The end of the seesaw came up. With ease, Jackson and Alessia both jumped off the seesaw onto the end block. The next obstacle was thin long sticks that spun at an alarmingly fast speed. As they both ran up, Jackson easily leaped from one stick to the other, not pausing one second to rest. He finished the obstacle with ease. Alessia on the other hand, hung on to each stick with all her energy and gripping so tightly that her knuckles turned white. After the rotating sticks, there were upwards rising monkey bars. It required upper body strength and abdominal strength to swing upwards and leap from bar to bar. Alessia was nervous about this one. Monkey bars were never her thing. Even though she completed the obstacle course at the same time Jackson did, it was obvious that she was a little scared and anxious. Just like that, the first section of the round was over. Both Jackson and Alessia had finished the first round without a problem.
Then came the second round. Instead of the floor being lava, there were traps that contained lava. Alessia was pretty confident about this part. She had been through many trap dungeons before this. " The key to completing these trap dungeons is to run without stopping and duck and avoid then trap in the process." she confidently thought. Seemingly so, Jackson must've also knew the same strategy, since then both of them took off as fast as they could when they reached the second round. After no more than 5 steps, fireballs were launched out of the walls. Alessia and Jackson both swirled and ducked , and continued running without a doubt. The next obstacle was stone pillars, than come down from the ceiling, that ground up anything underneath them. Jackson and Alessia adjusted their speeds and ran faster when the pillar when up, and stopped when a pillar came down in front of them. Again, they both passed without a problem. At this time, the other people were lagging farther and farther behind, so Alessia decided to start taking it slower, since she knew that the next few obstacles would get harder and harder. Right at that moment, arrows started shooting out from the walls. Alessia immediately went into defense mode. She slowed down her pace, and dodge and swiveled as she kept on running forwards. Jackson kept on running at full speed and dodged and swirled at lightning speed. As the both of them kept on going forwards, the arrows gradually fired faster and harder. Alessia slowly started increasing her speed and agility, while Jackson was quickly diminishing on energy.
" Ahh!" Jackson screamed. An arrow had grazed the side of his palm. He slowed down as he held onto his bleeding hand, clearly in pain. Alessia surged forwards. The finishing line came into view. Alessia felt bad for Jackson, but she knew that he was her competition. Was she gonna show mercy and let him win? Or will she going to fulfill her hopes and dreams?