Josh was shoving his way through all the contestants, leading his team through the chaos. His team struggle themselves past the large gates and were met with the surprisingly vast plains, mountains, and forest. Scattered ice golems from the previous test and dozens of stuffed bags that were supposed to represent civilians. Some being crushed by ice golems, some stuck on trees, and some cornered. They could still see the walls enveloping them, and atop them were some guards watching over everyone.

By the gates were weapons, just some basic swords and shields, maces, and more. Everyone was still shoving their way through the gates, so they quickly grabbed the first thing they could.

“This hammer is perfect, and light!” Josh yelled, despite the hammer being comically large, everyone around him was surprised he was able to casually run with it.

“A-a sword! I can’t fight!” Imon pleaded.

“A flail? Ok then.” Jasmine was serious.

“A shield? Well, I doubt I could use anything else.” Donte simply continued running.”

“What, how did I get NOTHING!?” Zai kept running empty-handed. Well, I was never actually good with any weapon, Vas trained me to no avail in that department. Slight embarrassment took over Zai’s face.

As they kept running, and the groups began to split off, the size of the last test was truly put into perspective for the team.

“This place is bigger than I thought it was gonna be.” Josh was amazed.

“How should we go about this?” Donte asked Jasmine.

While they were still running Jasmine pointed at Sylph’s team and strategy. “Let’s follow what they’re doing, seems like it works.”

Jasmine begins to lead everyone to an upcoming ice golem with 3 stuffed bags, one in hand,

another under the ice golems foot, and the last right behind the golem.

“Ok; Donte, Josh you guys distract the golem, I’ll try and release the one in its hand, the rest of you retrieve the rest-“

“LET’S GO!” Josh instantly rushed towards the stuffed bag under the golems foot.

“Oh my, No!” Jasmine said frustrated, “Donte, you and I are going to Distract instead!”

“Right!”

Donte and Jasmine began running in one direction to gain the Golem's attention, Jasmine flailing her weapon around with Donte in front acting as a guard. The golem moved its foot off the stuffed bag, tracking Jasmine and Donte.

STOMP

“HEYUP,” Josh leaped to one of the stuffed bags “I GOT ONE!”

“Then go back to the gates idiot! We’ll catch up after you.” Jasmine shouted.

“Roger!” Josh hurried back.

“Iman! Go for the one in the back now!” Jasmine ordered Imon.

“Right!”

The golem erected ice pillars from the ground.

ZIIING

“KYAA!” She awkwardly dodged impulsively and fell.

More ice pillars were heading her way and put up her sword to block.

“Dammit, move!” Yelled jasmine.

Right before the pillars were able to reach Imon Zai was able to grab her out of the way and throw her into the stuffed bag.

“Oof!” She fell face flat.

“Go!” Zai encouraged her, while Jasmine and Donte were distracting the golem, fending off, ice attacks by, destroying them and deflecting them.

“Y-yup!” She scurried back up and began running back to the gates.

There was only one more stuffed bag they had to “save” in the golem's hand, Zai without a weapon, Donte with a shield, and Jasmine the only one with a weapon capable of doing damage. Jasmine was trying to think of the best way, to release the golems grip, Donte was just defending against the golem’s attacks, looking as if he was holding himself back from saying anything. Zai spoke up:

“Try aiming for the feet or something!” He shouted.

Jasmine scouted for an opportunity but the ice around its legs made it difficult to be able to even reach the feet. “No good! I won’t be able to even reach it.”

Jasmine was visibly frustrated, It’s way harder to save one person than multiple She thought Donte isn’t even saying anything, this is exactly why I hate teams.

At that moment “Urgh! Donte, cover me from incoming attacks! Zai get ready!” She started sprinting at full speed towards the golem, Donte had a bit of trouble keeping up but was able to do his job. She saw a moment to where the golem's attacks stopped and his hand exposed, Donte was knocked back some of the ice pillars. leaped towards it and at full power swung her flail at the golem’s wrist, at the same time the golem getting ready to counter. She managed to shatter the golems wrist, releasing the stuffed bag from the golem’s clutches.

CRASH

At the same time, she was knocked back from a punch by the golem “Urk,” Donte was able to catch her in time. Zai retrieved the stuffed doll, “Ok, let's just run back!”

Donte hurried jasmine up, and they all used mana to run away, leaving the ice golem in the dust.

As they ran through the fields, they notice a lot of other participants retrieving their own stuffed bags at the same time.

“I don’t think there’ll be enough bags for us to get here by the time we retrieve this last one,” Donte mentioned.

“After we regroup, we should choose where to go next, what do you think Jasmine??” Zai suggested.

“… As soon as we regroup, we head to the forest next.”

“Why the forest? It’d be much more difficult than the mountains.” Donte complains.

“That’s the whole point, idiot. Fewer people would be more likely to go there.”

“Oh… Yeah.” Donte silenced himself.

Donte, Jasmine, and Zai eventually run into Imon and Josh as they were coming back towards them. They successfully retrieved all of the bags and obtained 3 points, they all then agreed to head to the forest.

The team was traversing the forest, it had an eerie aura. The lack of free space already made it difficult for Josh, Imon, and Jasmine to fight. Imon was more paranoid than normal tailing behind everyone, Josh continued to strut his way through in front of everyone.

Donte simply stayed by Jasmine who seemed to be the only one staying alert and analyzing the area.

As Zai walked through the forest with everyone he noticed some blood a couple trees ahead of them.

“Hey, do you see that?”

“See what?” Jasmine asked.

Zai jogged towards the tree with bloodstains on them. “Bloodstains, I’m not a scientist but this has gotta mean somebody was getting into it with a golem here.”

“In what direction though?” Donte inquired.

“Yeah, m-maybe that way we can avoid it!” Imon hoped..

Everyone collectively ignored Imon’s idea.

“Well judging by the way, the blood is splattered on the tree, it looks like they only got grazed.” Donte pitched in.

CRASH what sounded like a tree falling slowly crept through the forest, they headed towards the noise.

As they cautiously crept through the creepy forest, the leaves were rustling in the wind, they grew closer to where the sound came from.

Lying on the ground beside the fallen tree laid Cosmo, along with the rest of his team, beaten and bruised beyond what ice golems should have been capable of doing.