New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live



Being the closest to the point of impact, Astaroth was the first one to feel the shock wave that blasted off of the Lich, as Galtion smashed into its body like a meteor. The wind pressure sent him tumbling backward in the air, struggling to regain his balance.

When he did, the sun was peeking into the arena grounds, the black smog-like barrier closing it up, dissipating.

Astaroth looked up toward the Lich, but couldn't find it. But he saw something else, though.

And that was a rapidly descending Galtion, who, after rising toward the sky for about two thousand meters, had lost all his momentum, and gravity reasserted itself over him.

His heavy metallic armour made him go much less high than he had expected, but still significantly higher than he should have gone.

Now on a free fall, Galtion was screaming his lungs out, as he watched the ground come up on him fast.

Astaroth was hearing him, distantly on the wind, as he saw only a black dot in the sky, rapidly growing in size. Reacting without thinking, Astaroth flew up to meet it, as the screaming became louder.

"aaaaAAAAHHHH!!!!!"

*Whack*

Astaroth smacked into Galtion, taking damage from the collision, but only caring about stopping their now-conjoined descent.

The collision had taken away a lot of the fall velocity, and Astaroth tried opening his wings to get some gliding going, but Galtion's armoured form was quite heavy.

Their fall slowed down but didn't stop.

"Ahh!!! Do something!" Galtion screamed, seeing the ground still approaching.

"Shut up! I'm trying!" Astaroth shouted back.

But try as he may, he couldn't slow down their descent anymore. They weren't going fast enough to kill them on impact; he thought.

But as the ground got closer and closer, Astaroth closed his eyes.

'This is going to hurt!'

In a cacophonous concert of metal-on-metal impact and a cloud of dust kicking up, they crashed into the arena ground.

*-14,103*

Astaroth's air shot out of his lungs on impact, his eyes bulging at the amount of damage he took. It took him many seconds before his body allowed air back into his lungs.

*Gasp!* *Cough cough*

Laying on the ground, eyes toward the now open sky, Astaroth gasped for air, coughing through the floating dust they had kicked up, and thanked the gods to be alive.

'Dying like this would have sucked…' he thought, as he coughed out more dust.

Next to him, Galtion was wheezing through his helmet, his armour crumpled on his chest. His thorax was being constricted by the armour, making it hard to breathe, but at least he lived.

He used all the focus he could muster to open his status screen and unequip his armour.

As soon as he did, he felt his chest expand, no longer stuck in the dented metal can his armour was feeling like.

He gasped and coughed, joining Astaroth, before they both started laughing it off.

A few meters away from their impact site, the rest of the party was watching as every undead monster fell to the ground, unmoving. They could hear the laughing coming from the two men's crash site, and felt relieved, if a bit worried, they were laughing.

Phoenix stumbled her way toward the crater both men had formed on impact and stopped right before the cloud of dust.

"You two alright in there?"

The laughing went unabated, both of them still having a hard time believing they survived.

As the cloud of dust subsided around them, the clear skies shone upon them, as a notification rang in all of their ears.

*Ding*

*Second boss; Aspect of the Undying, defeated.*

Astaroth waited to see if they would get some special rewards again, but nothing more came with the notification. Already, in the middle of the arena, a treasure chest had appeared.

'Well, that's disappointing. We worked hard to take this motherfucker down, too…'

Astaroth lied there for a few minutes. His body was hurting all over, and he was feeling extremely weak.

He had used Sublimate early in this fight and wondered how the exhaustion hadn't hit him earlier. But he would take any positive point.

Looking a bit to his side, he could see Galtion looking at the sky, his body contorted strangely.

"You alright there, buddy?" he asked him.

Galtion raised his right arm, making a thumbs up, before letting it fall back down.

Astaroth shrugged in response, making a sharp pain go down his spine.

At this time, a woman in clerical robes leaned in over the crater, and a soft golden glow washed over both him and Galtion. The light felt like bathing in a hot spring in the middle of winter.

Both soothing and refreshing.

Astaroth saw his health bar going back up, the passive regeneration kicking in, confirming he was out of combat. He sighed loudly.

"Let's just take a few minutes here to relax and heal up. Okay?" he asked Phoenix, who he saw crawling into their crater.

She didn't respond, simply plopping down beside him, making him grunt in pain as she dropped her head on his chest.

"Oof. Careful, I think I have broken ribs."

Phoenix chuckled.

"Serves you right. What was the great idea, crashing into the ground like that?"

Astaroth wanted to chuckle, but even breathing hurt.

"Hey, it's not like it was my goal. Galtion over there is much heavier than I thought. And with my normal stats, I wasn't strong enough to carry his ass and mine safely to the ground…"

Galtion, hearing this, snorted.

"Sorry, leader. But thank you for not letting me turn into meat paste. That would have sucked…"

Astaroth laughed, making his eyes water up in pain.

"Sure thing, bud. We need you to proceed, anyway. I couldn't just let you die yet."

As they spoke, the rest of the party amassed around and in the crater, plopping down to their knees or asses, exhaustion catching back on them. No one even cared for the loot chest at the moment.

All they wanted was to wind down. Even Jaxx, who was worried deep inside he was going to be in trouble, plopped to his back, letting his form return to normal.

His sister dropped next to him, punching him in the ribs lightly.

"I hope you didn't cost us our place in Paragons, dumbass. You okay?"

Jaxx chortled, nodding his head slowly.

"I'm sorry. I'll make sure you don't get kicked out, sis," he replied, looking at the beautiful sky above them.