New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

After retracting all of their auras, the Matriarchs sat there in silence, seemingly waiting for something.

That's when Rodney leaned in next to Astaroth's and Phoenix's ears.

"They are waiting for your response. This is a way to establish a social pecking order. Hit them with everything you can control in a brief burst."

Astaroth eyed him with weariness.

"I'm getting tired of these power plays. What if I don't want to play their games?"

Phoenix was the one to reply, her tone serious.

"Then I guess that makes us automatically lesser…"

Rodney only nodded at her words.

With an audible sigh, Astaroth turned back to the twelve seated women.

'Guess I'll give it my best shot then.'

Phoenix, next to him, was already amassing a part of her mana to release in a short but powerful burst. And when she did, the Matriarchs were visibly content with her action, before locking eyes with Astaroth.

Astaroth used a skill he didn't use often, where he sapped power from all of his soul companions for a few moments, and suddenly erupted in a burst of mana as powerful as the Matriarch's pulses. All of them looked mildly impressed.

All but one.

The head Matriarch, who was seated at the center of the crescent table, looked at him with a slight frown. She could feel something was wrong.

Earlier, when she had released her pulse of mana, she had detected the royal marking on him. But in the mana burst he released, she hadn't even a speck of the same essence it contained.

And even then, he had managed to release a mana wave as powerful as the other Matriarchs. She knew she had also contained a part of her power, unsure whether he could take it, but now she feared they might have underestimated him.

The man behind her also looked at the young king with an eagle's stare. He had felt the same thing.

"Good. a proof of your worthiness to your high rank in the world. Now that this is done, let us get to the main reason for your presence here, King Astaroth, Queen Phoenix, and Commander Rodney Levine, of Stellar Woodlands," the older Matriarch said.

After saying this, she turned her head to the left, looking at the woman who was on the far left side of the table.

"Matriarch Lorhen, if you will?" the head Matriarch said, waving her hand.

"Of course, head Matriarch," the woman replied.

Standing on her feet, she motioned in the air with her hand, and soon after, a magical display appeared in the center of the crescent-shaped table. On it was a small recording of the incidents that had led to them being all sent there.

She let the recording play, with on it only the moment where Astaroth attacked the diplomat, with a very clear cropping of the image so they couldn't see the floor, where a bloodied, innocent girl was supposed to be.

Astaroth and Phoenix saw this and their eyes went hollow.

'Are they trying to frame us?' they wondered.

The video finished with Astaroth looking down on the unconscious body of the diplomat, as if aware he was being watched. And that was the Matriarch's queue to start talking.

"As we all saw in this recording, King Astaroth attacked our diplomat, in his guest bedroom, with the savageness one would expect of a barbarian. And when our diplomat tried defending himself, things only became more violent, until they left the man unconscious. These actions alone would be enough for us to declare your kingdom an enemy of Themiscus, in any normal circumstances."

She paused for a few seconds, taking a dramatic pause. In these moments, she could see that the king and queen facing them were already turning sour.

'Good,' she thought, before proceeding.

"We also have further footage of said diplomat being sent to a prison cell, where he was left defenceless against two assailants who come back to him every hour, to bring him unimaginable pain. This act of holding him against his will, as well as torturing him, goes against our very laws, and is far from acceptable, even when committed by an allied royalty."

Astaroth was fuming.

They were taking everything out of context and making them look like villains. He and they both knew that they could have sent someone to fetch him at any moment, saving him from any harm.

He was also certain that the fact of him attacking the diplomat should have caused an aggressive chain reaction, had he been in the wrong.

They were playing on their inaction as if he had acted too fast, instead of owning up to their uncaring. And this did not play well with Astaroth.

His ears stopped registering what she was saying, and next to him, Rodney and Phoenix could feel him become colder.

Almost like the air was reacting to his emotions.

The Matriarch kept on explaining how, in normal circumstances, their kingdoms would already be at war, simply for taking such drastic actions.

She even added that the king's current reaction seemed to prove her point about how he was a barbaric person.

The woman even pointed out how their relations had been so great when Leon was in charge of the kingdom, wondering how such a rash person had taken the throne instead of him.

Every second that passed, every blaming word that came out of this woman's mouth, he was wondering more and more what would keep him from slaughtering them all.

Inside him, he could feel that small black spot on his soul stirring, yearning for him to act out. To cause untold destruction and misfortune to these old crones.

On his left hand, the signet of Solomon stirred to life, animated by a power that wasn't Astaroth's.

The guards on the sides were already rushing forward when a snap of fingers was heard. And suddenly the rushing footsteps went quiet.

Next to Astaroth, a tall, svelte demon stood, dressed in what looked to him like an old Victorian men's wear, with frivolous collar included. This was Asmodeus' physical form.

"I see that politics in the living's realm never changed. How disappointing."