Frontline - anchormation of Olympus

The Frontline - chapter 46(the siege arc act 2)

It began inside the dying heart of Rome.

Monsters phased through the stone, crawling from cracks, ceilings, shadows-everywhere at once. The empire stood fully surrounded, sealed away from the world under Tartarus' devouring darkness. No sunlight. Nearly no air.

The armies of Rome were mortals-ninety percent of them.

Boys barely taller than their spears.

Girls clutching daggers with shaking hands.

Mothers and grandfathers standing shoulder to shoulder.

But after hearing their emperor's final speech, they all agreed on one thing:

If this was their last day alive... they would meet it with dignity

Kids who are shaking

Mother's who holded kitchen knifes

Old geezers who put on their old customs they all had one goal

Screams and steel echoed through the sealed world as citizens fought in every alley. Gladiators formed walls with their shields, locking themselves into formations even as monsters poured over them.

Deep in the city center, Emperor Alexander Severus clashed with a corrupted god-one far above his league. Every swing shook his bones, but he held his ground, shouting to the group of women and children behind him:

"Go! Find shelter! I'll hold him-RUN!"

A woman grabbed his sleeve, terrified.

"Your majesty-please come with us!"

Alexander smiled through blood and exhaustion.

"A king stands so others may flee."

He shoved her aside and met the god's blade again.

On the other side of the collapsing city, Abyss locked eyes with the general from the previous chapter-except the man was no longer human. Tartarus was wearing his body like a suit.

The general's mouth cracked open unnaturally as Tartarus spoke:

"You came alone, child of winds?"

Abyss didn't answer.

He simply stomped down.

CRUNCH.

The body of the general shattered beneath his boot like a rotten shell.

Tartarus' laughter echoed from every direction.

"Ahahaha-too easy, isn't it?"

His voice crawled across the air as he dissolved into the fortress walls, merging with the stone like living magma.

"If crushing a body is simple, why don't I become a wall instead?"

The ground rippled.

A massive stone pillar erupted from the floor, splintering into hundreds of blades that launched in every direction-toward the defending mortals.

Abyss's eyes sharpened.

"No."

Wind burst from his hands-razor clean-and sliced every blade mid-air. At the same time, he reached outward with invisible force, swirling the corrupted, suffocating air around the city.

He was manually cleaning the oxygen so people could breathe.

Tartarus hissed through the stones:

"Ah, how noble. Cleaning the air while your people die."

Abyss ignored him, focusing entirely on keeping the mortals alive.

From the ruins, dozens of hidden demigods burst out, shouting their group name:

"GODS' BASTARDS, MOVE OUT!"

They charged together at a titan whose fist alone could level an entire street.

The titan roared:

"YOU ARE LESS THAN DUST-"

The demigods braced together, swords crossed, bodies locked, shouting:

"HOLD-HOLD-!"

The titan's punch collided with them, and though it sent several flying, the line didn't break.

A younger demigod screamed:

"For Rome! For our lives!"

Above the battlefield, two gods combined their power into a single city-destroying blast.

A child whispered:

"Mama... that light..."

Before the beam could hit-

FLASH-SHING-!

A wall of armored heroes materialized out of thin air, cloaks flowing with divine brilliance.

They slashed the combined attack apart.

Their commander roared:

"BY THE NAME OF OUR GODDESS-RAGE!"

Not a single demigod understood what that meant the Elysium army spoke a forgin language

but every soldier on the battlefield screamed back instinctively:

"RAGE!"

The morale exploded.

Humans and demigods tore through monsters and gods alike.

High above, Elysium floated with her ever-present bow, firing arrow after arrow-precise, quick, perfect.

She shot down two corrupted gods in a row.

Then the remains of the Thalassie tribe.

Then a winged daemon.

But as the twelve ancient Titans emerged well 2-3 of them...spreading across the battlefield some Titans who is not of the 12, she felt her stomach twist

"No... even for me..."

She exhaled shakily.

"Deaths... casualties... are unavoidable."

For the first time in the battle, she lowered her bow and whispered:

"I can't save everyone."

Then she wiped her tears and shouted to her army:

"MY SOLDIERS! CASUALTIES ARE UNAVOIDABLE!"

Her voice shook the entire realm.

"FIGHT LIKE YOU FIGHT FOR YOUR OWN KINGDOM!"

A heavily armored hero ran up beside her, eyes burning.

"Goddess Elysium, shall we value the enemy's soul?"

She hesitated-only for a heartbeat.

Then she whispered:

"...No mercy."

The hero nodded, slammed his blade through a titan's chest, and repeated:

"No mercy."

And the battlefield echoed with that same cry:

"NO MERCY!"

"NO MERCY-!"

The siege had fully begun.

But abyss vs Tartarus ain't done

Tartarus expanded until he was no longer a figure at all-

he became a fortress, a living bulwark of corrupted stone stretching across the sealed dimension.

Abyss, only 6'9, looked like a speck in front of a moving mountain.

But he didn't hesitate.

He cracked his knuckles.

"You're nothing but a rusty wall."

Abyss launched himself upward-

-but a giant stone fist rose from the fortress and hit him mid-air.

BOOM-!

The punch hurled Abyss several kilometers into the dark sky.

Abyss grinned as he sailed upward.

"Perfect."

Now far from the mortals, he hovered in midair.

The wind around him turned black, twisting tightly against his skin.

He pulled his limbs inward-compressing himself into a dense sphere as the entire atmosphere went still.

A point formed at the center of his being.

A singularity.

Abyss whispered:

"Anchor: set."

Then he fired.

Gravity-shaped spheres-dark, crushing orbs-shot downward at the fortress-body of Tartarus. Each impact tore massive wounds into the ancient being, forcing the titan primordial to roar in shock.

Tartarus surged upward, a gigantic face forming from the stone, rushing after Abyss.

Two massive hands of rock formed behind Abyss, trying to crush the singularity like a ball.

Abyss said calmly, without turning around:

"You forgot something, Tartarus."

Tartarus froze.

"You can't hear me in here."

The singularity imploded-

INWARD.

Tartarus' body was dragged into the collapsing fold of space, shrinking forcefully as he was pulled inside.

The world blinked.

Abyss and Tartarus disappeared into Abyss's own rule, a pocket space made of void, pressure, and black wind.

The realm was pitch dark.

The air tasted like iron.

There was no up or down.

Abyss appeared first, floating effortlessly.

"I didn't want to reveal this..."

His eyes glowed white.

"...but you forced me to, Tartarus."

From his body, swirls of darkness peeled away-

souls, thousands of them-twisting into spectral hands.

They wrapped around the reduced Tartarus, gripping, pulling, restraining him.

Tartarus, now shrunk to fit the black hole's interior, bucked like a raging bull.

"RAAAAGH-!"

He reformed his body into bladed edges, stabbing Abyss-

but Abyss didn't move.

He simply hugged Tartarus with one arm.

"Now your power is mine."

Tartarus's eyes widened with something close to terror.

"I- I can't cage your soul-!

No-NO-this cannot be-!"

He thrashed violently.

He tried to kick Abyss away.

He tried to expand.

He tried to corrupt the void.

But nothing worked.

Abyss had abandoned his physical limits, becoming something closer to his true nature-

a voidborn, shapeless and impossible to trap.

They clashed in a blur, Tartarus clawing and ramming, Abyss striking with perfect precision. For the first time in existence, Tartarus felt what it was like to be on equal ground-

with no advantage.

Each blow from Abyss smashed the fortress-face left and right, forcing Tartarus into a corner of the domain that should have been infinite.

Finally, Tartarus snapped.

Stone cracked as he forced a doorway open in his chest.

"TOO BAD-

I AM NOT DEFEATED!"

The door inhaled the black hole itself-

-and the two were ripped back into the physical Rome dimension.

The city reappeared around them.

Tartarus roared in fury and summoned two colossal pillars, each the size of the entire empire, tipping them forward to crush the kingdom in one final act of destruction.

Abyss dropped to one knee-

his void form dissolving.

He needed a physical body.

Now.

He forced himself back into his own form just as Tartarus kicked him.

Abyss slammed into the ground so hard the stone cracked beneath him. His vision flickered. He almost lost consciousness.

Almost.

But then he saw the pillars falling upon Rome.

And he remembered the mortals.

The demigods.

Leyla.

Elysium fighting alone.

He forced out one breath:

"Stop... that... madness."

Wind exploded from his back.

He shot upward, forming solid wind-ropes-

unbreakable bindings-

connecting the two falling pillars.

Then Abyss grabbed those ropes.

Every muscle in his body screamed.

Every vein bulged.

The pillars kept falling.

Abyss roared:

"HOLD-!"

And the chapter ends with:

Abyss, alone, holding back two empire-sized pillars, wind tearing the sky apart, Rome shattered beneath him, Tartarus laughing somewhere in the dark-

-and the fate of the empire hanging by the threads of his wind.