New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

The boss coughed out a spurt of blood, as it burned his internal organs to ashes in its trajectory, and the rest were gravely seared. But this triggered the boss' enrage.

Leon's size ballooned one more time, forcing all the vines holding him to burst. The ice encapsulating his paws also cracked from the sudden expansion.

*RROOAARR!!*

With nothing holding him down anymore, all the players on the ground immediately palled. Phoenix, who was right there in front of Leon, almost had a cardiac arrest.

She stepped back promptly; her form dissipating as she did. Her back step put her safely behind Gulnur, amid her party.

Attacks were still raining on Leon, but he ignored them. The boss cocked his head backward as gouts of fire escaped his mouth.

"He's gonna spit flames! Get behind me!" Gulnur shouted.

"Bastion of Stone!"

Slamming his shield into the ground, the rock rapidly expanded from the point of impact. Gulnur braced his body against the shield.

Another player jumped into action as well. Silent Light, who had been praying all this time, was finally ready to act.

He was charging a spell that could save them if everything failed, and now seemed like an appropriate time to use it.

"Solari Sanctum!"

He raised his mace to the skies as a beam of pure white light struck down from the heavens. The light hit his mace, before exploding outward from it, forming a bubble of white light.

It enveloped the entire party, barely reaching Gulnur. At the same time, a massive and intense blaze struck his raised wall of stone.

Gulnur knew in seconds his spell wouldn't hold long enough. Only two seconds were left on it, and he could easily guess by the strength of the flames this would last much longer.

As his wall of stone melted away, the fire washed over the bubble of light. From inside, Gulnur could still feel the blazing heat as the flames licked the bubble upwards.

"How long do we have, Silent?" Phoenix asked her healer.

"The spell will give us ten seconds of protection. If the boss isn't done spitting fire by then, we are screwed."

Phoenix looked back at the boss monster, her eyes analytic. She could tell by the speed and pressure the flames were coming out of its mouth that it would last longer than ten seconds.

"Come on, Astaroth. It's now or never," she whispered to herself.

While all this was happening, Astaroth had been flying upwards into the tree's canopy. The height of the first branches surprised him.

Even though he could tell the tree was enormously tall, he would have thought the first branches would be lower. It took him a full minute of flying upward to get to a point he could land.

From this height, his allies and friends looked like ants, and only the boss was big enough to recognize at first sight. Even though he wanted to take some time to watch the scenery from up there, he had a job to do.

His goal for coming here was that he wanted to be a certain distance away, so he could gather Aether faster and unperturbed. He melded with Luna, immediately starting his siphoning.

He could see the fight going on down there, and was impressed when he saw a massive jet of blue flames erupt out of nowhere. But the lion's roar made him realize he had less time than he thought.

Phoenix's damage had greatly shortened his window. When Leon snapped his head back, Astaroth was in an excellent position to see the fire accumulating in it.

"Shit. I can't charge anymore."

Astaroth had wanted to charge a maximum of Aether to cast a Moon Beam point-blank on Leon, but he didn't have enough time. He jumped down the branch, letting himself fall.

He would fall for at least eight seconds, so he activated Thousand Thoughts, to give himself some more time to think. He had to think of some miracle to take down Leon, lest they fail.

Astaroth refused to have wasted all this time. As he fell, his mind thinking at an incredibly fast speed, an idea came to mind.

'Can it work? It's going to have to.'

Astaroth pulled out his shortbow. He nocked an arrow and aimed at the boss' head. Since his mind was still in overdrive, he had time to think his plan through and know when to take action.

ραпdα---nᴏνa| сom He could see the golden white bubble protecting his allies slowly shimmer. It was about to break.

It would then bathe his party in flames and disintegrate them. Astaroth took action.

He pushed all the Aether he had accumulated inside his body, and instead of using a spell with it, he shoved it into the arrow tip, almost like he was enhancing it.

The poor-quality metal was not made to suddenly house this kind of pure power, and he could already see the arrowhead wobbling.

He let the arrow fly as its descent went straight to the lion's head. On impact, the arrowhead imploded, releasing all its pent-up energy in all directions.

A flash of bright white light emanated from the point of impact. Astaroth, who was still in the last seconds of his Thousand Thoughts spell, saw everything happen in slow motion.

The wave expanded, washing over the protective spell Silent was holding. Leon's head was blasted into the ground, the impact knocking him out instantly, and shaving away almost the entirety of his remaining HP.

Astaroth watched as the wave came towards him, slowly but certainly. He pulled out his shield, enhancing it, casting Mana Skin, and tucking himself behind it.

This was a Hail Mary, as far as he was concerned, since he knew it would never block the damage coming at him entirely. He just hoped it would be enough to keep him alive.

As his spell ended, the wave of white light swallowed him.