New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live



Changing his meld from Luna to Morpheus, Astaroth launched into the skies. After reaching about a hundred meters up, he stopped his ascent.

His Synthetic Gravity spell had a range from which he couldn't leave, lest it deactivate, and he wasn't done using it yet. But he would have to hurry, though.

The mana pull on that spell was insane, even when considering his mana regen. At a thousand MP per second drain, his meagre approximately two-hundred and fifty regen per second wouldn't last long.

Even what he was attempting now would send him teetering on the edge of his mana pool, if he didn't have access to mana siphon. Sending his shield back into his inventory, Astaroth brought his both hands forward, aiming at the demon below him.

Concentrating acutely, a stone bullet came into existence before his fingers and started changing. In a few seconds, the stone bullet had elongated to around two meters long, about ten centimetres in diameter.

The end toward Astaroth was flat-topped, but on the other end, it was pointy, like a stake, and looked menacing. But the transformation wasn't over.

The composition rapidly started changing, going from a brownish-gray stone to a shiny grey metal, with blue-ish sheens. This metal was called osmium.

Astaroth had used his time outside the game to study the chemical compositions of many things, as well as the periodic table, and many other science materials.

Since he figured magic was just applied sciences, with a force that allowed miracles to come true, he broadened his knowledge base and thus came upon this material.

Osmium was the densest metal on Earth that held magnetic capabilities. With this knowledge, he could create his next spell.

He had read online once, a theory about orbital weapons, one such project being called 'Project Thor', which could launch tungsten rods from orbit onto land, at incredible velocities.

Since he couldn't fly into space, he found the next best thing. Instead of gravity, he would use Magnetic Force to accelerate his projectile faster. So Osmium was his best bet.

And he had succeeded. At a distance of a hundred meters, he could accelerate his metal rod to Mach 5 and deal tremendous damage over a small area.

By his calculation, it was like detonating around two hundred and fifty kilos of TNT in a very concentrated spot. His only worry about doing this was its impact on Silent Light, who was currently underground.

But he estimated the iron sheet he had produced, which was a foot thick, would absorb most of the downward force. But just in case, he still messaged Silent.

*You might want to use a defensive spell again if you can. I'm about to nuke this motherfucker up here.*

Silent Light received the message and wondered what he meant by nuke. But he still activated a defensive spell, which was much weaker than Solaris' Sanctum but assumed it would do the job, whatever Astaroth was throwing at the demon on the surface.

Astaroth focused his mind on his projectile, sending electricity in it to magnetize it, and then aimed the tip toward the pinned-down demon.

"Stone Bullet; Rod of God."

The rod hovering at the tip of his fingers launched downward, accelerating blazingly fast, as it boomed, breaching the sound wall, and reaching hypersonic speeds. Astaroth quickly used Mana Siphon to replenish his now almost empty mana reserves and watched as the projectile collided with the demon.

He half expected a blast to go off, to make it look cool, like in the movies, but no such thing happened. What did happen, though, was the immense force of the rod carved directly through the demon, caving in the iron plate under him in a waved pattern from the point of impact.

A shock wave blasted from the impact, travelling in every direction, crumbling the shoddily built houses in a hundred-meter radius, and exploding the windows on the others for another hundred meters.

Astaroth, who was still flying at a little under a hundred-meter height, received a part of the blast wave, shaking his clothes violently, and wringing his eardrums a bit.

But he was too focused on the damage number in his sight to care.

*1,972,500!*

Even as a critical strike, this amount of damage was an ungodly amount of damage. He was too astounded to even look at the demon below him, who was writhing in pain, its body slammed open by this massive metal stake.

The hole in the demon's guts was almost the size of its entire chest, leaving little to no material holding his neck and head to his upper body. An expression of pain and fear glared on the demon child's face, and anyone with a conscience might feel bad if it didn't represent absolute evil.

Under the ground, Silent Light felt the earth and stone around him shake as if an earthquake level six on Richter's scale had just hit the area, and he had to stabilize himself on the walls nearby.

Dust and smaller stones got loose from the shaking, and fell to the surrounding ground, some even striking the small shield he had around his form. But it did no serious damage to him.

Silent Light waited for the shaking to stop before looking above him to make sure he wasn't suddenly caved in. But he could still see the top of the well, so he sighed in relief.

Sending a message to Astaroth, he started climbing out of the well.

*What happened up there? Did a meteorite suddenly strike the ground?*

Astaroth read the message with a chuckle as he was flying down to land next to the demon, who was no longer pinned to the iron-plated ground. The impact of the Rod of God had vaporized the Magnetic Bullets in his body, causing the force to lose its traction on his body.

But his state was far from good.

Cracks spread everywhere on its body, starting from the massive hole in its chest, and its form looked like it was about to shatter. Black smoke was leaking from the gap in its body, and Astaroth had a feeling it wasn't the demon's healing.

Because its health bar was still full. Which brought up so many questions to his mind.

Questions he would have time to have answered, as the demon suddenly smiled, before speaking these words.

"It seems this plane still has some capable mortals in it. I'll have to report this to the higher-ups. I had fun playing with you, Ash Elf. Next time we meet, let me treat you back."

Before Astaroth could ask what he meant, the demon's body shattered, smoke exploding outward, before dissipating into nothingness.

'Shit. He's gone. I'll never understand why his health wasn't budging.'