Reality

Lumen maintained his momentum and immediately diverted his attention to the other five assailants currently locked in stalemate with his four teammates. It seemed that none of these four possessed any kind of special talent like their leader and the axe warrior did, so Jake was able to hold back two of them by himself while the other three kept the others occupied.

Upon seeing Lumen charging in their direction, the structured order of the enemies quickly dwindled as their two leaders had been slain. Some wanted to flee for their lives, others wanted to stay and fight to avenge their leader, perhaps they held some sort of attachment to him from before the tutorial.

None of this mattered to Lumen though as he charged at the nearest archer to him, this time not conjuring a mana bolt but instead using the other combat related magic skill he had received, Mana Reinforcement.

As he applied this to his spear, a faint blue light surrounded the exterior of the basic spear as it's boring wooden handle and scratched iron and blood tip had gained a new sense of beauty.

He neared the archer from behind him, taking some pressure off Jake as he now only had to focus on one enemy. The archer bore his teeth at Lumen as he seemed to be one of the ones who wanted to stay and fight.

Unfortunately for him, after experiencing the previous two fights, Lumen wasn't in the mood for any drawn out fights and especially wasn't interested in any sneak attacks the archer might pull.

He had experienced enough of those already this one night.

In a swift, fluid motion, Lumen swayed his body gently as the arrow fired from the enemy archer missed his abdomen by inches. Not slowing down one bit, the distance now closed in to a measly 10 metres as the archer had gained a look of fear and nervousness on his face with the impending doom called Lumen approaching.

With his glowing spear in hand, Lumen launched himself at the archer, immediately closing the 10 metre gap in an instant. The archer dropped his bow to reach for his dagger but Lumen didn't give him the chance to, as he used his glowing spear to mislead the enemy and launched a full sprint kick at the man's head. He didn't see this attack coming as his mind was full of the ways he could try to block the spear, but not a single thought considered he wouldn't even use it.

This kick disoriented the archer and caused him to stumble backwards, toppling over to the ground. Before he could recollect himself, Lumen came over him and lifted his spear, stabbing it down straight through the man's eye socket and into the skull of the defenceless archer, killing him instantly.

Panic settled in the other four enemies as they were now outnumbered by a clearly more powerful enemy, and in their feeble attempts to flee launched their all into Lumen's four team mates in an attempt to gain an opening to flee.

Unfortunately for them, Lumen would not give them that chance.

He approached the other archer, who had used up all of his arrows and was currently busy trying to flee from Shivi and his onslaught of arrows.

Lumen targeted this poor, now defenceless fellow and launched his spear right out of his hands into the back of the man, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the ground in a cry of pain.

Lumen approached him at speed and immediately pulled his spear out of the man's back, causing the man to turn over onto his back, their eyes meeting in the middle.

The attacking archer was clearly flustered and fear was plastered all over his face; his eyes welling up with tears as he regretted every decision that got him into this situation. The terrible blood covered monster in front of him was all that occupied his mind as his brain raced, looking for a way to get him out of this situation.

"Please.... *cough* spare me, please....."

The man coughed and groaned in pain as he churned the pleading words out of his mouth but Lumen was numb to them as he emotionlessly planted his spear through his face, stopping any more attempts at pleading permanently.

The others, Jake, Shivi, Will, Qu Quan, were all still feeling conflicted emotions at his killings as they struggled to come to grips with their new reality.

However after witnessing Lumen slaughter four of the enemies, not even knowing the fifth one he killed before the ambush, they seemed to have pushed their emotions to the side and let their instincts take over as they teamed up 4 against 3 against the last three remaining light warriors.

They stood no chance against Jake with his domineering strength talent, nor against the barrage of arrows from Qu Quan and Shivi. Their attacks that connected meant little as they would quickly receive a heal from Will who stood at the back, guzzling down mana potions to keep up with the excessive cost of casting heal.

Lumen didn't have to do anything as by the time he had arrived, the three remaining enemies were dead and lay there motionlessly as the group of four looked at them with unsettling looks on their faces, now facing the reality that they had just killed someone, another human being who had a family of their own, for the first time.

Their adrenaline was starting to wear off after the fight ended and this only allowed for a more intense barrage of emotions as Qu Quan even went off to the side, face looking green as the contents of her stomach were emptied.

Lumen wasn't immune to this emotion either, as he also felt conflicting feelings at the reality of what he had just done.

However he seemed to harden his resolve as he turned to face the others.

"This is the new reality we have been thrown into. Who knows how many of us has been affected by this, maybe only a few thousand, or maybe even the entire human race. However what I do know is that the laws of Earth no longer apply here.... There is no more right or wrong. No more 'justice' to protect. Only survival. The strong survive and prey on the weak, this is the law of the jungle and this now applies to us."

"Do not feel bad for these men, they attacked us for reasons unknown. But the reason doesn't matter to us, only the fact that they attacked us and intended to take our lives matters."

"This is the new reality we have to face, whether we can stomach it or not."