New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live-Chapter 1085: Lonely, But Never Alone

Battle erupted instantly, the disciples charging into the group of intruders, the orders of their elder absolute. But they weren’t attacking defenceless lambs.

"Guess I’ll go feral," Alex grinned, letting White into his soul and charging at Elder Bai with a beastly growl.

The latter quickly chanted two words, making bright blue circles appear before his hands, which he used to block Alex’s feral swipes.

"Please, Mr. Leduc. Let us reconsider this course of action!" he cried out, looking at Alexander pleadingly.

He wasn’t afraid to fight him, as they had many advantages within this fog, not just complete visibility. But he could tell at a single glance, from the first five seconds of engagement, that his disciples wouldn’t win this.

The thought of losing so many promising young people, as well as lives that were just starting, made his heart tremble.

Alex huffed at his words.

"You attacked us, not the other way around, Bai Feng. Now you reap what you sow!" he angrily replied, doubling his attack speed.

Elder Bai was almost immediately sent on the defensive again, forced to focus all his attention on blocking attacks coming at him from what seemed like every direction. As much as he wanted to plead for his disciples’ lives, he couldn’t spare the attention.

His thoughts were quickly becoming jumbled as his pupils’ cries started echoing around him.

Behind Alexander, the situation hadn’t gone as Elder Yang expected it to. Instead of an overwhelming superiority, from their Qi techniques and well-trained physiques, the disciples were stopped abruptly in their tracks before even reaching the ring of intruders.

Spikes made of ice appeared under their feet, forcing them to jump back, lest they pierce through their legs, but that wasn’t all.

Blades of compressed yet almost invisible wind flew at them, forcing them to dodge at the last second, unsure whether facing them head-on was a good idea.

Following this, blasts of fire slammed into their lines, pushing them back even further than they had started, unable to move forward.

Of course, the flames never stuck to them, for some reason, and aside from some singed clothes, eyebrows, and hair, no grave wounds were sustained.

Even the disciples attacking from outside the perceivable range of the group weren’t having much more luck.

Arrows and knives were intercepted mid-air by a pair of swords and a shield, never hitting their intended targets, as Killian and Winston hyper-focused on even the slightest sound that would warn of an incoming projectile.

In the meantime, David had already disappeared from within the ring made by his allies and slunk into the shadows.

Elder Yang had seen him vanish, but without a clear read of where he went, he could only warily gaze around himself. He expected the pale man to pop up behind him or in a blind spot, so he kept his eyes open and his senses peeled.

Feeling something grab onto his ankles, Elder Yang promptly jumped backward, breaking free from a pair of skeletal hands, as he grinned.

"Did you think that would be enough to catch me?" he spat, gliding back in the air.

But as he looked at the hands which had risen from his shadow, he noticed the shadow wasn’t following him. As he glided back, it suddenly grew exponentially, passing under him before his feet touched the ground, and he heard a chuckle in the wind.

"If it had, I would have been genuinely disappointed, Elder Yang. No. It was only the bait. Welcome to the shadow realm," David’s voice eerily drifted.

As soon as Elder Yang’s feet hit the shadow, instead of feeling like he had hit the ground, he immediately sank into nothingness, as if he had stepped on water.

’Fuck!’ he mentally cursed as his vision became black and his senses dulled.

Swinging his knives around him in a vain effort to free himself from whatever this was, Elder Yang quickly realized it was pointless and focused on keeping his immediate surroundings under his purview.

With his dulled senses, it was an arduous task, but he managed to keep an awareness of the surrounding four feet from him in every direction and stopped squirming.

From within the shadows, David laughed again, this time much louder, as his laugh bounced inside the subspace, almost deafening Elder Yang.

"A commendable effort, Elder. But a pointless one. Have you ever bothered reading the reports your organization has assuredly made on me?" he asked, his voice coming from every direction.

Elder Yang spat.

"As if an insect like you ever registered on my radar. Hah! Laughable. I knew what I needed to know when I saw your file. You are a loner and always prefer to surround yourself with death over the living. Loneliness will be your downfall after you push every living being away," he taunted.

David’s laugh echoed again, the reverberations making it distorted and eery.

"Loneliness? Oh, dear Elder. You really know nothing. If you had read those reports, you would have noticed that there have been changes in the last few months. I would have thought a man of your skill set would keep appraised of the intel on your possible targets.

"I must say that I am disappointed by your lack of diligence. I went after you, thinking you would pose a challenge. But it seems I was mistaken," David mocked.

Elder Yang clenched his teeth at being mocked and underestimated.

"Do you think you can take me on your own? I’ve killed rivals who had a body count higher than you will ever reach, whelp!" he spat.

But David laughed again.

"See, this is your mistake, Elder Yang," his voice responded, this time whisking past Elder Yang’s left.

Lashing out with his knife, the man was met with no resistance, a sign that he had missed his target.

"Come on, coward! If you brought me into this trap, at least have the decency to fight me!" Elder Yang snapped.

But David’s voice brushed against his right, next.

"Dear Elder Yang. I never intended to fight you. I didn’t bring you here to fight you. I brought you here as a plaything. You see, you are mistaken about one thing. I am never alone,"

Lashing out again, Elder Yang’s knife connected, and he grinned as he spun his head toward the right.

"Got you."

But as he looked at his knife, his face paled.

The blade, embedded to the hilt, had around it a tall figure in half-plated armour gazing at him with an empty gaze as two pupils of purple dove into his mind.

"Don’t kill him, boys. We need him alive if we want to negotiate with the old fox. But other than that, you are free to do with him as you wish," David’s voice echoed, as it slowly trailed away.

And in the space around him, Elder Yang started hearing a cacophony of clacking bones and hungry groans.

"By the gods... What is this blasphemy..." Elder Yang whispered as his mind reeled.

The undead beside him grinned at him, his dried lips revealing pristine white teeth.

"Welcome, Mortal."