Zero to Peak: Ascension Online

"Don't worry about how you will get the people to safety. Just find them; the rest will take care of itself," the Pope assured Ivan.

"Face me," Saint Angouleme's calm voice instructed.

Ivan, who had been standing beside the angel, turned to face him.

"You are ready," the saint said.

Ivan felt a sudden, strong vertigo. In his view, the world suddenly imploded. He woke up in darkness on a grassy plain. Sitting up, he stared at the starry sky. A cool wind blew continuously across the plain, causing the grass to lean forward and softly caress his back and arms. Ivan wondered where he was, but no answers came.

The dark world of the grassy plain suddenly shattered like a glass painting. Ivan found himself back in the dining room, gazing into the eyes of Saint Angouleme. He instinctively took a step back in wariness. His mind understood the source of what had transpired, but it was still shocking to witness. He wondered just how powerful an angel was.

"You have been bestowed with the powers of the Serene Night," Saint Angouleme told him.

The saint proceeded to inform Ivan about the power set that had been bestowed upon him.

Afterwards, Ivan willed a pair of black feathered wings to appear from his shoulder blades, puncturing large holes in the back of his shirt. He unsummoned the wings, and they disappeared. He understood that the wings had a physical foundation attached to them.

The Pope directed Ivan to an exit within his apartment: a backdoor that was a warp drive. Stepping through the door wouldn't lead one directly outside the cathedral, but to any destination of their choice. The Pope had led Ivan here so that he wouldn't face Roger's resistance.

Roger was outside the Pope's apartment, anxiously waiting for his friend to conclude the discussion, and he hadn't noticed that Saint Angouleme had left his side. The priests had left him with the saint before departing to their own apartments to attend to other business. The saint then returned to Roger's side, unnoticed.

Ivan, now clad in his regal full-body plate armour, appeared in Zone Alpha's business district. The scene before his eyes screamed despair. The air, which was once clear and vibrant with the city's familiar hum, now hung heavy and still with an irritating, choking soup of smells. It was the acrid smoke of burning plastic and insulation from the buildings. Underneath was the foul iron stench of spilt blood, both dried and fresh, mingling with a faint undertone of decay.

Residential blocks in this district stood as hollow husks. The business district had faced a brutal, direct assault. Skyscrapers were sheared in half, their upper floors obliterated as if by a colossal blade.

This was the backdrop to an active battle. Flashes of miniature explosions illuminated the scene—an exchange of gunfire was happening between a group of mafia soldiers and a group of alien soldiers.

Ivan could tell the mafia soldiers from the official military. The mafia soldiers wore standard gear but attached clown-looking accessories to their armour. They mostly wore clown-coloured, skull-faced masks on their helmets.

The mafia soldiers were at the top of a skyscraper that had its top quarter sheared off. On the ground, the aliens were hiding behind makeshift barricades formed from the rubble of a collapsed building. Ivan noticed that the aliens seemed to have emerged from a battleship that had crashed into a skyscraper behind them.

The mafia soldiers were winning the battle. The aliens could barely move, and their cover was being mercilessly torn apart by the mafia's gunfire. Ivan couldn't tell the origin of the guns the mafia soldiers held—they were plasma guns, the kind of weapons the aliens were known to possess.

That was not the only battle going on in the vicinity; there were more than ten. The most prominent was one between a super-powered human and three super-powered aliens in the sky. The instant Ivan noticed this battle, he didn't delay taking his next step.

If he delayed, there was a high chance he might become collateral damage from the fight between the super-powered beings above.

The gun battles were happening in the business district directly in front of Ivan. There were nine ongoing fights there. He sensed the presence of people in distress in one of the skyscrapers. The group was on one of the floors close to the ground. The distance and the tension of the scene made it difficult for his mind to pick out the exact floor.

He spread his wings, which didn't puncture the armour. Instead, the armour morphed to accommodate them. He flew through the active warzone towards the building. The target skyscraper was four hundred metres away.

He carefully traversed the battlezone, dodging the active paths where bullets travelled. His movements went unnoticed, an attribute of the power he was using: Veiled Owl. It granted him wings for flight and stealth.

He arrived outside the building. There were four aliens standing directly outside the entance to the ground floor, seemingly waiting for any unfortunate human to dare walk out. Ivan had dodged them at the last minute, moving to a safe side of the building.

Mission Description: You have been deployed into the active war in Section 1. Your mission is to survive the battle, save more than 10 million people, help vanquish over ten thousand alien soldiers, and kill at least one leader of an alien platoon/squad/batallion.

Unds Soldiers Killed: 0/10,000

Civilians Saved: 0/10,000,000

Alien Leader Killed: 0/1

Note: You must accomplish all points given to you in this mission.

Penalty for Failure: You will lose four learned abilities and 100,000 exp points.

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Ivan reviewed his mission. His heart pounded with anxiety. The confidence he had before leaving the Cathedral had significantly faded. Being alone in this vast, despairing battlefield had taken a massive toll on his resolve.

BAM! WOOSH! Something crashed into a skyscraper opposite the one he was at. Rubble blasted in all directions. The super-powered human had crashed into the building from an attack by his adversaries.

The super-powered human was infuriated. Draped in a pristine white longcoat over a ceremonial white military uniform, the man radiated an intense golden luminosity, akin to the hot afternoon sun.