New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

After an hour of reading and filling, Astaroth was already mentally drained beyond repair.

"URGH!! Release me from this torture, oh mighty gods!" he lamented, his face on the desk.

Phoenix sighed in annoyance at his drama.

"It's only been an hour… What are you complaining about? I've been doing this at least four hours daily, every day, for the last few weeks."

Astaroth moaned, still face-first on the desk surface.

"I hate doing paperwork. It's soooooo boooooring!" he complained.

*Sigh*

"Fine! We can take a few minutes of break. But no more complaining after that!" she scolded him.

His face rose from the desk, a sheet of paper stuck to it.

"Really?! Thank you so much, oh benevolent goddess!" he exclaimed, giving her puppy eyes.

"Tch! Don't push your luck. You're cute, but not that cute."

Astaroth chuckled, shooting up from his chair and stretching, looking at the door to the office.

"I'll go take a quick run around the palace to stretch my legs. That okay?" he asked Phoenix with a smile.

"Sure. Just don't forget your personal guard. I tried ditching mine once, and Rodney chewed me up."

"I'll go take a quick run around the palace to stretch my legs. That okay?" he asked Phoenix with a smile.

"Sure. Just don't forget your personal guard. I tried ditching mine once, and Rodney chewed me up."

Astaroth grinned.

"Sure. If she can follow me, that is."

As he walked to the door slowly, Phoenix looked up at him and felt the mana build up in his lower body.

"Astaroth don't, you'll—"

But it was already too late.

The moment Astaroth opened the door, a sonic boom erupted, sending a shock wave inside the office, and all the papers on the desk flew up, dancing in a chaotic aerial ballet.

"Mess up the office…" she finished her sentence, looking at the flying sheets of paper.

With a deep sigh, she controlled their fall so they wouldn't scatter too far. She would still have to set them back into their proper files, but at least she saved herself some time.

"I swear, he never thinks before acting. He's a man when it comes times to certain things. But he acts like a child the remainder of the time…" she mumbled, shaking her head in discontent.

A second sonic boom erupted from outside the door, and Phoenix snickered.

"Too bad for him, Rodney thought about everything. He won't leave that guard in the dust for long."

Astaroth had darted directly for the palace doors, bolting out of the building like hell was on his tail. He wanted to give a little test to his guard to see if she could find him when he fled.

But when he heard the second sonic boom, his mind froze momentarily. Novel Fire - novelfire.net

"There is no way…" he told himself, looking behind.

He was already halfway out of the inner section of Bastion City, but he could already see a trail of dust kick up behind him.

Astaroth looked back forward, his eyes turning from playful to serious.

'Fine. Let's see how long you can keep up.'

As he thought this, he landed on the top of the inner wall, his leg briefly growing bigger as the fabric of his pants threatened to burst from the sudden expansion, and he rocketed off the top of the wall toward the forest.

He left a small crater on the top of the wall that automatically started repairing itself and flashed out of sight. But he wasn't the only one who could boost themselves.

Right next to where he had landed, another figure briefly touched the top of the inner wall, before another crater appeared.

The distance to the outer wall was too vast for them to cover in one jump, but Astaroth had no intention of landing.

With a single thought, a pair of wings grew on his back, which he flapped with power, accelerating again toward the outside of the city.

But he saw under him a white blur, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, almost following his speed as they barrelled out of the city.

"Jesus. How fast is that woman?" Astaroth asked, looking below as the guard accelerated again outside the city.

Astaroth could barely see her moving through the canopy of the Elven forest, but he knew she was there. Her mana presence was unmistakable.

Astaroth clicked his tongue, annoyed at her persistence.

"Speed isn't enough when trying to prove yourself to me. Let's see what you do against strength!"

He flapped his wings vigorously, accelerating again, and looped around toward the ground. Entering the canopy like an arrow off a bow, Astaroth aimed directly at the woman, the wings on his back disappearing as his skin turned red.

With a spin of his body, he kicked at the rapidly incoming woman, a grin on his face.

He saw how she had followed him and was now convinced he knew what she was.

Selena, whose arms and legs had turned to powerful tiger paws, was jumping in the trees, following her quarry's scent, when she suddenly gasped in surprise.

The king's scent had just changed, and a red being that looked like him was now directly before her, its leg aimed at her midsection.

Her first reflex was to curl up, so the incoming attack wouldn't hit her fragile stomach, but as soon as the leg hit her arms, she knew it wouldn't be enough.

It felt like she was trying to hold back a mountain from crushing her almost instantly; the speed and mass of her assailant all concentrated on that one point.

Instinctively, her body ballooned in size, an ear-shattering roar escaping her mouth.

Her legs, the armour on it morphing away to reveal powerful tiger hind legs, clamped down on the branch below her, her arms going from a guarding position to a grappling one.

She contorted in a swift movement, shifting the momentum of the kick sideways as she spun out of the attack. But she hadn't released the leg yet.

This caused Astaroth's grin to vanish as the momentum of his attack suddenly worked against him.

His body started shifting sideways, and he knew he had screwed up.

The woman, who now looked more animal than human, spun a complete turn once before releasing the leg and sending Astaroth away, like a rock launching from a sling.

Moments later, there was a trail of destruction, trees uprooted, rocks shattered, and the ground gouged out, for about a hundred meters, at the end of which, Astaroth was currently embedded inside a bigger tree than the others, head down toward the ground, laughing his lungs out.

"Woo! That was a surprise!"

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