New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Astaroth felt a powerful ring of Aether expand outward, but it was too fast for him to react. As it passed through him, he heard a notification.

*Condition detected: sleep. Mind Over Body activated. Success. Error. Domain detected. Calculating player's willpower versus domain creator. Player is too weak to resist the domain. Mind Over Body overridden.*

At first, Astaroth was about to grin since he resisted it. But the second part of the notification made him frown.

'A domain? What is that?'

He felt his body become like lead as his mind went black. And when he woke up, he was back in the real world.

He was in his kitchen, at the kitchen island, enjoying breakfast. Kary was next to him, and they were talking.

But the words spoken were all unclear, like spoken through a closed door. It was strange.

Then someone entered his penthouse, stepping off the elevator. Their face was blurred out.

'What in the hell is happening?' he wondered.

He felt a hand grab at his collar before it hurled him through his patio glass doors and over the balcony railing.

Astaroth felt gravity take him toward the ground, and struggled to meld with Morpheus, or even Asmodeus, but nothing was working.

'Is this how I die?'

As his thought ended, he slammed into the ground, before waking up again, now in a hospital bed.

He was still injured, his body covered from head to toe in bandages. He tried recalling what had brought him there, but his mind was all fuzzy.

'What the hell is going on? Where am I?'

His body once again moved on its own, like he was just a spectator to his own life, and he rose from the bed. His legs brought him to the door, where he exited into a large area with a desk at the center.

At the desk, many nurses were cowering in fear, as a young man about his age and an old man were having a discussion. Around the old man, five large men in suits were looking around, scanning the place.

When he walked forward, the young man pointed at him, and said something, of which Astaroth only heard 'There' and 'Him'. And right as the words were said, the old man raised his left hand, before all the guys in suits pulled out submachine guns and sprayed him full of bullets.

Once again, his sight went black before he woke up somewhere else.

This went on and on, without Astaroth knowing how many times he had died and woken up anymore.

But on the outside of his mind, his body was still standing, his eyes whited over, as his shoulders slumped forward.

As soon as he had fallen asleep, his Legacy Skill had stopped, and the demons had vanished, whatever little of them remained.

Now, Titania was simply smiling as she looked at Astaroth's and Phoenix's health drop in large lumps, as they died over and over again, inside her dream domain.

Occasionally, she would also stab or slash at them, just for fun. Phoenix was already close to dying, her health pool much smaller than Astaroth's.

Titania could have ended this at any moment, by ending their lives while they couldn't move. But she was enjoying her little payback.

And since this was a training room, she knew they were both safe. So why not take this moment of bliss and let it last?

Outside the room, the gnome was watching this, his breath held, wondering if another upset would happen, and the monarchs would turn this around.

Soon enough, Phoenix's health dropped to zero, and her body exploded into pixels before she reappeared in the training room.

She looked at her hands, her mind reeling from what she had experienced, and her body started shaking. Her breath became ragged, and tears went up in her eyes.

Although she was safe, her mind had just gone through so many deaths that it was still in shock.

'What a terrifying power,' Phoenix thought in fear, as her body shivered.

It took her a minute to regain her senses, and she noticed Astaroth was still not present. She knew he had more health than her, but she hadn't thought that Lady Grove would let it take so long.

She rushed over behind the gnome to look at the screen. He was eating some kind of nut mix, his eyes glued to the display.

On it, she could see Astaroth, body standing but slumped, as his health ticked away, chunk by chunk.

'Come on, Astaroth. Do something… I know you can.'

Inside the training room, Titania stood before the king, enjoying every jolt his body went through each time he died in his dreams. She could see what was going on, since this was her domain.

Only her domain did not create death scenarios. It only took near-death experiences and turned them into death scenarios.

And seeing how many of these the king had, it mildly impressed her.

'His life has been a rocky one. But regardless, he has seen nothing yet. It's time he learned there are people stronger than him everywhere,' she thought, as she waited for his health to empty.

But as his health neared zero, her connection to his dreams suddenly snapped.

"What the hell?"

Titania tried peering into his mind, but as she did, a golden pair of eyes stared back at her. She reeled back instinctively, pulling out her weapons before her.

"What the?!"

The eyes that had stared at her contained power. Power beyond what the king had.

Power beyond what any mortal should have, for that matter.

'Is he getting divine help?! Why would a god help him? I have to kill him now before they establish the connection and he wakes up!' she panicked internally.

Dashing forward, her two swords raised and ready to strike, she saw Astaroth's head lift, and the same golden eyes locked on her.

She didn't hear the words coming out of his mouth, but read his lips.

"Divine Domain; Soul's Judgement."