New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

After murmuring his incantation, a bright ray of moonlight shone down from the sky. It encompassed the clearing where they had made camp, and everyone inside it instantly felt the effects.

Violette and Gulnur, who had been hit by multiple mental afflictions, felt their minds become clear once more, as the moonlight cleansed them away. Gulnur even saw his health ticking back up, and he gasped.

The dwarf turned his head toward Astaroth, his eyes wide.

"Where have you been hiding this?!" he exclaimed.

"I wasn't hiding anything. I just didn't have a reason to use it yet. Now stop wasting it and start attacking!" Astaroth replied, before turning his attention to the boss.

He cast his Moon Beam spell, not waiting to gather Aether, since he didn't have time for it. The small orb of milky white energy formed before his hand, before unleashing it torrent forward.

*-6'822*

The attack wiped out any bat that was unfortunate enough to be caught in front, as it slammed into the Somnus Bat. Although the attack only shaved about five percent of the boss' health, that was not the end of it.

The force behind the attack sent it barreling toward the ground, losing control over its flight. It corrected its fall, beating its large wings and returning to an upright position, but not before it reached the treetop's height.

I'die didn't miss a beat to act. He quickly directed his staff to the closest tree to the monster and chanted something in elvish. The tree's branches then rapidly extended upwards, wrapping around the bat's wings, keeping it from fleeing back out of reach.

The giant white bat tried wriggling free from its ensnarement, but strength was not its forte, as it failed to break the branches holding it.

Phoenix, who had been readying a massive fire spell, changed her target to the smaller bats. Using fire on the boss at this moment would only help it regain freedom.

Instead, she incinerated its underlings in rapid succession. Violette took over the mantle of the heavy damage dealer, as she focused an enormous amount of mana over the trapped monster.

"Cataclysmic event: Unending Hailstorm!" Violette chanted, shards of ice forming in the sky.

They instantly formed a million needles before raining down on the Somnus Bat. The spell was much more taxing on Violette, now that she had to cast it rapidly.

When she had used it previously, she would coax the ambient mana into her spell, making it more efficient. But she didn't have time for this right now, so she used her own mana pool.

It rapidly drained, as she maintained the spell, and she even had to use Mana Siphon many times in a row, just to maintain her channelling.

She was already starting to feel the sickness from over-using that technique, as it pumped a lot of unpurified mana into her system. But she held on.

It was worth it, as the damage she was doing was insane. Every second, a new damage number would appear over the Somnus Bat's head.

*-749*

*-749*

*-1498!*

It seemed small at first, but after maintaining the spell for thirty seconds, it showed.

Violette had to stop channeling, as she couldn't refrain from the sickness in her stomach anymore, which stemmed from too many Mana Siphons. She curled over and puked black gunk.

But her job was done.

The damage she did in thirty seconds of channelling her spell was equivalent to five of Astaroth's Moon Beams! And as an added benefit, it practically tore the wings of that bat to shreds.

Athena pounced on this development, firing an Impact Shot at the base of one of its wings. The already damaged appendage broke with a resounding snap as the branches holding it collapsed.

Violette had also killed a few more of the Echo Bats during her blizzard, and there were now less than two hundred of them left. But Phoenix was getting ready to fix that problem, too.

As soon as the boss hit the ground, a flaming tornado erupted around it, rising into the night skies, and making the area bright as day. The remaining bats flying over the area were all caught in the blaze.

Since Astaroth was still melded with Luna, his magic power was still very high. So he chipped in, forming another vortex, this one of wind, enveloping the first one.

It spun in the same direction, feeding the flames in oxygen, making it burn hotter. The flames started turning blue, reaching a new height in temperature.

A few seconds later, the party received the notification they had been waiting for.

*You have killed a Somnus Bat (Elite Zone Boss) (Lvl 50). (16'667) Exp awarded.*

This amount, stacked with close to three hundred and sixty-three thousand points from the swarm each, put all of them in a good mood.

Astaroth especially, since he, White Death, and Violette had levelled up from this encounter. This meant even more power for the dungeon crawl to come!

He was slowly inching back to the level ranges of the top players. Currently, Khalor still sat at number one, with a level forty-four, and Phoenix was still second, at level forty-two.

The level gaps had slowly shortened, as the amount of Exp required per level was getting higher and higher. Astaroth still kept the hope of catching up to them, though.

There was no way he would stay behind them and do nothing. His competitive spirit flared up as he thought of becoming number one and calling Khalor to brag.

But that wasn't quite attainable just yet. Khalor wasn't just standing still, either. The man was power levelling almost day in and day out.

That was the reason no one had yet passed him, even though guilds were plowing through dungeons as fast as they could, to level up their first-class players.

Astaroth snapped out of his thoughts, when the loot from all the monsters was amassed at the center of their camp. It was time to divvy up.

Most parties would have split the loot equally, and some might have split the loot by contribution. But they worked a little differently.

As they had agreed upon before leaving for the dungeon, any item, ingredient, or money worth loot, would be split among them all.

But the gear would go to the most fitting player, and the cores would be mostly going to Astaroth. He had agreed to renounce his part of the money-worth loot, so he could get the cores.

He had things he wanted to try out, after all.