New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Players kept pouring in from everywhere, some even quickly travelling from other cities. There were teleporters in the major cities, but they cost fortunes to use.

But many players were willing to spend the many gold pieces to travel to Sunpeak. The rewards were simply too good to pass on.

If they made the top five damage on the event, they would make their loss many-fold.

Astaroth could see many players equipped with guild tabards of different colours and shapes. It was easy to understand how guilds would all fight for rewards these sizeable, even if they were player-specific.

Rumours were circulating on the net that reputation with cities or NPCs unlocked zones, quests or even special classes. It was easy to guess what reputation with a principal city would bring as advantages.

If a guild had a player get that reputation, they would be immediately upgraded to a core member or an officer even. This made more and more guilds pay the funds to get players to Sunpeak.

As the battlefield slowly expanded, trees getting trampled, burned or chopped down, More and more players joined in the fight. It quickly became a full-blown war against a single opponent.

Sunpeak's nobles, military, and guilds were notified of what was happening inside their border, and they prepared for the worst. If the abnormals failed to contain the dragon, its next target was almost certainly the city.

The city was crawling with players arriving through the teleportation circle and quickly leaving toward the battlefield. Others kept running out of the cathedral, freshly resurrected from dying to the dragon's area attacks, or getting stomped or crunched to death.

The guards had a hard time controlling who was arriving or leaving the city, so much so that the royal guard had to intervene. They were also rapidly swamped and stepped aside and let the players leave at will.

The city became like an anthill that was under attack, with players all leaving in the same direction as they arrived from teleportation or resurrection.

High on the mountain of Sunpeak, a pair of slit eyes were watching the fight unfold. The eyes belonged to the guardian of Sunpeak.

It was a massive golden dragon, one that was much older than the one getting ganged on by players. It was also a dragon that had sided with the humans and other various races of New Eden.

It was currently trying to judge whether it would have to intervene against its kin. For now, the abnormals seemed to contain it, but he didn't know if that would last.

His eyes were more often than not set on a specific humanoid. An Ash Elf that kept morphing into three different forms, his mana signature constantly changing.

He had many soul fragments currently swarming around him, boosting his strength.

"Hmm. Interesting. A Soulmancer. It has been ages since I have seen one," the dragon said, his voice slowly rumbling inside the cavern he was in.

He kept passively observing, ready to act as soon as the red dragon went out of control.

Back on the battlefield, Astaroth was having a hard time. Not only was the dragon focusing on him most of the time, but he was also having trouble focusing, with all the echoes of souls smacking against his mind.

He was using soul steal as much as he could, since he was in the perfect situation for it, but it had its downsides. The soul fragments he stole all had their own voice.

And they were currently screaming in his mind, screaming at him to let them go. But he couldn't.

He needed the extra strength. This dragon was so hellbent on killing him that any slip-up might be fatal.

His head was hurting like crazy, but he pushed through. His light at the end of the tunnel was that no one could deal as much damage as him.

The soul fragments powering him up boosted his already very high damage even higher, and he was head and shoulders over the player in second place.

Surprisingly, the second palace was neither Phoenix nor Violette. Even though they had been attacking for much longer than many other players, they also had to be careful of the occasional wide-range attack.

The player in second place was a player Astaroth would have preferred not to see ever again, Azamus. The gnome had teleported to Sunpeak from his base as soon as he had wind of the event.

This also added a difficulty factor to Astaroth, who would occasionally have to dodge a bullet. Azamus had already decided that if the occasion arose, he would take down Astaroth to stop his damage build-up.

Astaroth felt the same way right now that he did when he fought against Khalor. Danger was all around him, and the amount of concentration he needed to stay alive was rapidly draining his energy.

The good side of having so many players present was that the dragon's health was now steadily dropping. Even ants could take down an elephant given time.

But Astaroth was more scared of that than if the dragon killed them all. He had a nagging feeling that this zone boss would have more than one enrage stage.

It was already difficult to kill as it was. Adding an enrage buff to this would only turn this almost impossible task into utter chaos.

He swiftly glanced at the damage board, and saw that Violette was holding the third spot steadily, while Phoenix was not even in it. The dragon had resistance to fire, and this was proving to be disastrous for her damage.

The battle had already been lasting for over half an hour, when what Astaroth feared happened.

The dragon's health dropped under fifty percent and stopped moving for a second. It then roared to the skies, with enough force to push anyone standing in front of its mouth back many meters.

Its eyes started glowing red, and it started beating its wings. Everyone present knew that if it took flight, this fight was over.

The dragon would either wipe all of them out from a safe distance, or it would flee somewhere, and it would have been all for naught.

Astaroth silently prayed for it to leave, but his wish wouldn't come true.

The next to happen caused his heart to drop to the pit of his stomach, as he cursed in his mind.

'Fuck!'