New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

After dashing out of the room and corridor, Astaroth ended up in the study again. He forwent taking a long way out, and busted through one of the large windows.

As he did, he melded with Morpheus, and used the windowsill as a jumping board, launching himself into the sky with his newly sprouted wings. The guards searching the grounds below all became alarmed at the appearance of this flying monster.

Some even started firing at him with bows and crossbows. Astaroth activated Mana Skin, allowing him to focus less on dodging and more on searching.

He barely had to move, as most arrows just bounced off the layer of mana protecting him. Astaroth closed his eyes and cracked his mouth open.

A barely perceptible high-pitched hum left his lips at regular intervals. He had infused the waves with mana, making them slightly more powerful, and increasing the range they travelled.

After a few seconds, Astaroth had already discerned an area that had weird echoes, and he opened his eyes, pivoting to look at that spot. His Perfect Mana Sense still enabled, he noticed the waves of mana warping around something invisible.

“Found you,” Astaroth mumbled, grinning maniacally.

He rapidly pulled out his bow, booking an arrow and aiming at the weird phenomenon. He used his Piercing Shot skill, infusing the arrow with wind mana, before letting it loose.

The arrow blazed forward, forming a whirlwind behind it, as it impacted a hard surface. To the bystander guards, the arrow seemed to drill through the air, as it wasn’t moving from its spot.

But a crack suddenly appeared in the air itself, before a sound of glass shattering echoed across the manor grounds. A bellowing screech soon followed it with an unnatural echo to it.

In the spot where there was previously nothing, there was now a young woman, standing still, with an arrow embedded into her shoulder. Hovering over her head and back, a tall shadow of a humanoid creature.

The woman had an empty stare, as she looked at Astaroth, her skin pale as death. Astaroth couldn’t even feel any mana coming from her, and he assumed she was dead.

“Intruder in the west yard!” a guard shouted, seeing the black shadow-covered woman.

The shadow snapped its head toward the guard, and not a second later, his head exploded, sending blood flying on his nearby colleagues.

When the shadow’s head, or what Astaroth assumed was a head since its eyes were there, landed back on him, he felt a slight pang in his brain before hearing a notification.

*Mind Over Body activated. Resisted ??? mental affliction.*

Astaroth grew cautious.

‘A mental status that even the system can’t name. That isn’t ominous at all…’

The shadow’s eyes turned to slits, when it noticed Astaroth was still in the sky, intact. The woman’s dead body suddenly shuddered.

Her mouth opened.

“You dare interfere, mortal? I will eat your soul!”

The voice didn’t come out of the open mouth, but instead echoed all around the body, like it was coming from the air itself. Every word came with a slight mental weight, which was barely enough to bother Astaroth.

But the guards below weren’t as mentally resilient as him, and their ears were already bleeding, as they howled in pain, dropping to their knees.

Astaroth tried scanning his target, but the interface was glitching madly. He wasn’t able to discern anything.

‘Another ominous thing,’ he thought.

Astaroth decided there was no time to waste. Since the General had told him he couldn’t hold back the curse for long, Astaroth went for speed over caution.

He dived forward, switching out his weapon from the bow to his war axe. While he descended, the creature howled at him, trying to claw him out of the sky.

Astaroth deftly dodged the strikes, making his way to the inanimate body tied to the shadow. He immediately used his Decapitation Strike skill, intent on ending things in one blow.

His axe plunged through the shoulder where the arrow was still lodged, meeting almost no resistance, before slicing cleanly through it, all the way down.

ƥαṇdαηθνε|

Tendrils of dark energy were holding the two parts of the body together, slowly bringing the parts back into one piece. Astaroth was fascinated by what was happening, but he shook his head.

A life was at stake, after all. He had no time to admire the creature’s resilience.

A rapid bout followed, as the shadow tried to kill its assailant, and Astaroth was trying to figure out a way to slay it. Their attacks kept hitting each other, but only Astaroth took damage.

A frown was creeping up on his face, as he noticed his attacks were ineffective.

‘Why is it still alive? It should have died by now, or at least taken damage.’

Astaroth looked at the health bar over the monster, and it was still entirely green. Meanwhile, his was slowly turning redder by the second.

He tried another tactic, jumping back, before unleashing a volley of spells at the entity. But, yet again, there was no damage being registered.

He assumed maybe the shadow had physical damage immunity, so he swapped to magic. Khalor’s ghosts had been the same, after all.

But he was still doing nothing to it.

‘This makes no sense. Why would they make a creature with no way to kill?’

But suddenly, a bolt of golden-white lightning struck the shadow from the side. Its health bar immediately showed some change as the entity screeched in pain.

Astaroth’s head snapped to where the bolt had come from, and saw the Baron, standing on the windowsill he had burst from. The Baron was wielding a thick white shield emblazoned with a golden cross.

In his other hand, he was wielding a mace, similar to the one Silent Light had.

‘A Paladin!’ Astaroth shouted internally, becoming excited.

“Die, you foul creature! Go back to hell, where you belong!” the Baron shouted, before launching another attack.