[Ding!]

[Quest: Kill to Survive!]

[Kill count: 0/10]

[Time limit: 2 minutes]

[Warning!: Failure to complete the Quest will lead to instant death.]

[Wave 2: Start!]

As the system notification rang in their minds, the trio stared at the bizarre and dangerous quest floating in front of them.

"What the hell? Who do we even have to kill?!" Serene panicked.

"We just killed the monsters in the earlier wave, so why did a quest like this appear?"

"Are more monsters going to come?" Zane asked, his eyes narrowing.

Zane turned to look at the quest interface. He didn’t know what they were supposed to hunt, but he wasn’t worried about killing more monsters; he had already slaughtered thousands.

Alen looked at the quest as the unsettled feelings dawn to him. If the monsters came again, they could just kill a few easily—it wouldn’t take much time. But the Ascension Realm would never give such a simple quest.

Just as they were waiting, several spatial portals suddenly tore open across different sides of the massive cavern.

Hundreds of Awakeners were suddenly teleported into the arena. They looked around at each other in utter bewilderment.

They had also been in the ’Dungeon of Chaos’ from the very beginning, wandering lost in the massive, trap-filled maze. Now, they had all been forcefully teleported to the central trial zone.

"What happened? Why are we here?!"

"Yeah... We were just lost in a tunnel. How did we get here?!"

"Hey, check the system notifications!"

"Kill to survive? What does that mean?"

"Who are we supposed to kill?"

The trio watched silently as the swarms of confused people looked at the thousands of monster corpses littering the ground with disgust and terror.

Serene looked at the hundreds of humans who had just arrived. A cold realization suddenly hit her as she figured out the exact meaning behind the quest. She took a step back, sheer dread washing over her mind.

Zane wore the same horrified expression. Even though he had brutally killed hundreds of monsters, he had never killed a human being before. This was the first time he had ever been put in a situation like this.

"Huh... So we have to kill our fellow humans now,"

Alen muttered calmly, his hand tightly clutching the hilt of his sword.

Chaos and confusion filled the cavern. Most of the newly arrived Awakeners still didn’t realize who they were supposed to target.

Suddenly, a man standing in the middle of the crowd viciously thrust his sword into a woman’s back.

"AHHHH!"

The woman turned her head in shock, blood pouring from her chest as her life gave way.

*Thud!*

The man stared blankly at his status window, watching as his kill count ticked up to 1.

A twisted smirk spread across his face. He was originally a criminal on the real world, a man who had already committed several murders before he becomes an awakener. He didn’t feel the slightest bit of guilt. On the contrary, killing people excited him.

"Hehe... It seems completing this trial is going to be fun."

As the people nearby watched the woman fall, the cruel truth of the quest finally dawned on them. They had to kill any living being in this field to satisfy the quota. And the only living beings left were each other.

With only two minutes on the clock, panic set in. The criminal lunged forward to kill another victim. Seeing this, and knowing they would die instantly if the timer ran out, others realized they had no choice. They drew their weapons.

*THRUST!* *SLASH!* *BOOOM!*

A desperate, small-scale war erupted. People started ruthlessly attacking the humans standing right next to them. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

It wasn’t much different from what the mindless monsters had done just an hour ago. The only difference was that the monsters were driven purely by the violent laws of nature; they didn’t possess positive emotions, love, or empathy.

Humans, however, possessed a conscience. They understood the world, they felt love, and they had the intelligence to know the difference between good and evil.

But as Alen watched the massive crowd of humans butchering each other to save their own skin, he felt nothing but a cold realization: the people in this world were absolutely no different from the people in his past world.

People were inherently selfish. They didn’t truly care about what others thought or felt. Whenever another person ceased to be beneficial to them, they simply abandoned them. People only spent time with you because they saw a benefit for their own good. The moment you were of no use, they dropped their act and let you fall.

It wasn’t that they didn’t feel emotions. They might internally feel ’guilt’ or ’pity’ for a short time after doing something wrong. But as time passed, those feelings vanished. Life moved on, filled with new joys and tragedies, and they eventually forgot the wrongs they had committed. They rarely redeemed themselves.

In the end, humans always prioritized their own survival and benefits.

The people slaughtering each other right now were doing it out of pure fear. They were making up selfish excuses in their minds to justify their actions.

They thought that because they were Awakeners, they were the ’heroes’ of their own stories. They convinced themselves that as long as they survived to protect their own families, their actions were justified—completely ignoring the fact that the people they were killing had families who loved them too.

Such people were truly no different from monsters.

This cold reality settled firmly in Alen’s mind.

He stood at the front of his group, watching the bloody battle royale unfold. His hand rested lightly on the hilt of his sword. His face was entirely blank, expressing absolutely no emotion.

Slowly, he unsheathed his blade.

"What are you doing?..."

"Alen?..."

Both Zane and Serene looked at him with extreme caution, they were deeply unsettled by his cold, unfazed expression in the face of a human massacre.

Alen didn’t look back at them. His azure eyes remained fixed on the chaos ahead.

"You will see."