"What do you think of Edward's performance, Claude?"

I was sitting on a special seat next to Trad. Which the seats were reserved only for the members of the Twelve Guardians, and hey, that's me.

"You're his master, right? Trad asked, "Do you think he will be able to handle the pressure that is waiting for him?" I spun my staff once, and turned to Trad. "Trad, that, is the future, no one knows what will happen in the future. The future is yet to happen, we should focus on the present."

Owen scratched his chin, "Alright then, you don't have to give a mini-speech about that." "I don't mind that." Trad said, "Your speeches are mostly the ones that will give all of us motivation. After all, you are the King of Paxsalam." Trad raised his mini-binoculars closer to his eyes, and focused it to the screen. "Now, let's see what these newcomers got up their sleeves."

I, too raised my mini-binoculars, trying to see whether Edward is visible. Do you think he will be able to handle the pressure that is waiting for him? Well, I'm not sure about that yet, the training that I gave him was easy. Don't worry, I told myself, Edward is the type of person that will observe his problems really well, he can handle it, I believe in him.

"I'm back! Dudes!" Owen exclaimed as he entered the room. "What did I miss?" We turned and greeted the Shadow Guardian. "Other than a team of five contestants getting ambushed and eliminated by a tapered panther." Trad replied.

Owen sighed with sympathy. "That experience must have been nightmare-fuel for them." I silently agreed with Owen. Tapered panthers were magnificent beasts, and are sadly an endangered species. Like normal panthers, they are usually nocturnal and will stalk their prey while moving silently and freezing from some time to avoid detection.

But here's the difference: Tapered panthers love to strike fear into their prey. They will usually let out a soft but echoing growl, and it will sound like the growl is coming from every direction, which would mask the panther's location. Once their prey is confused, the panther would make more noise to startle them, which includes scratching trees, shaking nearby vegetation, and more soft growls.

Once the prey is still trying to figure out its location, the panther will leap out, mostly from the back, and will give the prey one final fright by pouncing on them and roar at their faces.

Yeah, that experience is going to be nightmare-fuel.

"Oh! And guess what guys?" Owen fished out his smartphone from his pocket. It was ringing cause of a call from a familiar phone number. "Clovis is calling us, and she said that she has news from a patient from the Imperial Medical Centre, let's hear her out!"

. . . . . .

Edward's POV

I gotta stay quiet, I told myself.

I am now trying, to try and avoid whatever the heck is lurking in this forest, I will not want to waste energy on fending off some really territorial creature. And I will want to make it out of here as quickly as possible. I tried to minimize the times that I will step on a stick or anything else that will make a crack noise (which is why characters keep getting killed in horror media) to avoid being noticed, by the creatures, or even other contestants, if battling each other is legal.

I don't see Felix nor Aisha anywhere, and the sun is starting to set, and the surroundings is getting darker every moment. There isn't any creature in sight too, and that's a good thing, I can save my energy from fighting. But my memories of the lessons that Claude taught me started to came back for no, okay, good reasons.

I remember that there will be some species that are nocturnal, and I don't know how many... I would need something to make light when night comes, but what... oh, I have an idea.

I decided to find a really nice piece of wood, and two cool stones. I can make a torch with these, don't worry, I know how to make one. I started to swipe the stones together, that will hopefully make some sparks that will land onto the wood, which will burn it, and that would eventually become fire. It didn't work after many tries, I'm not sure on what did I do wrong, I was sure that you just need some wood and so I guess that I will have to try again, this won't take long.

Four hours later.

I was wrong. Nothing happened. No fire. This has been going on for hours, I am now surrounded by the darkness of the night, and I still can't make fire, what's wrong with this? "Why?! Can't I make a! Spark!?" I grumbled, I need to make some light, even if it lasts for only five seconds, that will be satisfying for me. "C'mon, Come on!" I started praying quietly, "Hephaestus, Ho-musubi, Aetna, all Gods of Fire, please! Please give me some good flames on my journey!"

Sadly, no one heard my pleas. There are some minor bruises on my palm due to my hard work. I sighed, I feel like giving up, I had wasted too much time on making a torch. Well, guess this won't work for some weird reason, I will have to find another way...

Grr...

A sudden growl broke me out from my thoughts. I dropped my 'trusty' stones and I turned to the location of the growl. And now, in front of me, stood my first, magnificent and deadly obstacle.

It was a fox, which I suppose is a fox (since its dark, it could be something else), with two horns on each side on its head, and more spikes are ridged on the fox's back, by the look of it, those horns can do some ugly damage. The creature snarled at me, revealing its sharp and pointy fangs. I remembered that Claude had gave me some lessons about the magical creatures out there. And I clearly remembered that he did teach me about this beast.

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A tenghuang.

It is a creature based from Chinese mythology, and rumours said that if a person manages to eat its liver can achieve a wealthy and blissful life, so hunters all around the world started to hunt its species for this reason. So, this hill must have been used to offer them sanctuary. And it is notorious for attacking anyone, or anything that enters its territory.

Well, I don't know am I in its territory, or did it stumble upon me.

The tenghuang snarled again, and took a step closer to me. I took a few tiptoes backwards, it snarled again. There must be a reason why it's doing this, I thought. Since this tenghuang didn't attack me immediately after seeing me, and it just kept on snarling at me. Is it giving a warning to me? To get out from its territory? Or does it want to make me properly terrified before tearing me apart?

I decided to go with my first theory. The deadly fox snarled, but it sounds more threatening this time. I stepped backwards a few more times, and the fox looked less aggressive when I did that. So, it is a warning sign to tell me to back off. I kept moving backwards from the tenghuang, and I made sure to not turn my back on it, which could be a sign that I'm weak (which I probably agreed on).

The fox's expression turned softer as I kept my distance away from it. So, I was right, I was in its territory. And I knew I have to leave it as soon as possible.

The tenghuang is almost out of sight now, and I think it is safe to turn my back and move on now... I'm not sure on whether it will chase me when I'm doing that, but from the way it calms down after I backed off, I don't think it will do that.

The good news, is that nothing happened, which means that I'm safe. The bad news? I don't have anything to make a light source, I have no choice, but to move on and find some better stones to swipe. It sucks to navigate in the dark, you know. It's almost pitch black out here, and sadly, I don't have fire, a torchlight, nor night vision.

At every fifteen minutes, I will guarantee that I will bump into a tree or a boulder. At least that's better than bumping into some beast or someone that won't be happy about it. The others must had made fire by now, maybe I should try to find someone and team up with them, since Owen didn't mention that teaming up or forming a group is illegal.

"GAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

A girlish scream echoed in the distance, and who doesn't get startled by someone screaming out of a sudden? I hear footsteps, and they are getting closer to where I am right now. Whatever this is, it is not like the tenghuang, it acts more agitatedly.

I have to be ready to defend myself. I raised my staff, and looked at every corner of my surroundings, expecting something to pounce on me. To my left, I saw a light glowing every five seconds, is there a creature that has bioluminescence here? The light glowed again, "Aah!" I heard a feminine voice from the direction where the light is glowing. "Do something!" Another voice, a male, ordered. "It's not working!" The feminine voice replied with frustration and fear.

I began to hyperventilate, those were people. I need to go and help them! But wait, I remember learning that some creatures are able to speak (give a shout out to Chris guys), or at least are able to mimic human speech. I'm afraid that this could be one of those creatures, possibly mimicking the voices of its previous victims...

The footsteps sounded more louder and closer, I pointed my staff towards the darkness, where the voices were coming from, I was ready to fight, I chanted "Element of Ice, Second Position..."

Dear readers, listen closely, and hear my advice: it is rude to almost turn a girl's face into ice.

A girl, with long, crimson red hair appeared from the dark. My eyes widened, and I pulled my staff away from her face. She collapsed on the ground, gasping for air. She held a staff with the top shaped like a type of bird's head, she wore a grey dress shirt and a pair of orange trousers. She was about the same age as me, and the thing about her that shocked me is, that there is a cut on her leg, and there's blood oozing out from it.

And then seconds later, a boy, dashed out from the same direction as the girl. He wore a pair of glasses, a brown jacket, brown jeans, and a pair of white Nike sport shoes. He collapsed and panted with exhaustion and fear.

I rushed to help them up, "Hey, are you alright?" I asked the girl, she turned to meet my face. "W-what are you doing?" She asked back. "Um, I'm trying to-" "Leave me! You have to get out of here!" To be honest, I don't like it when someone interrupts me when I'm talking, but she sounds horrified, I think I she has something to warn me about. "There's something coming, it seems to be resistant to fire!"

Resistant to fire.

That explains the light glowing in the dark, she was actually using fire as light source as well as to defend herself. Now, I would need to calm her down, "We will get out of here." I promised, and for some reason, I started to look at the cut on her leg, I don't like bloody images, but this time, I can't cringe at the sight of it. "And, your leg, it's b-bleeding. You would need to-"

BOOM.

The trees behind us toppled, and a three-meter-tall rhinoceros charged out from the darkness, it trumpeted so loudly that my ears could burst. Regular rhinos aren't this big, and I don't remember them being that ferocious.

But this isn't a regular rhinoceros.

It looks like your ordinary safari white rhino, but this one has sharper horns and much larger hooves. I learned about this fellow before, this is a Pyro Rhinoceros, which, like the girl mentioned, is resistant to fire. There's fresh blood dripping from its smaller horn, which is proof that it is responsible for the cut on the girl's leg. The rhino trumpeted again and it charged at us.

I did what I have to do, I held the girl's and boy's hand, and dived into the bushes. The rhino just missed us by a few inches. But as soon as we managed to hide in the bushes, the boy let out a soft, girlish whimper and dashed (quietly) away from the threat, as well as from us.

"There goes my damsel whom I'd saved and got this cut for." The girl sighed, with disappointment and relief.

I took a small peek from the bushes to check on the rhino, the herbivorous beast seemed dazed and confused, as if we just vanished into thin air before it can ram into us. It turned its head at every direction, trying to find us. I remember that rhinos don't have good eyesight, and they aren't the brightest organisms out there too. Maybe the Pyro Rhino is similar to regular rhinos.

Even though I can outsmart the rhino, I shouldn't underestimate it. This beast is literally way bulkier than an elephant, and it is way quicker than I expected. This girl can't do anything against it, and she already has an injured leg. And the boy just ditched us a few minutes ago.

I won't allow the Pyro Rhino to inflict more huge cuts and injuries to her, I will protect her from it. That's what kings do, we must protect our citizens and kingdoms from harm's way.

I turned to the girl, "Hey, what's your name?" She blinked with slight confusion, like no one had asked for her name before. "Eloise..." "Eloise, nice name by the way." "Thanks." "Now, I will need you to hide in these bushes," I took another peek out from the bushes, the Pyro Rhino still seems confused, but it still won't give up on pulverizing us. "I will go and distract it."

Eloise seemed hesitant on letting me out, but she winced in pain again. More blood was leaking out from her cut. The rhino sniffed the air, and it glared to the direction of the bushes that we are hiding in. "I think it knows where we are now." I whispered, "It's fast." Eloise replied, "We can't outrun it." "I'm going, I have an idea. And I admit it, it's a insane one."