The man who had just killed someone right in front of them looked straight at Dante. He showed no sorry feeling in his eyes. He only had a cold, hunter look.
With an easy move, he put his sword on his shoulder. He wiped the new blood on his jacket.
"Derek!" Masha's voice was strong with not believing and being mad. "How could you do that? They were our classmates! Some of them were your friends! Don't you feel bad at all?"
A bad smile went across Derek's face. "We are not on Earth now, Masha. This is not school, and you are not the leader of the students. Your talks mean nothing here."
He stopped for a bit. He let his words stay in the air that felt cold from the blood. "And about killing," he said next. His voice got lower. "We have no other way. It is kill or get killed. That is the only way things work."
"That is not right!" she said back fast. "The Goddess told us to fight monsters, to get strong! Killing each other goes against what she said!"
Dante did not say anything. He let his team hear the words. This was the real side of their new world. It was hard and bad to see. He wanted them to listen to it, to get it.
Derek made a short, rough laugh. "You are wrong, Masha. If it went against what she said, don't you think the Goddess would have stopped us?"
He looked at his sword that had red blood on it. He licked a drop of blood from the metal. "This is just what she wants. The strong ones live."
He took a step closer. Then he looked back at his friends in the team. They were moving out to the sides. Their faces were just as hard and without care as his.
"Guys," he said. His voice was loud with being excited. "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!"
But Derek stopped her words. He pointed a finger with blood on it right at Dante. "Your small group was first on our list to kill," he said with a mean look. "Most of it is because of him."
"We knew he was a danger from the start. And see where we are now. What a good day for us." He smiled big. "Now, get set to die."
With a loud yell, they ran at them.
Dante's team was still hurt and tired from the goblin fight. They moved back in fear. This was not a fight with monsters that had no thoughts. This was like being put to death.
He made tight fists. His own fear turned cold in his blood. "Everyone!" he yelled. His voice was full of being sure that he did not really feel.
"We can win this! We will make them pay for what they did! We will get right for the ones who died! We will come out on top!"
"We will show the Goddess that we are the ones who will live!"
His words worked. The fear in their eyes changed to a strong, fighting look. The fight was here if they wanted it or not. As Derek's team got close, they got ready.
The open spot turned into a big mess of fighting. Derek was like a big hill of strong body. He hit their front line. His big greatsword moved in a swing.
Jin and Eric went to stop his run. But Derek was like a monster.
He pushed Jin's blade away with sparks flying. He hit Eric's shield so hard that Eric moved back. His arm felt like it was yelling from the pain.
"Erica, send fire at their ones who use magic!" Dante yelled. He tried to tell them what to do in the mess.
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 made a cry as she felt her power get taken from her body. Her fireball that was starting slowly vanished. His skill wasn't magic nullification; it was simply draining mana from their body. And due to 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.
All at once, three more Dereks showed up. They ran at Masha from different sides.
Masha put up an ice wall without thinking. But it stopped a fake one that did no harm. It left her open to the real hit.
The field for fighting became a bad dream. Talia jumped at an enemy. But her moves got slow and heavy all at once.
"Graviton!" a short, strong boy yelled. His hand was out. He was making gravity change. It made Talia's rapier feel like it was from heavy metal.
"Poison in the air!" Rina said loud and high. A bad green mist started to move from another one who used magic. He was a boy with a snake mark on his neck. "Toximancy! Everyone, do not breathe!"
Their help was getting broken down.
"Edgar, check them!" Dante told him.
"I am doing it!" he yelled back. He moved away from a punch from a fighter. "The one with curses is weak to hits with body! The one with gravity has to keep his hands up for his spell! The one with fake things is the boy at the back!"
Juno had a white face. He was using his skill. "Derek is not looking at Jin! He wants to break Eric's arm 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.