Travis bolted through the forest at superhuman speeds. His movements were quick and efficient as he glided through the forest like an experienced parkour specialist.

'Hell yeah.'

He cheered in his mind as a grin split his face, his pace accelerated as he tried to challenge himself.

He heard noises in the distance as other competitors tried their hardest to get to the loot boxes first. His excitement died down slightly at this revelation, and his gaze became sharper as he avoided a sharp branch.

*Ding*

Mid stride, he suddenly got a notification as four bright beams of white light shot into the sky. He slowed down and checked the notification.

[Announcement: Loot boxes will vanish if not claimed within four hours. Prowlers have been activated.]

'Couldn't be straight and easy, huh?'

Travis thought to himself as he pulled out Specter's edge. He immediately became invisible as he bolted through the forest; only the sound of his steps gave away his presence.

'Let's see if I can sneak past these prowlers.'

Even though the game had given them the basic information on how the game worked, the deeper challenges they would have to go through in these ten days were unknown.

After about an hour of running and parkouring, Travis checked his map and could tell he was about a kilometer out from the closest loot box.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

In this past hour, he had run into three prowlers, each of them were grey faceless humanoids who wielded varying melee weapons.

He had easily dispatched the first two, but the last one was significantly stronger and much more skilled.

When he turned his attention away from his map, he could see a prowler uphead, dashing towards him faster than any human could. It wielded a gray, simplistic spear devoid of any markings or accessories as it ran directly towards Travis.

Travis at this point had turned off his invisibility as it didn't make a difference against the prowlers and put him at a disadvantage due to having to maintain a certain movement speed.

When they were just a few meters away from each other, Travis threw out three of his regular knives in rapid succession. Each blade shot at a unique vital organ faster than a crossbow bolt.

The prowler easily deflected them all with minimal movements of its spear as it got within striking range, delivering a fierce thrust.

Travis sidestepped the thrust and placed his dagger along the spear as he dashed in, he wanted to end this in one exchange.

The faceless warrior easily redirected its thrust into a slash, knocking away Travis' arm and almost cutting him in half.

Travis took some steps back and tried to regroup, but the faceless spearman had an overwhelming reach advantage; it dealt out a simple thrust once more easily, covering all the distance Travis made.

Travis rolled to the side, and it became a cat-and-mouse game. Travis was forced to keep dodging since a single misstep could lead to a fatal combination from the prowler.

'Gotcha.'

After about 15 seconds of this deadly dance, Travis had figured out the prowler's movements and techniques for the most part. He sidestepped a thrust, dodged a sweep, and ducked a slash as he closed the distance between them smoothly.

Before the faceless spearman could launch a fourth attack, Travis shot a knife at it, which punctured its shoulder, immediately disabling its arm. Its refined movements became clumsy; Travis then dispatched in two more exchanges.

He stood over its disintegrating body and took a deep breath; he then said to himself absentmindedly.

"That was fun... Too bad only contestants give points."

He then cleared up his thoughts, picked up all his throwing knives, and placed them in his bandolier.

He checked his map for a bit and proceeded to jog away slowly, picking up speed as he went. He clenched Specter's Edge in his hand as he ran.

After 30 minutes, he was closing in on the loot box. He ran past tens of contestants who fought against prowlers. He used them as decoys when he could, but the number of prowlers he ran into also spiked, with him having to face multiple prowlers at once.

When he struggled and finally got within a few hundred meters away from the loot box, he noticed the loot box was a giant gray box that let out the prowlers.

Tens of contestants were already there fighting to the death against the gray humanoids; though the humans had the numbers advantage, they fought for themselves, so it didn't make a difference.

'Here goes nothing.'

Not seeing any easy way in, Travis dove headfirst into the chaos.