New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Chapter 552 Undead Plague

The first zombie in the pack suddenly screeched in an ungodly manner, its voice gurgling like it was drowning in its own saliva or something. It sent shivers down the spine of a few of the players present before they reasserted their courage.

As the undead Elves started stumbling forward, picking up speed, they closed the gap between them and Astaroth's party pretty quickly.

Jaxx, from the side, gripped his twin axes in hand, grinning stupidly.

'Now is the time. I'll show him how strong I am,' he thought.

Dashing in front of the group, prepared to take on the six undead on his own, Jaxx shouted out loud, "Come at me, you undead shits!"

But as he slammed into the group of undead, hacking away with abandon, he noticed something unusual. From the inside of the group, there looked to be more than the original six.

From over the grunting of the Elves, and his axe cutting into them, he faintly heard a voice.

"Come back here, you fucking idiot! There are more than you can handle!"

The voice sounded like his sister Jeanne, so he ignored it.

"I'm fine! Mind your own fighting!"

But he quickly realized something else.

The zombies he was hacking at didn't fall. His fighting space was closing in, second by second, and soon enough, there was barely any room to move at all.

'What the fuck is going on?!' he wondered, panic creeping up in his mind.

'How can half a dozen enemies contain me like this? And why is no one coming to help me? Are they not seeing I'm getting overpowered?'

His pride blinding him, Jaxx had failed to see one crucial detail that put him in dire straights. When he and the undead had collided, something else had happened at the same time.

From neighbouring streets, outside of his field of view, many more undead began pouring into the little intersection. Some of them barely decomposed, like the ones Jaxx was fighting against, some worse for wear, their flesh barely hanging onto their bones.

Skeletons, ghouls, zombies of varying shapes and sizes, some of them humanoid, others looking like beasts of burden or different canines and felines. Whatever plague had hit the city, everything had turned.

Some cawing in the distance reached Astaroth's ears, and he cursed their luck.

Already, their whole formation was a mess. The undead were slowly separating them, like they had a mind for tactics, which was unusual.

'Something is controlling them. There is no way the undead are acting so organized on their own.'

But he could hardly dash off to find the thing controlling them. To make matters worse, the undead were all several levels over them, the lowest in view being level fifty-two.

Their health pools were high, with their grades ranging from common to elite. But Astaroth knew this was only the beginning.

He dashed across the battlefield, his movement unrestrained by the rabble of monsters. Everywhere he could help, he would.

From getting a few monsters off the casters in the back to reducing the load on Meat-Shield, who was doing an admirable job at taunting everything in range, Astaroth acted like a fire extinguisher, limiting the spread of chaos.

He wanted to reach Jaxx, who was still stuck deeper in the fray, but the undead seemed to agglomerate between him and the Human, almost like they wanted him to stay away. Jaxx was getting pushed further away from the group by the second, his health already dwindling.

If this went on, the rash player would end up joining the ranks of the undead, making their job only that much harder.

At this moment, Astaroth was melded with White, banking on the added agility to stay mobile. So he still had many options left.

Focusing on his blood pact with Genie, he called the wolf to him, making her appear in a burst of light.

"Genie, help the Dwarf! Push the enemy away from our back line!"

Genie nodded her massive head before she howled to the skies.

*AWOOOOOOO!*

Vines burst from the ground, bringing dirt with them, as the soil and vvines coiled around her gigantic form, making makeshift armour on her hide. She then jumped into the chaos of battle, making her way toward the Dwarven tank, which was getting pelted with hits, as he hunkered down behind his shield.

Seeing the wolf run toward him, Meat-Shield was about to throw a taunt skill her way, but Phoenix called out a second before he did.

"Genie! Ghouls on the roof!"

When the Dwarf saw the massive wolf pounce toward the rooftops, he understood it was an ally.

But Astaroth was just starting, and he had more allies to pull out. He summoned Morpheus, using Soul Manifestation.

It was better for him to have a constant drain, but long-lasting allies, in this type of combat of attrition.

"Morpheus, take to the sky! I need you to keep me apprised of the situation from above. You can attack, but keep your eyes peeled!"

A feeling of acceptance washed over him, as Morpheus beat his wings strongly, lifting off the ground in one swift motion.

Next came Luna, whose humanoid form quickly made way to her more impressive stag form.

"Luna, you'll be my battering ram! I want you to use that massive size of yours to plough through their ranks! Damage is less important than disturbing their formation!" he shouted to her, through the hubbub of screeching and screaming of the undead.

She didn't respond to him, but burst into action. That was all the response Astaroth needed.

Undoing his meld from White Death, Astaroth summoned him next.

"I know you would prefer action, but I need you to act as backup for the casters! If anything creeps up on them, tear it to shreds!"

White grumbled a bit in his mind before darting away, behind the group of casters.

Astaroth only had one thing left to do, and that was to meld with one of his demons. Reaching out into the ring, he pulled on the soul of a weaker demon, which he had yet to fuse with.

A short, imp-looking demon appeared before him, before snickering at the sight of the chaos around.

"Finally, you call on me, young master! Who to shoot?! Who to kill?!"