New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

While every officer of Paragons was otherwise busy with personal matters or missions, another one of them was busy fighting through the corruption, not unlike Khalor.

Gale, who had gone to crush his fear and trauma of demons, was currently hunting demonic tears, gathering information on them or joining purging expeditions across the continent. He had decided that killing corrupted creatures until he found demons was the way to fix his mental scar.

He was currently waist-deep in a bog, somewhere around the center of the continent, with a troop of fifty templar-looking knights, advancing slowly, staying alert to their surroundings. There was news of a tear opening up in this bog, and the nearby kingdom had sent a group to shut it, Gale tagging along.

The kingdoms had long since accepted the help of the Abnormals in these endeavours, with the promise of reward being their only demand. The undying Abnormals made for great cannon fodder, at worst, and otherwise amazing help in clearing what had already devolved into a cross-continental threat.

News of tears opening around the world were no longer an oddity, and many kingdoms were replenishing their military operations, in even the most peaceful kingdoms. The world was slowly getting on the warpath, for most, reluctantly.

In this bog, Gale and the knights had already been assaulted four times, in the last two hours, by what looked like mutated frogs and alligators, as well as snakes the length of caravans. Their initial group of seventy had already gone down a lot.

But these men were prepared to die.

Gale snapped his head to the west, feeling a disturbance in the currents he was holding around the group, and sounded the alarm.

"Enemies to the west! Many small targets, accompanied by two bigger ones! Their movements are too fast to determine their kind!"

The soldiers all got into formation promptly, now used to the child in their midst accurately predicting the ambushes. They didn't know how he did, but they were grateful he bothered telling them.

Their ranks would have dwindled much more, if not for his timely warnings.

But Gale's face was a mask of disappointment.

'Still no demons. It's been days, and so many tears closed, but still no sign of a single demon invader… This hunt is a waste of time again…'

But he wouldn't leave these men to die, regardless of his internal turmoil.

***

Across the vast ocean, on the dark continent, Khalor was grinning madly. In front of him lay the bodies of so many lesser demons, they practically formed an extra layer to the ground.

The reinforcements he had been waiting for had finally arrived, after five days of being late, and they were now advancing on the demonic tear. But the tear had long since opened into a portal from which many lesser demons and some lesser officers had poured out.

Already, the land around the tear had become festering in demonic mana, cracking and oozing with some dark red liquid, almost reminisce to coagulating blood. And when the confrontation had begun, Khalor had been so happy.

These enemies were so much more rewarding than the corrupted monsters that had been assaulting the small town in waves. He was glad for the rewarding trip, but also glad that he was in time to destroy this portal, before it became an even bigger breach point.

The small army he was following into battle was currently resting from their last confrontation, having lost a little under a quarter of their troops. Khalor was flying above them, on his undead drake, looking further ahead, at the encampment the demons were building.

The demons were ill-prepared for a sieging force, and their barricades and defence countermeasures were feeble. This was a good thing.

If the army had waited only a few days more, the demon camp might have become a small stronghold. At that point, they could have already changed the troops inside it with more militaristic combatants.

For now, the worst enemy they had fought were breaching parties, which, on their own, were not much of a threat. But a legion of the demon army was no joke.

Khalor couldn't wait for this fight to proceed further. Once this was taken care of, he knew of a few other places where he could beat back other impending breach points.

Doing this only pushed back the inevitable, of course. But the more time he bought the players, the stronger they were before the conflict spilled onto Earth.

And he knew full well Earth wasn't ready for this conflict. Not yet.

'Let's just hope all those ripples form into a torrent that can push back the end…'

***

As time advanced in New Eden, conflicts extending into the night for so many, outside of it, the day was already breaking close to noon.

Alex had just finished recounting the altered string of events of the service tunnel incident, the journalists so wrapped around his words they didn't dare interrupt him. After he was done, though, the floodgates slammed open.

Dozens of questions assaulted Alex simultaneously, the voices mingling into a buzz, as he had trouble making out the words. Just as he was about to respond to the one question he understood, his mouth opening, the words stopped short in his throat.

His face turned to a frown, as did Kary's behind him, as both of them received a notification on their phones. Alex's phone was on the tribune before him, in case it rang so he could shut it quickly.

But this notification, flashing before Kary's eyes and on Alex's screen, was not something he could simply ignore.

*New Eden Alert! Your body is under attack. Please reconnect as soon as possible.*

Alex turned his head to Kary, who nodded at him, already knowing why he looked at her.

He turned to Jack.

"I'm sorry, Jack. We have to go. It's urgent. Can you finish this for me?"

Jack frowned at him a bit, but before he could protest, Alex stepped away from the tribune, grabbing Kary in his arms, as two massive bat wings erupted from his back, shredding through the fabric of his nice shirt, splashing a bit of blood on the ground.

Gasps of fear and shock echoed in the crowd, as Alex bent his knees, wings extending fully, before he launched off the ground, Kary in his arms in a princess carry. He disappeared from their sight faster than they could even process what had happened.

Jack grumbled to himself.

"God dammit, kid. You could have at least gone through the back of the hospital before transforming like this. What am I going to tell them now?"

He sighed to himself before stepping to the tribune, raising his hands.

He switched into crisis management mode once more, thanks to Alexander's antics.