Chimera strolled through the woods in a blasé fas.h.i.+on.

He was surrounded by a group of dragons. They were made entirely of fire and emitted so much heat that every compet.i.tor they met dived out of the way.

Despite this, he still had not located a sapphire.

"Baka, where could the sapphire be?"

This thought had barely crossed his mind when he picked up someone else's voice. The voice spoke in a hushed, urgent whisper.

"Wow! Look! There's a sapphire here!"

"There are so many of them!"

"Don't move! The sapphires are mine!"

There were, of course, no sapphires. Zhao Yao was up to no good again except this time, he had a new victim.

He stood right beside Chimera as he conjured the illusion of the hushed discussion.

A glimmer of hope shone in Chimera's eyes. He cheered quietly as he headed towards the voices.

On the other side of the woods, Meng Hao managed to rally more than a dozen compet.i.tors together. Both people and cats looked to him as he spoke.

"As you all know, we can form alliances in this round of the compet.i.tion," he started.

He cut a fine figure standing before the crowd. He would seem intimidating if not for what he said next.

"This means that this round isn't just about our individual strengths, it's about combined power as a team!"

He continued, "I'm sure some of you have already noticed that some contestants are far more powerful than the rest of us. If we want to advance to the next round, we'll have to stick together and overpower them! We have the numbers they do not!"

The Cat King of the North chuckled as he watched the rousing speech.

"Well, it looks like Meng Hao intends to form the biggest alliance in this compet.i.tion. His strategy is to win by numbers. I have to say it just might work…"

The King of the North's commentary stopped abruptly when Chimera stumbled onto the screen. He had ended up there after following the voices that Zhao Yao put in his head.

The alliance gawked at him and he gaped back. Neither party expected to meet the other.

It had gone exactly as Zhao Yao had planned. He planted Chimera's voice into the ears of the crowd. The voice taunted, "What are you idiots looking at?"

Meng Hao's eyes widened. He had never met a talking cat before.

This was a first, but it was not completely extraordinary. Supercats boasted all kinds of powers. Speech could very well be one of them.

He wanted to soothe the tense atmosphere, but someone in the crowd (Zhao Yao) beat him to it.

"What are you looking at, moron?"

Meng Hao let out a sigh.

"Has that person gone out of his mind? Now's not the time to start s**t with other people!" he thought.

He turned to face the crowd.

"Everyone, let's take a step back and calm down. Our focus is on finding the sapphires. There's no point in fighting here while the other contestants are getting closer to the gems."

Through Zhao Yao's filter, Meng Hao's words were transformed into, "Brothers and sisters, let's take this cat down!"

Chimera's brows st.i.tched together as he narrowed his eyes. In retaliation, he summoned fire dragons to emerge from behind him, ready to pounce.

Deep down, he did not hope to fight. There were too many people here. There was no telling what sick moves they might have up their sleeves. The dragons were just his way of saying 'do not mess with me'. It manages to scare opponents off most of the time.

This time, however, he was at the mercy of Zhao Yao's manipulations.

The trickster had a.s.sumed his voice to make yet another taunt.

"The f**k you looking at, punks? I'll skin all of you!"

Meng Hao shut his eyes with a heavy sigh.

"What's wrong with this Talking Tom? Does he really want to start a fight?" he pondered.

Zhao Yao had cast an illusion over Chimera such that he looked like the cat from the My Talking Tom app.

As the Chimera was about to strike the first blow, the camera footage was switched. It cut to a super zoom-in of the Cat King of the North's face.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we'll be back after this short advertis.e.m.e.nt."

Jeers erupted from the elimination zone. Everyone was dying to know what was happening out

out there. Fishball, who was perched on Liu Yun's shoulder, extended both his middle claws in response.

A moment later, the ad was over and the screen cut back to Chimera and Meng Hao's alliance. They were already in the middle of a heated battle.

The King of the North stared at the screen, confusion clouding his face.

"Why are kids these days so quick to come to blows?"

No one knew that the answer lay in Zhao Yao. This was but the beginning of his little scheme. He would first lead contestants to each other. Then, he would deceive them into thinking that the other party was hurling insults their way. This would inevitably descend into a huge fight.

The chaos was his cover to steal the sapphires in the contestants' pockets. He would use TimeFreeze to fish them out, then kick and toss them as far away as he could in all directions, making them impossible to retrieve again.

The toy soldiers the gems had been lodged in were noticeable by the human eye. Without them, it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

The only apostle who could find them with ease was Zhao Yao. The Serval's seagull spy was planted in the elimination zone and it had a bird's eye view of the sapphires' locations on the satellite map.

Even if a lucky contestant did find a sapphire again, he or she would have to deal with Zhao Yao's relentless disturbances. The gem would be lost again in no time.

Inspector Ho let out a deep sigh as he watched the screen.

"We've miscalculated. We should've known that the sapphires would be close to impossible to find if lost in combat."

Lin Chen nodded. "We should've given each contestant a tracker as well. That way, they would know where the sapphires are."

"Well, this is just a lesson, nothing more. We still have the next round. The Cat King of the North would know what to do," the Inspector said.

He shook his head gravely, eyebrows furrowed.

"But seriously, did this bunch of punks eat TNT for breakfast growing up? They have such a short fuse!"

The end of the one hour limit quickly drew closer as more time was wasted on fighting. The contestants realized this eventually and turned their attention to locating the missing sapphires one by one.

Unfortunately, it was too late. The gemstones were scattered everywhere. They could be stuck in the mud, lodged in a log, or perched on a tree branch. They were too small to be spotted and basically impossible to find.

In the closing minutes of the round, Zhao Yao met up with a disgruntled Gaia, whom returned to the extradimensional belly. With the seagull's locations coordinates, he could bolt around the forest to find one sapphire for himself, then another for the Serval.

By the time he dashed towards the beach, there was only one minute left on the clock.

His sudden appearance caught the eye of the Cat King of the North. He scrambled for the microphone.

"Everyone, look who's finally shown up! Daniel Wu has been invisible for practically the entire round. When he does appear, it's with a sapphire in hand! He's racing to the finish line!"

Xiao Yu had no clue that Zhao Yao was hurtling towards the beach.

She had been there for a while now.

"Left paw," she instructed her husky.

"Right paw."

"Lie down."

Noodle the husky followed her instructions with confidence and ease.

"These commands are far too simple for me! The supercats, however, can't handle them," he chuckled to himself.

His glee transformed into incredulity when Xiao Yu gave a new command.

"Do a handstand," she said nonchalantly.

Noodle looked at her dumbly.

"A handstand? You're asking a dog to do a G.o.dd.a.m.n handstand?! This counts as animal abuse!"

Xiao Yu sighed. "Well, Noodle, if you can't even do a handstand, then you're not as professional as you should be."

She then turned to face the entrance.

"Noodle, do you think Zhao Yao will succeed?"

The dog huffs a stream of air through his nose in response.

"That kind of sc.u.mbag should just die in there."

Noodle's wish, however, was not granted. Loud cheers had erupted from the elimination zone. Every pair of eyes was glued to the screen, which showed Zhao Yao and the Serval crossing the entrance and into the beach in the nick of time.

They opened their palms to reveal the sapphires within.

"Unbelievable! This is just unbelievable!" the Cat King of the North exclaimed, "Only three contestants have managed to secure a sapphire. Let's give a round of applause for your finalists!"

Xiao Yu rushed forward, a wide grin on her face. She leaped into Zhao Yao's arms.

Yao's arms.

"The house is mine! The house is mine!" she cheered.

That marked the end of this round of the compet.i.tion. The rest of the contestants were asked to stop their search and return to the beach immediately. Most of them wore sullen or frustrated expressions. Some had dust, bruises, and dried blood smeared all over their faces.

They had fought so hard for a big, fat nothing.

It was no wonder they were staring daggers at Zhao Yao. In their eyes, he did not deserve this victory. He was just some idiot in a black cloak who avoided being attacked because he could become invisible. He got lucky.

Of course, Zhao Yao paid no mind to the bone-chilling glares that were thrown his way.

He was happy as a clam at high water.

"Hey, Cat King of the North, since only three of us got past this round, can we go straight to the prize presentation?" he asked.

Zhao Yao received a mysterious smile in return.

"I'm afraid not. We have two more rounds left in this compet.i.tion."

"But no one else has made it through. We're the only three left. That makes us the top three. We'll just split the prizes among ourselves."

"Unfortunately, that's not how our compet.i.tion works. Come, let me announce the rules of the second round."

The King of the North looked at the three finalists.

"Please look at the sapphire in your hands."

Zhao Yao, Xiao Yu, and the Serval opened their palms at the same time. A number had appeared on each of their gems. They were marked 32, 31, and 30.

"If the first round had gone more smoothly, we would our top 32. The first to reach the beach would be allocated 32 points, while the last would receive one point," the King of the North explained.

"In the second round, all contestants, regardless if you got a sapphire in the first round or not, can fight your fellow compet.i.tors for their gems. At the end of the hour, the eight contestants with the highest number of points will proceed to the third round."

"Unfortunately, since only three among you can proceed to the next round, we would have to shake things up a bit. Anyone who manages to s.n.a.t.c.h any of three sapphires here will be a top-three finalist."

In that moment, every apostle and cat on the beach turned their heads to Zhao Yao, Xiao Yu, and the Serval.

There was bloodl.u.s.t in their eyes.