The man bore an expression pointing out capabilities in killing someone right before their eyes. He looked directly into Dante's eyes, betraying no feeling of sorry at all, with a cold hunter's gaze.
He moved very casually and put his sword over his shoulder. He kept the recent blood on his coat.
. "Derek!" Masha's voice rang out disbelief and anger. "What have you done? They are classmates! Some of them are even your buddies! Do you not feel pity at all?"
A twisted smile played on Derek's face. "This is not Earth, Masha. We belong to another place, and it's not your school. Your words have no valence here."
He went silent for a minute first and left some words hanging in the cold, blood-scented air. Many men kill, he added next. His voice lowered. There is no other option for us. It is kill or be killed. That is how things go.
She rather shot back, "That's not true!" The Goddess told us to fight against monsters to become stronger! There is no way that killing each other aligns with that!"
Dante, however, would have nothing to say; rather he let his team hear the words. The real face of their new world was hard and bad to view. He wanted them to hear it, to take it in.
Derek snickered a rough short laugh. "You are wrong, Masha. If it went against her saying doesn't the Goddess think of stopping us?"
He looked down on the sword that had a blood on it, then licked the drop of blood that stuck on the metal. "It's what she wants. The strong ones live."
He took a step forward. Then he turned his head back towards the team from his friend's side. They finished creating the arc on the outward side. Their faces were as hard and so uncaring as his.
"Guys," he stated. His voice was loud with especial excitation. "It looks like we have more people to kill. Enjoy it."
"Stop!" Talia said loud. Her hand held tight on her rapier. "Are you going to do this for real? We went to school together!"
Instead, Derek cut that short. He took an index finger dripping with blood and pointed it at Dante. "Your little group is the first we have in mind to kill," he said with a mean look. "Most of it is because of him."
He smiled big. "Now, get set to die."
They charged toward him, then broke into a loud yell.
Dante's team was still battered and exhausted from the goblin fight. They flinched backward at the sight. This was nothing like fighting dumbed-down monsters; it wasn't an action at all. To death, he put it.
He made tight fists. Basically, his own fear turned cold in his blood. "Everyone!" he yelled, as if he was just sure that he did not really feel.
"We can win this! We will make them pay! They will pay for what they did! We will right the death! We will come out on top!"
"We will show the Goddess that we are the ones who will live!"
His words propagated. The fear in their eyes was transmuted into a fierce battling semblance. Right or wrong, the battle was here. As Derek's team drew near, they were set.
The open territory turned into a grand mess of fighting. Derek was a vast hill of solid body crashing onto their front line. His large greatsword swung while he attacked.
Jin and Eric armed themselves to stop him, but Derek looked like a terrific monster.
He pushed Jin's blade with sparks flying. He hit Eric's shield so hard that Eric moved back. My arm felt like it was crying from pain.
"Erica, send fire at B's who use magic!" Dante yelled at her. He was trying to send orders amidst the chaos.
But as Erica got ready to send a fireball, one of Derek's team, a thin boy with eyes that had nothing in them, pointed a finger at her.
"Curse: Mana Drain," he said in a low voice. Erica yelled out as she felt her power get drained from her body, and the fireball that was starting cursed under his skill. It wasn't a magic nullification; that was just drain mana from their body as in because of their weak body, lack of experience, and smaller mana pool Erica lost her power.
At the same time, another enemy, a boy with a smart, mean smile, moved his hands. "Phantasms!" he said.
At once three more Dereks appeared and ran towards Masha from different sides.
Without thinking, Masha put up an ice wall. But it only stopped a fake one which did not hit her and left her open to the real hit.
The arena opened for a battle turned into a monster nightmare. Talia sprang at her enemy. But her motions slowed and got heavy all at once.
"Graviton!" a short, strong boy shouted at her. He stretched his arm out, exerting a force of gravity that made Talia's rapier feel as if it were made from heavy metal.
"Poison in the air!" Rina shouted loudly and high. A horrible, green mist began to spread by the other magic-wielder, a boy sporting a snake mark on his neck. "Toximancy! Everybody, no breathing!"
Their help was being broken down.
"Edgar, check them!" Dante instructed.
"I am doing it!" was his shout back. He moved aside just in time to avoid being punched by a fighter. "The curse one is weak to hits with body! The gravity one needs to keep his hands up for his spell! The fake stuff is the boy at the back!"
Juno's face turned pale. He was using skill. "Derek is not looking at Jin! He wants to get Eric's arm out with the shield!"
One of Derek's team was saying words behind a shining shield he made. He was keeping their poison user safe from Erica's weak fireballs.
They were a good team for killing other players. Their skills came together like a bad trap that was closing fast around them.
They had less people in every part of the fight. Jin and Eric could not deal with Derek by themselves.
Talia was caught in a hard fight with the gravity one. Erica and Masha were getting stopped by curses and fake things.
And Rina was trying hard to fix Eric's arm while also trying to clear the poison from the air.
The point where it broke came with a bad crunch sound. The gravity user made the push stronger on Jin. It made him go down on one knee. At the same time, the curse user did another spell. "Curse of Weakness!"
Jin made a cry as he felt his bones get easy to break. Derek saw his chance. He left his fight with Eric. He moved his greatsword in a big, side way swing.
"Jin, get away!" Dante yelled loud.
But he was too slow. He was held by gravity and made weak by the curse. The flat side of the big blade hit his side. It sent him flying into a tree so hard it broke the wood.
He fell to the ground and did not get up.
They had hurts, they were tricked, and they were beat in power. And the fight had only started.