Zero to Peak: Ascension Online

Tether's floating warship attacked with two precise energy blasts directed at Raymond's legs, which were in constant motion. The attack destabilised Raymond, who stumbled forward but miraculously did not fall. The reanimated knight attempted to dance away from the engagement and recover, but Tether had other plans. The floating gunship continued its assault, leaving no room for Raymond to re-engage the Und soldiers. Seizing the opportunity, about thirty of the soldiers broke past Raymond's defensive line and headed straight for Section 2's northern border control point.

Raymond had already slain one hundred soldiers. Now, another one hundred had slipped past him, while the remaining two hundred decided to square off against him, this time with Tether joining the fray directly.

Tether's gunship was about to strike Raymond again, but a cluster of overzealous soldiers got in the way, blocking the alien commander from attacking the reanimated knight.

"Get out of the way, you idiots!" Tether barked, furious at their incompetence.

Raymond capitalised on the momentary break. He slew the ten soldiers that had blocked Tether's line of attack. Then, the knight bolted to the right, creating a distance of about one hundred metres from his adversaries. The defensive line was, for a moment, without a defender.

Raymond raised his silver blade to the sky. A perfectly straight bolt of silver light descended like lightning upon the blade with a violent crack of thunder.

"For Byzantium!" he roared, his voice impossibly ancient and powerful.

Theodosian Re-enactment!

The ground and air shook violently under the impact of a colossal force being willed into existence. Out of the ground rose a stone wall, seven metres in height. The earth didn't stop shaking; it trembled with a greater force than before, as if a monumental mass rising from beneath threatened to tear the world apart. A second wall soon took form, standing more than ten metres high. It wasn't the end. A third wall arose with a quake so threatening it felt as if it could rip the continent in two. The walls were relics of expert ancient stone masonry. The third wall, the heart of the defensive construct, was a behemoth bulwark standing at a great height of thirty metres, upon which a dozen formidable towers now stood manifest.

Upon the newly formed wall-walks, spectral figures materialised. Hundreds of them. Byzantine legionaries, clad in ethereal lamellar armour, their spears glinting with a ghostly light. Their faces were grim, their forms unwavering. They were the memory of a thousand years of defiance, summoned to fight one last time.

Time seemed to have come to a standstill as the walls arose. The Unds just stood in a fixed position, observing the impossible structure manifest from naught. Tether was the first to snap out of the entrancement. Their battleship fired precision missiles aimed at the legionaries stationed on the wall-walks.

Explosions and bright light boomed across the tops of the walls, but the fiery flare quickly dissipated. The legionaries were still there. They weren't harmed by the attack; instead, they seemed to have fed off its energy. Their armours now beamed with an ethereal golden light, and their spears had transformed into staves of pure, solidified light.

"For Byzantium!" Raymond yelled once more.

When Raymond was still alive, he had unlocked the skill at an inventory store in the Gamers' Realm. Nobody knew what 'Byzantium' stood for, nor did anyone know what the 'Theodosian Re-enactment' truly referred to. They only knew its devastating effect.

The golden legionaries hurled their golden spears at the soldiers below. The staves sailing through the wind would have been an amazing light show if they weren't objects commissioned to kill. The spears crashed down with terrifying force upon their targets. A good number of the alien soldiers were caught directly under the assault, while others fled from their positions in terror. Unfortunately for them, the rainfall of spears didn't relent. It came in quick, successive waves. Any attempt from the aliens to fight back only empowered the legionaries atop the walls; the spears got more powerful, more dreadful. They no longer crashed down with only piercing brute force; they now exploded with a burning burst of light that seared the very flesh of their alien targets.

The force of two hundred Unds that had been fighting Raymond decreased to a mere forty in the space of fifty seconds. Earlier, it had taken Raymond four minutes to slay one hundred soldiers, but now, the slaughter was quicker and far more dreadful. It was a highlight of how formidable the power of a Special Character ranked 'Pillar of Calamity' truly was.

The swarm of spears soon dealt with the remaining forty soldiers, mercilessly ending their lives.

The rainfall of golden spears massively restricted Tether's gunship. The alien company commander, who had been mounted on the gunship as they launched their offensive, was now frantically manoeuvring to avoid being hit. Alas, Raymond had tricked the gunship into a corner. A massive spear, unlike any of the others, descended upon it.

BAM! A crackling clap of an explosion seared the gunship in half. The two halves crashed violently on the ground close to each other. Tether angrily emerged from one burning half of the wreckage. The alien's pair of left arms assimilated into each other, forming a terrifying techno-cannon.

BOOM! BOOM! Two rapid-fire blasts were unleashed. One was directed at the sea of spears hurtling towards them, and the second was aimed at the Theodosian wall. The great wall came down under the assault. It stood no chance against Tether's fury. The alien's power was also ranked at the Pillar of Calamity.

The alien soldiers that had broken past Raymond's Glorious Defensive Line surfed into Section 2's Northern Border control point. The control point was vacated, as if someone had informed its personnel about the impending attack. The aliens used their gadgets to scan for the presence of life forms but found none. In a fit of fury, the aliens shot at the equipment and facilities, damaging and rubbishing them before continuing their advance toward the residential areas beyond.

Their high speed saw them draw closer to the residential areas within seconds. The figures of the buildings were in sight, and they could begin their attack from a distance of no more than five hundred metres. The aliens drew their weapons to shoot. Strangely, they all aimed for their own heads. BANG! Alien heads ripped apart under the unforgiving assault of their very own weapons. It seemed as if they had all been possessed simultaneously by an unseen entity, the entity being responsible for the aliens' collective suicide. Just like that, the one hundred alien soldiers that had slipped past Raymond were dealt with.

All hail the Pale Lady.

If Raymond still had the faculty to think, he would understand that he was having a very hard time under the intense, relentless assault from Tether. There were two large, gaping wounds on the reanimated knight—a big hole reaching from the groin to the chest and another in place of one-third of his right thigh. Tether was formidable.

Raymond was forced to kite away, dodging the seemingly reckless but well-calculated high-powered cannon shots that Tether fired at him. He also had to block the fists and kicks that Tether incorporated into the ferocious attack. Tether had taken the battle personally, feeling insulted to have lost three hundred soldiers and a battleship to an undead puppet.

Suddenly, Tether ceased their attacks and movements, freezing in place. Their gaze was fixed in a single direction—towards Section 2. It was as if they had seen a figure they both dreaded and respected. A figure they could not possibly flee from after catching even a whiff of their presence.

Destiny Spider. Tether was cowering in fear over the presence of the Liberation Force's top dog.