New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Merging with the demon that shared his name, Astaroth felt the disdain the demon felt from being fused so deeply with a mortal. But there was nothing the demon could do about it.

Astaroth could already feel his perception of reality shift as he melded with the demon. He had noticed every demon perceived reality differently, and it was usually associated with their powers.

The demon Astaroth’s powers over illusions were closer to manipulating perception than actually conjuring illusions. This made his perception of the world one where nothing seemed quite right.

Right now, Astaroth was seeing the world in a shifting spectrum of psychedelic colours. His stomach turned, and he almost puked.

In his head, he heard demon Astaroth’s snarky commentary.

‘Kakakaka! Can’t even stand to look through my eyes. How do you expect to use my powers, foolish mortal?’

Not ten seconds in his mind, and he already wanted to punch the damned demon in the face.

‘Shut up, bottom feeder. I just need a moment to get used to it.’

*Ptou*

Spitting the acid bile that had gone up his throat, Astaroth steadied his body in an upright position again. He opened his eyes, taking in the psychedelic trip again, trying not to focus too much on one thing.

The shifting colours at least didn’t affect the shapes of things or their position. Once he was able to unfocus and view only peripherally, his stomach stopped churning, and his head stopped spinning.

In the meantime Genie was already ramming her stone-armoured body into the bear, smacking it with her large paws and aggressively biting at its body.

Astaroth looked at his gained skills swiftly, to know what powers he had while melded with demon Astaroth.

*Gained skills*

Mirage dance, Kaleidoscope, Distorting Touch

He briefly opened each skill, fast-reading them to understand their use. Largely speaking, each skill bounced off the others.

Kaleidoscope was the perception state he was in, that had an actual use, other than making him dizzy. It allowed the user to see through illusions, discerning them as real or not.

Distorting Touch allowed him to transfer a part of that to a target, by direct touch or proxy touch, with a weapon, for example. The part that was transferred was only the colour-shifting vision, though, and not the actual truth-seeing part.

And last, Mirage Dance bounced off the target, suddenly seeing the world unusually, to overload their sensory input of view. This allowed the user of Mirage Dance to make the target believe they were everywhere and nowhere at the same time, effectively erasing their presence from the target.

Astaroth thought it resembled a skill he had seen a certain Fey player use in the tournament, months ago. With this, he could fight the bear on unequal footing, making their combat easier.

Of course, he didn’t just gain skills from this meld. Demon Astaroth may be a small fry on the scale of demon beings in the ring, but that didn’t mean he was weak.

Glancing at his stats, he was impressed. The demon may not be on par with Luna, but he wasn’t far behind.

With the stats he gained, he assumed the demon was at least a rare grade and around level seventy or seventy-five. His stats had boosted a good amount.

Taking a step toward the bear, he reappeared right next to it. His agility was currently sitting at four hundred and forty-eight.

This effectively meant he travelled at a hundred and twelve meters per second. This translated to roughly four hundred kilometres per hour, or two hundred and fifty miles per hour.

Every time he took a step, he reached speeds you would see in a car on a lemans circuit. Even the agility-oriented players were far from reaching this speed currently.

Reaching the bear’s side, he stabbed forward a dozen times with his estoc in hand. This happened in the blink of an eye, and the bear suddenly had twelve puncture wounds on its side.

The system couldn’t register every individual attack, since it went too fast, but instead calculated as one instance of damage.

*76,189!*

The damage was much greater than Astaroth expected, and he almost coughed in surprise. Scanning the bear once more, he looked at its health.

*Giant Blood Bear (Corrupted)*

Level: 49

Grade: Special (Zone Boss) ．

Health: 44,847/124,400

Mana: 1,740/1,740

·?θm Even if the monster could regenerate at ten percent per second of its health, it was no match for Astaroth in this form. Demon Astaroth could read his thoughts while they were melded, and chuckled in his mind.

‘Kakakaka. Relishing in the power you stole from me, mortal? Enjoy it while it lasts.’

Astaroth had almost momentarily forgotten this trash was inhabiting his mind space.

‘Shut up. Remember that I beat you on equal footing. I’m still the better of the two.’

He felt a spike of rage in his body, which was reacting to his words to the demon’s emotions. He wanted to laugh, but the body jerking in response was already a bad sign.

He knew he wasn’t a hundred percent in control. Just like when Asmodeus had talked through his body.

‘These demons may be under my control, but only barely…’ he thought.

He needed to find a way to make his soul stronger, and soon. But in the meantime, he decided he was going to wipe the floor with every corrupted monster in the vicinity.

Ending the bear’s life in another burst of flourishes, Astaroth dashed toward the smaller enemies right after, letting Genie go fight on her own, too.

As the monsters rapidly started dying to his incredible strength, Astaroth felt a few stings in his chest, like something was pricking him on the inside.

Once the last corrupted monster dropped dead, and he unmelded with demon Astaroth, he felt something hot go up his throat.

*cough cough*

Putting his hand in front of his mouth reflexively, Astaroth’s eyes widened when he saw what came out of his mouth. Blood, and lots of it.

Feeling his vision become blurry, Astaroth called out to Genie.

“Take me somewhere safe. I think I overdid it…”

He didn’t get to hear her response, as he fainted before she replied.