hundreds of ships were sent around the world to find these unknown lands.
Soon both America and Australia, as well as close-by islands have been discovered, but in that Universe, they were collectively called "Terra Nova" or "Newly found land".
Transportation of the army, adaptation to unknown lands as well as learning new languages took quite some time. But what is time to an Immortal Emperor?
By September, Year 186 of the new Calendar, Planet Earth and its inhabitants became a part of the Roman Empire.
That's how significant that change was. Although there were debates, as Athena informed me, whether gifting immortality to a person or letting, specifically Caesar, live, led to such changes. Anyway, after all that, you most certainly will have a question.
'Why the heck we need all that information?'
And the answer is simple. This Empire served as the foundation for the "Order". As Emperor owed his immortality to the Thanatos, he happily fulfilled any wishes that guy had.
People, resources, technologies, armies and so much more were provided solely by the Roman Empire. And although, small in the beginning, Empire has grown to a whole Galaxy in a span of a few thousand years. Therefore, it is important to understand why that Universe was so important and how exactly Marcus came into the ranks of Order's Fixers Squad.
You see, serving in the Army was always an honorable and lucrative job in Rome and nothing changed even in the far future. Actually, something did change. Soldiers weren't simple humans anymore. They became genetically modified soldiers walking in the heavy power armor.
'Huh? Space Marines? What Space Marines? What do you mean I am breaking Intelectual rights? Wait, why are you calling Inquisition?! Put down that cogitator!'
*Some loud noises in the background*
'Kidding! Obviously, there is no Inquisition or Ordo Malleus in this Universe, he-he... he... he...'
*Quietly whispers 'Emperor protects'*
Compared to Astartes from Warhammer 40k Universe, these soldiers relied mostly on machines.
To make it easier for you to understand, these warriors were the Capitan America in Iron Man suit. Clear enough? I mean yeah, Cap is strong, but let's be honest, he is still a human. So, even genetically modified they remained human. Just slightly better, stronger, faster and smarter.
However, their tech covered for the majority of their weaknesses. Nanite Blood, Brain connected to Quantum Server with Implanted AI and a lot of other cool benefits.
And to the best of these warriors, an offer was made. A chance to serve something higher than an Empire spanning one Galaxy. They were offered to serve the "Order". I think you can guess the rest of the story.
The point is that Marcus was one of the enhanced warriors, who accepted the offer. But even amongst them, he was one of the best. Centurio of his century(the company of 100 men). Commander. Leader of the special ops team.
This is a background of that Marcus guy. That also explains all the tech that he brought to this world. I mean his special teams were all wearing some fancy sci-fi armor, while his assistant was an AI. That rose quite a few questions for me, back then.
As for another guy, he is also incredible. So incredible, really, that I have to take him out of the picture first, before going after Marcus or their newly found organization.
And his name is "Tenebrae", a.k.a. "God of Darkness", from the world of limitless possibilities. World of Unbound Gods.