Zero to Peak: Ascension Online

Although Ivan was scared to jump into the expansive, chaotic, and gruesome battle himself, it didn't stop him from acting. His possessed aliens had already spread across the battlefield, taking up positions within the ranks of the enemy soldiers.

Lupita already regretted her decision to come here. Raina, sensing her friend's fear, was preoccupied with Lupita's safety. She wondered if Ivan's friend (Saint Angouleme) could be summoned to whisk her colleague away from the danger. In fact, her concern for Lupita was the main reason she hadn't yet found the courage to jump into the fray.

As they watched the battle unfold, she wondered if Ivan had already deployed his alien soldiers. Neither of them had revealed the full extent of their powers to the other. They respected each other's privacy and didn't dare to ask for details.

Suddenly, portals blinked into existence across the battlefield, all positioned to intercept the aliens' attacks. This was the work of Soldier A. Plasma cannons, meant for the human forces, were redirected through the portals, firing reversed rounds back at the unsuspecting aliens.

Weaker aliens or those without tough armor were instantly killed. The survivors, however, quickly retaliated by releasing anti-portal grenades, which exploded into clouds of particles that restricted further portal formation.

A blindingly bright spotlight from one of the humungous battleships locked onto Soldier A's position. Two mega-turrets on the same vessel swiveled, aiming with terrifying speed before unleashing a single, devastating round.

The resulting impact was terrifying, causing indiscriminate destruction across the field. The controllers aboard the battleship clearly didn't care if their own soldiers were caught in the blast. The initial devastation covered a five-hundred-meter area, while the shockwave radiated outward for another seven hundred meters.

Soldier A barely escaped the blast, but not unscathed. It lost both of its right arms and a right leg in the explosion.

Raina had noticed the numerous portals reversing the aliens' attacks, but her attention had wavered. She missed the moment the battleship's spotlight fixed on its target and the turrets aimed and fired. The deafening explosion, however, violently shook her back to reality.

Like Raina, Ivan was shocked by the cannon's sheer power. He correctly deduced that this weapon was even more powerful than the one that had attacked Zone Alpha's residential area. The display of force prompted him to command all his minions to act at once.

His improved intelligence stat gave him the ability to control multiple minions simultaneously, all while retaining enough awareness to process and react to the stimuli around him.

Soldier B was akin to a Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle, but instead of carrying only warheads, it also housed automated robots and an array of other weapons. In one fiery burst, its legs, which had merged to form a single powerful thruster, propelled it skyward. Mid-flight, its elongated abdomen hissed open, splitting laterally to reveal two groups of miniature missiles arranged around a central cylinder. This payload seemed to be the only thing inside its abdomen. The missiles immediately fired, hurtling down at alien positions on the ground below.

Immediately after, the section of Soldier B's back over its thorax opened like two winged doors, revealing a silo containing thirty spherical robots arranged in a honeycomb pattern. The robots deployed instantly, their own thrusters firing as they hurtled down toward the battlefield.

Soldier B was now primed to land atop one of the battleships. Unfortunately, most of the missiles it had deployed failed to reach their targets. A volley of anti-missile flares had intercepted them at a safe distance.

Ivan could see it clearly: for this battle, the aliens seemed to have prepared for every eventuality. He now understood why this region had been so easily overrun. The previous battles he had faced now seemed easy by comparison, even the fight at the Bryan Industrial Complex where he and his crew had needed help.

'This must be the main force that dealt with Zone Alpha,' Ivan mused. 'They are truly formidable.'

Soldier C, a creature that specialized in spewing a highly inflammable gas, began its insidious work. As soon as a stray plasma cannon blast hit the area, a section of the battlefield erupted in dazzling blue flames. Soldier C had only released its gas in one small corner, but true to its nature, the gas had quickly expanded to fill a much larger space. A small effort had resulted in a cataclysm of fire.

Ivan had learned from the punishment Soldier A received; he would not pursue another battlefield-encompassing attack. Instead, he deployed a more gradual approach. Soldier D began manipulating gravity, causing it to weigh down heavily on a small, concentrated group of alien soldiers. Though some human soldiers were nearby, the effect was precise. The targeted aliens were crushed to death under the immense pressure.

Soldiers E and F were flying brawlers whose powers were entirely physical. Ivan directed them to attack a battleship. They managed to cause significant damage to the side of its hull, striking an abnormal weak point that should not have existed. The duo immediately proceeded to breach into a section of the ship through the newly exposed compartment.

Soldier G was, surprisingly, a 98% synthetic lifeform. Its only organic component was its brain. Ivan had briefly wondered about its construction—why retain the organic brain, and who had made that decision? He had many questions, including how his parasite was even able to possess a half-synth in the first place.

Ivan activated Soldier G's super combat mode. The synth's body parts shifted, allowing internally hidden components to surface and rapidly alter its morphology. In moments, Soldier G transformed into a seven-meter-tall droid.

A thruster pack was now incorporated into its back, and two 1.5-meter-long white blades protruded from beneath the metallic skin of its upper arms. With its transformation complete, Soldier G charged into the battle with tremendous speed, moving through the chaos as little more than a blur.

Wherever it passed, entire blocks of alien soldiers fell to the ground, brutally seared and dissected by its blades.

Unfortunately, Soldiers H, I, and J met swift ends. They had the bad luck of spawning directly in front of powerful aliens ranked at Gold Transcendent. The elite enemies identified the possessed minions almost instantly and dispatched them before they could cause any harm.