The gray sand dyed with bright purple and dark red blood stuck to my shoes, as I walked over the corpses that laid on the ground.

Some had developed friendships in the short time this group had been together, and now some of them had lost those friends.

I couldn't help to mock the idiots in my mind, as some of them bawled like infants at the deaths of people they barely knew.

"How many died?" I asked Faris who was sitting on dry sand far from the corpses with a thoughtful expression.

I considered sitting next to him, but decided against doing so.

"12, and there were only 21 of those monsters." Faris answered without turning his gaze away from the corpses.

"That was likely just a practice round, and over one tenth of our group is already dead. How the fuck are we supposed to make it through this, if our group is full of incompetent cowards?" I said with the appropriate amount of frustration in my voice.

"Calm down, it won't do any good to spark conflict amongst ourselves." Faris said, sounding like he was speaking to himself more than to me.

"Haaah, you're right, I'm sorry. What do you suppose we do now?" I said apologetically.

"We continue moving forward. Burying the bodies would be a massive waste of time."

"Everyone won't agree with your decision." I stated what he already knew. "What will we do with those people?"

"They can go ahead and bury them, if they want to, but I'm not risking my life to keep some sentimental idiots alive."

When people are exposed to hard situations, it brings their true colors into light, and Faris' true colors were far from the lighter shades.

"You've noticed it too, right. The way to evolve our weapons is to kill."

"Yeah, I've noticed. What are you getting at?" Faris asked.

"I think that if someone wants to stay and bury the dead, then it'll be better just to kill them."

"If we do that, then we'll be murderers."

"We already are." I said, pointing at the monster corpses.

"Those weren't humans."

"Okay, let's say that we become murderers after killing them. What's so bad about that? There's no jail here. Murder is a part of nature and at the end of the day humans are just animals. We kill to survive."

"Hmmm." Faris made a sound as if he was thinking over what I had said, and then stood up.

He started walking towards the rest of my group without answering me.

"Let's continue walking."

"What?! Aren't we going to bury the corpses?!" A young woman asked with a high-pitched voice that sounded like she was one second away from bursting into tears.

"We don't have the time." Faris said acting indifferent.

I already knew where this was going, and I could stop it if I wanted to, but I didn't think that it made any difference. They would have sleeping troubles anyway because of this event. It made the difficulty a bit higher, but since I and Faris had evolved already, I was sure we could do it.

"What do you mean we don't have time?" The young woman asked and sniffed.

"The roof is going to collapse. I assume you have noticed that the amount of sand falling from the roof is gradually increasing. The golden line is a timer and if we don't reach the end before the golden line then we're going to be buried alive." Faris explained, and loud gasps could be heard.

"What?!! Why didn't you tell us this sooner?!" A man yelled in an enraged manner.

"Because it would have only worsened the situation. Enough about that, we have to continue moving forward." Faris answered.

"No, we have time to bury the dead, they'd do the same for us." The young woman said.

"If we take time to bury them, it won't take long until we'll be buried as well."

"Do you think this is some kind of joke?" The young woman asked.

"No, I'm just telling you how things are. Now, are you going to obey my orders or are you going to go against them?"

"I'm against them." The young woman said firmly.

"Hmm, what a shame." Faris said as he got ready to summon his weapon.

"Wait!" I yelled and stood up.

"What?" Faris turned his gaze to me and asked, as he tilted his head.

"If we are going to just die, then won't the deaths of the people who lie here be meaningless? Earth might not even exist anymore, so we could be the only one's who know these people ever existed. Wouldn't it be better for us to survive, so that we can carry their memory with us?" I asked the young woman.

"That... Wouldn't it be disrespectful to just leave them amongst these monsters?"

"Yes, but we can't let that bothers us. We don't even know if this place we're in right now is real. I suggest you forget honoring the dead and focus on survival."

The young woman's face twisted in sadness, and she looked at the bodies, then back at me. "Fine, let's go. We have wasted too much time already." She said firmly.

***

Once again we were following the golden line.

Faris and I walked in complete silence, and I couldn't help to wonder what was going on in his head.

Seeing how our path just continued and continued, I started to feel anxious.

What if we had misinterpreted this ruin and were going to die without even realizing what had gone wrong. But that was just a possibility.

There is always a possibility of everything going wrong, and if you let the fear of that possibility affect your decision-making, then that possibility becomes stronger.

What you need is focus and trust.

Focus on your goal and trust in yourself.

***

"We'll stop here!" Faris announced, and the people behind us started collapsing and taking off their armor.

We had fought multiple groups of those humanoid monsters, so it was understandable that they were tired.

We had been traveling for 13 hours and the amount of sand falling from the sky had increased drastically.

"Get some sleep, if you don't have the stamina to continue, you'll be left behind!" Faris commanded in an exhausted manner.

"What if the monsters attack?" Asked a man with a small frame and a bow in his hand.

"I will stay on night watch." Faris answered.

"No, I can stay on night watch, since I have the most stamina out of everyone." I said to Faris.

"Fine, we'll stay on night guard." Faris agreed.

"You should get some sleep, too. It would be pointless to have two people on night watch." I persuaded.

"I don't need sleep, and two people on night watch is better than one." Faris said decisively.

"But it-" I tried to speak but got interrupted.

"I'm not suggesting." Faris said.

There was nothing I could do but accept Faris' decision.

I looked around and noticed that some of our group members had already started trying to get sleep.

"Get some sleep, Akir and I will assure your safety!" As Faris yelled this, everybody hurried into sleeping positions and everybody got quiet.

Faris and I decided to go sit about 30 meters from everybody.

"Aren't you tired at all with all that armor you're carrying around?" I asked Faris, who sat down next to me.

"Of course, I'm a little tired, but I'll get to rest when we make it to the next preparation room." Faris answered

"What if there's only another ruin waiting for us?" I asked.

"Huh, now that I think about it, that seems possible." Faris said, as gray sand fell next to him.

"Well, possibilities are just possibilities. No need to worry too much."

"Well said." Faris said with a slight smile.

***

We spent the next few hours chatting about trivial things, but the moment was eventually interrupted by the sight of a horde of monsters.

"EVERYBODY, WAKE UP!!!" Faris yelled and people started awakening from their dreams.

I had already summoned my dagger and was now approaching the monsters by myself.

There were over 40 of them this time.

The thing was they didn't get stronger, while we did.

The first monster swung its rusty sword at my head, and I duck down and thrust my dagger into its heart.

After I dealt with the first monster, another monster came running at me from my left.

I pulled my weapon out of the first monster and threw it into the other monster's left eye.

The other monster stumbled and fell face-first into the sand, and the dagger sunk further into its brain.

As I was running at the other monster to retrieve my dagger, another monster came from my right and its sword was dangerously close to my right side.

When I noticed him, it was already too late.

'Shit.' I thought as I tried to come up with a way to minimize the injuries.

Then, an arrow flew a couple of centimeters past me, straight into the monster's left eye.

The monsters collapsed and I survived unscathed.

I didn't look back at the archer, but I knew who it was.

***

My black clothes were covered with bright purple blood, and I was on my knees in the middle of about 40 corpses. At this point, there were less than half of us left.

I stood up slowly and started walking towards my group members. I stepped over the corpses of monsters and men, as I walked towards my group members, and started looking for a small boy carrying a bow.

After a while of looking, I found him alone, sitting far from all the others. I headed over and greeted him.

"Hey."

The boy with green eyes and blond hair wore a confused expression, "What?"

I responded to the boy's behavior by repeating myself in a bland manner, "I said hey."

"Ah, okay. Why are you here?" the boy said with a mix of rudeness and awkwardness.

I raised my brows at the boy's behavior and answered nonchalantly, "Just to say thank you."

The boy got even more confused, "Thank you?"

"Yeah, you helped me out a bit, so I figured I should at least thank you."

"Okay." the boy said simply and thought the conversation was over.

"I'm Akir, what's your name?"

"Oh, I'm Devon."

"Have you practiced archery before?"

"I've practiced it ever since I was 5 years old."

"Well, it's great to have someone as competent as you here."

The boy looked flattered, but answered flatly, "Thanks."

"Well, get some sleep." I said and walked away.

'Why did I even go thank him?' I thought as I walked over to Faris.

"What were you doing with that guy?" Faris asked me after I greeted him with a wave.

"I was just thanking him for saving me." I answered simply.

Faris looked like he was questioning his ears, "You got saved?"

"Yeah, I threw my dagger for some reason and almost got stabbed."

Faris blinked once, and then looked at me with a mixture of awe and disappointment.

***

It was completely silent. Everybody was sleeping except for me and Faris. We stayed quiet and looked at the people who were sleeping. There were 47 of them.

"It's gone to waste." I said disrupting the silence.

"What?" Faris asked in a confused manner.

"Their lives. 50 of our men have died to the monsters. The monsters don't get stronger from killing, so we don't benefit at all from the deaths of our comrades." I explained.

"What are you talking about?" Faris asked, even more confused.

"Don't lie, you've thought about it too, right?"

"About what?" Faris asked.

"If we kill our group members, who are just going to die anyway, then we can easily clear this ruin. They're holding us back."

"Are you serious?" Faris asked gravely.

I was silent for a moment and then turned my head to look him in the eye. My expression was that of unprecedented determination, and I opened my mouth to answer.

"I am. Let's kill them."