Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

"Yes but…" just at those words left Simon's mouth, the warrior statue brandished its sword and started moving towards the other statue.

BAM… with just the slight movement of the statue, wild winds started generating at the centre of the hall as the sword-bearer swung its sword.

In comparison, the statue with the shield seemed to be just standing still.

BOOOM…  a loud clacking noise echoed out, the sword hit squarely on the shield-bearer statue and knocked it back towards the other side of the hall where it kicked up a cloud of debris and rocks.

"What? Why are they fighting among themselves?" Denzel asked sounding perplexed. 

"They are not fighting among themselves but rather us. Since we have decided to open the door of the shield-bearer and have chosen to follow the conviction and path he walked on, we became the shield-bearer himself".

"The hall that you see, actually looks similar to a coliseum which might be the place where the two brothers once fought each other. I think to pass the trial, we have to follow the play and defeat the sword-bearer" Simon explained.

At this moment, the sword-bearer statue walked towards the shield warrior, grabbed him out of the wall and flung him towards the centre of the arena. The shield-bearer crashed and rolled into the ground, unable to swiftly get up on its feet.

The way the statue behaved unresponsive, was as if it was waiting for something. Without missing a beat, the sword-bearer thundered down towards the shield-bearer one again and pummelled him all over the place.

The area was devastated with clouds of dust and debris falling everywhere, the condition of the shield-bearer was also so, it had cracks and dents in its previously neat indigo body.

The way the scene played out, was quite a contrast to the picture and drawings of the valour they had seen of the shield-bearer when they opened his door.

"Did we make a mistake? Why isn't he fighting back?" Lucine asked seeing that their situation was not looking good. If the shield-bearer lost, they will fail the trial and be forced to fall into this bottomless pit where they can't even fly.

Although the restrictions placed by that thing was unimaginably strong, she can still somewhat bypass it if she used all of her strength. However, the trial grounds are known to have spiritual intelligence and the moment they detect a powerful invader, the entire island would go into a self-destruct mode annihilating every being on it.

This was not uncommon as there were many cases in history where the powerful Sovereign classes forcefully entered the trial grounds only to have their entire members annihilated and them receiving serious injuries.

There were so many cases that nobody dared to underestimate the trial grounds anymore and Lucine was aware of that. Thus, unless she wasn't backed into a corner, she wasn't willing to use her powers.

Simon was silently biting his teeth, he was able to guess the trial up until now but even he had no clue as to why the shied bearer was not doing anything.

'Did I really make a mistake? Should I have gone for the sword-bearer instead of the shield? But then with the defensive prowess of the shield-bearer, we wouldn't have been able to win against it within the time limit'.

The reason behind him choosing the shield warrior was because with the limited amount of time they had, it would be increasingly difficult to defeat the shield warrior had it only focused on defending.

His many years as a game developer and his instincts as a dungeon master, were telling him to pick the shield warrior if they wanted to scrape up a victory. However, looking at the current scenario, he couldn't help but have double thoughts.

Just as he thought that the shield warrior would be bashed up by the sword-bearer, to his surprise, the statue that had been taking a beating all this while, finally took a stance and blocked the sword with its large shield.

BOOM… CLANK… a heavy clanging noise along with a burst of shockwave spread towards every corner of the hall, even reaching the platform that three of them were standing on.

The sudden movement of the shield-bearer, stunned Simon and Lucine, their eyes widened with shock and pleasant surprise. The shield-bearer after stopping the sword with its shield, deflected it to a side and slammed its body onto the sword-bearer pushing the statue away.

"Hehe, so that's how it was" as Simon was confounded over the sudden activeness of the shield-bearer, a cheeky voice sounded beside his ears. Turning his head, he spotted the little boy taking the same stance as the statue and holding onto a shield that looked like the replica of the one the huge statue was holding.

Denzel who attracted the attention of his two comrades, smiled brightly and scratched his hair, the statue imitating his movement.

"Uhm, I found this shield levitating at the corner of this room and couldn't help but touch it out of curiosity. However, to my surprise, it linked me with the shield-bearer and I can use my movement to connect with it" the boy explained his discoveries.

Simon as well as Lucine, were pleasantly surprised, it was only now that they realised that they were caught up in the situation so much that they did not even bother to check the room for any such possible device.

The boy utilised the replica like a shield to deflect the constant incoming attacks from the sword-bearer and ram the other guy back whenever possible. However, even though they found a method to use the shield-bearer, defeating the sword-bearer, wasn't going to be an easy task.

From the carving on the staircase that he saw when they opened the door, he could tell that the two brothers were immensely strong during their time. Although what they were facing right now was only a trial, a recollection of something that had happened long ago in the past, the statues still held some of the powers of the two no matter how minuscule.

Simon's eyes darted towards the torches up on the ceiling, their constantly diminishing numbers, was giving him a bad premonition. Even after they had chosen a door and the fight with the sword-bearer started, the countdown represented by the dying down of the torches had not stopped.

By now, less than half of the previous thirty-six torches remained lit, showcasing how much time they had left.

The fight continued for a while, the sword-bearer living up to its name of being a gallant warrior of the ancient times, brought forth storms of attack on the shield-bearer.

BANG.. BANG..RUMBLE… the scene of two gigantic statues fighting each other, was just like two natural disasters trying to engulf each other.  The beautiful walls and floor of the hall, was wrecked upside down until the point it was no longer recognisable.

Pieces of broken rubble fell from the ceiling and dust littered everywhere.

BANG… with a huge sound of collision, the shield-bearer crashed on the walls for the fifth time. Its body was now battered with numerous crisscrossing cracks and gashes everywhere. If It was the genuine shield-bearer, it would have no trouble defeating the statue of the sword-bearer in a matter of a second.

However, Denzel was not the shield-bearer, even the primary weapon that he had trained in, wasn't the shield. As such he was having an increasingly difficult time landing a blow on the sword-bearer statue who still retained some of the original skills of the ancient warrior.

"Dammit, if only it was a rapier or even a sword, I wouldn't be losing this badly" the boy complained trying to get the shield-bearer back on its feet.

Simon agreed, if they still had time in their hand, it wouldn't have been a bad choice to choose the sword-bearer. However, they were restrained by time and had they not picked the shield bearer, given the combat potential of the two brothers the statues were based on, they would have lost automatically.

As the time passed, some cracks also started to appear on the shield the shield-bearer was holding, the same was with the sword-bearer. The sword in its hands had even more dents and cracks than the great shield held by the shield-bearer and had it not been for the strong durability of the material that is the indigo coloured stone that they were made of, any other ordinary rocks would have already crumbled.

However, other than the sword in its hand, its body was perfectly fine, unlike the shield-bearer statue. By now, there were only a handful of torches that could be counted in one's hand that remained burning.

Other than displaying the remaining time they had left, they were the only source of light that still illuminated the arena where the two statues of the great warriors were intensely engaged in a fight.

The previously bright and beautiful hall, had now devolved into a dark and dreary place filled with the aura of destruction. Like an unstoppable tide, the sword-bearer kept on pressurising the other statue and brought it to its knees multiple times.

Simon, Lucine and Denzel were intensely watching the scene, racking their head to see if the sword-bearer had any weaknesses. The lighting around the hall was quite dark adding to their already disadvantageous situation. 

Denzel lowered his centre of gravity and positioned his shield in front of him in such a way that he could tank the attack without taking a step back from the recoil. When suddenly, the sword that he expected to come down on him from above, slither to the side and attack his defenceless arms.

  BOOOM…