New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Chronos wasn't able to slow time this much for long. As soon as he weakened beyond the power he needed to hold this spell, it dissipated. But his hold on Mel'gaz held for another second.

In this single second, Astaroth wrapped his arms under Mel'gaz's arms, locking him in place with barrier after barrier, locking them together. He resolved himself to take the hit as well, as long as it took down this enemy.

The spear of flames, which now was the size of a telephone pole, crashed into the exposed demon's chest before exploding.

The battlefield flashed white, forcing everyone to cover their eyes.

From afar, Phoenix watched as a mushroom cloud erupted from the battlefield's direction. She knew her power alone wasn't enough to cause this and assumed something else had happened after her spell hit.

But she was already falling unconscious, from using all her mana to throw this attack.

'I hope this was enough to help…'

A mile away from her, the dust settled from an explosion that outright wiped out Chronos and Jaxx, along with Mel'gaz and any soldier that had stood in a two-hundred-meter radius.

Astaroth dropped to his knees, exhausted, wounded, but laughing.

His health was almost at zero, and he was burnt beyond recognition on the front. The act of laughing hurt him while he collapsed onto his back.

"I may have exaggerated the power I poured into the spear. But it worked…"

As he said these words, mostly for himself, a pulse of demonic Aether washed through the battlefield again. But this time, his heart beat in tempo.

And the pulses happened, one after another, as his heart beat in his chest, resounding in his ears.

'He's coming. Will I get to see him?'

But as the portal finally expanded one more time, reaching into the sky at an impressive three hundred meters high, a hand grasped at the edge of it, from the inside.

A pure black hand.

In the sky above the portal, seven flashes of various colours caught the attention of the allied army officers who were still alive.

"Finally. They move at the last second, fucking progenitors…" Isarrel mumbled as she kicked the enemy before her.

"Everyone retreat! Now!" she shouted.

Every officer still alive suddenly burst into action, using spells, skills, and items, to disappear from the battlefield.

And as they did, a gigantic septagram appeared in the sky above the portal. The different coloured points all joined in the middle, where they merged in a white heptagon.

In the middle of this heptagon, a white ring appeared, seemingly made of runes. The runes flashed, and another similar ring appeared, touching each point of the septagram.

Then it flashed again, another ring of runes appearing even bigger than the second, covering the entire sky of the region.

In the sky, standing atop each point of the septagram, was a single person, each of a different race, each wearing robes of different accents. But all of them had one thing in common.

Their shining eyes.

Their voices chanted as one.

"World Magic; Eternal Banishment!"

As if reacting to their magic, the world itself became silent. The demons moved their lips, but no sound came.

The stomping of feet from the remaining foot soldiers was completely silent.

Spells fused upward, only to dissipate before even reaching the Septagram.

The first sound to come back was a whining shrill. And it became louder, and louder, until it stopped, and the portal exploded.

The continent on which this happened, which was now called the dark continent, was changed forever.

The skies became covered in eternal darkness; as the sun refused to shine on it, clouds of red perpetually encapsulated it. The land itself drained from the very life essence that had been maintaining it, becoming barren.

Grass died, trees dried, and flowers rotted, as the ever-pervasive essence of what had been forever banished seeped into the earth, forever corrupting it.

The explosion killed any living thing within a hundred-mile radius of it, wiping the slate clean of any demonic invasion.

Once the spell died down, every mage around the planet could feel the world cry in pain. Magic weakened, growing crops wilted, and animals around the world echoed in the world's pain.

The seven mages that had caused this, the progenitors, looked down at the devastation with glum expressions.

None of them were content with what they had to resort to. But the demon lord could not be allowed into their dimension, or things would be infinitely worse.

"We had no choice," an Elven man said, his face turned to a Fey woman.

"I know, Aravelle. But the world weeps. We have forever scarred it with this. And I fear the repercussions on us, for wounding it…"

"We shall forever atone for this to it, Necen. Rest assured," a stout-looking dwarf said.

"I only hope that is enough, Beseag…" Necen replied.

"Let us leave this tainted place. I can feel it doing ravages on my skin already," a human woman complained.

"Always so vain, Edith. It's a miracle you don't live in a place made of mirrors…" a gnome with burnished skin said, half chuckling.

"You really can't talk to me about being vain, Hispos. You made all your servants call you 'Most Handsome Master'… That's far more vain than I," Edith replied, looking at the gnome with disdain.

"Hey! I'm not forcing them to say that. I may have programmed it at first, but they have long since become sentient enough to no longer use it…" The gnome, Hispos, defended himself.

Edith clicked her tongue.

The two last ones looked at the interaction and decided not to chime in, simply teleporting away.

Aravelle sighed.

"Always so distant, those two. I understand for Sensez, since her voice could curse people around her, even though she could hardly affect us. But why Egbert? You'd expect a vampire to be more sociable…" he complained.

For seven equals, in the eyes of the world, they rarely, if ever, treated themselves as such. But they couldn't act upon each other to set opinions right.

"Whatever the case may be, we should make reparation for our actions today. Necen. Find us a way to give back to the world, so she doesn't shun us for eternity."

Necen nodded her head, before vanishing in a cloud of purple and pink mist.

The others followed suit, and the sky emptied out, leaving nothing but destruction behind.