New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

After her speech, which was a little longer this time, chairwoman Constantine wished luck to everyone and disappeared from the sky. The graph once again replaced her.

Blue Peacock had walked over to Astaroth, stopping right in front of him.

"I hope our fight will bring me as much enjoyment as I had with your friend. I will be going at full power from the start. Don't disappoint me," she told him, looking straight into his eyes.

"I will do my best to entertain you as best I can. That is, before I vanquish you," Astaroth replied, giving his most innocent smile.

Blue smirked at the comment, but said nothing. As she walked away, a smile crept on her face, and her blood began boiling in excitement.

She had, of course, watched all of Astaroth's combats, and knew he was a worthy foe. She could not contain her anticipation, as her mind was already playing different scenarios and strategies.

Their turn came soon after, as they teleported into the arena. Blue pulled out her Kamas, twirling them in anticipation. Astaroth also pulled out two weapons, taking out his longsword in his dominant hand and his shortsword in the other.

It was his first time using this combination, but he needed the extra range against her. He knew she could throw her kamas, since they were tethered to chains, but in melee, he wanted that extra range.

This would allow him to attack without worry, as long as he could close the gap between them. Which he wasn't too worried about, since she seemed eager to lunge at him.

*Gong!*

Both players lunged at each other, Astaroth crossing the blades in front of him, and Blue Peacock throwing one kama as she spun the other.

Astaroth deflected the flying kama with his short sword, before twisting his body to give momentum to his longsword's slash. Blue had been expecting the hit and ducked under it, slashing at Astaroth's ribs.

A shortsword met her weapon as both players crossed each other. Astaroth was using his shortsword defensively, trying to maximize the lighter weapon's speed to block and deflect attacks.

When both Blue and Astaroth spun around, the former shouted "Phantasmal Propagation", while the latter started growing fur and his hair turned white.

The four copies of the Fey woman threw their right kama simultaneously, and Astaroth waited for the impact to know which one was real. But his eyes went wide after the hit.

All four of them dealt damage!

This threw his plan out the window, since now he couldn't know which one was real. He started thinking of another way to differentiate them, as all four copies lunged at him, pulling their chained kamas back.

They met Astaroth with an onslaught of attacks, as his two swords slashed in a flurry, doing his best to block all the attacks. It was a fruitless endeavour, since two weapons couldn't block eight.

Even though he managed to deflect five of them on each exchange, he was still taking steady damage. Thankfully, his passive regeneration was keeping him from going into a dangerous slope.

But only barely.

He had to think of something, and quickly.

He stared at each copy, trying to discern if they had anything different. Something from which he could find the original.

After a minute of painful exchanges for Astaroth, he finally noticed something.

All four of them were shimmering.

'This! This is mana!' he thought.

He at first had thought this was a skill, but now he knew. This was a spell!

That meant he could find the real one easily!

He waited for the next clash, and when the copies backed away, he closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, he was seeing the world differently.

In his eyes were all the particles of mana, floating around peacefully. And then his gaze set on each of the women, one after the other, until he finally saw what he wanted.

Three of the copies were glowing, while one of them was only shimmering around her silhouette.

'Found you!' he thought, a smile creeping on his lips.

Blue and her copies once again lunged at him for another clash, but something was different.

Astaroth stood still, weapons at his side, staring directly at her.

'He can't have found out that fast, can he?' Blue questioned, in her mind.

But it soon became crystal clear. Astaroth did not even bother blocking the attacks, as eight kamas embed into his skin.

But he wasn't just taking the attacks for fun. Now that Blue was right in front of him, it was his turn.

He rapidly lifted his leg, sending his foot into the real Blue's sternum. The blow emptied her lungs and sent her flying away.

She smacked into the wall, taking heavy damage. But that wasn't all that happened.

Since Blue needed to consciously control her clones, all three of them just stood there, as she was blown away. And Astaroth used that moment of stillness to fix his problem.

With rapid successive slashes, he tore all three clones to pieces, before Blue could control them to back away. She was back to being in one versus one.

Her health was down to half, and Astaroth's health was slowly going back up. This was bad!

'It had to be luck!' she thought, getting back on her feet.

She set her mind on her next course of action.

'I didn't want to use this skill yet, but it seems I lack a choice,' she said internally.

She closed her eyes momentarily as she whispered.

'Dream Dance.'

Astaroth, who still had his perfect mana sense active, saw a pulse of mana rush off his opponent. The next thing that happened almost had his jaw drop to the ground.

'This would have defeated anyone,' He surmised.

The arena's mana all started fluttering, answering a silent call. One that Blue had made.

Copies of her started popping left and right until there were a dozen of them.

'This would be bad, if I didn't have perfect mana sense,' he thought.

He kept his face from showing emotion, not wanting to throw off the illusion that he was being bested.

'What a dangerous woman,' he said internally, amazed at her control of illusions.