Chapter 458 The Tyrant's Power
Avalina rushed and tightly wrapped her arms around her son. It had only been a year, but it felt like centuries had passed since she had last seen him.
"You have grown so much!" Avalina exclaimed while caressing Ashton's cheek.
Ashton smiled, enjoying the motherly embrace. The others were equally surprised and happy. However, the Giholos immediately went to their knees when they saw their 'god'.
Despite feeling awkward, Ashton acknowledged them with a curt nod. Even such a small gesture was enough to send the Giholos into a frenzy. For being their last day in the world of the living, it was sure as hell a lucky one.
"It's good to have you back, my lord." Virgil smiled, "And you too, my lady."
"Virgil, how's the married life been treating you?" Ashton asked while fist-bumping him.
"I don't wanna spoil the surprise for you." Virgil shrugged before pointing at Ricochet and his men, "If you don't mind me asking, who are the people accompanying you?"
"Right, it almost slipped my mind. These are metahumans, some allies that I made during my travels."
When Ashton said the people were humans, everyone was slightly surprised, but not much. Since a fair share of humans had made it off the planet, they would have survived in one way or another.
Moreover, Ashton had made Livan a neutral city where mutants, aliens and humans, everyone could live together in harmony.
That said, if Ashton had dropped in some other mutant-controlled region, his reception might have been quite explosive.
"I'll answer your questions later," Ashton interrupted as soon as someone was about to ask something, "We have to take care of something, don't we?"
"Right."
Avalina's mind was full of questions and doubts, but at the moment, she could only push those thoughts aside and focus on the task at hand.
Ashton and his forces, along with Avalina and everybody else, made their way to the walls. It seemed like a prophecy that Ashton arrived in Livan when he did. If he had waited a day longer, there might not have been a home to return to.
A sea of undead was continuously clashing with the massive walls built around the city. Things would have taken a nasty turn if it wasn't for the wall.
"Call the men back," Ashton mumbled.
"Call them back?" Virgil stared at Ashton as if he had seen a ghost; the rest did the same.
Other than the wall, the werewolves and the Giholos were the ones dealing with the undead. Without them, the wall would not last long.
"If they stay down there, I'll end up killing them." Ashton continued when Virgil hesitated, "As the lord of this estate, I command you to call the troops back."
"Yes, my lord."
Within a minute, the soldiers were back in the city. Now it was time for the space people to show the mutants how to deal with generic undead like these.
Wings spurted out of Ashton's and Anna's backs while Ricochet and his men entered the battlefield riding wraith wolves. If he and his men could handle the beast wave on Occuna, taking care of some mindless undead wasn't much of a task.
[According to my calculations, a hundred thousand undead should be enough to raise a lich.]
'Perfect.' Ashton mumbled, and the gates of Valhalla opened behind him.
Within moments, hundreds of skeletons and zombies rushed out to attack the undead.
(Author's note: For now, I'd refer to the enemies as undead while allied undeads as zombies to avoid confusion.)
As soon as Ashton's forces appeared on the battlefield, it became why he wanted everyone to fall back. If the soldiers had stayed, they would have been hit by a rogue spell or squashed by gigantic creatures like Atlas and Gokung.
Anna was blindly shooting fireballs at the horde. Each of her spells burned away dozens of undead who couldn't do a thing to stop her. Mini explosions lit up the field like stars in the night sky.
Sven and the skeletons under his authority were making quick work of the undead. Countless of those rotting bastards were cleaved in half within moments. But the carnage had only begun.
As for Raven, the undead were lucky to catch his shadow before ending up in pieces for the skeletons to stomp on.
Similar to Anna, Celeste was having the time of her life. There were abundant shadows for her to utilise as weapons, and she did not shy away from doing so. Hundreds of shadowy spikes would erupt from the ground every now and then, killing hundreds of undead.
The massive bodies of Atlas and Gokung were more than enough for them to kill thousands of undead at any given moment. However, it was funny to see the two of them coordinating their attacks and failing miserably.
But the one who surprised Ashton the most was Dolos. It was the first time the Shadow Tyrant was in action with free rein to do as he pleased, and boy, was it a surprise.
What Dolos lacked in agility, he made up for it in his ability to dish out disgustingly powerful AOE attacks. His attacks usually started with a [Howl], which put his enemies in a daze while weakening their defence.
Once the undead became vulnerable, he would jump several meters in the air and slam his arms on the ground. The resulting force would crack the earth while also generating shockwaves to knock down his enemies.
However, this was only the beginning of his abilities. After all, he wasn't an A-grade summon for nothing.
Out of the cracks, some goblin-like creature appeared. Their only difference was their horns, red skin and massive wings.
"What are those things?"
[I believe the humans call them Imps, a type of lesser demons. Those pesky little bastards are known for having more power than they can control. Us, Xyrans, used to have them as pets, and they were pretty annoying, to be honest.]
"Annoying creatures with horns and wings that have more power than they should. Huh, so they're like your cousins, interesting."
[...]