New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

But there were no monster corpses or remnants anywhere for them to glean what type of enemy they would face. As they dove further in, the map to the dungeon explored for them already, since they joined a party already inside, they directed themselves toward the green blips on their map.

Strangely, there was no miasma anywhere to be seen, or any demonic mana remnants floating in the air. Astaroth frowned as he clearly saw the particles emanating from the portal.

"Something is wrong. There seems to be no trace of demonic mana here, but I saw some on the portal."

Phoenix flew next to him as they zoomed across the empty streets.

"Maybe the demonic mana or miasma is only further inside the dungeon."

Astaroth nodded his head, her words a possibility.

They moved forward much faster than the group had since there were no monsters to fight, and in a few minutes, reached the boss zone. There was no door to the boss zone, or barrier delimitating the zone.

Only an open town square, with a well in the center. But no ally in sight.

Astaroth and Phoenix could see the green dots on their map, and it showed the party was right next to them, moving around as if fighting. But the players were nowhere to be seen.

Astaroth looked around, trying to find what could cause this. Was it an illusion?

Were the players here but they couldn't see them? But in his inspection, his mind crossed over the well, and something caught his attention.

A flicker of mana escaped the top of the well, and Astaroth frowned.

As he neared the stone well, he noticed a mana fluctuation coming from it.

"I think I found something!" he called out to Phoenix.

She quickly flew over to him, landing on the ground.

"What is it?"

From this close, she could feel the mana coming from the well, and she knew something was amiss. But she couldn't tell what it was.

Her mana vision was more of a mana sensing, and she couldn't see the mana.

"This surface… It looks like an illusion. I can sense mana in the well, like something is there, and can see a thin veil of mana. I think this is the way to the boss room."

Phoenix looked inside the well and could see a reflection of herself and the sky, deep below, like looking at still water. But she trusted the words of Astaroth.

"Only one way to find out," she said.

Following this, she hopped over the well wall and plunged into the hole. Instead of splashing into the water at the bottom of the well, she passed through a viscous matter that felt like passing through jello, and ended up twenty feet above the ground, in an enclosed area.

She immediately combusted herself again, catching her fall and taking flight, and gasped at what she saw below. Right behind her, Astaroth passed through the gelatinous mana membrane, flapping his wings as he entered the true boss room.

Down below them, all six players were running around, but something was amiss.

There was no boss monster to be seen, and neither was there any miasma. But Astaroth could sense a demonic entity's presence, the mana signature heavy in the air.

He scanned all the players below, most of them already on the cusp of dropping dead, and found the culprit.

The heavily armoured human, Galtion, was oozing demonic mana. Over the right side of his face, a thin veil of demonic mana was floating, forming the ugly face of a demon.

Astaroth quickly understood that the room must have been heavy with miasma when they entered it, and one person ended up being the host to it.

Galtion's health bar was flashing red, his HP stuck at one point, but regardless of the greataxe slashes that SharpTusk was landing on him, it wasn't budging.

'Shit… We should have brought a priest,' Astaroth thought.

But there was no time to go back and fetch one.

The gnome in the party, Food Goblin, was running from Galtion, fear clear on his face, as his health bar was also teetering close to empty. Galtion chased after him, almost hitting him many times, but getting intercepted by the Orc player, who tried his best to keep his party alive.

"When are the reinforcements gonna get here?!" SharpTusk shouted.

Barely was he done speaking those words, that he dropped his guard on Galtion, and the possessed human flashed away from him. When he reappeared, his demonic face morphing to a manic grin, he was right before Food Goblin, spear raised, as it flashed countless times toward the Gnome.

Food Goblin closed his eyes, expecting this to be his demise. But no pain came.

Only the sound of metal clashing on metal.

When he reopened his eyes, in between him and his used-to-be friend, stood a tall man, with wings larger than himself, wielding a sword just as fast as the spear, parrying every blow, before kicking away Galtion.

"Luna! Moonlit Sanctuary! Now!"

As Astaroth said that, he used his right wing to push the gnome away from himself and into the group of players further behind. Luna stood before them, smiling brightly.

"Aye aye, Papa!"

The little Ash Elf girl, with a crown of antlers and eyes of milky white, raised her arms. As soon as she did, a large beam of pure white light smashed into the ground, enveloping all the players, as they felt their bodies regenerating suddenly.

Astaroth sighed at the 'Papa' she said, but let it slide for now. He had more urgent matters to attend to.

Before him, the human dragoon was flailing his spear around in a weird motion, screaming his lungs out.

"No! No! No! You can't interrupt my hunt! You pesky pointy ears! You must die! Die! Die DIE!"

The demonic face suddenly screeched, the mana inside Galtion exploding outward, kicking up a gust of wind and a cloud of dust.

Astaroth knew this was only the beginning.