New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

But crossing the gate, something was odd. They ended up inside a stone tunnel that spanned about fifty feet, before opening back up.

Exiting the tunnel, the players invading the Bastion ended up in a round stone enclosure measuring about three hundred feet in diameter. And in the middle of this hundred-meter wide circle, a single man.

Astaroth smiled when he saw the enemies finally make it to him.

"Ahh, finally. I can have some fun too, now."

He chuckled, eliciting some anger from his counterparts. Even if all the players present knew who they were facing, and that he was reputed for fighting large groups and winning, they wouldn't just take the insult lying down.

The rashest players lunged forward, intent on making him swallow his words. The others spread out, letting the tunnel entrance free, and trying to surround Astaroth.

Astaroth laughed even more at their tactics. In a normal situation, players getting surrounded spelled doom.

But Astaroth wasn't any player. His newly gained special grade, as well as his melded stats, made him the equivalent of a boss monster.

Albeit not a dungeon boss, but a zone boss, at the least.

When the first player had almost reached him, Astaroth had already melded with white. The change in appearance put the players on edge, warning them of his increased stats.

But these weren't just random players on the street of Sunpeak. They were players in a guild, backed with a modicum of training and some experience.

But against overwhelming power, it mattered not.

Astaroth pulled out Ad Astra, infusing it with mana. He wanted to go for a new weapon, this time, and envisioned an oversized metal bat.

The weapon changed in a flash of white light, becoming a club-looking metallic object. Astaroth had thought of it having something to cut or pierce, but since the image in his head wasn't specific enough, the Ad Astra interpreted his answer.

Instead of the most common protruding spikes, the weapon had serrated-looking blade tips every other inch. It looked like swirls of metal coating the exterior of the club.

When the player dashing at Astaroth first reached the weapon's range, the latter swung horizontally. With a whooshing sound, the club struck him in the face, with impact strength far higher than its apparent weight.

Astaroth felt like the weapon was super light, but the force at which it smacked into the other player's face belied a hefty weight. He didn't care why that was, for now, and simply watched the man get flung away like a baseball, getting hit by a professional ballplayer.

The man in question flew from the center of the arena-like enclosure and impacted the wall heavily, losing what little health he had left after the first hit. As he vanished into pixels, all the other players froze.

Swinging his club on his shoulder like a small-time gangster, Astaroth snickered at them.

"Who's next?"

He didn't give them time to think or answer, though, as he suddenly vanished from where he was standing. Only the high-agility players could follow his movements, and everyone else simply saw him teleporting.

More and more players kept pouring into the closed circle, only to wonder where the others had gone. No matter how many of them entered the zone, it never seemed to fill up.

Of course, that wasn't to say that Astaroth took no damage. Many ranged attacks hit him while his back was turned, or some stray melee attack grazed him, dealing a bit of damage.

But in the grander scheme of things, what damage he received never even dented his health pool. And when it went down by one percent, it immediately filled back, because of his passive regen.

But, although the pillars of the Paragon guild were holding strong, many of their new players weren't as overpowered. Mistakes started happening amid high-risk combat, costing them their lives.

The more time elapsed, the more their wall defences thinned, and the situation would get dire rapidly. On the outside of the wall, standing on top of his legacy skill conjured door, Khalor was more and more agitated.

"Where are you, you slimy bastard?" Khalor growled.

His eyes were still scanning the battlefield and beyond, hoping to find the gnome he was looking for. But he was still unaccounted for.

Khalor even resorted to sending a message in the guild chat, asking anyone that saw him to report it to him. But, apart from messages from Phoenix about repositioning their mobile units, the rest were still silent.

He knew the damned gnome wasn't far, since he could feel his hate-filled stare on the back of his head. But as long as he didn't pinpoint him, he wouldn't move.

He was guarding the Death's Door, since it could be destroyed, and many players had already landed hits on it from afar. He had always sent commands to his stronger undead, to take care of these ranged threats, though.

His skill had already been active for five minutes, and would last another five, which was a long time, considering it poured out so many undead per second.

But something was off. He could feel some tingling in his nape, like something big was about to happen.

Scan the battlefield as he may, he couldn't pinpoint anything that could threaten him. But his sense kept tingling wildly.

His saving grace came from Phoenix, who had just looked to the skies over his area. She frantically sent a message to him in guild chat.

'Khalor! Look above you!'

Hearing the ding of a notification, Khalor rapidly went to the guild chat. When he read the message, he frowned and looked upward.

His heart dropped.

'Shit! These fuckers are here too.'