"Two... Four... Six... Eight... Ten... Twelve..."

Felix started counting the tiles of the corridor that we need to pass, which one of the tiles just broke for the first row, and there's still more rows that we need to cross.

"Alright guys!" Felix made an announcement to our group. "There's a total of twenty rows that we need to cover." Felix told us. "Twenty?!" A guy exclaimed, which I did recognize it from somewhere before. "What you're saying is," I heard another voice spoke, which is sounds similar to the first one, "That we need to make it through this corridor," A third one said, "With the risks of falling through like what happened just now?" They spoke together in unison.

I immediately recognized them as that pair of triplets that I had seen when we are on the way to register ourselves, and I will never forget that they are one of those fellows who ignored my offers to sign their autographs.

"Yes." Felix answered, it went silent for a moment, with the only sounds being the timer ticking. "Oh man, oh man," The second fellow said, "I have a dark thought here, I think one of us needs to sacrifice themselves to reveal the correct tile." He buried his face into his palms. "I don't want to sacrifice anyone here man."

"Don't say that, Jeffery." The first fella comforted the one named Jeffery, "We can probably figure this out. Right, guys?" The rest gave the triplets looks of hopelessness, the triplets sighed with despair in response.

But he's right, I thought. There must be a difference between the 'nice' tile and the 'not so nice' tile.

Now that we are now a group, I don't want their hopes to get crushed. I need to do something, something that definitely won't involve sacrifice and sadistic choices.

"Okay ladies and gents." I announced, and the others turned their attention to me. "I'll go first, and I'll try to find the differences." "Edward?" Aisha asked, "Wait, y-" "I'll go first," I repeated before she could finish her sentence. "And there's only two tiles for each row, so we have to go one by one." The others stood there, making no responses at all.

Did I mess up? Do these guys trust me? I hope I can lead these guys out of here, I'm a prince after all, a prince who could be the ruler of Paxsalam eventually... But first, I need to encourage everyone to put their trust in me.

I cleared my throat, and began to make a motivational speech. "Guys, I know that I messed up before; I led you all to many dead ends, which wasted our time. Now, let me try to redeem myself in this one. I'll go ahead and try to find any hints and differences for faulty tiles. I'll let you know if it's safe."

The others turned to each other, giving looks of concern (a natural reaction when a thirteen year old prince is about to do something that could get him eliminated from a tournament), and relief (probably because someone finally came up with a idea). Felix and Aisha looked worried, but eventually they manage to say. "Good luck, Edward." "Don't stress it, dude." The triplets said in a comforting tone.

I took the first step, the one next to the tile where Aisha had stepped on. One down, nineteen more to go. I looked forward, to the two tiles laying ahead of me, one of them is the one that can't be broken, and the other is the one that can collapse under a single step... I thought for a moment, and remembered the hole traps during my trainings in the good old days. I raised my staff, and tapped the tile on the left.

Creak. Creak. Creak.

The sweet sound of wooden floor echoed the area as I tapped on it. I turned to the one on the right and did the same thing. Creak. Creak. Creak. Wait... I raised my staff, and tapped on the tiles again. The same sound emitted from its. Damn it, I silently cursed, not only do they look similar, they sound similar too. What now? What else can I do?

Hold up, I have a plan, but I could accidentally destroy both of them. I just need to hope that the right one can withstand it.

I raised my staff again, and chanted softly. "Element of Ice, Third Position, Zero Creation: Ice Hammer." A hammer, forged from ice, appeared in my hand. I wielded the hammer, raised it, and smashed the tile on the left, after I smashed it, a huge dent was embedded on it. I repeated the process to the one on the right, unlike the tile on the left, there's not even a dent on it. Okay, here I go.

I leaped to the tile on the right, and I closed my eyes as I expected to the tile to break underneath my feet. But to my surprise, it didn't break.

I turned to the others who were watching me from the back, "Alright guys! One of you can start to follow me!" I announced to the crowd. They all looked at each other, expecting someone to go next. One of them stood forward, it wasn't Felix, nor Aisha, it was one of the triplets who had complained that there were twenty tiles ahead of us. "Jerome?" One of the triplets asked. "You sure about that?" The triplet named Jeffery asked.

"Jeffery, Jeremy, just follow my lead." The triplet, now named Jerome called back. I admire their sibling relationship and it reminds me of my sibling relationship with Claude... "Sorry to interrupt, contestants. All of you still have forty minutes to escape the Endless Rooms." Owen's voice echoed across the quiet corridor, "Owen out!"

I kept repeating the same thing, hammering the tiles to check whether it will make a dent on it. And if I did manage to get the safe tile in my first try, I would make sure to make a dent on the other faulty tile to ensure that the others won't step on it if they lost track on the pattern.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I need to make this quick, I want every single one of these guys to make it out with me. And sometimes I would have to make a new hammer just because of the cold. Hey, even though I have ice magic, it doesn't mean that I'm immune it's freezing temperature. And making a new one did cost us a bit of time.

I looked back, just to check how many people are following me now, I saw Felix and Aisha just behind Jerome, and there's the other triplets Jeffery and Jeremy were at the first and second tiles. There were about eleven of us, and there's only two and the starting point. I have to speed up, who knows what else could be waiting for us at the end... "Element of Ice, Third Position, Zero Creation: Ice Hammer." I created another hammer for the third time. There's just one more tile ahead of me, "Participants, you have one hour left!" Owen's voice echoed. I smashed the perfect tile, and I made it across.

"Everybody! Now's your chance!" One by one, they made it across with me. The others cheered in relief. The JJJ (Jerome, Jeffery and Jeremy. I apologize if this nickname sucks) triplets patted me on the shoulder, "Good one man." Jerome said, "Thanks for leading us." Jeffery added, "We couldn't have done it without your strategy," Jeremy agreed, "We could have been eliminated without your help." I smiled, I actually managed to help out people for once. Everyone in the group began to give me a warm hug as a appreciation for my deeds.

We kept on, encountering more traps in the process, like there were some hidden riffles that shoot out balls, about twenty at a time at us when we get too close (and obviously, it hurts to get hit by it) "Element of Fairies, First Position, Elusive Floating." Felix chanted as he made contact with everyone in the group. We then found ourselves floating above the riffles, which we were too high for the balls to reach us. However, despite me floating midair, I still managed to trip over a ball. Bad luck, perhaps?

Then there was this huge gap between us and the other side, about fifty meters in length. Aisha manages to create a bridge made from water to the other side. "Where are the handles?" Jeremy asked, "Huh?" "Where are the handles?" He repeated, "Don't all bridges are supposed to have handles to hold on to?" "I don't think we don't have t-" "If there aren't any handles, it won't be safe for us to cross." Jeffery agreed with his brother.

"Ugh, for the love of-" Aisha then decided to create handles for the bridge, she turned to Jeremy, "Satisfied?" She hissed. "Fair enough." Jeremy replied, and he started to cross the bridge.

"You have fifteen more minutes!" I have a feeling that we're almost there, since we ran into so many dead ends and traps and obstacles... and the final obstacle, is the part where I sadly, ran out of ideas.

We all stumbled upon six animal statues, which includes a snake, a rat, a bull, a crow, a fox and a hawk, all standing together in a line. They were surprisingly small, as they were at least a meter tall. A table with two levers stood before us, we gave each other looks of confusion and suspicion. That was until Felix stood forward and pulled one of the levers.

A voice spoke from the speakers, and it wasn't Owen's voice this time.

"The rat and the viper are foes, it would be chaos if they were to sit together.

The bull and the crow are best of friends, they will hang out together till the end of time.

The hawk totally loathes the rat, but would flee at the sight of the bull.

Alas, the poor fox has to break up all the fights between the hawk and the viper.

Sometimes, friends would have to split up to protect something precious."

"Uh... what?" Felix asked in confusion, as well as reading out my thoughts at that moment too. The others looked even more confused than before, except for the JJJ triplets, who looked excited. "Ah yes! A riddle!" Jerome exclaimed, "Now it's our turn to help you all!" Jeffery added.

They made a recap to us on the riddle. "So, we have to arrange those statues in the perfect position according to the riddle." Jeremy said, "You guys got any clues from the riddle, ladies and gents?" He asked in the way a lecturer would. I raised my hand to answer. "We shouldn't put the rat statue and the viper statue together. Like it says, they are foes, so they obviously can't get along."

Jeffery snapped his fingers, "You got it! Mr. Astley!" He praised. "It's Edward actually." I corrected. "Ten minutes left for you to escape!" Owen's (loud) announcement echoed across the room, we got to hurry up and complete this riddle.

"What's next?" Aisha said as she rubbed her temples, she clapped as a way to show that she had a idea. "Then it would be exact opposite for the bull statue and the crow statue!" "And like the viper, the rat statue can't be next to the hawk." Felix added. "So the rat should be next to the bull, since the riddle says that the hawk would flee when it sees the bull."

"Good! Good!" Jeremy praised us. "Let us take it from here. So, according to the riddle, the fox would have to be somewhere in between the hawk and the viper!" "So let's put this arrangement together." A guy concluded. "So the arrangement of these statues should be: the hawk, the fox, the viper, the rat, the bull and the crow."

We all began to lift up the statues and place them in the order that the guy had mentioned. "Five minutes left!" We began to pick up the pace, and we were done with the arrangements. But... something seems off...

The rat is right next to the the viper.

"It seems you guys forgot something." Jerome said, "Remember the last line of the riddle?" I tried to make a recap on the riddle: Sometimes, friends would have to split up to protect something precious. Wait... does that mean we should, rearrange the positions of the bull and the crow?

"The bull and the crow are friends. And the rat obviously needs to seek protection from the hawk and the viper," Jeffery explained. "So the bull and the crow must split apart to protect something precious, which is the rat. And what's more, the bull should be next to the hawk to scare it away, and, we don't have much time left."

I had forgot that we still have five minutes left to escape this maze. We carried the bull and rat statue so that the rat would be between the bull and the crow. "Now pull the other lever!" Felix ordered. I rushed over to the table, and I did what he had told us to do.

A light bulb lowered in front of the statues, and it proceeded to scan the line. After a few moments, it turned green. And a door in white materialized at the end of the room.

We had solved the riddle.

"Hey guys!" Felix called out to us, "Is that it?" He pointed to the door in white, white always means good stuff, right? And besides, we're running out of time. We rushed towards the white door, as Aisha opened it, and we all rushed through. What appeared before us, is a bunch of other contestants, about thirty of them. And we knew, that we had managed to escape the Endless Rooms.

We sat down together, and I just realized how much sweat has been dripping down from our faces. We received some water and a few other cold drinks, and water tastes better when you're exhausted. "We made it." Felix said, "We passed again." A few people fist-bumped each other, some gave each other a hug, which is quite awkward and gross since we're all sweating.

I looked at the sky, and sighed with relief and exhausted. I heard that the third game is the last game, and the last ones always means the most trickiest ones.