New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Chapter 1026: Vision Of Death



Following the wind, a giant ball of light flew out, transforming into a feathered figure that flew right at the dragonkin's chest, pushing it back almost to the wall before the dragonkin knocked it away.

The feathered figure flew back to Alex's side, and its head turned to look at the zombified corpse that used to host it.

"That is unsettling..." Phaelia, the harpy queen, commented, turning away from the sight of her dead body moving without her soul inside.

A massive ice spike suddenly pierced the ground in front of Alexander, sending the enemy's guisarme upward before it skewered them both, and Violette's voice reached their ears.

"You two! Focus!" she shouted, already conjuring another attack spell.

"So bossy," Alex joked, winking at her.

Phaelia, on the other hand, looked at everything around her from a different perspective. This was her first appearance as a spectral body, and something was different from when she lived. She wasn't sure if it was because she shared her new master's mana senses, but she could see all the mana particles in the air and the ground for the first time in her short-lived life.

It was enlightening, to say the least, to see how mana was communing with everything else to a degree she had never experienced before.

But her gaze quickly stumbled on the one that had brought her to death's door, and her focus sharpened like a blade.

"Master. May I help the other group of humans against their foe?" she asked Astaroth, bowing her head.

Alex turned his head, his face scrunching up in disappointment.

"Huh? But I brought you out to-You know what, I don't care. Sure, go right ahead," he said, abruptly cutting his first complaint.

Phaelia had raised her head, and the look in her eyes was filled with pleading, and he let her go.

'So it was that one, huh?' he mused, realizing she wanted her shot at a rematch right now. "Hey! Get your head in the game, asshole!" David's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Oh, fuck off, Skelly! You got the boss covered anyway!" Alex replied, flipping him the bird. "For a tank, you are hugging those sidelines a little too much, you bastard! Get back in there, Wolfy!" David responded back, returning the gesture.

"Alright, alright!" Alex complained, dashing back at the dragonkin, who was pushing back the zombie harpy and readying a torrent of flames in its mouth.

"Oh no, you don't!" Alex shouted, jumping up directly under the dragonkin's chin and delivering a rising kick that would have made martial artists proud.

The dragonkin's head snapped upward, the flames spilling toward the ceiling, as its eyes went white for a moment, Alex knocking its lights out momentarily.

But it quickly came too, the flames in its gullet sputtering out, and it brought its gaze back on Alexander with a renewed rage.

Kicking the zombie harpy away, the dragonkin roared before slamming its shield into the ground.

Alex tilted his head to the side before a second roar echoed to his right, and his head snapped to it, realizing the other dragonkin had copied the movement.

"Thousand Thoughts!" Alex chanted as the world dulled in colour, slowing down to a crawl.

He was still falling from his previous stunt and was directly in front of his enemy's shield, and he saw it-the one skill he didn't want it to have.

The gem on the shield started glowing ever-so-slowly for him, but he knew it wasn't so slow in reality. Looking to his right, the other shield mimicked this, and he cursed mentally. 'Fuck! I doubt one of them is strong enough to screw us, but if the two eyes hit anyone, they are bound to jam up for a while,' he thought, trying to locate everyone on the battlefield.

Each party seemed to have turned their dragonkin at an angle that very little of the two gazes would overlap.

Alex tried turning his body, but it was much slower than he would have liked, even with his level of speed while melded. He needed to make sure everything was fine for everyone.

As he finally reached an angle where he could see the last part of the battlefield he had yet to scan, he saw something that made his heart drop.

'What the fuck is he doing there?!' he shouted internally.

Standing at a cross-section where both glowing eyes would assuredly shine, sporting an exhausted look and fear in his eyes, Liu Yan looking at the bright red gem with wide eyes. Alex deactivated his thousand thoughts to shout at his party member.

"Get back on this side, you idiot!" he screamed, looking directly at Liu Yan.

"Huh?" was his answer as the young man froze.

But it was too little too late.

The gems flashed, and a reptilian eye appeared on them momentarily, as a deafening roar filled the room, shaking the walls, floor, and ceiling, down to the very people inside it.

Two cones of mana pulsed out from the shields' gems, and everyone was hit by one wave, feeling their hearts skip a beat.

But, for one unlucky person, those two waves washed over him, and his mind went blank. His mind was immediately assaulted by the vision of those two eyes, as if he was standing in a dark room with their proprietor and his body locked up in fear.

"Weak-minded human, brought to me through the natural fear of a peak predator. Are you ready for death?" a low, hollow voice asked as Liu Yan was stuck in place.

He wanted to move, get away from those eyes that inspired such instinctive fear inside him, but his body refused to obey him.

His mind pictured a jaw that was closing on him, powerless to react, as death crept up on him. Meanwhile, outside his mind, the moment the two waves crashed into him and he locked up, both dragonkin suddenly snapped their heads in his direction, a vicious gaze in their eyes. Lunging for him immediately, guisarmes extended to stab through his body, the two parties powerless to stop their sudden charge because of the stun they were also experiencing; they watched in horror as the spikes neared their ally.

"No!" Kary screamed, horrified that someone was about to die and she could do nothing

about it.

Liu Yan couldn't even see what was about to reap him, as his mind stayed locked in the vision

of a dragon's jaws swallowing him.

'Is this how I die?'