New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

***Back to Astaroth***

*Bang!*

As the gong resounded in the arena, Astaroth instantly melded with White, and dodged an incoming bullet. He barely stepped aside as it brushed through his newly grown fur.

Astaroth quickly re-adjusted his footing and launched forward. This wasn’t like earlier, where the jungle permitted a nice retreat path for the gunner.

Azamus had minimal space to jump back to, so he would have to run in circles. But Astaroth’s speed was immensely higher than his, and it would not work.

Azamus had watched Astaroth’s fights and had quickly understood that his mindset on this player was wrong. By all measures, he was a noob, but his strength alone made him a tough opponent.

Azamus hoped his opponent would play defensively, because that would let him kite all he wanted. But Astaroth was not planning on being defensive.

As the latter dashed in a straight line to his enemy, he made sure to at least keep his head in movement, to not take any headshots. And that helped him greatly, as the gnome before him kept aiming at it.

Of course, that meant that even though the bullets didn’t hit his head, they still hit his body. So Astaroth’s health points were slowly getting chipped away.

But that didn’t concern the man much, if at all, since the fight would be over soon. As Azamus was firing another shot, his back hit the platform’s barrier, meaning he was out of space.

His eyes went wide in panic. He was a pro player and knew to always keep his environment in mind. But he seethed in anger, and that cost him his focus and clouded his judgement.

Now with his back against the wall, and the enemy so close, his only move left was one he didn’t want to take.

Azamus pulled out a round object from his belt and launched it violently at the ground.

*Boom!*

As soon as the ball-like object hit the ground, it exploded in a powerful blast of fire, mixed with metal shrapnel and bits of the stone floor, creating a similar effect to a frag grenade.

This hit Astaroth and he lost a good chunk of his health, but he wasn’t the only one. Even though much of the blast erupted forward, the gust of wind and floor debris still flew backwards, hitting Azamus.

The gnome lost a substantial amount of health to this tactic and was now kneeling on the floor, looking at the debris cloud, hoping his stratagem had paid out.

Sadly for him, what came next was not what he wished for. A white form sped out of the debris, blood all over it, and its claw grasped the gnome’s small throat.

“That hurt.” Astaroth said with a grin.

“But it didn’t hurt enough.” He added.

As Astaroth said that, Azamus swapped out his rifle to automatic mode and aimed the muzzle at Astaroth’s stomach. But before he could get a single shot off, the Astaroth shoved him into the ground with much force.

The impact blew all the air out of Azamus’ lungs, leaving him gasping on the floor. But Astaroth had no intention of letting him catch his breath.

He swung his foot back and kicked the gnome’s head like he was a footballer during kickoff. The last bit of health on Azamus’ health bar instantly vanished, as his head did the same from the force of impact.

A spray of blood splashed across the transparent barrier enclosing the area, making a small flourish of red.

‘They really went all in with the details.’ Astaroth thought to himself.

This whole fight had taken less than a minute, and with Azamus dead, he reappeared in the center of the platform, fuming in rage.

All his attack options were locked and he couldn’t even walk toward his opponent, as he watched the blood spatter from afar.

“I will make you pay for this!” Azamus spat, his small face red with anger.

“Yeah yeah, I know you will. I’ll be waiting.” Astaroth replied, not even looking toward the pro player.

He had already focused his gaze on the small screens before him. When he saw he could observe the still ongoing combats, his smile widened.

This meant he could gather info on the participants to make some plans. Of course, there were too many fights and too many contestants for him to adequately prepare, but he could form some basic strategies.

Meanwhile, Azamus was still cursing at him, spit flying out of his mouth with every word. But Astaroth had already tuned his voice out of his head.

He threw rapid glances at his previous allies, and could see that most of them were having an easy time with their current fights. But two of them were in a tougher situation.

Gulnur and I’die were currently locked in heated combat against two pro players. They were currently winning, but only by a small margin.

Gulnur was up against someone Astaroth was familiar with, Morticia. He knew that regardless of all his defences, mental attacks would still go through it.

‘You ended up against the worst kind of opponent. Bad luck.’ Astaroth mumbled to himself.

ƥαṇdα- ηθνε|·ƈθm

It took a while before Astaroth finally recognized the woman, and his eyes slightly narrowed at the thought. This was a very experienced fighter, against a very inexperienced one.

I’die had no chance of winning. Even if he was currently higher in health, he guessed it was only because of the start of combat.

He had most likely gained an early advantage, which the woman was already eating away, little by little.

‘Poor kid.’ Astaroth thought.

Athena and Phoenix were crushing their opponents. Phoenix was practically finished with hers, and Athena was following close behind.

Astaroth looked at the scoreboards and quickly found out that Phoenix had lost her first match. He made an educated guess who could have bested her, but he couldn’t watch the man fight, as his combat was already done.

“I can’t wait to fight you.” Astaroth said in a low tone, his hand fisting up.

Excitement filled him up, anticipation for the next round making him antsy.

“I’ll make it to the end, and we shall see who is the strongest.” He said, grinning.