New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Standing on the outside of the magic barrier, many players were smacking on it, trying to see if it had a durability bar or something. But even after hundreds of hits, it didn’t even seem to dim.

Most of the smaller guilds started becoming displeased. Someone had baited them here with the prospect of a fortress from which to grow into bigger guilds.

But ever since the top ten guilds had stepped foot near this battlefield, they had taken control of it, and had used them as cannon fodder.

And now, they couldn’t even enter if they wanted to. There was no way of knowing how long this would last, either.

The situation suddenly looked terrible for them. Their members had lost levels by the handful, and there was still no capture in sight.

When the first smaller guild gave up, it rapidly created a domino effect. One after the other, smaller guilds grabbed their members and supplies and left the battlefield.

But when Aces High tried holding onto the resources of one small guild on their side of the siege, conflict rapidly erupted. It spread like wildfire, with complaints and shouting suddenly happening everywhere.

Killi started hearing the shouts, and his face became sombre. He didn’t even need to read the influx of reports in his guild chat to know where the trouble had started.

By the subject alone, he knew the culprit.

‘This fucking kid, I swear!’ Killi fumed.

He rapidly went around his zone, assuring the small guilds that no one would touch their supplies, even threatening some of the medium-sized guilds to back off, or else.

This caused a lot of grumbling, but the medium guilds knew better than to confront a larger guild like the Knights of the Sun. That was like signing a death warrant for their guild.

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Azamus was still comfortably sitting in a tree far behind the northern front. He hadn’t ordered his guild to grab the resources of the small guilds, but he was quite happy they did.

These supplies consisted mainly of potions, health and mana alike, and ammunition, arrows, bullets, and whatnot. Aside from the potions, everything held little value, but the potions were much more valuable.

The potions were useful, to keep his powerful members and officers on the battlefield longer. The model many guilds had adopted was that when their members were close to death, they would retreat, and heal up before going back in.

This had worked, mostly, against the side that didn’t have Khalor and Azamus on it. It had been a success to a lesser extent to the west, too, before Phoenix pulled a scorched earth tactic.

But Azamus didn’t care about the other guilds. Even if he was the last one standing, he was going to fight until he broke in and conquered the fortress.

He didn’t even want to keep it. He just wanted to smear shit on the face of Khalor, Astaroth, and Phoenix, who had blatantly disrespected him on many occasions.

As he saw Killi trying to run around and placate the guild leaders, Azamus felt only disdain for the man.

‘What a pushover. That’s why he’ll never be number one again. Who cares if people respect you? Power is absolute.’

Letting his emotions take over his judgement, Azamus locked his scope on Killi’s head, looking at him spin like a panicked chicken, trying to have everyone make peace again.

His finger hovered over the trigger, wanting nothing more than to pull it. But as he rested his finger on it, a sharp object pushed against his carotid, making his heart freeze.

“Blue. What a displeasure to see you here,” he growled.

“Are you trying to start a war, you childish idiot? You know full well that most guilds will align with the Knights. Don’t be stupid, for once in your life.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, you crappy assassin. I could take all of you with my Aces High. And I still have my sights on Killi. I doubt you can one hit kill me, and I will get my shot in.”

“Are you willing to test your theory out?”

Saying this, Blue Peacock’s blade dug into Azamus’ flesh a bit, making a trickle of blood form.

“Tch. Fine. But I’m keeping the resources I stole. They’re mine now.”

He lifted his finger from the trigger, resting it over it on his gun’s body.

“I don’t care about the animosity you garner with the small guilds. That is yours and their problem. But don’t think for a second you can do the same with the ten top guilds.”

Blue lifted her blade away, vanishing from where she stood. Azamus spun around, trying to lock his sights on her, but he couldn’t find her.

“Hmph! Bitch! I’ll have your head too, one day.”

Returning to his crouched position, Azamus dragged his sights across the battlefield. He was half tempted to shoot the small guilds and their inconsequential members.

But he restrained himself, thinking them a waste of bullets. He was already happy with having taken down Khalor.

He never got a lock on Astaroth, who was moving around so much, and so fast, that tracking him was like trying to shoot a fly’s wings off.

Since the large guilds shared a part of their info, he knew Phoenix had used a skill to boost herself, that had caused her to become incapacitated after. He was hoping Astaroth had used the same.

If that were the case, then the moment he would have slowed down, Azamus would have blown his head off. But that never came to happen.

Seeing him practically teleport back inside his fortress had put a big tamper on Azamus’ anticipation. He already thought of Astaroth as being a coward for being such a slippery bastard.

But seeing him retreat like that made him fume in anger.

“I’ll get my chance, and you will go down,” the gnome muttered, keeping his eye glued to the scope on his rifle.