Author's Note: Unedited Chapters
----------------------
Upon Handler one appearance, the arena quietened. It was time for the briefing of the next major challenge.
"Welcome back to you all and I commend the lots of you that have made it this far. I believe you are all ready to dive into the next challenge as well," Handler one began with this as everyone focused their attention on him.
The participants who were over sixty thousand in total initially were now around forty thousand down there. The arena without a doubt was still large enough to accommodate them all.
A wheel with multiple weird images appeared on the screens floating above. Some of the images happened to be crossed out as the IYSOP candidates already participated in these challenges.
It turned out that they were going to use the wheel to decide the next major challenge. This was contrary to the rumors that had been flying around, since the next challenge would practically be decided on a random.
Handler One gave the other for the wheel to spin and it began rotating immediately. The arrow placed in the middle signified that the wheel had stopped before a challenge that had already been scaled through in the past.
After two more tries, the arrow tip was finally pointed at a different image. This happened to look like a bunch of unknown creatures stacked together.
"...Survival in the Beast Haven..." Handler One voiced with an interesting tone.
"This one seems interesting," E.E voiced from the side.
"Survival? Doesn't seem thrilling to me," Teemee shook his head.
"As for this challenge, participants are required to survive in the Beast Haven for a particular amount of time. As the name implies, you shall try to escape the onslaught of thousands upon thousands of beasts gathered from all across the universe.
The versatility of species makes things more interesting as the beasts have different capabilities and traits that makes them dangerous. To add, the supernatural abilities of all participants shall be restricted," Handler One stated.
"See I just knew it couldn't be good," Teemee nearly yelled out as he heard the last sentence.
"Our abilities will be restricted, meanwhile we have to survive being in the same space with a bunch of beasts from all across the universe?" E.E voiced from the side.
"That seems unfair," Sheila complained but instantly turned excited, "This will be fun,"
"You're crazy," Glade stated.
"Only my hubby can call me that," Sheila responded while staring at Endric with a loving gaze.
"Pedo..."
"There are three zones within the Beast Haven..." Handler one went on to continue explaining.
The participants listened carefully as it seemed like this Beast Haven Survival challenge was more tricky than it seemed on the surface.
"Participants shall be provided with a Iov Bracelet. This bracelet helps you with two things. First, Gathering life points. Second is the possession of three random generated attacks that might assist you in a dangerous situation. Only three random attacks are stored within the bracelet and after the usage of all three, your bracelet will only be useful for gathering life points unless you manage to acquire an attack crate which is usually located in the red zones..."
Handler one kept explaining to them about the entirety of the challenge and all the needed to do while it was ongoing. He didn't skip any details and informed them properly of what they were meant to look out for.
While it seemed like a very dangerous challenge, there were still a couple of safety measures put in place.
Zing~ Zing~ Zing~ Zing~ Zing~ Zing~ Zing~ Zing~ Zing~
A purplish plated bracelet with three glowing red dots on its surface began appearing before everyone. The participants figured that this was the Iov bracelet and wasted no time in equipping it.
A protective purplish helmet of sorts appeared on their faces after they equipped it. As for the alien participants who didn't have a face, it appeared on the parts of their bodies that were capable of air inhalation.
A red like heuish glow covered everyone figure as well and a numeric figure appeared above their heads. This numerical figures were also displayed on the screens of their helmets from within so they could see it in their line of sight like how Gustav would usually see notification panels.
< 00125 points >
Everyone had the same figures and according to the Handler, this was called life points which would have a 5 point deduction after every hour spent in the Beast Haven.
If all points were deducted before the challenge came to an end it automatically meant disqualification. Handler one also happened to mention that attacks from the beasts caused deduction in life points so of course the participants had to be careful.
Handler One explained a few more things to the participants before officially announcing that the challenge would begin in thirty seconds.
"Is there a plan Captain?" Shirama questioned from the side.
"I have a couple but let's go with the safest which includes using our limited attacks in moderation..." Gustav went on to explain to the group about his plan.
Since they couldn't use their abilities, they were really handicapped especially since they had no idea about what random attack was stored in their bracelet. There was no tell if it would be useful in the whatever future scenarios they might find themselves.
The main aim was to stick with a large group especially if they left the green zone.
< "The Beast Haven Survival Challenge Will Commence Now!" >
A loud automated voice rang out across the ninth disk. In the next instant, the participants were teleported out of the arena.
They reappeared on a particular location on the sixth disk afterwards. Everyone had been briefed so they were instantly aware that they were in the Beast Haven.
"We were teleported to a green zone. It looks like we might not need to move for a while," Aildris voiced as he looked around.
Gustav could see that they were currently at the summit of a pillar like black rock that was arond two thousand feet tall. The top of this rock was circular but covered a small radius of around three hundred feet. The summit emitted a green light from the ground which obviously meant they were in a green zone.
Anyone could easily fall off due to the number of participants that had gotten teleported here. However, one could instantly tell that not every participant was teleported to the top of this particicular rock.
In this area, there happened to be hundreds of similar looking pilar like rocks scattered across the place. They protruded from the ground below like they were pieces of massive nails.
The ground was quite the distance away and no one could leap off this giant piece of nail like rock without breaking their bodies to pieces since supernatural abilities were restricted.
"Luckily, we all appeared on the same place since we were close to each other," Teemee heaved a sigh of relief after speaking.
"Indeed but we cannot stay here forever," Gustav stated while standing at the edge and staring down.
The ground below was rough but void of any creatures as one would expect. One couldn't see into the distance so it was hard to tell what laid beyond.
It was really a long way down and without abilities, they'd have to climb down carefully or they'd fall to their death.
Based on the briefings, even though this was a green zone, they had limited time here.
There were three types of zones in total...
The green zones happened to be areas where the beasts couldn't get to no matter what. They were completely safe.
The yellow zones was where they could head to gather life points.
The Beast Haven was not conducive for any living creature but the beasts within were all immune to the toxic nature of the environment. No other living creature would be able to bear it no matter how powerful they were.
The bracelet gave them enough protection with the helmet and the life points which would dwindle with time if they didn't try to renew it.
The greenzones made sure that the participants were safe but they really couldn't stay there forever since they were bound to run out of lifepoints.
Despite Gustav being immune to any toxin, the bracelet would still dwindle in life points since it's sole purpose is to stop any toxin in the vicinity from coming close to a participant. So long as it was functional, Gustav would have to participate in this challenge normally.
As for the red zones, it went without a saying that it places like that were filled with the beastly creatures they were supposed to avoid. The yellow zones were not safe from the beasts but the red zone were hellish areas.
The red zones were only useful for one thing... Restocking attacks in the bracelet. A participant had three one-time use attacks, however, in the red zones, there were restocking crates that would help renew the attacks after they have been used.
The source of this c𝓸ntent is fr𝒆e(w)𝒆bnovel