New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Reaching the first set of windows and vaulting through them, Athena landed inside an outer ring room. She swiftly ran out, heading for the center room, where Leon had gone back to napping.

When she barged into his room, the lion-man turned his head to her with a look of annoyance.

“Can’t a man get a cat nap undisturbed in here?”

“Leon. Astaroth told me to come to you if a monster entered the trap zone, that you would deal with it.”

“Yeah. Is there one?”

“Yes, and he’s killing our members, along with the invaders. Can you do something about it?”

Leon yawned loudly.

“Maybe later. For now, you guys can take care of you.”

“It’s your job!”

“Listen, archer girl. I don’t take orders from you. Bug off.”

Athena felt wronged by what Leon said. It was true that, technically, Leon wasn’t under her orders.

But Astaroth had said he would obey. And now he was sending her away like a servant.

But Athena would not take no for an answer. She lifted her bow back, pointing an arrow at Leon’s head.

“Astaroth said you would obey, and obey you will. If I have to force you, I will.”

Leon didn’t react to her threats.

Athena’s teeth clenched hard as she released the arrow on her bowstring. Leon suddenly jerked up, reaching his hand forward to catch the projectile.

But as the arrow arrived close to his hand, it disappeared. Then a stinging sensation flared up on the beast-man’s shoulder.

Turning his head, he noticed the arrow lodged in his shoulder blade. He turned his head toward Athena, eyes filled with anger.

Leon took a step forward, suddenly appearing right in front of Athena. The woman almost jumped in surprise, but contained the outburst.

Leon was staring at her in the eyes, from close enough that she could see the specks of light deep within his pupil. Athena withstood his stare, showing some anger of her own.

“Astaroth said you would move if a monster were within our trap zone. Well, there is one now. So, move.”

Leon low growled, the staccato in it sending shivers down Athena’s spine, but she stood strong. Seeing his intimidation tactic wasn’t working, the beast-man sighed loud.

“Fine! I’ll go. I just wanted to take a nap first, but it seems like work comes first. Just point me in the right direction, bow-lady.” .𝘯𝘵

Athena contained her relief. She didn’t want the lion to see her sweating buckets yet.

“The beast came in through the west. I saw it coming at first, but when I focused on something else, I lost his presence. He somehow got inside the Bastion with no one else noticing.”

Leon barely looked at her while she explained. He was already walking towards the nearest direct exit to the palace, yawning and stretching as he walked away.

Athena followed him.

“I don’t know exactly what the monster is, since when I tried locating it, he locked on me and pushed my skill away.”

“Did you see its eyes?” Leon asked, slightly curious which of his enemies he would fight.

But before Athena could respond, a roar came from within the trap zone. The roar was much lower in tone than Leon, and the reverberation inside it was also different.

Leon instantly knew who it was.

“No need to answer. I know which one it is. It seems like he’s healed from our last fight. Good. Let’s settle this.”

“Wait!”

But she couldn’t finish asking, as the guardian blasted away in the roar’s direction.

“Fuck! I hope he takes his fight further away. He’ll ruin Phoenix’s plan if he razes the forest to the ground inside the trap zone.”

Athena kept muttering to herself as she climbed back up the tree. She silently hoped Leon would be smart enough not to destroy the base in his pissing contest.

***

Back at the mobile graveyard’s location, Khalor was locked in pursuit of Azamus. The darned gnome kept kiting him out of reach.

He could have caught him if he used all his stronger undead, but he needed them to control the spawning players. And their load was becoming heavier and heavier, as the players dying outside and inside of the bastion were all trying to respawn here.

He no longer even had enough leeway to help Astaroth with the black puma. Not that he seemed to need the help.

Astaroth was about to run out of melding time with Morpheus, which would force him back to the ground to fight his opponent. But he was fine with that.

In those close to four minutes, he had dropped the monster by half its health, and he knew he could finish it soon enough. He had even summoned Genie to help, withdrawing her from the trap zone.

All the time he was away from it, Genie had kept prowling, attacking players and then leaving them to get killed by others. Her efforts had eased the guerilla tactic a lot.

But now, she was needed here more. Astaroth mentally ordered her to help take down the spawning players as a priority, and help him with the puma when she could.

For now, everything was under control.

As for things on Phoenix’s side, she seemed to be close to entering the mausoleum. From the small hole she had already melted, they could see another player inside, praying in front of a large stone cross.

It was easy to conclude he was the one keeping the place active. Phoenix was eyeing him ravenously while she kept punching with abandon at the melting stone doors.

***

On the frontline of the Bastion, just outside the walls, the first beast finally fell to the efforts of Killi and his officers. He rapidly dispatched his men to help against the other zone bosses, since he would need them to counter the three assaulting the graveyard.

Everything was falling back into the normal order for the sieging side. As long as Paragons had no hidden trump card, this could still end in a victory for them.

Little did they know that Paragon’s strongest ally was just now about to start his fight against another powerful enemy.

Leon was staring down at the white tiger that was inside the trap zone, vanishing pixels of dead players floating around him.

“So we meet again, you wretched false king,” the humongous tiger said.

“Who are you calling a false king, you lonely cat? You can’t be a king if you don’t have subjects,” Leon replied.

Both of them stared into each other’s eyes. At a minute twitch of its tail, the tiger lunged at Leon. Their battle had started.