The Invincible Young Master

"We should hurry to their side," said Lina.

Hearing her, Ling Yan turned to the elder, who gave a solemn nod. "We should listen to her. In the realms of awareness, she has gone far beyond me."

Ling Yan didn't waste a second. She turned to her commander.

"Prepare the troops. We move now," she ordered.

Her soldiers, well-trained and quick to follow orders, immediately sprang into action.

The white-armored battalion and Ling Yan's elite force fell into line. Together, they approached the grand entrance of the temple.

The towering gates stood before them, an imposing structure of obsidian stone. The doors were massive, wide enough to allow the two armies to enter side by side.

As if the temple itself had sensed their approach, the gates slowly creaked open.

The soldiers stood prepared, weapons ready, eyes scanning for any sign of danger. With a decisive command, the two armies began their march, forming a protective formation as they crossed the threshold of the temple.

Their footsteps echoed off the stone floor, the sound reverberating throughout the massive hall.

Once the last of the soldiers had passed through, the massive gates behind them closed with a resounding thud.

The procession moved forward through an enormous hallway, its walls lined with towering stone pillars that seemed to stretch endlessly upward, disappearing high above.

Despite the temple's enclosed structure, sunlight filtered through openings at the top, casting an ethereal glow that illuminated the place. The light shines upon the temple's intricate carvings, making them shimmer with a beauty.

As they walked deeper, the soldiers couldn't help but be awed by their surroundings. The scale of the place was beyond anything they had ever encountered.

The statues, many of them towering over them like silent sentinels, lined both sides of the hall.

Some carried swords, others spears, axes, and hammers, their forms frozen in postures of solemn readiness. But no matter the weapon they bore, each figure shared a singular characteristic: they all gazed upward, towards the source of the sunlight streaming through the high ceiling.

The soldiers found it weirdly strange that all of the statues were looking up, but seeing nothing up there besides the light entering the temple, they thought nothing of it.

They continued their march in silence. For every few steps they took, another statue appeared, each one more imposing than the last, their stone eyes fixed on the same distant spot high up.

But as they marched on, one Yan soldier's gaze drifted behind them, back to the path they had just traversed.

He blinked, his brow furrowing in confusion. His pace faltered for a moment before his expression shifted from curiosity to horror, and before anyone could react, a horrified voice escaped his lips.

"W-What...?" he stammered, his finger trembling as he pointed behind him.

The soldiers around him turned, their expressions mirroring his confusion. They all followed the direction of his finger, only to find nothing.

The long hallway they had just walked through had vanished. In its place, there was only a solid, obsidian wall.

"Impossible!" one soldier muttered.

The soldier who had pointed began to speak again, his words incoherent as his panic escalated. "We... we came this way, we-"

"Silence," a commander's voice rang out. "Everyone, remain calm."

Then, a voice suddenly filled their minds.

"It's an illusion," Lina's voice echoed, soothing their worry. "The temple wants us to continue ahead."

The word was oddly reassuring, and despite the growing unease among the soldiers, their panic began to fade away.

With a brief pause, the soldiers resumed their march, though now, their vigilance had doubled. Their eyes darted about, wary of every shadow, every creak in the walls.

They knew that the temple was no mere ruin; it was alive, watching, and perhaps even manipulating their every move.

It wasn't long before they reached the end of the hallway, where another towering door loomed ahead.

This gate, like the one before it, seemed to react to their arrival. The massive stone door slowly rumbled open, its heavy weight shifting without a sound.

The soldiers hesitated for only a moment before marching forward once again, entering the new chamber beyond.

This room was larger than the previous one, and unlike the orderly statues outside, the statues inside were disarrayed, scattered haphazardly across the chamber.

Some were positioned in unnatural poses, while others were half-buried beneath rubble. It was as though an artist's failed work had been abandoned here, left to decay over time.

The statues themselves were smaller than the towering figures in the hallway, but they were no less impressive.

Some wore elaborate armor, others wielded spears or staffs, their forms frozen in expressions of shock and fear. Unlike the statues outside, which had been stoic, these faces were contorted in terror.

They looked as if they had been caught in the midst of some horrific event, their eyes wide and mouths slightly open, as though caught in the final moments of their lives.

One soldier stepped forward, his gaze narrowing as he studied the figures more closely. He looked from one to another, his confusion deepening as something about the armor and weapons they held seemed familiar.

Another soldier leaned in, eyes flicking from one figure to the next. Slowly, a realization began to form.

"This... this armor," one of them whispered, his voice trembling. "It's the same as the one our commander wears."

A chill ran through the soldiers as they began to notice the same thing. The weapons, the armor, everything about the statues felt too familiar.

It wasn't just the uniforms, they were the same people who had gone before them. Slowly, one of the commanders from Ling Yan's army stepped forward, his face going pale as he recognized a face among the statues.

"That's Commander Jiren," the man whispered, his voice trembling with disbelief. "He should be the one leading the 3rd battalion."

They all realized something. The statues weren't just statues at all; they were the people who had come before them, transformed into lifeless stone.

A wave of horrified murmurs spread through the formation. Several soldiers moved forward cautiously, eyes scanning the room more carefully now, and the more they looked, the clearer it became.

"These… these aren't just from Yan," another soldier muttered.

Their gazes swept across the chaotic chamber. Among the statues, now that they were truly seeing many, wore distinct armors bearing the sigils and crests of the other two empires.

Before anyone could speak further, a hollow voice echoed through the chamber.

"Let's play a game! Shall we?"

Turning up to the source of the voice. There, they saw a massive skeletal face, nearly half the size of the chamber, hovering above them, its hollow eyes glowing with a wicked light.

The massive grin stretched unnaturally across its skull, sending chills through the soldiers in the chamber. It tilted its head as if appraising them, its empty eye sockets locking onto each individual soldier.

The soldiers instinctively raised their weapons, positioning themselves into defensive stances, their eyes darting around, searching for any sign of attack. But the skeletal face simply floated above them.

"Ho, ho, quite feisty," the voice echoed through the chamber, vibrating off the stone walls.

…

[A/N: It's hard writing with too many characters at the same scene, maybe I should wipe half of them, Jk. or should i?]