Sending a message

"Its time to send a message"

Lumen spoke to the others after he had finished scavenging the bodies of the dead archers.

At first they were a little confused, wondering what he meant by sending a message. But when they saw his next actions, they couldn't help turn their heads away from him with a few gags coming out of them.

"You three go and give Shivi a proper burial while I deal with these three corpses here." Lumen gave the others a suggestion rather than an order as he could tell that they were unable to bear with the sight of him beheading the three dead archers without even flinching.

'Now I know what he meant by sending a message....' They thought as they gave a few nods in agreement and quickly but carefully carried Shivi's body away to give him the burial he deserved.

10 minutes later, Lumen had finished his dirty work dealing with the now headless corpses. He headed over to the new gravesite that had been dug for Shivi and stood along side the others as they stood there in silence contemplating many things in their heads.

"What should we do now?" Will was the first to ask Lumen, unsure of their future path.

We leave a little gift for Michael when he comes here searching for the three archers after not hearing from them for a while, then we leave and continue the hunt and grind for levels.

The others had pieced the situation together and now understood what Lumen was planning on doing for Michael, and while they were reluctant, they decided to help him so that they could leave this place as soon as possible.

It didn't take long before Lumen's 'gift' to Michael was ready and they had set off in a direction the opposite from where they had encountered Michael and his group.

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2 hours later, somewhere in the forest.

"Where the fuck are those three???" Michael was beginning to feel very stressed now after not hearing back from the three archers he had sent out after Lumen and his party.

"They should have been back by now, don't tell me they actually lost and died to those low levelled, inexperienced brats!?" Michael was practically shouting at this point to his other group members as everyone but his most trusted number two stayed silent.

"Michael, I'm sure they just encountered some snags on the way. There is no need to be worried, it's only been a little under 3 hours since we sent them out. Who knows, that group of five may have gained some distance between those three before they managed to catch up, delaying their arrival back here." Sunny, Michael's second in command in his group and a friend of over 20 years spoke, trying to reassure him of the fact that the likelihood of something happening to the three archers being low.

Seeing as his friend had reassured him, Michael stopped ranting and shouting. But he didn't completely let the topic go as he spoke up to the whole group in a commanding tone.

"Everyone listen up! We will follow their trail and make the meeting quicker by meeting them half way! That way we can stop idling and wasting our time here waiting for them to get off their arses and get back to hunting." Michael spoke, ordering the whole group as he didn't waste any time moving the 10 full pack of people towards where Lumen and the others had run off to.

After a full hour of walking, the tracks of their three archer comrades had stopped bringing the group to a standstill, unable to make a decision about their next move.

Some suggested to just stay there and wait for the three to come to them, while others suggested going in the same direction the tracks had stopped, as they had been a continuous straight line ever since the start.

However before anyone could come to a definite decision, the last remaining archer out of the 10 of them shouted from atop a branch up a large tree.

"I see smoke above the canopy to our 12 o'clock! I say we should head in that direction, I reckon it would be our comrades. Even if it isn't, a fire is something worth investigating." The archer, who looked to be in his late twenties with stubble all over his face, spoke.

A sense of foreshadowing hit the archer as he was unable to explain the source and he was quite unsettled by the feeling.

This was another of the original 5 members of Michael's group, and so Michael trusted his words more than the others who had joined later.

Hence, Michael agreed with the archer's words.

"I agree with John, even if it isn't our comrades, they would also be able to notice the smoke and fire with their perception. Perhaps we will meet them there as soon as we arrive."

The entire group of 10 once again set off, this time towards the faint pillar of smoke coming from the distance in front of them.

While walking, the source of the smoke became clearer and clearer the closer they got.

What stood in front of them was a great pyre, three metres tall burning with great vigour. Clearly the fire was made recently as the great orange flame still had plenty more fight in it.

The group stood a short distance away from it at first, observing the marvellous sight until some of them noticed some figures in the fire that didn't resemble logs.

They resembled something more like.... human bodies...

They quickly realised something was off as Michael sent a few heavy warriors over to get a closer look.

However when they got closer, their attention was taken away by something on the other side of the fire rather than the bodies in it, with loud gasps and shock being present on their faces.

"Boss, you better come take a look at this...." One of them said with difficulty as he was unable to describe the scene in front of him, one could only view it themselves to get the same feeling as him.

Michael looked inquisitively at the heavy warriors he had sent over. These men were hardened warriors who had been in many battles with either beast or human over the past few days and hadn't shown a reaction like this even one time since he had met them.

But Michael understood very well why they had such gaping mouths and shock laden faces as his quicky joined them for a short moment upon the sight in front of him.

It quickly turned from shock and horror to anger and finally rage the more he took the scene in.

Shortly, the rest of his group came over to see what the commotion was, and the scene of the three heads of the archers Michael had sent out sitting on the tops of makeshift spears was what greeted them.

Each head's final expression displayed nothing but horror, with the 10 people surrounding them not looking much different as some even went to the side to heave out the contents of their stomach, not being able to bear the sight.

They had killed humans before while in the tutorial, but it had always been quick and never as gory as this.