New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

The first thing Astaroth noticed after the humid air, was the thick foliage of trees around him. There were flowers and bushes and vines everywhere he turned his head.

So, to help himself move forward, he pulled out his short sword, and used it as a makeshift machete, to cut through the greenery.

Astaroth moved forward cautiously, keeping his mana going full throttle constantly. That was the reason he noticed some fights breaking loose all around him.

He could feel and see the mana fluctuate in spots all around him, flaring up and getting siphoned, disturbing the natural flow.

Astaroth reduced his sensing, trying to focus on the few meters around him, so he didn't get ambushed. He walked along no determined path, trying to avoid the combat zones.

That made him zigzag across the forest, never getting much closer to the end of the zone. The chairwoman was not joking when she said the zone would be big.

Astaroth didn't want to walk aimlessly for too long, so he tried climbing a tree, hoping to get a vantage point up there. As he was close to reaching the top of the tree, something entered his mana sense.

To his vision, it was a streak of powerful pure white mana, coming at him at incredible speed. Astaroth did not hesitate a single second, and kicked off from the tree trunk, propelling himself back to the ground.

When he kicked off the tree, the arrow hit the spot where he had been and bore a hole the size of a soccer ball into and through the tree trunk. The tree he had been climbing was close to three feet thick, so that was no small feat.

Once he landed back on the ground, he hyper-focused on around himself, trying to find where the arrow had shot from. But looking as much as he could, he didn't seem to find anyone or anything nearby.

Suddenly, another arrow came at him, this time from another direction entirely. Instead of dodging backward, Astaroth shot forward, towards the arrow, only barely getting out of its trajectory, trying to reach the shooter.

After traveling in a straight line for a few seconds, Astaroth had still not seen any signs of an attacker. He stopped moving again, waiting for the next attack to come in his direction.

He did not have to wait long, as another arrow came flying his way, again from a different direction. Astaroth guessed that the player shooting at him had a much higher agility stat than him.

'If they want to play that game, then so be it.' Astaroth thought while dodging the arrow.

He stayed in place, but this time cast Spirit Melding. If his opponent wanted to play a game of agility, he would crush them with that stat!

His hair turned white, fur grew on his limbs, and his senses became sharper. He could discern sounds and smells better right now, and that would also help him find his assailant.

As Astaroth focused on sound alone, he heard a small *Thung* and the sound of rustling leaves. The second after an arrow came flying at him from behind.

He sidestepped it and burst forth in the sound's direction, at speeds inconceivable to a man's body. His agility stat in melded form was at a staggering one hundred and one points!

That meant his running speed was at twenty-five point twenty-five meters per second or a whopping ninety-one kilometers per hour! And since his strength was practically the same, his acceleration was quasi-instant!

Astaroth felt like he was riding a convertible, with the winds whipping his face at that speed. He quickly reached the spot where the sound had come from, only to see a blur move away rapidly.

Astaroth landed on the tree the player had been in and launched back in the direction they had left. He quickly caught up because of his superior agility.

As Astaroth neared his attacker, he started discerning his silhouette, although it was only an outline. The person fleeing from him was semi-transparent right now, most likely because of a stealth spell or skill.

He caught up to the fleeing silhouette and grabbed its leg. As soon as he touched the player, his stealth fizzled out, revealing a young elf woman with a longbow.

She seemed surprised that her target had caught up to her and her eyes were wide in disbelief. Astaroth pulled the leg towards him, sending his other hand at the woman's throat.

Their flight ended on the branch of a tree, with Astaroth holding the elf by her throat, and the elf lodged in the tree. She could still breathe, but it was difficult.

She looked on in horror at her opponent's blue-grey eyes as he looked at her with coldness.

"When you saw you couldn't hit me, you should have left." Astaroth told her, observing the woman.

"I wanted points, and you seemed like an easy target. I was mistaken. Please, let me go." She replied, taking hard breaths after each sentence.

"Give me one good reason to do that." Astaroth said, suddenly grinning.

"After all, you also look like easy points right now." He added, stretching out his wolf claws in a menacing way.

The Elven woman's face drained of color as she saw the claws. She had been trying to break free from his grasp ever since he grabbed her, but his strength was higher than hers.

Surely if he hit her right now, it would cause a lot of damage. Not only that, but since she couldn't escape, he could just hit her until she died.

That would spell the end of her time in the tournament. She couldn't accept that fate.

Her mind went into overdrive, looking for a way out when something caught her attention. A sheen in the distant trees, followed by a slight flash.

Her perception stat was high since she was an archer, so she saw what that was. It was the reflection of a gun scope and the flare of a detonation.

Now was her time to act!