New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Keeping their conversation hush-hush, as much as they could in the circumstance, Chronos explained his circumstances to Astaroth, giving as much detail as he could recall. After an hour of talking, they had gone around the subject, and Astaroth felt it was time for him to share a secret of his own.

"I figure it's my turn to share. So I will tell you a closely guarded secret. One that could put me in trouble if it came out to the wrong people. At least for now."

Chronos looked at him for a moment, wondering what his guild leader was about to tell him.

"Our powers aren't limited to New Eden. I don't know if you tried experimenting outside the game, but we can access all our powers in from here, in our world, with enough practice."

Chronos wanted to feel surprised. His heart fluttered for a mere moment.

But somewhere inside of himself, he had already felt this was the truth. There were times when, outside of the game, he felt like time wasn't functioning properly around him.

Sometimes it went faster than it should, and he lost precious hours, seemingly gazing into nothing. And other times, time slowed to a crawl, and he felt like everything became so sluggish aside from him.

He had assumed it might just be a perception thing because he had passed so much time in a space where time was wonky. But Astaroth's words rang true inside his mind.

'That would make sense…' Chronos mused.

As he silently mused on the information, Astaroth looked back toward the sky. And immediately, something struck him as weird.

Toward the hill, the night's veil seemed to part with a light source. But it wasn't remotely close to being morning yet.

Looking towards the hill, where the night lookouts were supposed to be watching ever so stealthily the demon forces, he couldn't see a single one of them.

'This isn't normal…'

He remembered that as soon as night fell, a few lookouts had climbed the side of the hill to look at the demon war camp over the crest while staying out of sight. But now, not a single one was present.

The light source became increasingly bright, as other soldiers began noticing it as well.

"Hey, look over the hill. What is that?" Astaroth heard a soldier nearby ask.

But he could already tell what it was. Because he had seen Phoenix lobbing one of these at his face, many months ago, in the tournament. This was a sun-sized fireball, coming directly toward the camp in an arcing path.

"Wake up the others, Chronos! The battle is about to begin!" Astaroth barked, before launching into the sky with Sky Steps.

As the soldiers started screaming, a few other figures flew up next to Astaroth.

One of them, an Elven man with wheat blonde hair and cerulean eyes shining in the orange blaze of the incoming fireball, rushed to Astaroth's side.

"Get back on the ground, soldier! You are too weak to stand in the way of this!"

But Astaroth ignored him. He reached into himself.

'Luna. I know I've had you stay inside me all this time, but I need to borrow your powers.'

Luna's crystalline voice echoed in his head.

'Of course, papa! My powers are your powers!'

Astaroth cringed at the 'papa' but still melded with Luna's soul. As he did, power erupted from his body, sending the pompous Elven man tumbling back further into the sky.

As he reached a few hundred feet height, now over the height of the hill, he saw the full size of the attack.

'Shit. This is much bigger than Phoenix's attack… It's gonna take all I got,' he figured.

Both his hands lit up with a milky white glow, as lunar Aether amassed around them. And then he slammed them together, causing them to beam forward in a large ray of pure white light.

"Moon Beam!" he shouted.

The Elf, who was coming closer again, to shout at the Ash Elf that had ruffed him, stopped mid-flight, as a ray of pure power left the young man's hands, on a direct course toward the fireball.

'Who in Sylvanus' name is this Ash Elf?!' he screamed internally.

His immediate thought was, 'If this young Ash Elf Survives the Demon War, he will be a threat to Elven Perrenity.'

As soon as the Moon Beam reached the gigantic fireball, Astaroth felt the pressure it exerted back on him, and it was more than he had anticipated. Already, he was only keeping himself afloat with Sky Steps, and now he had to push back against this colossal force.

He could already feel himself losing ground with every step.

But someone flew up next to him, berating him immediately.

"I thought I had told you to stay low-profile! How are you still alive if you can't follow such basic instructions, is a mystery to me! And why are you using such rudimentary magic to fly if you can unleash such a powerful spell?!'

This was Aberon, who floated next to him, looking toward the demon war camp. He reached Astaroth just in time to start deflecting the two-meter-long arrows already flying toward him at high speed.

Aberon conjured a thick mana shield, which bounced off the arrows like they were twigs, and turned to Astaroth.

"Focus on the wind, young man. Make it answer to your will, and will it to hold you afloat. Stop wasting time and energy on these bursts of air."

The Elven man flew up next to them.

"Cease this immediately, soldier! You are disobeying a direct order! If you don't go back to camp right now, I will have you tried for mutiny!"

Aberon gave the Elf a vicious stare.

"Can't you see the boy is holding this threat at bay, Galan?! Bugger off! He's under my purview, anyway! He is of no concern to you!" Aberon seethed.

"Shut up, you dirty imitation of an Elf! Even if we hold the same rank, you don't get to talk to me like this! We are not equals!"

The Elf man pulled out a hilt, with no blade on it, and a blade of mana flared up from it.

"You are right! We aren't equals! You are lesser! Now fuck off!" Aberon responded, his tone venomous.

But before the Elf could reply, Astaroth barked at them both.

"If you want to argue, both of you fuck off! You are making it hard to focus!"

He could feel himself slipping downward, and once knew he wouldn't be able to resist the fireball's push for much longer.

He didn't have time to listen to this old couple bicker.