New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

In another part of the battlefield, Gulnur had just replaced another tank that had died. He was one of the mobile players that moved around the siege the most.

When a tank died somewhere, he was called in to replace them, until they came back from the graveyard. Silent Light followed him around, mostly, and was constantly healing him.

It still amazed the priest player how much damage Gulnur could soak in, and dish back, before even being in danger. Many factors came into play for his ability to sustain damage.

Of course, as a core member of Paragons, Silent was privy to part of this information. One such factor was Gulnur’s special class.

Since the dwarven kid dedicated all his stat points and practice to becoming the perfect damage sponge, the system had unlocked him a special class called Defender.

This new class was a recent thing and had changed only a bit before they came to conquer the Bastion. But all its abilities pertained to reducing taken damage, some skills even staggering the damage over a duration.

And to top it all off, it unlocked combat health regen, which made Gulnur an even stronger damage soaker, since the healing he needed was reduced.

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Phoenix had put this in place so they wouldn’t lose their primary source of damage in any zone. It had worked up to now, with only very few casualties.

The graveyard that Silent reactivated was also a godsend. Since the players could revive and directly go back to combat, their effectiveness was almost fully maintained.

Of course, one minor issue arose from this. The level loss was slowly affecting their staying power.

Phoenix was not in a position where she could take focus away from her fight to redistribute the Exp in the guild tab to the players that had died. And the only other person who could access that function was currently battling more players than any other guild member.

Astaroth was knee-deep in enemies, fighting them off like a madman, a beastly grin on his lips. When Khalor’s Death Door had been blasted to pieces, the number of players suddenly running into the Bastion increased manifold.

Astaroth relished in the challenge, only getting more excited as time went on. His meld with‌ Morpheus had just ended, and he was back to melding with White.

He had already summoned Morpheus into battle, who was flying above while attacking with sonic attacks. Luna was charging at unsuspecting players, who were taken by surprise when she hit them.

Her size was still that of a fawn, but her damage was anything but small. Of course, she wasn’t able to one-shot many players, since most of them were built like bruisers.

But any player that had foregone putting points into constitution, was turned to pixels in a single charge. Astaroth, on the other hand, wasn’t having much trouble one-shotting most players.

His new grade, giving him more bonus stats, as well as his high stat points from melding with spirits, as well as the damage from his artifact weapon, was more than enough to tear through any non-tank class.

His eyes suddenly caught on someone he recognized. Standing at the entrance of the tunnel that led outside the gate was a tall undead man.

The particularity to this man, and the reason Astaroth recognized him instantly, was his lack of head on his shoulders. Below its normal fixture point, the head was tucked under his arm.

Astaroth grinned widely. He dashed forward, stopping only a few feet from the tall man.

“Declan! Have you come to get your second chance in combat? I was expecting you to come, eventually.”

While he said this, Astaroth kept fighting off players all around him, only barely throwing glances at the tall, hulking man. He wasn’t worried about being attacked by surprise by him.

Declan affixed his head back on his shoulders before responding to him.

“I will get my chance at fighting with you again. But it is not my reason for being here today.”

“Oh? Pray tell your motive, then.”

But instead of answering with his voice, Declan sent a private message to Astaroth. It surprised the latter, since he didn’t seem like the conniving type.

But when Astaroth opened the message, half expecting demands about a duel, his eyes widened. Immediately after that, he burst into laughter.

Astaroth nodded silently at the undead, and Declan pulled out his sword. Declan charged at Astaroth, swinging in a wide arc, missing him by a hair.

But while he missed Astaroth, he didn’t miss two other players who had chunks of health taken away from them.

“Hey! Watch where you’re swinging, big guy!”

“Yeah! Careful not to provoke our ‘Thieving Goblins’ guild! We will hunt you down!”

Declan looked at them with his glowing eyes inside his helmet, sending shivers down their spines.

“Then stay out of the way of the real men, scrubs.”

He turned his back to them, going after Astaroth again. The two men wanted to go after Declan, but they quickly noticed the goons standing not far, watching them with predatory eyes.

This scene happened a few more times, as Declan kept missing Astaroth, but hitting other players chasing after him. Astaroth was laughing internally.

He was splitting his focus on his interface right now, and Declan’s actions were keeping him semi-safe. Thinking back to the message he received, Astaroth couldn’t help but chuckle.

He completed his fiddling in the interface, closing it with a wide grin. A message soon followed in the guild chat.

*Guild leader Astaroth has completed a guild takeover, swallowing the ‘Irish Horsemen’ guild. Welcome to Paragons, Irish Horsemen!*

An influx of twenty-one new players filled in the guild roster, taking by surprise everyone in Paragons. The players from Irish Horsemen, seeing the change in their guild names, howled in excitement.

They all pulled their weapons out, hacking away at the surrounding enemies. Astaroth rapidly went on the full offensive, clearing out the stone bowl, as he affectionately called it.

He had a druid open a path on the back of it, ordering Declan and his followers to enter the Bastion.

“Welcome to the Paragons, boys! Now ask for instruction from Phoenix, our lovely vice leader. She will guide you to where you are most needed!”

The rowdy men all pushed through the tight opening, leaving Declan to enter last.

“Thank you for accepting us. I will expect you to make good on your end of the deal I asked for.”

Astaroth slapped his shoulder.

“I will come back to you about it. Thank you, Declan. Your help will be immensely appreciated and rewarded. Now go, so we can close this trap bowl up again!”

Declan nodded and walked through the small opening, which closed directly behind him.