New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Even if she still used psychic attacks, dealing some form of damage, it was not nearly as much as before. And since the monsters assaulting Gulnur now died slower, his health started going down faster.

This caused a domino effect on Silent and I'die, who now had to heal Gulnur more often, draining their mana reserves quicker. The situation was quickly getting out of hand.

Phoenix knew she had to do something before they got wiped out. She started swirling her hands rapidly, conjuring flames around the stone walls protecting them.

The more she spun her hands, the more fire appeared, until the entire area they were in turned into a cocoon of fire. Astaroth looked on in amazement until another fact hit him.

He was stuck outside.

The monsters at the front rapidly backed away from the intense fire, howling and growling. Until they found someone they could vent their anger on.

Astaroth gulped. He furiously wrote in the group chat.

'Why didn't you warn me?! I'm stuck outside!'

Phoenix replied.

'There was no time. Silent was about to run out of mana, and Gulnur was in awful shape. Listen. I know this is bad, but you can outrun them.'

'I don't have a choice now, do I?! Next time just tell me first!'

Astaroth rapidly changed his meld to Morpheus. Even though his timer was greatly reduced, since the bat had been summoned, he had no other choice.

He bolted into the air, trying to distance himself from the horde of monsters as much as he could. The creatures were on his tail quicker than he'd hoped, and he knew that even if he got away for a while, his meld would end before he could completely outrun them.

'How long can you hold that defence?' he asked Phoenix in the chat.

'About thirty more seconds.'

'God dammit. Fine! I'll make sure I bring as many as I can away. But you all better come help me as soon as you can!'

Astaroth closed his chat interface, not wanting to get distracted. He focused his mind on one thing, and one thing only. Getting as far from his party as he could.

This would sound stupid in any gamer's mind, since the party was a synonym for survival and combat power in almost all cases. But this wasn't the case right now.

Astaroth knew he would have at least some chance of surviving on his own, whereas his party members would almost certainly die on their own. And since they were in dire straights already, it fell on him to become the sacrificial lamb.

As he flew away from the burning dome of flames, he saw that almost all the monsters followed him. He had become like a beacon in the night for them.

Astaroth navigated away from the monsters on his tail, entering parts of the map that Athena hadn't scouted. He knew that entering uncharted zones was stupid, but it was his only choice.

Every other place he wanted to go was crawling with enemies. Only the uncharted rooms were empty.

As he kept flying, watching how long he had left fused, he stopped paying attention to the map. There was no point, since he was flying blind, anyway.

His constant looking back and looking at his interface caused another situation to arouse. He wasn't paying attention to where he was flying, and only noticed once it was too late.

His senses suddenly alerted him to mortal danger, and his head snapped to the front. Something was flying at him insanely fast and he had no time to dodge.

Astaroth instantly equipped his Ironbark Shield, enhancing it immediately, and reinforced his Mana Skin. As he finished doing those three actions, which took less than a second, he saw what was approaching.

His eyes widened.

The thing flying at him was a man, wearing light leather clothing and sporting a blonde mane that flowed behind him. The man got next to him, spinning on himself, and kicked at Astaroth.

Astaroth could see the air around the man's leg bend, and he knew this kick would hurt. As he braced himself behind his shield, lifting it to meet the kick, he clenched his jaw.

When the leg impacted the shield, Astaroth felt as if he was trying to stop a runaway train. Since he wasn't on the ground, he had nothing to brace his body on, and the impact sent him flying like a comet.

His body flew through many ruined buildings, along with trees, before slamming into the ground. Astaroth coughed out blood as the air left his lungs.

His health bar was flashing red, alerting him to his very near-death condition.

Astaroth stumbled to his feet, as something landed not far in front of him. When he raised his head, his stomach dropped.

The way the mana around the man reacted was already enough to tell him who that was. This was the zone boss.

His devilish grin and wild eyes stared at him.

"I'm surprised you survived that attack, humanoid scum. I guess you will be fun to play with until I eat you."

It almost tempted Astaroth to rebuke the man, and point out that he was a humanoid, too. But the feral energy he was giving off made him shudder, his mind screaming at him to flee.

Astaroth knew he was screwed, so he scanned him anyway.

*Beast King, Leon*

Level: 100

Grade: Semi-Legendary (Zone Boss)

HP: ???

MP: ???

The beast before him smiled widely as it felt the scan. It started walking towards him slowly, each step a threat to Astaroth's life.

"Yes. Look at me. Cower in fear. Your meat will taste even better."

The grin on his face, as drool dribbled down his mouth, would have scared any person into passing out.

But Astaroth wasn't impressed.

He opened up his message interface again.

'You better hurry and rejoin me. I found the boss.'

After sending that, he looked the half-beast man in the eyes.

"I've fought a dragon. You don't scare me much."

The beast stopped his step, his grin disappearing. A low growl of rage replaced it.

"We'll see how long you keep that courageous front."