New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

After roaring, Leon's now larger body dropped to all fours. He launched forward, aiming at the same first target as before.

But Phoenix was prepared this time. She received the incoming beastly comet with a gout of blue flames.

Aether fueled the power behind it, and Phoenix was pooling a lot in that one attack. She did not intend to kill him, but to block his path.

Her tactic worked, as Leon suddenly had intense heat to contend against in his dash. The flames were searing his flesh and burning his fur, but the force was also stopping his advance.

Astaroth used that moment of stillness to attack a few more times, this time from afar, with his bow. Athena had been riddling Leon with arrow after arrow since the beginning, but it all seemed for naught.

The wooden shafts only ended up being broken by the beast-man as he ignored the damage. She often camouflaged herself, trying to change her angles of attack, aiming for weak points as much as she could.

Unfortunately for her, the boss' senses were extremely sharp, and she had trouble landing critical hits. Athena wasn't a quitter, though.

She repositioned time and time again. But now that Leon was busy blocking the flames with his body, and he was unmoving, it seemed like a perfect occasion for her.

Athena nocked an arrow, breathing in deeply, before exhaling half her breath. Holding the rest of it, she focused on her target.

Athena was currently at the back of Leon, and on it, there were many minor cuts, dealt by Astaroth and Gale, along with scorched fist marks, done by Phoenix.

As she focused deeply, her eye caught a deeper wound on the beast's back. A cross-section between a cut made by Astaroth, and one made by Gale.

The two individual cuts were shallow, but the point where they met looked deeper. She could see a trickle of blood seeping out of that small spot.

Athena smiled as she loosed her arrow. She used Piercing Shot, wanting to maximize her chances.

As the arrow spun madly, the arrowhead became akin to a drill bit; the arrow flew true. With a squelching sound, the arrow embedded itself deeply into the boss' back, spurting blood.

*-13,145!!* *Inner bleeding caused!*

Leon roared to the skies, his attention splitting from the scorching flames eating away at his crossed arms. His health was now rapidly descending.

At one percent per second, the fight would rapidly be decided if he did nothing about it. He could feel the bow had pierced his intestines, and the wound would become worse if he moved too much.

But the beast-man wasn't at his first grave wound. Leon made a flash decision, tearing the arrow out of his back, inflicting another twenty thousand damage, and turned his back to Phoenix.

The scorching flames' damage suddenly doubled, dealing almost ten thousand per second. But what Leon was accomplishing covered for it.

The blue fire seeped into his insides, searing the organs and cauterizing the wound at the cost of increased pain. He took an extra hundred and fifty thousand damage, but stopped the internal bleeding.

Athena clicked her tongue. It negated her attack just like that.

Her only saving grace was that the boss had to take a huge amount of damage to limit the damage over time, and his health had not dropped by another five percent over the last few seconds.

But another issue arose. Leon was now looking at her with rage and hatred. Athena could feel the killing intent in the beast's eyes, and she knew better than to stay there.

She activated Camouflage, as she bolted away from her spot. But she underestimated the beast-man's senses.

Leon suddenly dashed directly to where she was headed, blocking her path midway.

The man's fiery claws were already on a collision course with her throat. She knew full well that she couldn't take the incoming damage.

But before the claw could rip her neck open, another white form blurred in front of her. Astaroth had dashed after Leon, sensing his intention from his eyes alone.

He knew he would have to protect his teammate. Even if Athena was camouflaged, her party members could see her location on the minimap, as her blue dot didn't disappear for them.

Leon's attack connected to Astaroth's exposed chest, lacerating the former deeply. Astaroth flew backward, hitting Athena and dragging her with him.

The pair collided into a nearby building, Athena taking the impact damage. Her health took a steep drop, but she survived.

As for Astaroth, a damage number was floating before his eyes.

*-7,800*

'Almost fifteen percent of my total health while melded. If not for my high defence, I would have taken even more.'

He could tell by the number that Athena would have died instantly. Even if she had a high defence as he did, her health pool was much smaller.

But he was still losing damage every second. His chest was on fire, where five gashes had torn through his armour.

He felt the burning sensation and the burning flesh smell assaulted his nostrils. Astaroth lifted off from Athena, turning his head to her.

"Are you ok?"

"I'm fine. Are you?"

"I'll live. But Leon is gonna have hell to pay for tearing my armour."

"Then let's get back to it."

Astaroth nodded at Athena before dashing back into combat. Gulnur had taken upon himself the task of holding down the boss, but he was getting hit in every direction.

Even if his armour and resistance were very high, he was still losing more health than Silent could heal him. And I'die's healing was only maintaining acceptable levels too.

This combat was rapidly becoming deadlier by the second. To make matters worse, Astaroth noticed the health bar on Leon.

The beast-man was now teetering dangerously close to twenty-five percent HP. He could tell there would be another change when that happened, and he knew their chances of beating him were quickly thinning.

It would be a contest of endurance soon. And with how low Silent's mana was reaching, and I'die's too, their chances were quite low.

'We will need to hit him with all we have. As soon as he falls into the next phase, we will need to pound him hard enough to make him give up, or we will lose.'

Astaroth wrote his intentions down in the party chat. Everyone agreed with his thoughts, and a plan was set into motion.

It was do or die, now.